Lizzo reacts to weight comments
Los Angeles Times
Lizzo has long been an advocate for body positivity, celebrating plus-size women and shooting down fat-phobic trolls trying to police her body.
But after a recent encounter with body-shaming comments, the Grammy-winning artist is tired and said she is close to quitting her music career.
“I HATE IT HERE,” Lizzo wrote in a series of tweets before locking her Twitter account last Wednesday, May 31, according to multipleoutlets that took screenshots of the posts. Lizzo also reportedly locked her Twitter account in April.
“Y’all don’t know how close I be to giving up on everyone and quitting and enjoying my money and my man on a (expletive) FARM,” she continued.
The “About Damn Time” singer was responding, in part, to a fat-shaming post from @LayahHeilpern, which included a video of the artist dancing onstage and was captioned, “How is Lizzo still THIS fat when she’s constantly moving this much on stage?! I wonder what she must be eating (laughing emoji).”
“I JUST logged on the app and this is the type of shit I see about me on a daily basis,” Lizzo wrote in response. “Then someone in the comments said I eat ‘lots of fast food.’ I LITERALLY STOPPED EATING FAST FOOD YEARS AGO. I’m tired of explaining myself all the time and I just wanna get on this app w/out seeing my name in some bull—.”
In response to another tweet, which has since been deleted, that said, “I don’t think Lizzie wants to be smaller” because “it’s her brand,” Lizzo clapped back, “I’m not trying to BE fat, I’m not trying to BE smaller—I’m literally just trying live and be healthy.”
“This is what my body looks like even when I’m eating super clean and working out!” she added.
Throughout her career, Lizzo has been outspoken about body positivity, and has built a lucrative empire while doing so. She has a shapeware line called Yitty, which is “designed for all body types.” In 2022, she also launched the Emmy-winning Prime Video reality show “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” in which she searches for plus-size dancers to join her on tour.
Although the recent wave of fat-shaming comments has pushed Lizzo off Twitter, she followed up her tweets by posting a video to her Instagram on May 31 from a performance in which she is seen onstage holding up a sign with the message, “I’m sorry people on Twitter suck. You are beautiful & special.”
“Will never shut up about how difficult yall make it for fat people to simply exist,” she wrote in the post. “Minding your business is *free* If the Internet was limited and one comment took 24hrs to post I wonder what social media would be like.”
Lizzo is on tour in support of her 2022 album, “Special,” which nabbed a Grammy nomination for album of the year. Throughout the summer, she will be playing festivals and arena shows across Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.