Rosalía Reacts to Bono Writing a U2 Song About Her: "Mind-Blowing"

Bono wrote a song about Rosalía, texted her for permission, and admitted he worried he "looked like a stalker." The track, "The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)," is the fourth song on Carnaval De Luz, U2's first album of new material in nine years, due Nov. 13.

Rosalía told her side of the story on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. "I don't know Bono," she said. "But he texted me. And he told me that he had this new project, this new song. 'The Mirror Maker,' I think it's called."

The text wasn't just a courtesy heads-up. Bono wanted linguistic fact-checking.

What did Bono actually ask her?

He ran Spanish lyrics past her. "He was asking me if certain words made sense," Rosalía said — including one that sounded something like "mamole."

Her answer: the word doesn't exist. "I was like, 'I never heard this word. I don't know what that means,'" she recalled. "I did some research, and it didn't exist in standard Spanish. So I just told him, 'You know, I don't know, but feel free to invent your own language!'"

She called the whole exchange "insane" and "mind-blowing," and pointed to her own history with the band's catalog. "When I was a kid, I used to hear his songs," she said, singing a bit of "With or Without You." "He's great. He's a legend."

Why a U2 song about a living artist is a break from habit

Bono laid out the shift in Rolling Stone's recent U2 cover story. "We normally just write songs about people in jail or dead people," he said. "You know, dead heroes, or trying to get them out of jail. This is just celebrating somebody just because they're an extraordinary artist."

He also framed the song as a creative race the band lost — narrowly. Rosalía's 2025 album Lux, he said, hit some of the same themes he wanted for U2's new record: "She's arrived at the same point just before us, which is annoying and also really inspiring."

Getting in touch took a middleman. Bono called mutual friend Penélope Cruz for advice. "I called Penélope: 'What am I gonna do?'" he said. "'Just call her' … I'm like, 'I look like a stalker.'" Since then, he said, Rosalía has "been really encouraging, and made me laugh a lot," and the two have bonded over a shared love of the poet Federico García Lorca.

What does this change for either artist?

For U2, it signals the register of Carnaval De Luz: celebration over elegy, and an explicit nod to a younger Spanish-language star whose Lux beat them to similar ideas. For Rosalía, it adds a rock-legend endorsement to a year that already includes a sold-out tour — and a viral segment within it.

On Fallon, she also reflected on El Confesionario, the on-stage confession segment of her just-concluded Lux tour, where guests including Chappell Roan, Karol G and Marcello Hernández shared stories before the song "La Perla." "So many people came throughout the whole tour, and it was really amazing to hear them," she said. "I just love listening to other people's stories, and it seemed like people were excited to share."

Next up: Rosalía serves as musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend, while "The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)" arrives with the album on Nov. 13.