Tulisa says LGBTQ+ community got her through ‘hardest times’

Gay men love nothing more than a woman who’s been thrown overboard by the British tabloids, but has defiantly stayed afloat and made their way back to shore through sheer determination.

Judy Garland! Princess Diana! Madonna! Janet Jackson! Amy Winehouse! Britney Spears! If there’s a woman who has struggled, and yet slayed all the same, you’ll find any army of gays behind them, propping them up, willing to go to war to defend them.

Tulisa Contostavlos discovered this at the turn of the 2010s. The N-Dubz vocalist, “Young” singer and former The X Factor judge was still in her early ‘20s when she became tabloid catnip, smeared on a near daily basis for the crime of being a young, working class woman. She had scandals, but none were her own: they were orchestrated by vengeful ex-boyfriends or corrupt journalists.

It was during this period, when the world seemed at its most merciless, that the LGBTQ+ community stepped in. “It’s weird,” she says today, calling over Zoom, “because through some of the hardest times in my life, where the whole industry and a lot of people were just completely disregarding me, the LGBTQ community were embracing me more than ever.”

She recalls the kind of response she saw online from the community, be them fans or otherwise. “‘You’re not going to kick her down, sorry. Don’t worry about them – you’re with us’ It was that energy that I felt. I could still go to [Pride] shows and feel OK, even if I was front page of a newspaper being completely annihilated, or [facing] four years in prison for a drugs charge,” she laughs.

The charge in question was dismissed in 2014 after the case collapsed, due to prosecution witness and former The Sun journalist Mazher Mahmood having “manipulated evidence” as part of “a shabby sting operation”. He was later found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Tulisa puts the support she’s received down to empathy. LGBTQ+ folk, she knows, have their own battles of being misrepresented or scrutinised for the very fact of being. “I think everyone in the LGBTQ community, at some point, has had to be [their] unapologetic self and come out and say, ‘This is who I am’. Even though my situation is very different under the circumstances that I’ve had to do that, there’s just this feeling of relatability and I think maybe that’s why the community connects with me, and I also connect with the community.”

If there’s anything homophobes hate more than gay people, it’s gay people who thrive loudly in the face of bigotry. Similarly, there isn’t much the patriarchy hates more than a woman who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. “I always feel like the community really raises up strong women with confidence, and I feel like in a lot of areas of the [entertainment] industry you don’t always get that,” Tulisa muses. 

“You sometimes get this energy of, ‘Who do you think you are, coming out all sassy like that?’ As if to be confident is a bad thing. I feel like the community embraces that to the max and to the fullest. It feels safe to do that because you can feel that energy reciprocated.”

Tulisa’s first interactions with queer people came through “great friendships over the years”, but when she began her solo career in 2012, iconic gay bar Heaven was her “go-to place” to perform. She’s performed at several Pride shows in the years since, and this year, is making her big Pride comeback. First, she’s at the Clapham Grand’s Pride in London afterparty on 5 July, alongside Drag Race UK icon Bimini. Then, in August, she’s one of the major acts at Manchester Pride.

It’s been a little while since she’s done a string of solo shows – though N-Dubz reunited for a tour back in 2023 – and she feels like she’s “just warming in again” to performance life. “It’s always such a great crowd; [the] LGBTQ community is always amazing. I always get such an amazing warm response. I feel super safe up on the stage,” she smiles.

Revellers can expect “typical female boss, lots of diva, lots of sass” and, of course, her version of Will.I.Am and Britney’s “Scream and Shout” – the number one hit she co-wrote, and initially planned to release as her own. She’ll also perform “hardcore sassy verses of N-Dubz records” including “Girls” and “Best Behaviour”, perhaps in preparation for what’s coming up in the future: “There will most definitely be another N-Dubz run at some point. That’s what I can tell you.”

The day of Tulisa’s Clapham Grand show is also her best friend’s birthday, so you’ll probably catch them in the crowd after, celebrating among the revellers. “Don’t judge me if you see me necking back a whiskey on stage,” she jokes. She can rest assured: as she well knows, no one from this community is judging her.

Tulisa will perform at the Clapham Grand’s Pride Afterparty on Saturday 5 July. Tickets are available now.

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