American singer Lizzo has opened up about the emotional struggles behind her recent weight loss, revealing she grew increasingly frustrated with being defined solely by her size.
In her debut Substack post titled “Why is everybody losing weight and what do we do? Sincerely, a person who’s lost weight,” the 37-year-old star explained that although she was long celebrated as a champion of body positivity, she felt her talent as a musician was often overlooked.
“I was sick and tired of my identity being overshadowed by my fatness,” she wrote. “People could not see my talent as a musician because they were too busy accusing me of making ‘being fat’ my whole personality.”
Lizzo added that the public treatment she endured — particularly after rising to fame as a confident figure in the body-positivity movement — amounted to “borderline emotional abuse.”
Despite humorously addressing memes and fat-shaming comments, the singer said many people assumed her confidence was fake or “performative,” even though she was “the first body-positive musician to become mainstream.”
A Turning Point Amid Scandals and Deep Depression
Lizzo said she did not initially set out to lose weight, but a wave of lawsuits filed by former dancers and staff in 2023 plunged her into severe depression.
The allegations included sexual harassment, fat-shaming, and creating a hostile work environment — claims Lizzo has repeatedly denied.
“I was severely depressed… I became deeply suicidal. I cut off all my loved ones,” she wrote. “In my self-loathing and self-neglect, I began to rot.”
Determined to take control of her health, she turned to Pilates, working only with Black women instructors and using the practice as a form of physical therapy. At first, weight loss was unintentional.
“Not Pounds Lost — Pounds Released”
Therapy helped Lizzo recognize that her weight had long served as a “protective shield” and an emotional buffer through years of trauma, grief, and responsibility.
“It stored energy. And I wanted to release myself from it,” she said. “Any weight… was not a pound lost but a pound released. It was energetic for me, not vain.”
She admitted she also wanted to change how she felt physically, revealing she had carried emotional burdens since her father’s death in 2009, along with toxic relationships and pressure to support her family.
“I wanted to let-it-the-f**k go,” she wrote.
Lizzo has credited her transformation to discipline, emotional healing, and therapy, though she also acknowledged using Ozempic and other GLP-1 medications as part of her journey.
Her reflections mark one of the most candid explanations she has shared publicly about her physical and emotional evolution.
