I love Lizzo full stop. I have enjoyed how she has given plus-sized women the courage to embrace their bodies and curves. I also like that Lizzo fully states that she is not anyone’s role model and that she is just living her life. I know that there was backlash late last year when Lizzo decided to go on a 10-day cleanse and people accused her of promoting diet culture. Then earlier this year, Lizzo had to again clapback at trolls for fat shaming her. However, the debate that I have seen over Lizzo this last weekend has been heartbreaking. I have seen women call Lizzo a “mammy” and many other mean tweets about her body. What started the entire meanness over the weekend was Lizzo’s and Cardi B’s new single and video, “Rumors.” I guess Lizzo saw the nastiness being said about her and she took to Instagram live. She said it’s painful when people criticize her instead of her music. Below are a few more details from Lizzo’s live via Yahoo!:
“On the days I feel I should be the happiest…. I feel so down,” Lizzo, sitting in her bathroom, told her social media followers as she dabbed at her eyes. “Like, I hurt so hard.”
Though [Lizzo] didn’t describe the hateful messages in detail — explaining, “I’m not even going to say them, to give them power” — they appear to be focused on her appearance.
“People saying s*** about me that just doesn’t even make sense,” the visibly upset star shared. “It’s fat-phobic, and it’s racist and it’s hurtful. If you don’t like my music, cool. If you don’t like ‘Rumors’ the song, cool. But a lot of people don’t like me because of the way I look… ”
“Sometimes I feel like the world just don’t love me back…
“It’s like it doesn’t matter how much positive energy you put into the world, you’re still going to have people who have… something mean to say about you. And for the most part it doesn’t hurt my feelings; I don’t care. I just think when I’m working this hard, my tolerance gets lower. My patience is lower. I’m more sensitive and it gets to me.”
Let me preface everything I am about to say with this, I didn’t like the Rumors song or video. The song didn’t click with me nor the lyrics. However, I loved seeing Cardi and Lizzo working together on a project. I personally like seeing powerful women collaborating instead of fighting each other. With that being said, I can actually say that I didn’t appreciate a song without attacking the people who worked hard to create it (I’ve grown). How people were coming for Lizzo hurt my feelings and I wasn’t even the one they were coming after. Calling Lizzo a “mammy” is downright ugly, unfair and definitely a misuse of the term. Lizzo is not non-sexual. The fact that people were fat shaming Lizzo especially after she has been honest about struggling with her weight is cruel.
I am proud that fellow Houstonian was vulnerable about the pain that people’s words caused her. People need to use kindness when critiquing art and not attack the artists. People need stop being assholes full stop. I wish there was a way to ban folks who are unnecessarily cruel and nasty from the interwebs or at least ban our eyes from seeing their bullsh*t. I will always support plus-sized girls (I’m one myself) being happy and taking up space without feeling shame or the need to hide because they don’t meet people’s ideal of beauty or health. I am sending so much love to Lizzo. I hope she knows that there are far more people who love and support her than who don’t.
A few responses to the Lizzo hate:
Well this is an idiotic take. This has been her personality since before she became mainstream, from when she was doing the underground circuit, she’s always been outgoing.
Relegating fat, black, outgoing women into the Mammy trope is giving fatphobia and misogynoir. Pee-yew. https://t.co/M1Dwd23MfP
— Steph (@StephanieYeboah) August 13, 2021
This is a @lizzo stan account. ❤️👑 pic.twitter.com/H7GfqCOmTu
— shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) August 16, 2021
All Lizzo gotta do is remind herself Prince co-signed on her music. The other girls wish they had that and never will.
— Brittny Pierre (@sleep2dream) August 16, 2021
This is a @lizzo Appreciation Post 🥰 pic.twitter.com/P1FdVErGRU
— YOUNG HOLLYWOOD (@younghollywood) August 16, 2021
Lizzo is beautiful, full stop. Anyone denying that can go suck on a lemon.
Right? She really is gorgeous.
Lizzo is a goddess. She is the entire package: talent, brains, heart, humor, beauty.
Agree! She also has good energy.
Are you kidding? The woman has a serious weight issue. Thats not healthy nor is showing her ass in a thong.
Go see a therapist about that misery you insist on spreading, J. No one wants to read it.
She is gorgeous, everything about her.
YES! She is absolutely beautiful!!!!!!!!
Lizzo, you are a Queen. You are so beautiful, fun, intelligent, talented, honest and a bad ass!!! I love you and stan for you. Don’t let the haters into your psyche. You inspire me and millions of others. Keep that in your heart.
Lizzo looks like a goddess here to deliver us from being boring, these trolls need to quit
People can be so effing evil. Lizzo is out there living her best life and that bothers them. I wish they would just leave her alone. There’s only so kuch a person can take.
It’s nothing but fat phobia and prejudice. I loved the song and video. I hope Lizzo is getting support to withstand this cruelty.
Read Jessica DeFino’s article on “beauty standards” is TeenVogue: They are tools of oppression that reinforce sexism, racism, colorism, classism, ableism, ageism, and gender norms.
I like some of her music (Truth hurts was an instant classic for me) and I actually do like Rumors! But more than that, I really love Lizzo because she always does put joy out into the universe. I see her and I feel that. I don’t know what to say about these miserable people I really don’t. I never do know. But she is better than them. By far and in every way.
People are disgusting. I just want to give her a hug and tell her to shake it off. She is a gorgeous woman and has a fantastic joyful nature about her. I’m not a huge fan of her music, but I do like some of her songs. No one should be meant to feel the way that she has felt. I hope she has good people to help her with the toxic troll talk.
I love Lizzo. Who could have a problem with her? She’s sweet and fun and full of energy. People criticizing her weight are jackwads who don’t get invited to the good parties. Suffer, fools.
I absolutely adore her!!!❤️❤️
Loved the gorgeous goddesses dancing on the pillars.
Lizzo – fantastic, beauty, talent!!! I look forward to seeing her every time. She makes me happy. Ugly world to cut her down!
I will never ever understand why people feel entitled to opine about the bodies of others. It is just not your business, ever.
We can’t all be a size 4. I’m a guy who has been relatively attractive (so other’s have told me) and in shape most of my life. Now at age 60, there’s a little more of me to love and I’m perfectly fine with that condition. I try to use my sense of humor in regard to my extra poundage. A couple of years ago, while shopping, a sales associate asked my sweater size. I told her it was jumbo petite. She got a laugh at that that. Besides…fat people are simply harder to kidnap.
For the non-Americans on here that might be confused by why calling Lizzo “mammy” is problematic, wiki has a good explanation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammy_stereotype
I’m from the UK and while I knew it was racist (easy guess, lol) I didn’t appreciate the full history of how this word has been used to degrade black women.
I wish she had gone to cry to a friend and not online. She gave the people insulting her exactly what they wanted. They wanted to see her cry. Now they know they can get to her. They will get meaner and send her even more messages. The internet is not your therapist. Talk to a loved one or friend. I really hope she enjoys her life and success and stops reading comments
I agree, although I suspect it’s an unpopular view – she just threw them a big chunk of red meat. It will get worse now because they know they are getting to her.
Lizzo strikes me as a very sweet, but very sensitive soul who needs a lot of affirmation and encouragement. The internet is a terrible place to get that – yeah, there may be positivity, but there’s a lot of bad too. She should seek positivity in her life, away from twitter.
What I do not not get is why she doesn’t hire a social media manager to handle these things. Plenty of big names do – they hire somebody to curate their feed, handle comments, etc. I think she would benefit from that.
I get what you mean, with the way people like getting internet attention from getting a rise out of famous people. But what if she does already talk to her therapist about it? That suggestion isn’t a bad one at all-for BOTH sexes to talk privately about the impact things like racism, misogyny, body-shaming, homophobia, and transphobia may have on them. There’s a danger of private conversations with therapists and friends turning into the only times and places for those situations to be addressed though. Regressive bullies know this too, and quickly learn to use things like therapy suggestions as a way to throw rocks and hide their hands.
There will always be sadistic assholes getting off on the ability to make her cry and cause distress in their endless list of other targets. People who will never change, and can only see evidence of their target’s pain as proof that they were right and some ancient “wisdoms” should have been accepted. That doesn’t mean there aren’t external and internal benefits to addressing those issues outside of personal and professional safety nets though.
❤️
I don’t understand why people will go to someone’s social media just to insult them. If you don’t like something, just don’t pay attention to it. Whether its music, a personality, etc. Why take the time to be a d**k?
This 100%!
@Stephanie I could not agree more. I don’t understand why so (SO!!) many people think they need — or have the right — to share every cruel or negative thought they have with the entire world online. You don’t like Lizzo? Fine. Not everyone enjoys the same artists. But why they don’t just ignore her is beyond me. I can’t imagine seeking someone out online for the express purpose of saying something sh!tty and hurtful.
So many people online are mean purely for the sake of being mean. What is wrong with them?? How does it make them feel good to do this to someone? I guess they’re people with miserable lives and attacking someone anonymously from a keyboard when they would never say such things in public gives them some sort of feeling of power, or revenge? I don’t know. I can’t begin to understand that mindset. I wonder wtf these people did before the Internet.
This makes me so fu**ing angry. There are miserable people on the Internet whose sole purpose in life is to bring down other people. I wish I could give her a hug and say that she is only getting hate because she is succeeding in life.
“People need to stop being assholes.” Amen, Oya!
Ppl are just so miserable with themselves they have the need to put others down too. I wish I had lizzo’s confidence, she’s absolutely gorgeous and just as talented
This was a silly, funny video and I love the collaboration, too. Haters are just threatened by seeing a larger sized woman be sexy and successful and at the top of her game. It must be hard, though, becoming an international superstar out of nowhere and having to field all the cranks and haters that come along with that status. Hopefully if she doesn’t already she has a therapist or counselor to help her with coping skills. And social media should provide more tools to filter out that crap.
I love Lizzo and she’s gorgeous and I think the costumes and no eyebrow look in this video were a big miss. She’s a sexy goddess and these costumes smothered her – they were like the Lane Bryant matronly plus-size edit of a sexy pop star fit and her make-up effaced all her features. That’s got nothing to do with her personal beauty – that’s poor costuming and makeup.
I hate people.
Same
I’m not a Lizzo fan because I don’t like her voice or her music. I do, however, admire her for being so body positive and open and honest about her struggles – we need more women like her in music. The insults and hate she has received is just cruel and she handles it like a queen. Even though her music isn’t my taste, I can appreciate her beauty and drive.
If you don’t like someone, just move on and leave them alone. I can’t believe people would go out of their way to hurt her and throw insults on her social media.
@Stef same. I’m not even a Lizzo fan but this is the first time I have ever typed a word about her in my life. Why would I spend my time seeking her out just to be an asshole and say something cruel??
It made me so sad to see how hurt she was by it. And it’s gross that so many people behave like animals online.
Yes, thanks Lorelei, I agree completely 😎
I just love Lizzo. I will never tire of her music. I read somewhere that she said she makes black music because she is black. Sometimes I get a little embarrassed because I’m a 38 year old white soccer mom jamming out to Lizzo so hard in my subaru (skipping over a few choice words), but her music makes me feel good. I love to listen to it when I’m running errands, when I’m running, when I’m happy, when I’m down, and when I’m cleaning the house. I truly don’t get the hate, and it sucks that she has to put up with it by virtue of existing. Just listen to Juice.
Lizzo is super talented and beautiful. I co-sign the advice that she gets a media manager and doesn’t look at the comments.
Lizzo’s music is ok. I really couldn’t get into Rumors even though the message was cool the song itself musically didn’t pull it together until the middle half. It seemed disjointed and her talk-rap part left much to be desired. When it comes to Lizzo as a person, full stop no one should make her feel like trash for her body type. I love the empowerment mantra she articulates and I find I enjoy her more in interviews than in song but she isn’t doing anything wrong. Sometimes I dislike her style because it’s like she does the unflattering version of what she’s trying to do on purpose instead of just always stunting on h0e$ and I wish she would just stunt purely from a fan’s pov.
I love Lizzo and I love Cardi even more than I already did, for standing up for Lizzo
Yeah, it was nice seeing Cardi B, Jameela Jamil, and Missy Elliott have Lizzo’s back.
It’s frustrating that those who attacked her right after this song didn’t listen to the lyrics–but it seems as if her self-assuredness is threatening to insecure people. I hate that she gets this hurt over stupid internet trolls, but she is human and bleeds like the rest of us. I don’t think I’d handle it any better. And people need to know that fame and money don’t make people impervious to nasty behavior, so I think it is important that she spoke out.
On a more positive note, I’m so glad to see Cardi B giving roses to other women in the industry. She really seems supportive and lovely to so many of her collaborators. I think of her putting all those women in the WAP video and now cutting tracks with many of them too. Lizzo’s great at collaborating as well, so it’s a pleasure to see these 2 working together.
I really liked the song, but haven’t seen the video yet. I guess it’s Lizzo’s line that she hasn’t made out with Drake— yet. I really love that line. Lizzo is a really sensitive woman and I hate that she’s vulnerable to the haters. But her sensitivity also makes her the artist she is, so it’s double-edged. That white dress is perfection on her, but she looks so sad. Lizzo, the whole world is in love with you! F-ck the haters. It’s themselves they really hate.