Lizzo is breaking her silence following the backlash she received after her most recent single featuring rapper Cardi B.
During a very emotional Instagram Live session uploaded to her account on Sunday, Aug.15, that since has been deleted, the “Rumors” artist addressed the racist and fat-phobic comments she’s endured. The 33-year-old opened up in a nearly 12-minute clip, according to a transcript from Yahoo! “Sometimes I feel like the world just don’t love me,” she expressed. “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.”
She added, “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.”
Wiping tears from her eyes, Lizzo detailed how frustrated she was and the stress she’s been under. The “Good as Hell” singer said she’s been working “quadruple” the time, noting that she felt unappreciated coupled with “People saying sh-t about me that just doesn’t even make sense. 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,” she added.
Though Lizzo didn’t go into detail about what exactly was said to her, elsewhere, the Michigan native uploaded a TikTok duet with a fan who called out critics accusing the star of displaying mammy-like behavior, calling them “completely wrong.” (Mammy is considered an offensive term used to describe “a Black woman whose job is to take care of white children.”)
Lizzo addressed the clip, stating: “This is exactly why I started off the song with ‘they don’t know I do it for the culture.’ These people who are saying this are probably the same people who are mad when I am being hypersexual, and the mammy trope is actually desexualized. So it can’t both be true. Make it make sense.” She continued, “I think people are just mad to see a fat Black woman that makes pop music and is happy. Y’all are so upset that I am happy. But this doesn’t even bother me because Aretha Franklin was criticized by the Black church when she came out, Whitney Houston was booed, and Beyoncé received criticism early in her career. So you know what, the type of music that I make, I know I am making it to be great, making it to touch the world, and I don’t stick to any of these criticisms because I know the only person that I am serving is myself.”
Friends of the songstress have since come out in support, including “Rumors” collaborator Cardi B. The “WAP” rapper shared Lizzo’s initial Instagram video, writing, “When you stand up for yourself they claim your problematic & sensitive.” She added, “Whether you skinny, big, plastic, they going to always try to put their insecurities on you. Remember these are nerds looking at the popular table.”
“She sings about sex, dresses like her smaller sized peers, has a general fun loving and uptempo sound,” wrote one Twitter fan. “If you see Lizzo and think about the mammy archetype you’re just telling on yourselves”
