Lizzo has revealed that after her new album BITCH failed to make a dent in the charts like she thought it would, SZA called her to comfort her.
In an interview with Zachary Hourihane for Proto Pop, Lizzo candidly spoke about her latest album, its first week sales, and how it impacted her. “I think, right now, dropping the album, I took it to heart really, really heavily,” she said around the 53-minute mark below. “I hurt my own feelings. I was really stressed, and was really sad for a few days because I was just like, wait a minute, this is some of my best stuff”
“I had to come to terms with the fact that not only is the music industry different in the last three years…my relationship and my connection musically with the world, I had to mourn that,” she added.
Lizzo continued on, explaining how she first learned about her presaves and preorder numbers a few weeks before the album and, in a panic, decided to go out and hang up posters and take the marketing for BITCH into her own hands.
“I had all of these high hopes, I think, for what we’d do the first week, and it didn’t match,” Lizzo admitted. “I was so excited because I met my pre-save goal and I met all of that, and then it dropped, and I was like, Oh, this is not what I thought it would be.”
Once she saw how much she sold, Lizzo revealed that it upset her greatly. “There were 24 hours of my life that I based my success, and my worth, on a number — and I think that was soul crushing,” Lizzo explained. “Thank god for Solana (SZA’s real name). SZA called me and was like, ‘Hey, you’re on my mind!'”
“I was like (mimicking crying), ‘Am I a failure?’ ‘She was like, ‘Oh my God, no!'” continued Lizzo, reflecting on the conversation. “She was so sweet, and I meditated and prayed on it. I was, like, this is why I don’t judge myself and my success, or impact, on numbers because it’s soul-crushing if you do.”
Lizzo’s BITCH sold 2,650 copies in its first week and failed to secure a spot on the Billboard 200. Her previous album, Special, came out in 2022 and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. It sold 69,000 copies in its first week.