These days, it seems like you don’t have to wander far to find a group of women unapologetically shouting the lyrics to Lizzo‘s “Truth Hurts.” The song, which was released in 2017 but experienced a resurgence this year, is all about confidence and self-love. And while we can probably all agree that the 31-year-old singer-rapper-flautist has an abundance of both those things, she’s over being considered “brave” for loving and embracing her body, which is something she spoke about candidly in a new interview with Glamour.
“When people look at my body and be like, ‘Oh my God, she’s so brave,’ it’s like, ‘No I’m not,'” Lizzo told the magazine. “I’m just fine. I’m just me. I’m just sexy.” And while comments like that may sound complimentary at first, all they really do is perpetuate the toxic notion that being thin is beautiful and being anything else is, well, not. “If you saw Anne Hathaway in a bikini on a billboard, you wouldn’t call her brave,” she said. “I just think there’s a double standard when it comes to women.”
And she’s right. If you look at some of the tweets fans send her way, many of them seem to express surprise and envy of her self-confidence. “I don’t like it when people think it’s hard for me to see myself as beautiful,” she said. “I don’t like it when people are shocked that I’m doing it.” The fact that they’re shocked is exactly the issue here. And furthermore, it’s proof that we’re not where we need to be in terms of breaking down beauty standards.
Fortunately, Lizzo believes we now have the tools to change how society sees plus-size women. Today, the Internet offers us the chance to see real women of all shapes and sizes, rather than women whose bodies have been unrealistically manipulated for a magazine cover. “Back in the day, all you really had were the modeling agencies,” she said. “I think that’s why it made everything so limited for what was considered beautiful. It was controlled from this one space. But now we have the Internet.”
And in many ways, the internet is what helped the “Juice” singer come to the realization that she is beautiful. It was there that she could see women who looked like her; women who proved that beauty isn’t only what we see in glossy, high-fashion magazines. “If you want to see somebody who’s beautiful who looks like you, go on the Internet and just type something in. Type in ‘blue hair.’ Type in ‘thick thighs.’ Type in ‘back fat.’ You’ll find yourself reflected. That’s what I did to help find the beauty in myself.”
Overall, Lizzo just wants people to know that there’s an entire generation of artists who aren’t “brave” for being “fearless in self-love.” Rather, they wholeheartedly love themselves, and we need that to become the new standard. “Let’s just make space for these women,” she said. “… They’re out here. They want to be free. I think allowing that space to be made is really what’s going to shift the narrative in the future. Let’s stop talking about it and make more space for people who are about it.”
