Lizzo confirms she’s ‘been it’ in lively BET Awards performance
THE summer of Lizzo continues. The pop singer (or as she says in her apt Twi er bio, “America’s Next Best Bop Singer”) brought the crowd at the BET Awards to their feet as she performed her energetic 2017 single “Truth Hurts.”
The performance took a page from the song’s music video, which subverts the age-old tale of the jilted bride.
It opened with Lizzo and her dancers gyrating on a giant wedding cake; the singer wore a short white dress with nearly as many tiers as the fake dessert.
By the time Lizzo made it through her first verse, she had pulled off her veil, stripping down to a lacy white teddy.
“You’re ‘posed to hold me down, but you’re holding me back,” she sang, twirling the sheer veil in her hand.
“And that’s the sound of me not calling you back.”
The singer made her way down the cake’s layers and grabbed a bouquet from one of her dancers. She aimed the prop directly at the crowd as she (and her very engaged audience) reiterated one of the song’s most pointed lines: “I will never ever, ever, ever, be your side chick.” One member of said audience was Rihanna, who stood up and clapped enthusiastically a er Lizzo began playing her flute, in between twerks, during the song’s bridge, where Lizzo boasts: “I don’t play tag...I been it.”
The performance is yet another 2019 highlight for Lizzo, who has emerged from years of underground fame to burgeoning pop stardom on the heels of her well-reviewed album “Cuz I Love You,” released in April, and a slew of songs that found their way into commercials and movies.
“Truth Hurts” was prominently featured in Netflix’s rom-com “Someone Great,” which helped the two-year-old track land on Billboard’s Hot 100. The song is currently listed at No. 17.
In addition to the standing ovation she got at Los Angeles’ Microso Theater, Lizzo earned praise on social media for her energy and infectious confidence.
The singer, an outspoken champion of body positivity, later summed up for motivation for the performance in a postceremony tweet, featuring a video of her dancing as a circle of women around her chanted “We ge ing married!”
“There’s nothing I’d rather see than black girls falling in love with themselves on T.V,” Lizzo wrote. “Big girls- you are IT! YOU ARE ALWAYS the bride in a marriage of SELF-LOVE! — The Washington Post THE studio that brought you “The Hunger Games,’’ “Mad Men’’ and “John Wick’’ is now facing its own existential question.
Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. has lost more than half its market value over the last year as the once-idolized filmmaker struggles to find new megahits. On top of that, recent mergers have created entertainment behemoths that threaten to make smaller studios an a erthought in Hollywood’s new blockbuster environment.
All that has created a new sense of urgency around the 22-year-old Lions Gate as it weighs its future: open itself to being acquired, sell off pieces, or try to bulk up to compete with the giants.
“Some studios have scale and unfortunately some studios are now subscale,” said John Tinker, an analyst at Gabelli & Co. “The question is obviously, if you are a smaller studio and you do not own Marvel, what are you going to do?”
Lions Gate comment.
The studio was formed in 1997 in Vancouver by movie-loving mining financier Frank Giustra. It made its name distributing R-rated movies like “American Psycho” and, with the acquisition of Summit Entertainment in 2012, was propelled into the big leagues by the teen-vampire “Twilight” film saga. That same year it also launched the “The Hunger Games’’ franchise. (The declined to studio announced last week there might be a prequel.)
But as a smaller company, Lions Gate has long been a target of merger speculation. Companies from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to Sony to CBS Corp. have been linked to potential deals. Two years ago, Lions Gate walked away from talks with gamemaker Hasbro Inc. involving a $41 a share offer, worth almost $9 billion, people familiar with the situation said.
Today, the stock trades at around $12, weighed down by two years of declining revenue in its motion picture division, and merger talks have picked up again. Lions Gate has held informal discussions in the past year with companies that may be interested in buying the whole business, people with knowledge of the situation said. But with the stock at seven-year lows, the studio isn’t interested in selling itself at the moment, people close to the situation said.
A handful of other strategies are under discussion. One is to buy a stake in Miramax, the film producer formerly owned by the Weinstein brothers, one of the people said. Its current owner, beIn Media Group, has recently sought buyers for a minority stake. Such a move would give Lions Gate access to a library of Oscar-winning movies such as “Shakespeare in Love” and, more recently, revived franchises like “Halloween.” — WP-Bloomberg
You’re ‘posed to hold me down, but you’re holding me back. And that’s the sound of me not calling you back.”
Lizzo