As usual, Lizzo's got us feeling all the feels. In a recent interview with Zane Lowe of Apple Music, the Grammy-winner talked all things fat-shaming, body positivity, how far we've come - and how much farther we've still got to go. Here's what you gotta know.
She might be a self-love icon to us, but apparently, that was never Lizzo's intention. "This is the part of my career that's really hard for me to grasp, is accepting that I've done something that has never really happened or that I was a part of like a new movement or a wave," the pop star explained. "Because I'm like, 'I was just being myself, I was just being me, like what the hell.'"
"I remember when I made a song, and it was like, 'I'm in love with myself, I'm in love with myself,'" she recalled. "I was like, 'You know what? I've never heard anyone say that in a song, so I'm gonna say it.' And I did it just kind of off-the-cuff, like silly, like funny, but I didn't realize it would start this whole thing... I was watching a commercial, and it was these big girls in it, and it had nothing to do with being big. And I was like, 'Did I do that?'" Honestly, probably!
Lizzo went on to talk about what it's like having a "flaw" (as deemed by society) that is not hideable. "I feel like fat is the worst thing people can say about me at this point," the singer explained. "This is the biggest insecurity. It's like, 'How dare a pop star be fat?' I had to own that... I feel like other people who were put on that pedestal, or who become pop stars, probably have other insecurities or have other flaws, but they can hide it behind a veneer of being sexy and being marketable."
And while the 33-year-old sees improvements in some places, like certain television advertisements, she recognizes that the societal structures that maintain limited beauty standards have stayed somewhat the same. "The infrastructure has not changed much," the singer remarked. "There's still so many people who suffer from being marginalized systematically." Amen, girl.
"Meanwhile, there's a plus-size Black girl at the Grammys. But plus-size Black women are still not getting the treatment they deserve in hospitals and from doctors and at work," Lizzo added. "We got a long way to go." And a retweet on that one, too. But in the meantime, we can find joy in her and Cardi B's new hit, Rumors. We'd be surprised if you don't already have this latest banger playing on repeat.
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