There’s no denying that Malaysian-born multi-award-winning singer-songwriter Yuna has made a name for herself in the United States. The superstar has grown a lot as a person and as an artist, but there was a time in her early 20s when a careless mistake got her blacklisted from entering a country. How did that happen?
The singer recently appeared as a guest on Malaysian model Deborah Henry’s Debonair Podcast where she talked about expanding her career, starting her own label and learning from her failures. Speaking of failures, at one point during the episode, she recalled the time when she was blacklisted from entering Canada all because she wanted to get pizza during a late-night drive 14 years ago.
The songstress explained that she and some friends wanted to get pizza after a show in Detroit. “At the time, we were using BlackBerry phones to navigate and we found this one pizzeria that was still open and it was like 1am at the time. We saw that it was Halal too so we decided to go check it out. So as we were driving, we saw this huge sign that said, ‘You are now leaving the United States’. It’s when we went into this tunnel that we realised that we were crossing the border to Canada,” she said.
The 37-year-old revealed that she and her friends were screaming in the van after realising their mistake. Although they had their passports on them, they did not have the Visas to enter the country. “So we were stopped and we tried to explain to this [officer] about what happened. It was really funny cause they were like, ‘So hang on. You guys didn’t see this huge sign that said Welcome to Canada?’ and we were like, ‘No, we were so focused on finding this pizza place’,” she recalled the ordeal.
Due to that incident, Yuna was blacklisted in Canada for a few years. As a result, if she were to do a show in the country during the blacklist period, she’d have to be properly screened. When asked if the singer had her pizza in the end, she answered, “No! But the whole thing was really funny”.
Curious to know which restaurant Yuna and her friends were trying to reach? We did some digging and can deduced that it was likely Sicily’s Pizzeria and Subs, which according to their socials, is certified halal. As seen in the map above, we can understand how the “Rescue” singer and her friends got lost and ended up crossing the border. Honestly, we would’ve gotten lost as well.
Watch Yuna telling the funny Pizza story below:
Source: Instagram
