The singer’s body-positive anthems once defined her. Now lawsuits, weight loss and flop singles have shaken her image
Lizzo’s ascent to mainstream stardom was the type of fairytale that pop dreams are made of. She was a long-hustling musician, Houston-raised then Minneapolis-made. She had a co-sign from Prince two years before she was even signed to a major label; then, it took another three years after debuting on Atlantic for the world to know her name.
When they finally learned it, it became hard to escape her. In 2019, she had sleeper hit after sleeper hit rise to the top of the charts. First, 2017’s bouncy break-up kiss-off Truth Hurts stormed to No 1, then 2015’s empower-pop anthem Good as Hell joined the song in the Top 10. For a few years following, Lizzo was unstoppable in spite of all the odds being stacked against her: she was a brown-skinned, plus-size pop star who put on athletic performances and dressed just as sexy as her skinny peers. Her image was brash, bold and radical, which made her controversial to many just for existing.
But since 2022, Lizzo’s midas touch has waned. It’s not for lack of trying: she’s released three new singles – all in the same throwback-pop vein as the hits that catapulted her to platinum status and arenas around the world – as well as a brattier, heavier rap-centric mixtape. She’s put on shows, has been promoting her fashion brand Yitty and continued sharing her life on social media.
But there’s only so much a pop star can do when a misconduct lawsuit is looming. In 2023, just weeks after she appeared on the massive Barbie soundtrack, three of her former back-up dancers filed a lawsuit against her, her production company and her dance captain. The claims are in jarring opposition to the progressive feminist who became a hero in the body-positivity moment: Lizzo was accused of sexual misconduct, weight-shaming and creating a hostile work environment. Her former creative director, another back-up dancer and a film-maker who trailed Lizzo in 2019 for a documentary all supported the claims. A month later, Asha Daniels, a fashion designer, filed a similar lawsuit against Lizzo claiming sexual and racial harassment and disability discrimination, though a judge ruled Daniels could not sue Lizzo as an individual. However, Daniels’ suit against Lizzo’s production company is still ongoing.
Lizzo has maintained her innocence. She called the allegations “absurd” and requested that a Los Angeles judge drop her back-up dancers’ case, though the judge denied her request. In a New York magazine cover story, she further defended herself, essentially chalking up the allegations to a hit on her character and her career.
To both long-time and newer Lizzo fans, the lawsuit unraveled the entire foundation of Lizzo’s brand. Mixed with an over-discussed weight loss in the years since, that radical and empowering image of Lizzo began to feel like a sham. Who even is she to the public now?
By the lack of buzz for any of her recent singles, it’s clear no one has figured that out just yet, least of all Lizzo. Since she’s still signed to Atlantic, her several attempts at a chart comeback over the past year have reached for the stars but barely made a splash. Her 2025 singles Love in Real Life and Still Bad were meant to lead a new album titled Love in Real Life and had all the makings of algorithm-friendly Lizzo megahits: funky and rhythmic retromania with Instagram caption-friendly lyrics about turning a look to turn up. But neither even cracked the Hot 100. (She later revealed to New York that she was making an entirely new album.)
With last June’s surprise mixtape My Face Hurts From Smiling, it seemed like Lizzo was digging to somewhere deeper. The sound was less pristine and much looser than the radio-friendly funk-pop she had built her global stardom around. It might have felt like a treat to the OG fans, who knew her in her indie rap days, just now with a star-studded crew of friends like Doja Cat and SZA to round out the track list. But even that failed to get attention: nearly half the songs have barely cracked a million streams on Spotify.
This month, she started a whole new cycle with the single Don’t Make Me Love U. Mixing Private Dancer-era Tina Turner with Bad-era Michael Jackson, Lizzo once again hits her once-successful musical formula. The video is more attention-grabbing than the rest of her recent output: she sings to the larger-bodied version of herself from the Cuz I Love You Era, re-creating the album cover as she hugs her past self. It’s a provocative video that attempts to meaningfully address the constant commentary about her body – but it doesn’t seem like anyone is interested in what Lizzo has to say.
It’s clear in her Instagram comments that while many who may have judged her size before are quick to tell her how good she looks now. Meanwhile, those who may have seen her as a rare mirror in pop culture feel tinges of betrayal. But the Don’t Make Me Love U video’s aim to hopefully address her complex feelings and shift to “body neutrality” (as she called it in New York magazine) through visual metaphor was viewed less than half a million times in the first two weeks of its release: a striking fall from grace for a major label pop star. Besides, in the age of GLP-1s, when most major female celebrities are now bordering on dangerously thin, the message feels emptier than usual.
It’s not like there isn’t room for Lizzo’s sound anymore. Kitschy, nostalgic dance pop almost always has a place on the charts. Even if the new songs pale in the energy, bombast and newness of her breakthrough hits, they’re still legibly her. That’s been enough for them to find syncs in trailers and shows while Lizzo herself made a flashy return to Saturday Night Live last year as well as the daytime talk show circuit. But her recent press appearances and social media have carried a whiff of desperation, trying to recapture the zeitgeist the way she did so easily for a few years. Earlier this year, she made controversial comments about the Epstein files on TikTok that she had to delete. This week, she revealed startlingly intimate details of waiting until she won her first Grammy in her 30s to lose her virginity. Both grabbed the headlines in a way that her new music did not.
Her shows have been more intimate showcases of her voice, like the mini-residencies she held at the Blue Note in Los Angeles and New York. The Blue Note shows were well-reviewed; one thing Lizzo always excelled at was being a performer given her time spent in the Minneapolis club circuit. She still has some juice, it seems, but the general public who aren’t attending those gigs or watching the clips are keeping Lizzo’s juice on the shelf.
It’s a shame to lose a star like Lizzo from the mainstream, one who made fans who looked like her feel at home and powerful in a world that ignored or punished them for existing. But the truth that hurts even more is that it’s a bigger shame to realize that that version of her may have never really existed in the first place. It seems like Lizzo’s main goal right now is to “maintain” what she already lost. But the climb back to the top may be further than she realizes.
