Lizzo knows some of the criticism she's received after a landmark year.
Lizzo knows some of the criticism she's received after a landmark year.
The 31-year-old singer had an incredible 2019 and is the most nominated artist at this year's GRAMMYs, but, of course, it hasn't all been smooth sailing. In a candid new interview with Rolling Stone, Lizzo addresses some of the more harsh comments about her music when the magazine points out that she's been called "corny" and an "industry plant." Specifically, the outlet notes, "The most consistent, painful insult, though, is that she makes music for white people, that she's merely shuckin’ and jivin' for an audience of yas kween-era white feminists."
Lizzo, however, takes the criticism in stride.
"Yeah, there's hella white people at my shows," she says. “What am I gonna do, turn them away? My music is for everybody."
"As a black woman, I make music for people, from an experience that is from a black woman," she adds. "I'm making music that hopefully makes other people feel good and helps me discover self-love. That message I want to go directly to black women, big black women, black trans women. Period."
Lizzo's outlook is notably different from how she's handled some criticism in the past, like when she made headlines last April after Pitchfork gave her album, Cuz I Love You, a less-than-glowing review. "People who review albums and don’t make music themselves should be unemployed," she tweeted in response at the time. Lizzo -- who announced she's taking a break from Twitter earlier this month, citing "too many trolls" -- acknowledges that she's made some mistakes on the platform, like when she apologized after alleging that a Postmates driver stole her food and posting a screenshot of the woman's picture.
"That was the end of that era for me," she says of her Twitter dramas. "I was fu**in' wrong. I’m big enough to admit that sh**."
She also says she accepts that not everyone is going to like her -- with some colorful language, of course.
"Look, I'm new," she explains. "You put two plates of food in front of people, [and] one is some fried chicken. If you like fried chicken that’s great. And the other is, like, fried ostrich pu**y. You not gonna want to f**k with that."
"We eventually get used to everything," she continues. "So people just gon’ have to get used to my a**."
More importantly, Lizzo has learned to love herself. The singer gets candid about a few formative experiences in the past, like when she was 19 and trying to be someone she wasn't for a guy she was interested in.
"Skinny guys like me," she says. “But I remember he was like, 'I'm a little guy. I need a little girl.'"
Lizzo says she tried to emulate Zooey Deschanel at the time, but she couldn't "just wake up and be a white girl." These days, she says she is confident in herself and happy.
"I've come to terms with body dysmorphia and evolved," she shares. "The body-positive movement is doing the same thing. We're growing together, and it’s growing pains, but I’m just glad that I’m attached to something so organic and alive."
Furthermore, she is tired of talking about her body.
"I'm so much more than that," she notes. "Because I actually present that, I have a whole career. It's not a trend."
ET spoke to Lizzo last August, when she talked about her NSFW DMs with Rihanna as well as working with Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Lopez. Watch the video below for more:
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