Lizzo Thinks It’s “Lazy” To Call Herself Body Positive

Appearing on the cover of Vogue's October 2020 issue, Lizzo opened up about her perceived role in the body positivity movement. During the interview, she addressed what she deemed to be a commercialization of the term, saying that the body positivity hashtag isn't as inclusive as it needs to be.

Instead of using her work and musical platform as a means of spreading a message of body positivity, she said she wants to normalize her body. "I think it’s lazy for me to just say I’m body positive at this point,” she told Vogue. "It’s easy. I would like to be body-normative. I want to normalize my body. And not just be like, ‘Ooh, look at this cool movement. Being fat is body positive.’ No, being fat is normal. I think now, I owe it to the people who started this to not just stop here. We have to make people uncomfortable again, so that we can continue to change. Change is always uncomfortable, right?”

Pointing specifically to social media, she challenged whether the Internet is truly spurring the right conversations on body types. "You look at the hashtag ‘body positive,’ and you see smaller-framed girls, curvier girls. Lotta white girls. And I feel no ways about that, because inclusivity is what my message is always about. I’m glad that this conversation is being included in the mainstream narrative. What I don’t like is how the people that this term was created for are not benefiting from it," she said.

The performer continued, saying that "girls with back fat, girls with bellies that hang, girls with thighs that aren’t separated, that overlap. Girls with stretch marks. You know, girls who are in the 18-plus club" need to also benefit from body positivity messaging. However, she admits that the more something becomes mainstream, the more likely it is that things will change.

Lizzo told Vogue that she wants to take "full responsibility for the way the world perceives me because that is the way they’re gonna perceive someone who looks like me in the future." She touched on this idea further in an Instagram post announcing her Vogue cover, writing, "I am the first big black woman on the cover of @voguemagazine. The first black anything feels overdue. But our time has come. To all my black girls, if someone like you hasn’t done it yet— BE THE FIRST."