Lizzo has a message for anyone who wants to criticize her body transformation.
The “Truth Hurts” singer, who has chronicled her ongoing health journey over the last few years, took to Substack on Nov. 24 to pen a powerful essay addressing the public’s perception of her recent weight loss and the recent cultural shifts in the body positive movement.
The 37-year-old explained how many people have judged her for slimming down since she has always been a musician who “sang about self-love.” In reality, however, Lizzo said she never set out to be skinny.
“It was never about being ‘thin’ for me. I don’t even think it’s possible for me to be considered actually ‘thin.’ I will always have the stretch, and the skin of a woman who carries great weight. And I’m proud of that. Even when the world doesn’t want me to be,” she wrote.
Lizzo said she started losing weight in the fall of 2023 when she was “severely depressed” and “deeply suicidal” after being the subject of a “vicious scandal” — the lawsuit the singer’s former backup dancers filed against her that alleged sexual harassment and a hostile work environment. Lizzo has denied the allegations.
The singer recalled how she began to experience “self-loathing and self-neglect.” At that point, she took up Pilates and started to lose a bit of weight, even though it “wasn’t intentional.”
“After talking to a few therapists I discovered that my weight had been a protective shield, a joyful comfort zone, and even sometimes a super hero suit to protect me through life. My weight, like my hair, represented time. It stored energy. And I wanted to release myself from it,” she wrote.
From there, Lizzo decided to think of weight loss in a different way, viewing each “pound ‘lost’” as a “pound ‘released.’”
Afterward, some people began to criticize her for losing weight.
“We’re in an era where the bigger girls are getting smaller because they’re tired of being judged. And now those bigger girls are being judged for getting smaller by the very community they used to empower,” she wrote. “There’s nothing wrong with living in a bigger body. There’s nothing wrong with being fat. But if a woman wants to change, she should be allowed to change.”
Lizzo specifically wanted to change “how I felt in my body.”
“I had been holding onto so much since my father passed away in 2009. I had been holding onto relationships that were deeply abusive and toxic since 2011. I had been carrying the weight of supporting my family since 2016. I wanted to let-it-the-f— go,” she wrote.
Lizzo, who said she still weighs over 200 pounds, noted that she was “very conscious” of the way she presented her health journey to the world.
“I made sure not to say how much weight I actually released because I didn’t want anyone holding themselves to a certain standard,” she wrote.
Still, Lizzo said the body positivity movement she has always embraced has changed drastically over the years.
“The body positive movement gave me wings and I could sore to unimaginable heights. But then it started to generate big business. And just like that it became branded for everyone. Unfortunately, once something becomes for everyone, the people that it was originally created for are edged out. It’s no longer for us anymore,” she wrote.
While reflecting on the current state of the movement, Lizzo mentioned the rise of weight-loss medications and how their growing popularity has affected people’s perception of beauty. She also noted that extended clothing sizes are not as readily available anymore and asserted that plus-size models are “no longer getting booked for modeling gigs.”
“We have a lot of work to do, to undo the effects of the ozempic boom,” she wrote. “I have a lot of work to do to regain the trust of the movement that gave me wings.”
Despite her concerns, Lizzo said she is still “a proud big girl.”
“And I love myself as much as I’ve loved myself no matter what the scale says. There may be some bad actors amongst us. Some people may have used the movement for financial gain or fame, and once it no longer served them they abandoned it. That’s ok, it was never about them anyway,” she wrote.