Lorde tears up as she celebrates Australia’s same-sex marriage vote with emotional Whitney Houston cover
(Getty)
Lorde has belted out Whitney Houston while wearing a rainbow flag to congratulate her Australian fans for saying yes to same-sex marriage.
Less than a week after Australia voted in favour of marriage equality, the 21-year-old New Zealander paused her show at the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday night to praise her Aussie fanbase.
“Congrats on passing same-sex marriage, by the way!” she said, before an audience member threw a rainbow flag to the stage.
Draping the rainbow around her like a cape, Lorde broke into an impromptu rendition of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).
“I’m very proud of you,” she said, as the applause eventually faded.
“You look like you’re gonna cry!” yelled a fan in the crowd.
“This is the crying show, I don’t know if you know that,” she replied.
Visibly tearing up, before asking the crowd to swing their phone torches to her song, Liability, she continued: “This song can be really hard to sing at times … it’s about a time when I felt really alone.”
The audience sang sweetly in solidarity, forming a backdrop of shimmering light.
Lorde is set to play two more shows in Australia as part of her album tour for Melodrama this week, before taking a break from touring until March 2018.
Lorde singing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” with a rainbow flag after congratulating Australia on same-sex marriage pic.twitter.com/4Tb6hdcY4s
— Lorde Daily (@LordeDaily) November 21, 2017
The Kiwi singer has long been an advocate for the LGBT+ community.
When the notoriously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church planned to picket her 2014 show in Kansas City, she encourages her fans to wear rainbow clothing in protest.
(Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)
Australia voted overwhelmingly in favour of legalising same-sex marriage last week.
Almost 13 million Australians (79.5%) voted in the country’s non-binding postal ballot – a bigger turnout than in even the UK’s EU referendum – and said Yes by a margin of 61.6% to 38.4%.
Australia now looks likely to become the 25th country in the world to introduce marriage for same-sex couples.
