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How smoking became 'cool again': Stars like Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX can't help lighting up despite years of anti-cigarette campaigns
Charli XCX will take to the stage of London 's Brockwell Park this weekend, in front of 35,000 people, as she headlines Lido Festival.
She will likely dance in her underwear in front of a neon green stage and perform hits from her critically acclaimed album Brat - and - as is normal at a Charli XCX gig - light up a cigarette on stage.
The Cambridge-born singer, a pioneer of the indie sleaze revival, is leading the way in making smoking 'cool again'.
And she's not alone, the habit, which has been widely socially shunned since the 2007 smoking ban, is now au fait again - at least in celebrity circles.
Dua Lipa and Sabrina Carpenter are among the Gen Z starlets who have been pictured sparking up.
Spanish singer Rosalia gifted the Von Dutch star a bouquet of cigarettes for her 32nd birthday last August.
Meanwhile, Sabrina Carpenter used a fork as a cigarette holder in the music video for her latest single 'Manchild',
Recently, the newly engaged Dua Lipa was spotted puffing on a cigarette together with fiance Callum Turner while cuddling up in Paris.
The singer previously announced she had given up smoking last year to protect her vocal health, but it seems she has picked the habit up again.
Other singers who have recently been seen with a cigarette in hand, whether intentionally in promo shoots or casually on the street, include Addison Rae, Clairo, Bruno Mars (who famously lit a cigarette on stage while accepting a Grammy in 2022), and Chappell Roan.
In acting circles, smoking has also taken on a shiny new reputation. Paul Mescal has been spotted smoking in public on several occasions, and even admitted during an interview on the Graham Norton Show last year that he couldn't give the habit up even while training for Gladiator 2.
The Normal People star has also been spotted enjoying a cigarette with Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Natalie Portman.
Ben Affleck is a prolific smoker - with one particular meme of him smoking going viral as 'sad Affleck' - while Florence Pugh, Anya Taylor-Joy, Adam Scott, and Lily-Rose Depp all finding themselves dubbed 'Cigfluencers' under the popular Instagram account of the same name.
Speaking to The New York Times about the trend, Jared Oviatt, the creator of the Cigfluencers Instagram account, said he has seen a rise in photos of celebrities appearing glamorous as they take a drag from their cigarettes.
When he first began the account in 2021, Jared said he was having to search the archives for such photos, but now there are 'at least one or two people' snapped while smoking 'every week'.
After a dip in portrayals of tobacco on-screen, Hollywood is embracing cigarettes once again. In Celine Song's new film Materalists, Dakota Johnson's character Lucy smokes throughout the film, holding a cigarette as she flirts with her ex, played by Chris Evans.
Last year, a report by Truth Initiative, a non-profit organisation that campaigns against smoking, found that the number of movies featuring tobacco has increased for the first time since 2002 when researchers began tracking it in top films.
Ben Affleck is a prolific smoker and went viral after a photograph of him taking a smoke break in Los Angeles became a meme known as 'sad Affleck'
Paul Mescal has spoken about how smoking is his vice - the actor didn't even give it up while training intensively for Gladiator 2
Dua Lipa has also been public about her smoking habit, and in an Instagram post shared in August, she included a snap of herself holding wine, cards and a box of cigarettes in her hands
The health organisation's analysis found that eight of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture at the 2025 Oscars contained tobacco imagery, with 41% of the top films released in 2023 showing tobacco compared to 35% in 2022.
It also found that popular TV series streamed on platforms like Netflix and HBO are exposing young people to tobacco imagery. According to Truth Initiative, hit teen dramas like Euphoria and Stranger Things were among the most popular shows with tobacco content, as were animated series like The Simpsons and Bob's Burgers.
The style set are also becoming much more casual about being seen with a cigarette in hand - an image that has always had a veneer of chicness about it.
Models like Bella Hadid and Gabriette have posed while smoking, emulating a past in which supermodel Kate Moss was well-known for her smoking habit. The 51-year-old was dubbed 'perhaps the greatest smoker of all time' by Esquire magazine for her love of cigarettes at the height of her career in the 1990s.
Smoking on the runway still holds allure for designers, as last year Christian Cowan and LaQuan Smith both sent their models strutting whilst holding cigarettes aloft during New York fashion week.
The popularity of cigarettes has been nosediving since the 1960s, as growing awareness of the health risks put people off the habit. But up until as recently as 2007, before indoor smoking was banned, it was normal to enter a pub, club, restaurant and even the workplace and be greeted by a cloud of smoke.
The indoor smoking ban, introduced by the Labour government at the time, was hailed at the time as the greatest advance in public health for half a century and followed a long campaign that began in the 1950s.
While tobacco use remains at an all-time low, with figures showing only 11.9% of UK adults smoking as of 2023, the rise in celebrities having a puff could be seen as cause for concern.
Statistics from HM Revenue and Customs also show that tobacco sales have declined significantly. However, some experts are worried that the black market for tobacco is thriving, as high prices of cigarettes and other tobacco products send smokers searching for cheaper, albeit illicit alternatives.
But a new survey by Action on Smoking and Health appears to show that the British public is unswayed by the rich and famous's preference for a smoke.
The polling, carried out by YouGov of over 11,000 adults in England, show that two-thirds (68%) of the public support the 'Smokefree Generation' policy, which would ban the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2009.
It also found that 65% of people in England want to live in a country where no one smokes, while nearly half 45% believe the government is not doing enough to tackle smoking.
Smoking remains a primary concern for the government, as it seeks to bring down the 80,000 preventable deaths caused by smoking in the UK each year.
In 2023, former prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed to crack down on smoking through his flagship Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which proposed a ban on vaping and smoking outdoors and aimed to ban young people from ever being able to smoke legally.
Prime minister Keir Starmer confirmed in November that his government would not go ahead with the outdoor smoking ban as it would impact the hospitality sector, which is already struggling with rising operational costs and declining profit margins.
However, the nationwide ban on vapes came into effect on June 1, and it is now illegal to sell single-use disposable vapes. The government also plans to extend the indoor smoking ban to specific outdoor spaces, such as children's playgrounds and areas outside schools and hospitals.
'Due to the highly addictive nature and continued perpetuation of smoking being cool, it is a habit that has continued,' Solt added; Kate Moss seen smoking a cigarette in 2002 in London
