On social media, some people love to bash plus-sized Black women just for existing. Through her music and social media platforms, Lizzo is trying her best to put an end to that.
On August 15, Lizzo had enough of the haters and got on Instagram Live while crying to address the backlash she received for the music video for “Rumors.”
In “Rumors,” Lizzo simply did what most singers do: she danced while scantily clad, sang and boasted about beauty and success. However, Lizzo’s performance stirred up a deluge of negative comments and Twitter users rushed to express their concerns that Lizzo was promoting obesity and was pandering to white audiences. This is nothing new, of course: since the singer’s breakthrough release “Truth Hurts” in 2019, she has faced constant criticism about her size.
“Why are we celebrating her body?” Professional trainer Jillian Michaels said in a talk show. “Because it isn’t going to be awesome if she gets diabetes?”
Michael’s deplorable comments unfortunately reflect the opinions of many others. There seems to be this misconception that promoting self-love and body positivity are promoting being overweight, but that’s not what Lizzo or others like her are doing. She is simply showing people that you can and should love yourself at any size. You don’t have to hate yourself because you aren’t thin or hate your body while on your journey to fitness.
“I don’t think that loving yourself is a choice,” said Lizzo in an interview with NBC news. “I think that it’s a decision that has to be made for survival; it was in my case. Loving myself was the result of answering two things: Do you want to live? Cause this is who you’re gonna be for the rest of your life. Or are you gonna just have a life of emptiness, self-hatred, and self-loathing? And I chose to live, so I had to accept myself.”
On top of that, someone’s size is not a direct indicator of their health. Such misconceptions and false information lead to bullying, eating disorders, depression, and self-harm.
“It doesn’t matter how much positive energy you put out into the world; you’re still going to have people who have something mean to say about you”, the artist continued on last month’s Instagram Live. ”What I won’t accept is y’all doing this to Black women over and over and over again, especially us big Black girls. When we don’t fit into the box that you want to put us in, you just unleash hatred onto us. It’s not cool. I’m doing this shit for the big Black women in the future who just want to live their lives without being scrutinized or put into boxes.”
As if attacking Lizzo’s appearance wasn’t enough, people then took to social media to blame the reason for her meltdown on the alleged lack of success of her new single, “Rumors.” Cardi B, who is featured on the track, quickly took to Twitter to defend Lizzo and the song.
“Rumors is doing great. Stop trying to say the song is flopping to dismiss a woman(‘s) emotions on bullying or acting like they need sympathy,” Cardi tweeted. “The song is top 10 on all platforms. Body shaming and callin’ her mammy is mean & racist as fuck.”
“Mammy,” by the way, is a derogatory term used to label plus-size, dark skinned Black women who are loud, desexualized and cater to white people.
Cardi B’s comments seem to be directed at tweets that accused Lizzo of being a race traitor.
“No shade but Lizzo is a mammy for the white gaze,” one user wrote. “Only reason her act is marketed and executed like that.”
“I’m not making music for white people,” Lizzo said in response to those types of comments. ”I make Black music, period. Your internalized self-hatred that you project onto me, with your racism and fatphobia, I don’t have time for it.”
Ironically, in “Rumors” Lizzo sings that, “Black people made rock and roll.” She’s right. Black people’s contributions are forgotten time and time again. Black artists are often criticized for not making “Black music.” The reality is that Black people are not limited to creating or just listening to hip-hop/rap, reggae and R&B. Rock, pop, country, blues, and jazz are genres that have been loved and dominated by Black folks for years. Those who are ignorant to this are a sad example of how Black culture is white-washed, appropriated, and Black artists are expected to fit into stereotypes.
On Tik-Tok, Lizzo addressed comments that accuse her of being a caricature.
“This is exactly why I started out the song with, ‘They don’t know I do it for the culture,’” she said. “These people who are saying this are probably the same people who are mad when I’m being hyper sexual. And the mammy trope is desexualized so it can’t both be true. Make it make sense. I really think people are just mad to see a fat black woman who makes pop music and is happy. Y’all are so upset that I’m happy.”
But haters do what they do—And that’s just how it is. Unfortunately, there will always be people in the world who have negative things to say about you regardless of what you look like. Haters are going to hate, but other people’s opinions of you don’t define you.