Known for blending hip-hop, riot grrrl, and nu-metal, Delilah Bon is more than just a musician — she’s a movement. Her unapologetic sound and outspoken activism make her a champion for women, non-binary individuals, the LGBTQ+ community and anyone who has ever felt silenced or side-lined by mainstream culture.
She now returns with fire, unveiling her fierce new EP Princeless Princess. The record is written and produced by Delilah Bon herself. The title track is a bold feminist anthem that turns the traditional fairy tale narrative on its head. Challenging submissive, outdated gender roles and mocking the entitlement of toxic masculinity, this is no damsel in distress — this is a battle cry for independence, self-worth, and autonomy in a world still clinging to patriarchal fantasy.
Most recently she’s announced a huge 13-date UK and European tour (see poster below), including her biggest headline show to date at London’s legendary O2 Academy Islington this November. With her raw sound and fearless message, Delilah Bon continues to solidify her place as one of the most essential and unfiltered voices in alternative music today. She’s here to disrupt, to provoke, and to create space for the voices that need it most.
We had a chat with Delilah all about what she’s been up to including her first US tour, the Princeless Princess EP, how she deals with online abuse and more. Read the Q&A below.
Hi Delilah! How are you? I think we last did a Q&A with you when you released ‘I Don’t Listen To You’ back in 2021 and you have been on the up ever since! Which is so awesome to see cause the world needs more artists like you. How has that journey been for you? Any highlights?
“Aw Hey! Wow yes, ‘I Don’t Listen To You’, that song feels like it was so long ago and yet two seconds ago at the same time. Everything’s been going so fast since then, I’d say a lot of my success has been down to how fast that song blew up ya’know. I gained like 100K followers from that song alone which connected me with so many more feral badass women out there because as you say, people are very much seeking out that unfiltered femme rage right now. The journey since we last spoke has honestly been incredible, the live show has grown and grown, I sold out my album tour, I toured the US and now I’m selling shows out again on my upcoming PRINCELESS PRINCESS European and UK tour. Another huge moment was when I released ‘Dead Men Don’t Rape’ which was the single I released after ‘I Don’t Listen To You’. That song blew up like crazy, it’s still my biggest song to date and it hit 7 million streams on Spotify the other day. I wrote and produced every song of my catalogue so far, so when a song really blows up like that, it’s very validating after being told previously to stay out of the production room and stick to being a singer. I love that I do it all, it’s a real achievement when the music I’m producing sits in a playlist with these multi-award winning producers and it flows without sounding out of place, I’d even go to say my mixes are way more interesting too, I’ve got so many layers in there that most producers nowadays never give the artist time for.”
As mentioned, you recently went on your first US tour which looked like so much fun from your social media. How did it feel to get overseas and connect with your American fans? What was the reaction like? Which cities were you most excited to visit?
“Oh yeah it was so amazing. I was really nervous to go beforehand. I had a few fans warn me not to visit as people were getting detained at the border. I planned for the worst and was so surprised when it went so smoothly. Every show was packed with so much love and passion from the fans, I felt so welcomed and so accepted there. So many women and LGBTQ+ people after the shows thanked me over and over again. I was signing people’s arms, legs, boobs, bums, haha! So many people got my signature tattooed afterwards! It just all felt like a dream, I had to keep pinching myself. It’s hard to pick a favourite city, we didn’t get that much time to explore, but standout shows were Portland, OR and Washington DC. I can’t wait to tour the South next!”
You’re new EP Princeless Princess is about the de-centering of men and challenging the outdated idea that women need a Prince Charming to give their lives meaning. What sparked the inspiration for this collection of fantasy themed songs? What do you hope fans take away from it?
“I had so much fun getting lost in the concept of this EP. I wanted to create something with an element of fantasy and escapism, through the lens of the princess without centering around the Prince. As a kid, I loved the movie Shrek. I loved how Princess Fiona didn’t follow the traditional gender roles or family traditions, I also loved how they made the Dragon her sassy friend. That was probably the first time I’d seen a Princess depicted in that way and I loved the movie for it. These old fairytales of Prince’s saving the Princess or kissing her to wake her from a coma (or whatever the hell Snow White was about), are so outdated and I think there’s a correlation between these gender roles in fantasy stories told to little girls and the way incel culture expects women to submit to them today. We have a rise of ‘stay at home wives’ and ‘trad wives’ who are against the intersectional feminist movement and these podcast dudes telling each other that they need women to be submissive, and mother them, basically. My EP pokes fun at all of that and so many people have thanked me for the messages of empowerment throughout.”
‘Cinderella’ is a response to the hate you receive from men online. Other than writing incredible diss tracks like this, how do you deal with stuff like that? And what advice would you give anyone else going through the same thing?
“It was hard at first dealing with so much hate. When ‘Dead Men Don’t Rape’ blew up, I was bombarded with threats. Men would tell me they were gonna shoot me and my fans, warning me to never come to the US or they’d bring their gun into the venue. Over time I just blocked these accounts, I reported one guy for stalking to the Police and they were useless, just asking me what I wanted them to do. Like, I have no idea? Just document that I’m being harassed? Find his IP address? They told me they’d have to contact the police in the US and that it could actually make things worse for me if they’ve got to question him and say the report had come from the UK. I just block these guys, I never respond, it zaps the energy out of me. My advice is never reply, block every single time, don’t even open their messages and take social media breaks and if none of that works, diss their patheticness in a song!”
Finally, what is next for Delilah Bon? What can fans expect from your upcoming Europe and UK tour?
“So for the rest of the year now the tour will take up all of my brain space. I’m currently planning the stage design and making outfits. I want the show to be very Princess themed, which is a massive middle finger to everyone back in the day that used to call me a ‘fake punk’ for wearing dresses and wanting everything to be pink. The colour pink has been demonised so much! When I was in my old band Hands Off Gretel, I remember there was always this rhetoric that I ‘dressed for the male gaze’ whenever I wore cute outfits. I saw women in the scene saying that about me in Facebook comments, men saying I was ‘asking for it’ when I was dealing with sexism after I called it out. I even had a woman who used to work at MTV suggest I cover up more to attract more women at my shows and that showing my waist was ‘a distraction’. That pissed me off. So now I’m gonna wear my cute outfits, shake my ass to the girls, have the pinkest stage and scream my guts up, 100% more punk than these dudes that walk around pissed outta their mind at punk festivals, being misogynistic to the women playing there. I feel like I’ve achieved so much more than anyone back then expected of me, I’ve always had this burning ache to prove everyone wrong about me. I’m doing it!”
