Charli XCX headlined a packed National PrEP Day celebration in West Hollywood and said sexual-health care should be treated as normal, linking the night to Madonna’s early advocacy.
The Grammy-winning pop artist took the stage for the October 10 event tied to MISTR, a telehealth platform built around free and low-cost HIV prevention, and spoke afterward in an exclusive interview about stigma, access, and the crowd that first backed her work.
Newsweek reported the celebration carried the energy of a cultural summit more than a standard red carpet, with the scene at The Abbey drawing names including Chappell Roan, Khloé Kardashian, Demi Lovato, Emily Ratajkowski, Tinashe, and Colton Haynes.
PrEP is the once-daily or injectable regimen shown to cut the risk of HIV transmission. National PrEP Day is now described as recognized with bipartisan congressional support plus backing from multiple state and city governments.
Charli framed the night as payback, not branding.
She told the outlet she would not be the artist she is without that audience.
"I would not be the artist I am without the queer community,"
she said, adding that those fans understood her vision when the wider industry did not and made her comfortable as both an artist and a person. Giving anything back, she said, matters because she would not be here without them.
On the purpose of the event itself, she kept the focus on prevention and shame.
"I think it's just a really important event to continue to amplify the cause and to continue to try and destigmatize HIV prevention,"
Charli said. Looking after sexual health, she argued, is a normal thing to want, yet shame still clings to the conversation. MISTR’s event, in her view, pulls that talk into cultural spaces and puts it up front, especially with artists, drag performers, and musicians in the room.
Tristan Schukraft, MISTR’s founder and CEO, cast the party as a rare kind of gathering.
"When's the last time you went to a party that was about sexual health? Never,"
he said. Celebrities from different corners, he argued, were using their platforms to remind people HIV is still here.
Schukraft put a hard number on the present tense: a hundred people a day are still diagnosed with HIV. The science exists, he said. The problem is access, making it easy to start medication and easier to stay on it. He also recently pledged at the Clinton Global Initiative to fund one million free HIV tests and one million free hepatitis C tests by the end of 2027.
Charli tied the night to Madonna without turning it into cosplay.
"There's always a connection to Madonna, because she's the blueprint for all of us,"
she said. Madonna spoke up when the stigma ran hotter and earlier. Following those footsteps and adding to the same conversation, Charli said, is what the artists there wanted to do. She was also fresh off sharing an MTV Video Music Awards stage with Madonna, who had previously worked with MISTR.
Asked about impact, Charli declined the throne. Everyone might dream of a similar mark, she said, but her own debt runs through the rooms that booked her first, queer spaces, first fans, first shows. She also said she does not draft by committee. In the studio she blocks out the noise, trusts her instincts, and stands by the work. The same audience that wants experimentation, she said, gave her the confidence to do that.
On critics who might still flinch at a sexual-health party, she kept it plain. She feels lucky to move among open-minded people, knows the other kind exist, and hopes a night like this lands as obvious: wanting to look after your own health should not be treated as strange.
Public health gets further with clear talk, real access, and personal responsibility than with silence or fashion-show politics, and a packed room on PrEP Day only matters if the medication and the testing follow the applause.
