Lizzo believes that we as a society need to “undo the effects of the Ozempic boom” because plus-size women are being “erased.”
The 37-year-old musician appeared on Substack on Sunday and shared an essay titled, “Why is everyone losing weight? What should we do? People who have lost weight, from the bottom of my heart.”
Lizzo, who began losing weight in the fall of 2023 following a very public harassment and hostile work environment scandal, confessed that the ordeal made her “severely suicidal.”
She says that “when I was sad and depressed, I tended to binge eat and drink,” but after her reputation suffered, “I stopped feeling like that.”
Seeking “a way to process pain through my body,” Lizzo started Pilates. (Over the summer, she finally decided to try Ozempic, a weight loss drug originally intended to treat type II diabetes, early in her transformation journey.)
“I noticed I lost some weight in the process, but it wasn’t as noticeable as it is now because it wasn’t intentional,” she wrote.
“That winter, I decided to sit down and record a video to intentionally lose weight. Why? I guess I felt like I had lost everything and wanted a change.”
Lizzo decided to “free” herself from the weight and energy she was carrying.
“It wasn’t waste for me, it was energy,” she wrote, noting that she didn’t want to be one of those “big celebrities” who tell fans they lost weight “for medical reasons.”
Although she acknowledged that her health had improved, she insisted that she “wanted to change the way my body felt.”
“For me, it was never about being ‘thin.’ I don’t even think it’s possible for me to actually be considered “thin.” Always stretch to maintain feminine skin that can support your weight. And I’m proud of it. Even when the world doesn’t want me,” she explained.
The singer-songwriter admits that she was “tired of having my identity obscured by my weight,” and she knows that her experience is not unique to her.
“We’re in a time where big girls are getting small because they’re tired of being judged, and now those big girls are being judged for being small by the very communities they once empowered,” she argued.
“There’s nothing wrong with living in a larger body. There’s nothing wrong with being fat. But if women want to change, they should be allowed to change.”
According to Lizzo, “plus-size people are magically disappearing from websites,” “plus-size models are no longer being booked for modeling jobs,” and “all of our big girls aren’t that big anymore.”
She describes herself as still “objectively large” and weighs “over 200 pounds,” but feels that “some people may have used the (body positivity) movement for financial gain or fame and quit when it no longer serves them.”
“We have a lot of work to do to reverse the effects of the Ozempic boom. There is a lot of work to do to restore the faith of this movement that gave me wings,” she concluded.
Lizzo is “willing and ready” to take on the work by continuing the “dialogue,” holding herself and her colleagues “accountable,” and reintroducing “nuance to the discussion.”
The rapper has previously revealed that he saw the best results in his physical transformation when he ditched a vegan diet and started eating meat.
