Singer/ rapper Lizzo is open up about changing society’s norms when it comes to body image.
In a new interview with People, the 33-year-old singer spoke on creating positive changes in society and the music industry.
The “Boys” singer credited her parents for helping her to see early on how the treatment is different for certain members of society in America. “They taught me at a very young age how America treats Black people,” she recalled. “How it treats Black women. And I saw very quickly how we treat fat people.”
A video clip of Lizzo’s interview for the cover of People Magazine’s Women Changing the World issue was shared by the outlet on Instagram on March 1 with a caption about the rapper transforming body image norms in the music industry.
“Lizzo — who is on the cover of PEOPLE’s Women Changing the World Issue — is opening up about how she’s creating positive change within the music industry and the world. [heart emojis].”
Lizzo said she wants people who are undervalued and underrepresented in society to value themselves as she does. “I just wish that more people would see the value in fat, Black girls,” she laughed. “I’m just sayin’.”
Lizzo also said she embraces her body more every day, and is creating her own beauty standard that she hopes will one day be society’s standard of beauty.
“I think I have a really hot body! I’m a body icon,” said Lizzo during the interview. “And I’m embracing that more and more every day. It may not be one person’s ideal body type just like, say, Kim Kardashian might not be someone’s ideal, but she’s a body icon and has created a modern-day beauty standard. And what I’m doing is stepping into my confidence and my power to create my own beauty standard. And one day that will just be the standard.”
The “Truth Hurts” singer revealed that she was often stereotyped for being full-figured in her younger days and wanted to free women from being categorized. She said she was “the funny, fat friend” in high school or the friend who would “beat your ass ’cause she’s big.”
The Grammy Award-winning artist also said people expect people of a certain size to be insecure, which is not Lizzo. “I don’t think I’m the only kind of fat girl there is. I want us to be freed from that box we’ve been put in.”
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