Glastonbury organisers explain how Lizzo sabotaged having her own headline slot
The Glastonbury music festival faced a backlash when the line-up was unveiled earlier this year revealing there were no female headliners at the event.
Fans fumed when they realised that white male acts dominated the top slots - with Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses and Sir Elton John headlining the main Pyramid Stage over the weekend.
But it seems American pop sensation Lizzo had been intended to fill one of those slots - but ruined her own chance by responding to a request too slowly.
Glastonbury organiser Emil Eavis has explained that the 35-year-old About Damn Time singer - who will take to the Pyramid Stage on Saturday - scuppered herself.
Lizzo was asked to be a headliner at Glastonbury - but took too long to confirm (Getty Images)Emily told Anita Rani on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour: “Lizzo confirmed way after.
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"So when people think, ‘Why didn’t you put her there?’ it doesn’t really work like that.
"It would have been a great idea. Lizzo would have been an amazing headliner and hopefully she will headline.”
Instead, however, Lizzo will play second fiddle to Guns N’ Roses as she will be on stage directly before they end the line-up on Saturday.
The singer will instead play before the main headliners on Saturday (Getty Images)A backlash was ignited back in March when the line-up was revealed - with a notable lack of diversity in the top performance slots.
Earlier this month, Emily tried desperately to defend the decision.
In a new interview with Cosmopolitan, she hit back at the criticism saying Glastonbury is not publicly funded so she is free to do as she wishes.
“I think everyone knows that we’re trying harder than most, certainly extremely hard to address (the gender balance of acts), and I’ve been very vocal about it,” she told the magazine.
Guns N´ Roses will headline the Pyramid Stage on Saturday (Getty Images)“I’m trying my best and, believe me, it’s a real, passionate subject of mine. I’ve been trying to raise the flag around gender and festivals for a long time. But we can only do so much.
“I just do what I think is right. Because I don’t have an agenda, I’m just trying to do the best thing for the festival and make it as fair and equal and brilliant as possible.”
She had previously pleaded to the Guardian: "We’re trying our best so the pipeline needs to be developed. This starts way back with the record companies, radio. I can shout as loud as I like but we need to get everyone on board."
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She continued to say Glastonbury is "entirely focused on balancing [our] bill" in terms of gender but "every aspect of diversity".
Sir Elton John will headline on Sunday (PYMCA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)American singer Lana Del Rey, who headlines the Other Stage on Saturday night, threatened to quit the festival amid the backlash.
She said back in March: “Well, I’m actually headlining the 2nd stage. But since there was no consideration for announcing that we’ll see.”
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