‘I hate it here’: Lizzo threatens to quit music over body shaming

Lizzo has made the shock announcement that she may quit the music industry over incessant fat-shaming after a series of vicious comments made about her on Twitter. 

The Grammy-winning artist has long been an advocate of body positivity, celebrating plus-size women in her live performances and shooting down trolls who make frequent comments about her weight. 

But after a recent encounter with yet more fat-shaming comments, Lizzo grew visibly frustrated and said she was close to quitting her music career. 
 

“I HATE IT HERE,” the singer wrote in a series of tweets before locking her Twitter account on Wednesday. 

“Y’all don’t know how close I be to giving up on everyone and quitting and enjoying my money and my man on a f***ing farm,” she continued.

The “Good As Hell” singer was responding, in part, to a fat-shaming post from bitcoin investor Layah Heilpern, which included a video of the artist dancing onstage and was captioned: “How is Lizzo still THIS fat when she’s constantly moving this much on stage?! I wonder what she must be eating”, alongside the laughing emoji. 

“I JUST logged on the app and this is the type of s**t I see about me on a daily basis,” Lizzo wrote in response. 

“Then someone in the comments said I eat ‘lots of fast food.’ I LITERALLY STOPPED EATING FAST FOOD YEARS AGO. I’m tired of explaining myself all the time and I just wanna get on this app w/out seeing my name in some bulls**t.”
 

“Being fat isn’t my ‘brand’. Being fat is what my body looks like. That’s it. That is all,” she added. 

“My ‘brand’ is feel good music. My ‘brand’ is championing all people. My ‘brand’ is Black girl liberation.

“This is what my body looks like even when I’m eating super clean and working out!”

The singer said she “never” searches for the cruel comments, but she sees them on Twitter and Instagram anyway. 
 

Lizzo has built a lucrative career after her song “Truth Hurts” was featured in the romantic comedy Someone Great, catapulting her into pop superstardom. 

She is a professional flautist, often breaking out into impressive flute solos mid-concert, has a shapewear line called Yitty “designed for all body types” and, in 2022, launched the Emmy-winning Prime Video reality show “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” in which she searches for plus-size dancers to join her on tour.

Though the recent wave of body-shaming comments pushed Lizzo off Twitter, she followed up her tweets with a video posted to Instagram on Wednesday. 

In the video, the singer can be seen standing on stage at a concert holding a sign that reads: “I’m sorry people on Twitter suck. You are beautiful & special,” presumably passed to her by a fan.
 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Lizzo (@lizzobeeating)

“I don’t just speak up for me, I speak up for everybody,” she tells her audience in the clip. 

“It’s not normal, this isn’t fair, this isn’t right … Somebody tried to tell me it comes with the territory. No, this s**t should never come with the territory of being a person, being a human being just existing.

“I’m going through it, and I know you’re going through it, so if no one’s told you today — I love you, you are beautiful and you can get through anything.” 

Lizzo captioned the post: “Will never shut up about how difficult y’all make it for fat people to simply exist.

“Minding your business is *free*. If the Internet was limited and one comment took 24hrs to post I wonder what social media would be like.”

Lizzo is on tour in support of her 2022 album “Special”, which picked up a Grammy nomination for album of the year. She will land in Australia next month.