Lizzo, the singer who manages to draw volleys of online criticism by obliquely situating herself on what seems like the wrong side of a culture war fight to some on the online right, such as when people went apoplectic over her playing James Madison’s crystal flute.
But, far more angering to some has been her seeming support of the “beautiful at any size” talking point, which critics say encourages unhealthy habits. Now she’s saying body-shaming commenters might make her quit music.
Posting about that on Twitter (her tweets are now “protected,” so they can only be viewed by her followers and cannot be embedded), the 35-year-old singer said, alongside a screenshot of a critical message about her weight, “I JUST logged on and the app and this is the type of sh** I see about me on a daily basis.” The critical tweet included a picture of her dancing on stage and mocked her weight.
Lizzo then said, “It’s really starting to make me hate the world. 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.”
Continuing, she added, in subsequent tweets about the hateful, critical messages directed her way, “The Love definitely do not outweigh the Hate on social media… all because I’m fat????” and “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–KING FARM…”
In a Wednesday tweet about the issue, she also said, “I literally NEVER search my name this stuff just comes up on my TL & my FYP it’s wild. I swear I just wanna look at dance videos and science news and this s–t comes in every day…” For reference, TL stands for timeline, and FYP stands for “for you page.” Those are two ways of viewing new tweets on Twitter.
Lizzo then went on to say that she’s neither trying to be “fat” or “thin” but just healthy, saying, “I’m not trying to BE fat I’m not trying to BE smaller I’m literally just trying to live and be healthy. This is what my body looks like even when I’m eating super clean and working out!”
Not quite done yet, she then added one more comment, saying, “Yall speak on s–t y’all know NOTHING ABOUT and I’m starting to get heated.”
Related to her “I’m not trying to be…” tweet, she said in a May 15 video that though she loves exercise and “moving” her body, she is neither trying to lose weight and get thin nor does she want to be thin. In her words: “I’m not trying to be thin, I don’t ever want to be thin.” Statements like that are ones that online critics find harmful, as they argue they might encourage people to not lose weight, which would have a deleterious effect on them from a health perspective.
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