On Monday, Lizzo (né Melissa Viviane Jefferson) was unveiled as New York Magazine’s latest cover star. In the piece, the embattled pop star takes writer Allison Davis to her “all love and light” psychic and into her mansion that’s awash with sound bowls and complete with a personal chef in the kitchen. The house (on a lot previously owned by “her friend” Harry Styles) also includes a terrace, where Davis notes Lizzo instructs her assistant to bring her a pair of cargo pants from her own activewear line so she could “strip down” and put them on. As one would expect, thatpesky lawsuit was a primary topic.
According to Lizzo, she’s had a tough time since three former backup dancers accused her of cultivating a hostile work environment via sexual, religious, and racial harassment in 2023. To cope, she took a break from the spotlight, stopped putting out new music, and sought refuge in vacations, a “lifestyle change that resulted in the intentional release of weight,” and yeah, her very obsequious psychic.
Now, she’s soft-launching a comeback (hence the cover) and, as such, letting it rip on all those supposedly false accusations in the lawsuit. In case you forgot, three former dancers on Lizzo’s tour, Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams, and Noelle Rodriguez, alleged she perpetrated a number of offenses that ranged from fat-shaming to pressuring the women to interact with nude performers in Amsterdam’s red light district against their will. These things, Lizzo insists in the interview, were simply taken out of context and purposefully presented with “vague language” in the suit.
“Y’all believed a headline. It was like, Holy shit, this person, me, the real me, that I’ve put on display so proudly and fearlessly for so many years, isn’t me anymore to the world,” she vented, adding that she has always been “very fun,” “very flirty,” “a little hypersexual, a little boy crazy.” Only after said suit were those things suddenly a problem, according to Lizzo. In May, Lizzo appealed the dancers’ filing on grounds that it was “an attack on Lizzo’s First Amendment right to perform her music and advocate for body positivity.”
“That’s like somebody taking who you are and rearranging it into something you’re not,” she added. “They turn you into a fish, and you’re like, ‘But I’m a human. I’m not a fish. How am I going to live life as a fish? I live on air.’” I’m sorry, aren’t Taureans supposed to be grounded???
Then, when asked about speculation that her “body-positive brand” was nothing but performative in light of the fat-phobia allegations and her own recent weight loss, Lizzo credited herself for mothering the “trend” of loving oneself as you are.
“How can any of that be performative and fake when it was my actual life?” she asked Davis rhetorically. “Who can keep that façade up for years? For people to say it’s beneficial to be body-positive when that wasn’t even the trend. I made it the trend. I’m one of the ones who forged it.” OK…
Nowhere in the story does Lizzo take responsibility for the allegations, nor does she express regret for how her behavior might’ve possibly just landed poorly among those who once worked for her. What has she learned over the last year? Well, not to trust people. “I had this scrappy indie-artist brain,” Lizzo explained. “But I was a Grammy Award–winning, Emmy Award–winning artist. You can’t move in the same way.”Sounds healthy!
“Nobody reads magazines anymore. I don’t know why… I can only assume it’s cus nobody reads??? But also journalism has become clickbaity & lazy,” Lizzo wrote in an Instagram caption sharing the cover. “I spent real time with a real writer and I think this article is written raw and honestly. It’s not perfect but neither am I so I hope you enjoy.”
