Dua Lipa ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Dua Lipa expressed a very particular kind of gratitude on her reflective new album.
The pop star, 28, released her third studio album, Radical Optimism, on Friday, May 3, which features the nostalgic song “Maria.”
On the track, Dua gives thanks to a woman named Maria, an ex-girlfriend to a man romantically attached to the singer in the song’s narrative.
“Maria, I know you’re gone,” Dua sings in the song’s chorus. “But I feel ya when we’re alone / Even when I’m here in his arms / I know you’re somewhere in his heart.”
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While the lyrics don’t specify who Maria once dated, Dua is currently dating actor Callum Turner. Prior to that relationship, she dated model Anwar Hadid from 2019 to 2021 and was briefly together with director Romain Gavras in 2023.
Dua continues throughout the song, “Maria, Maria / I know you’re somewhere in his heart.”
In the second verse, Dua finds a kinship with Maria, singing: “I’m better too from the ones that I’ve lost / Now he is everything I’d ever want / I wanna thank you for all that you’ve done.”
During the song’s bridge, Dua tells Maria she is “grateful for all the love you gave.”
Dua recently opened up about the song’s meaning, calling it a “full, personal, maturing moment.”
“When you go through a break-up, you go, ‘OK, that person is gonna go and be so much better for someone else now,’” she said during an April 17 interview on The Zach Sang Show. “I feel like whatever happened here, they’ve learned and they’re gonna put it into action in the next relationship.”
Dua theorized “everyone has done that, or someone has done that for them.”
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“With every relationship, you grow and you become hopefully a better version of yourself from the experiences that you’ve had,” she continued. “‘Maria’ is really about being grateful to the ex and being like, ‘Thank you for doing that because we all grow, we all learn. And now I have this person who’s just meant for me in this way.”
Dua acknowledged that “Maria” is a bit of a microcosm for the entire album, but argued the full body of work is deeper than that.
“It’s also about losing yourself and finding yourself in the midst,” she said. “Sometimes you have to feel like you’re underwater. You have to be really outside of your comfort zone to find yourself.”
Radical Optimism is available now.
