Lizzo has clarified a statement last week in which the musician appeared to be declaring her intention to leave the entertainment industry. In a video posted to her Instagram on Tuesday, Lizzo said that her “I quit” statement was in reference to giving into negativity, and not creating or performing her music.
“When I say I quit, I mean I quit giving any negative energy attention,” the four-time Grammy award winner said. “What I’m not gonna quit is the joy of my life, which is making music, which is connecting to people.”
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“I know I’m not alone. In no way, shape or form am I the only person who is experiencing the negative voices that seem to be louder than the positive,” she continued. “If I can just give one person the inspiration or motivation to stand up for themselves and say they quit letting negative people win, negative comments win. then I’ve done even more than I could have hoped for … I’m going to keep moving forward, I’m gonna keep being me.”
Tuesday’s post follows up on another from 29 March in which the singer, whose real name is Melissa Jefferson, said she had grown tired of “being dragged by everyone in my life and on the internet” and being the constant subject of jokes about her looks.
“All I want is to make music and make people happy and help the world be a little better than how I found it. But I’m starting to feel like the world doesn’t want me in it,” the post read. “My character being picked apart by people who don’t know me and disrespecting my name. I didn’t sign up for this shit. I quit.”
Since Lizzo came to national visibility in the late 2010s following singles including Juice and Good as Hell, her size and choice to wear revealing clothing made her a heroine of the body-positivity movement but also the subject of fat-shaming comments and online ridicule.
In May 2023, Lizzo locked her Twitter account and threatened to leave the music industry amid a wave of body-shaming comments that speculated about her diet and whether she had avoided losing weight because it would not be advantageous to her brand.
Lizzo clapped back in an Instagram post showing her on stage holding a sign that read: “I’m sorry people on Twitter suck. You are beautiful and special.”
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The post was captioned: “I 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 battling a lawsuit filed by three of her former dancers for sexual harassment, racial discrimination and fostering a hostile work environment. She had petitioned the courts to dismiss the lawsuits, but a judge denied her motion in February.
In September, she was named in a second lawsuit by her former clothing stylist, who alleges she was subjected to bullying and sexual and racial harassment in an “unsafe, sexually charged workplace culture”. Lizzo has requested that the case be dismissed, but a decision is still pending.
Despite the allegations and continuing negative online comments, Lizzo has continued to lead a successful career. She has won four Grammy awards and an Emmy for the reality series Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, and she performed the opening song in last summer’s Barbie movie. And she still posts videos and photos of herself modeling swimwear and shapewear from her brand Yitty, a partnership with Fabletics.