- This young girl moved from London to Kosovo with her parents when she was eleven.
- At fourteen, she knew she couldn’t stay in Kosovo, so she moved away from her family to get started on her dream.
- She fulfilled her dream and even broke Guinness World Records.
A young girl came into the world as part of a big Albanian family. Her parents had moved to London from Albania three years before she was born. She spent most of her early years growing up in London.
When she reached the age of 11, her parents informed her that they would be leaving London. They decided to return to their home country. This was a big change for the girl since it marked the end of her primary school years, and all her friends were going to different schools, but none of them were moving to another country.
Even though everything was different, the girl was really looking forward to visiting Kosovo to see her cousins. But three years later, when she turned 14, she told her parents that she didn’t want to stay there anymore. So, she moved away and ended up breaking Guinness World Records.
The Girl’s Childhood
The girl had a Bosnian mom and a Kosovan dad. In the 1990s, her parents went through a war in their homeland. They were staying with her dad’s grandfather, who was the leader of the Kosovo Institute of History.
The girl’s grandfather was really proud of his job, but everything changed when the war started. She said:
“Once the Serbians came in, they wanted a lot of the historians to rewrite the history of Kosovo. To change it – that Kosovo was always part of Serbia and never part of Yugoslavia. And my grandfather was one of those people who wouldn’t, so he lost his job because he didn’t want to write a history that he didn’t believe to be true.”
In 1992, the girl’s family left Albania and moved to London to escape the war. Sadly, her grandparents remained in Bosnia and Kosovo. The girl’s dad never had a chance to say goodbye to his father because he passed away from a heart attack the same year the war ended, when the borders were still shut. Even though they went through so much pain, the couple was happy to welcome their daughter in northwest London in 1995.
The girl mentioned that she saw her parents working hard every single day. Her dad was studying to be a dentist, and her mom was training to be a lawyer when they had to leave their home country. Once they arrived in London, they had to take jobs in cafés and bars. They also went back to school to continue their education.
Even though she felt proud of her parents when she was younger, the girl didn’t always like her name, which means “love” in Albanian. Now she feels proud of it, but back then, she wished she had a more typical name. Her name made her feel like she stood out from the crowd.
One more thing that made her feel awkward while growing up was how her parents looked compared to everyone else’s. At school, the boys would compliment her mom, saying she was really pretty, and the girls would do the same for her dad, which made her uncomfortable.
As a young girl, she was strong-willed and ambitious. She knew she wanted to be a star and figured she wouldn’t be able to make it happen living in Kosovo.
One day, she gathered her parents and shared her big dream of going back to London. She told them that she wanted to become a superstar and believed she couldn’t achieve that unless she lived in a vibrant city like London. She had a plan to attend the Sylvia Young Theatre School on Saturdays because she wanted to be in the middle of all the excitement. She confessed:
“I didn’t think I’d be able to do this on a global scale, living in Kosovo.”
She convinced her parents to let her go by saying she wanted to go to a great British university. She told them that to get in, she needed to take her GCSEs and A-levels in English.
Her parents finally agreed, and once she returned to London, she enrolled in the Sylvia Young Theatre School. There, she started making demo tapes and shared them on YouTube and Soundcloud.
Even though she could have gone crazy in London without her parents watching her too closely, the girl understood that her parents believed in her, and she wanted to keep that trust. The only adults keeping an eye on her were the family friends she was staying with during her trip. She liked to joke that she was the “mom” of her friend group, always making sure everyone was safe and responsible.
The girl felt a strong desire to succeed. She dreamed of becoming a star and began reaching out to producers. When one of them proposed a publishing deal, she sought advice from a lawyer. The lawyer advised her against accepting it and helped her find her current manager, which eventually led to her big break.
Her passion for music, singing, and dancing began when she was just a little kid. She loved to put on shows for her friends and family all the time. She realized she had a special gift when her singing teacher in London decided to move her up to a class with older kids when she was only nine.
The first concert she went to in Kosovo was by Redman and Method Man because hip-hop was really popular there at that time. She also wanted to see artists like Nelly Furtado and Pink perform in her hometown, but they hadn’t come yet.
After achieving her dreams, she went back to Kosovo and started the Sunny Hill Festival, which features artists from all over the world. She wishes for this festival to be a fun event that her hometown can enjoy for many years to come.
Her little brother and sister are really into the entertainment world too. Her sister just finished drama school, and her brother began making music when he was just seventeen. The girl feels super proud of her family, especially her mom and dad. She once went on and on about it.
“Everything I speak about comes from my upbringing. Seeing my parents adapt to any situation, raise a family, work many jobs, go to university in the evening… I watched them sacrifice, yet I understand how lucky I am to have a British passport and to have come back to London for my career.”
Her parents’ relationship was tough for the girl. She shared that her mom married her first love and boyfriend, which made her feel a lot of pressure. She worried that others thought something was wrong with her since she was still single in her mid-20s.
However, she realized that it’s okay to be selfish and work on yourself before getting into a serious relationship and certainly before bringing any children into the world.
Who Is the Girl?
Dua Lipa used to hate her name when she was a kid. Even though she went through a lot of tough times while growing up, she has now turned into a super famous pop star and has set many records.
In March of last year, her song “Levitating” made history by being the longest-running hit on the Billboard Hot 100. During the Thanksgiving weekend in 2020, her Studio 2054 livestream set new records, gathering more than 5 million views and earning the Guinness World Record for the most tickets sold for a live-streamed concert by a solo female artist. She had such a great time that even when she got the chance to go on tour, she still wanted to do more livestreams.
In 2021, she became the female artist with the most streams on Spotify, earning her another Guinness World Record. Despite this achievement, she stays down-to-earth and doesn’t focus too much on the awards she’s received, even though she has been nominated for 10 Grammys and has won three.
Lipa is doing great in her career, and her personal life is getting better as well. She just became an Albanian citizen! There’s a video of her happily signing the documents, and she has the biggest smile on her face when she receives her citizenship.