For Vogue's October cover story, Lizzo is taking the "commercialized" body positivity movement to task. The 32-year-old pop star called out the fact that the movement has been appropriated and no longer benefits the people it claims to represent.
“Now, you look at the hashtag ‘body positive,’ and you see smaller-framed girls, curvier girls. Lotta white girls,” Lizzo explained to Vogue. “And I feel no ways about that, because inclusivity is what my message is always about. I’m glad that this conversation is being included in the mainstream narrative.”
“What I don’t like is how the people that this term was created for are not benefiting from it," she continued. "Girls with back fat, girls with bellies that hang, girls with thighs that aren’t separated, that overlap. Girls with stretch marks. You know, girls who are in the 18-plus club. They need to be benefiting from ... the mainstream effect of body positivity now. But with everything that goes mainstream, it gets changed. It gets — you know, it gets made acceptable.”
The 'Truth Hurts' singer also explained why she prefers the term "body-normative' over 'body positive' during her chat with Vogue. “I think it’s lazy for me to just say I’m body positive at this point,” Lizzo said. “It’s easy. I would like to be body-normative. I want to normalize my body. And not just be like, ‘Ooh, look at this cool movement. Being fat is body positive.’ No, being fat is normal. I think now, I owe it to the people who started this to not just stop here. We have to make people uncomfortable again, so that we can continue to change,” she added. “Change is always uncomfortable, right?”
Photo: Getty