INTERVIEW: Lizzo On Self-Love, Weight Release, Industry Exploits, Streaming, New Music + More

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Wake that ass up in the morning.

Breakfast Club Morning, Everybody's DJ NV Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne, the Guide. We are the Breakfast Club law La Rosa is here as well, and we got a special guest in the building.

Indeed, Lizzen that's up.

Hi.

How you feel?

I feel good, I'm a little sleepy. I'm not gonna lie.

You look good.

Everybody talks about your physical appearance and how you lost weight. But to me, I see somebody that has changed mentally and spiritually. I see somebody that's on a healing journey because you got to glow about you.

Yeah, thank you. Well that's where it starts.

I think I had to start with, you know, cleaning out my mind and my energy and clearing out all of the negativity around me. And I feel like I released so much I was holding on to and then it starts to manifest physically as well. Like that's why I don't call it a weight loss. I do call it a weight release because it started. I got snatched here first, and then my body just followed suit.

So I do feel amazing.

I feel like I've always been in a good place because I'm always a positive person. But I think that I was not aware of just like how much toxicity has started.

To kind of come around in my life.

And I had a really beautiful period of isolation and clearing of that energy. And now I just feel like, oh, I was holding on it so much.

You gotta let go. It's hard for me.

I'm a tourist, so I'll hold I'll hold the fuck on. Yeah, hard headed, stubborn, loyal, you know so. But I'm so glad you feel that it's an aura thing.

Yeah, you can definitely tell me, he said. Pilates helped a lot with it too, right.

I started out with pilates, yeah, because my back was hurting and that was the best way to get moving.

But I do a lot of things. I strength train, I do.

Yoga, sculpt I hike, I played pickleball, I got a water bike.

You know, a little bit you just Pilotates was one of the best. I did pilates with my daughter.

Wait, you do PILATEI yeah.

Wanted me to go with because I didn't want to go at first, but it was you know, you do some stuff with your daughter.

Yeah, and I did it.

She's twenty one, twenty three, and she took me to do pilates and it was the most amazing thing. All my aches, all my pains, he was able to stretch it out. It was it was I'm the only guy in there, damn.

Which is crazy because Pilates, that's a man. His name is Joseph Pilates. A man created it and is designed to help you with longevity. So he lived to be like well, I mean, I think he passed away in a house fire, but he could have lived to be like two hundred years old.

Just got changed the music a little bit. Sometimes that music is just don't.

Be funny, stuff that motivates you to keep doing it. Sometimes need a little I want to hear trap music. Some trap pilates is crazy. You better trademark that for somebody taking in Atlanta.

One of our friends, Weezy do that fitness we Need New York that does.

From the Decision of Decisions podcast.

She has an actual place called trap House Fitiness and that's what they do.

But is it called trap plates Because I'm a branding girl, I'm a trademarked that this.

Trap house fitness. I don't know that's cool.

Well, okay, it's not taken. It's a billion dollar idea.

You've always had a form of self love that people can see, but I feel like it's just.

More radical now.

Yeah, I think it has to be. I have to fight for it a little bit more, but I think I always have to fight for it though. Actually I just think it's just like, as your life changes and different things happen to you, you gotta you know, move differently. Yeah, I think it's just a life thing. Like you can't handle every situation in your life the same you get older, you grow up.

Everybody can relate to that.

I'm glad you said that because people think radical self love is a constant state, but no, you gotta fight for.

It every day.

I don't love myself every day when I wake up, Like some days I do wake up and I'm like, yes, But some days I wake up and I don't. And it's it's the act of seeking that, you know, love for yourself, and you don't actually always have to be love.

It could be like it could be tolerate, you know what I mean. I'm just or accepting that I.

Don't like it, and I'm cool with that, but I'm gonna get there one day. It's it's not a monolist, you know, it's a process.

At what point in your career did you get to this point where like you even like talk about that side of it more, Because I feel like when you first came out, even when you did talk about like stuff that wasn't as positive, you still kept it so positive. But now that you stream, you really get into like how you feel for real, what you're going through, you like, and it was a lot more protected when Lizzo first came on the scene. From what I felt like, the

I don't know.

I just think people know me a little bit more. So I think I'm able to communicate things and not put a bow on it or have a happy ending because y'all just know me more. I think when I first came out, people didn't know me. So the brand is very like one note because it's like, oh, that's that girl, that's the happy girl who'll be working with the flu, you know. And but that happens to everybody, Like any artists, you just become like a thing, you're

You know?

I always kind of flirted with it because I love like running my mouth and I love talking and I love talking to my fans. I've always been this person like with my social media. So I had a whole Twitch set up in my house, just ready to go, and I was like, I was like, I want to whole stream is set up now, I want games, all of that, the sims, and it was just in my house sitting there, and I was kind of intimidated by it. I would walk by it every day and be like

I don't know.

I just like average people might not know that cause casually talking about I am so sorry the track. So Sissa hit me and was like, I'm about to be on kay Sanat in like two hours, can you pull up with me? And I was like, fucky, I'm gonna pull up with you because I'm like, I was so afraid because it's like he has like hundreds and hundreds of thousands damn near million people watching and commenting in

W Lizzo, yeah, W Sizza, yeah, littlely.

Motes and shit, and I was like, oh, they're so nice, and that made me feel comfortable with diving into my own channel. I made Lizo be twitching and Kai got me like forty thousand subscribers in like two seconds. He was like, everybody, go spam Lizzo be twitching right now, and they all followed it, and I was like, Okay, now I have to stream because they just gonna be sitting in there, you know, building a cachet.

So that really helps?

Would you say, absolutely, I have to run my mouth. I'm a life path three, I'm a communicator. So therapy was the beginning of that. Like that saved my life, being able to talk to somebody once a week and just run my mouth and figure out my issues. And I feel like when I communicate, when I write music, when I sing songs, when I go on tour, when I talk to people, it is very healing and it's very connecting. I need to connect to feel good. I can't be disconnected. I go actually insane, I learned.

You mean you can't be disconnected from people.

Yeah, I can't be disconnected from people. I go insane.

So at a point where you said you had to step back and isolate, that was kind of hard for you too, since you had to, I mean, I know you had to do it, and it all, you know, made sense, and it made since in the end, but it still was challenging for you because you have to be connected to people person It was a little insanity, but I think in a little period of insanity can be helpful because you have to do really hard work.

You know and.

Love her or like her, or just know her and know what she wants and now I feel like I know who I am. I know whose I am and can't nobody shake that. Because once I reintroduced myself back into connecting with people and friends and trusting the Internet, and you know, I'm like, I know who I am.

I move with a different kind of confidence.

But why the Internet though, Because I say that, you say the Internet hates you, But you can leave your house and lizzle. Everybody wanna take a picture, you do a show. Everybody gonna come to your show and be cheering for you. So why the Internet? You know, is people that love you wouldn't be little if people didn't.

I didn't know that. That's the wild part.

I have a lot of my uh in the beginning, a lot of my career and my validation was based off of social media.

Like I was one.

I was a part of that first generation of artists who really like galvanize their following on social media because that wasn't like an industry standard.

Even people don't.

Even realize it's because we've been microwaved by the Internet. We don't realize how far we've moved in a very short amount of time. Like pre twenty fifteen, this social media was not even a conversation in labels. But there were people like me and little nas X and people like that. We were going online and we were just like talking to our fans like direct and galvanizing them and building a community.

And so all of.

My love because I'm not always on tour, I'm not always really a people like I be in the house.

I'm kind of boring.

So all of the love and like we love you, like you're amazing, like this is good, we fuck with you was all from the internet for me, and that was fine because I had built my community and I felt very safe with that, and then that all kind of changed, and I feel like the Lizzo that I am has always been truly me, and it was wild to see that, Like you reach a point of fame where somebody can change that just by saying something about

You know what I mean.

It's like Lizo got red toilet paper on her ride. Everyone will believe that. Like that's that's weird, Like that's just fame shit. So once that all changed, I started to I believed that I was loved because the Internet told me they loved me. And when the Internet hated me, I believed that I was hated and I didn't believe like so it was really weird. And when I isolated, I was really afraid of people. And there was this and there was I always say a concert, but it was renaissance.

It was like a concert in a park in la It was.

Renaissance, shout out beat, and I was like, I have to go. And I was so afraid to go because I just thought people were gonna, I don't know, throw tomatoes at me or something. I could get really self doubting in my head. But I pushed through and I went and I promised you. Like I it was like one person. Once one person recognized you, then like other people. So one person recognized me and they were like litzen and I was like, yes, I love you, come here and they hugged me.

And then I got a video of it.

You were in the crowd.

I was in the crowd, babe. I'm not in no sweet I was not in those sweet are renaissance. I was where the people are.

Thing. Yes, she was definitely. You were definitely like that. I saw you in.

The mall that day, and it was it was like a chain effect. People weren't noticing, but she was kind of timid with you. She was like, oh hi, And my buddy caught my friend Coy. I was like, he was like I just saw this. I was like, I want to meet her, and then he was like, I'm gonna take you over there, and I was like, oh my god, I'm scared to meet you, and you look.

Just as scared. I'm like, I get lizo.

Then other people noticed.

Then other people walking past notice, then the little girl noticed with her dad, and you got love. But you did seem like you were in a place where you didn't even know how to accept it.

Yeah.

At the mall, yep, I was really uncomfortable because I was like, I don't know what people are like thinking about me, and that shit fucks me up really bad, because if somebody's thinking something about me that's not true, and it's like I can't prove it, I can't, you know what I mean, It's just weird.

I was like uncomfortable.

So at the concert at Renaissance, people were just showing me love and hugging me and being like we got your back, like you know, shake that shit off, we love you. And I'm getting emotional now even thinking about I just started crying.

I was crying and I was.

Hugging them, and I was like, you know what, this is where real love is. You cannot get this shit off the internet. You cannot get this kind of love from the internet. It's the only the only kind of love you can get it like, this is in real life. And that I was like, I have to make an album about this. And so my album Love and Real Life Is started from that experience, and I started to rediscover what real love feels like, and what real connection and real community feels like.

And now I know I.

Can still get love on the Internet, but I also can curate it, and I can weed out the real from the fake. I can differentiate. Now I don't just believe everything, you know, I really actually at this point don't believe anything I see on the internet.

Seeing so much stuff about yourself. Even before that time, yeah, you were like, what that's just not true.

And I'll see things about my friends that's not true, and I'll be like what you mean, like with them right now, like that's not happening.

But you got to remember, nobody cares about the truth and the lives more entertaining.

As long as you know that, you wouldn't pay.

This sh Also, the mess is more entertaining. They don't. They don't care about the.

For it right.

We reward people who do that, give them thousands of dollars for these chats that are fake, and we don't punish them.

There's no penalty.

I was gonna say to the red toilet paper will be fire. You said that, and that shit been stuck in my head.

I just think got black toilet paper. I never seen no red toiler.

Red would be fire.

But you can't see nothing.

You can't see.

And I'm on my message right now. I don't want to take I just made something I don't need that.

I was gonna ask what puts you into that light?

Like you know, usually you're a pop star, right, and usually when you meet pop.

Stars period, they come on black girl popstar.

A lot of times that the assholes that stand office you don't see them, but we see you so much. And every time somebody asked me about Lizzo if she's been to the breakfast club I met.

I was like, she's the nicest, she's cool, she's.

Down to earth.

What puts you in that mind frame to say, I don't want to be like that. I want to be this. Wait, because you were at them all by yourself.

You were at the Charlemagne went to the consot last night asking what he was sweet, but you were out on the floor like you do.

Hey booze. Wait, okay wait. The first half of that question was pop stars are assholes?

You said A lot of times you see pop stars are I don't want to say assholes, but out of the way, like you can't touch them. They feel like they don't want to be next to their people. If you go back and look at a lot of pop stars, you don't seem as personable as let's say you would be.

That's interesting. I have a lot of.

Sympathy for like, really really famous pop star people because a lot of them became famous when they were teenagers. A lot of them started this when they were like nine, And I can't relate to not to I'm just getting it together and I'm a grown ass woman.

When it happened to me you know what I mean.

So, like that developmental stage where you're getting all of this like weird love and validation from like strangers, and you can get anything you want, and you know, your comfort level starts to get real sensitive too, like people open doors for you.

People you know you have drivers pull up to you.

You don't got to drive. You sixteen year old, don't got a license because you've had a driver since you were thirteen. Like the way you're gonna move through the world is a little different than someone like me, who you know pretty much all the way up until I was twenty nine years old, was working at restaurants, working at Raisin canes, like working at the mall, like playing

I run to Grammy January.

Guess what happened in March twenty twenty, Cause it's.

Dooe for you though, because I think that's when a lot of us needed like that, like just something light and yeah, we're doing that all right in the Internet, and I think that's what it caught people so much.

But maybe that's what put the box there too though. But at that time, we were all separated from each other because there was a global pandemic, not because I am famous and I need to be separated from everyone. So by the time we was able to be back outside, I still have my twenty eighteen twenty nineteen mentality. I want to be where the people are. I want to connect with everybody, like I don't want to be put

Like I'm not going to change who I am just because I'm famous.

Now, that's because when did you first realize that confidence and healing weren't the same thing.

Damn, listen, you'll be with every day?

Why everybody were talking about fueh he want to be all serious?

Let me think that's a really deep confidence in healing. Well, they're not, first off, just by definition, because I think people can fake confidence.

You can't fake healing.

Can't be fake healed, like, oh, you know you gotta cut and it's like, yeah, I'm faking it.

You know that's a band aid. You're not really healed yet. You know.

With confidence, there are a lot of people who walk around and they can pretend to be confident. And actually, I think that's what confidence's intention is, is to be used a little artificially, the fake it till you make it, and then eventually you get there. Because my confidence, you know, I had to force it and fake it for a long time because I didn't grow up in a world where they were like, you're beautiful and your body is beautiful,

No, Like I was very like.

Other and I think that I had to be like, no, you are good enough, you are worthy of love. Your body is beautiful, even when I didn't believe it. And I think that that eventually, if you say something enough, it can come true. You can manifest it, you can create your reality. And I think I got there by faking it. But healing, I think, is a little bit uglier than confidence, and I think I'm still learning that.

I was just telling myself this.

I was faking the funk because if I really believed that y'all wouldn't be able to take this from me, y'all wouldn't be able to shake me. And then being like walking through the world now and being like, man, this person just says something crazy to me.

People be talking to me crazy. I'm so nice, and I'll.

Be like, okay, cause I'm like, you know, I don't need your validation, but okay, but now people talk crazy to me, and I'll be like, hmm, but you know what, it's not even real. You're in pain, You're hurting for you to say something to me like this. What did I bring out in you? Did I make you feel a little insecure for a second?

Boo boo ah? I'm sorry, and I hope that I hope it gets better for you.

But you give a lot of people grace though, Like I've seen people have made it, cracked a joke or said something, and then I'll see you do an interview a couple of years later and you give them the grace. Why do you feel like it's the right thing to give grace instead of just give the middle finger a single fuck yourself?

Because people are as kind to others as they are to themselves. And if somebody is throwing hatred or or saying something mean, just mean spirited about somebody just for the sake of doing it. I can't imagine how you talk to yourself. I can't imagine how you think about yourself and treat yourself when no one's watching. And for that I've already won, So I don't need to win in real life and sit up and talk bad about nobody.

What did you well? First?

On that note, does it get on your nerves though that sometimes every single thing you do people still relate it to like wanting to talk about you in certain ways, like you were at the met Gala the outfit went off. Every headline, though, is about your weight loss and not about how good you looked. And I think that that's unfair And it happens a lot with you, does that get annoying to you where it's like I can't move around that, like people always want to talk about me.

Well, I signed up for it.

I knew when you know, back in twenty fourteen and big girls weren't wearing leotars on stage, and I said, I'm about to put me on one of these Beyonce dance leotars, and I'm about to have big girls behind me wearing them too, because I knew that my body would be the focus of that conversation. And it was something that because it was unavoidable, I either I could hide and run from it, and people are gonna.

Do it anyway. You know. It's like the big girl wearing your arms out theory.

It's like we know your arms big, whether you you know, cover it up or not, we know your arms big, So either enjoy the outfit and wear your arms out or cover your arms up, but we know what it is. So for me, it was just like I'm just gonna run head first into it. What I didn't know is that it would never go away. No matter how much my body changes, It's never gonna go away. But I think that I have to just like accept that and

So it's like, say what you want.

But there was always someone in the comments being like, yeah, but she's still beautiful and she looks soft and face Card never declines.

What about the time because I was reporting when all the lawsuit stuff happened, and you didn't say anything for a long time, like not at all, which those people come out and say stuff. I was wondering the day that it was dropped, how did you feel? What was your thought process around that? Because you were in isolation at that point, right.

I was in Japan, Yeah, on a dream trip.

A brough of fresh air or did you feel like but the conversation is still there and it is hard.

Oh, it's very hard because I was confused. I was confused and I was a little like hurt. But I was in Japan with it was my first time ever being in Japan. I was with my best friend and her kids and we.

Were at Hello Kitty World, and I'm like crying in the car, but I'm like, Okay, wipe your tears and go in there and have fun with the babies because we had Hello Kitty World, and you only do this once with these kids who've never been to Japan and.

That's their dream.

So I did a lot of balance in between that. But I'll tell you one thing about Tokyo. They don't give it fuck.

What's going on in your personal life and Tokyo they're like a picture.

I'm like, okay, Like I had a great time, like nobody's nosy in Japan, and I think being there was God for sure, because though I was dealing with a lot of inner turmoil and hurt, honestly in shock and confusion, I was in this place that didn't reflect that or throw that back at me. I had my first panic attack when I came back to la for the first time after everything the lawsuit had dropped and I was in Japan for like a month and I landed in America.

Like yeah, I had this like pressure on my chest.

Mind you, I've had anxiety attacks that feels different than a panic attack.

I had pressure on my chest. I said, something's really wrong.

I couldn't use my limbs or my body, and I was like I literally crawled to my bed and just like broke down. I was like, what's happening to me? And I talked to my doctor and was like, hey, you got a panic attack?

Yeah?

And I think America, everybody want to know everybody's business here, so I it's this weird almost like invisible. I'm not a victim, so I don't want to say attack, but it was like, you know, this pressure or this like I don't know, it's like implied energy in America where I'm like, oh I need to hide versus Japan, I could be a Hello Kiddy world and everyone's like.

Right you were when somebody lies.

Yeah, that when you started thinking people hated you. Because I wondered, do you remember what the industry felt like? What what social media even felt like? Before that lossuit, it.

Felt very like.

Silly and lighthearted, and I had like a lot of freedom to just scroll and I see nothing about me. And then I was on and I would scroll and every like three scrolls it was, and I was like, oh, we'd be like Liza, if I just see two z's, my heart start raising. My scroll been pizza, but I was like wow, and I just kept scrolling, So it felt it felt.

A little bit more hostile.

But I'll say in general, I think the internet has gotten more hostile for everybody, every like out of nowhere, Like it used to be so fun and lighthearted, and now everybody is beefing and quarreling and dropping tea and I'm just like, WHOA, when did this happen? But that's when it happened for me, Like I was like, oh, I have to get off. And so from I would say October twenty twenty three to maybe even like April twenty twenty four, I wasn't on my phone at all.

I threw my phone.

Away, Like I had my team post things for me because I had to post about yiddie and I had to post about, you know, little things I wanted to share with people. I didn't want to completely disappear because that's not who I am. But my team posted it for me and I did not scroll. I did not look at the internet because I was too sensitive. And I think I don't think I could have handled it.

You, it was going to the strip club.

It doesn't say that I did anything like I didn't do anything to anyone in that strip just went to the strip club. And then like being fat phobic for firing someone for gaining weight, that just wasn't true.

It wasn't true, but just larious, right, But that's why nobody believed.

It's like right, But but I also have to say, like one of my fears is I don't want my situation and my lawsuit to be an indicator on any other that's going on. I don't want it to invalidate any other actual because I will always stand for real victims of sexual harassment and sexual violence and anything, and I will always stand for them and ride for them. So I don't want what happened to me to kind

Does that not change you?

Right?

How does that not change.

Liz as a person? I did though, because now do you still go out with people? Do you still feel as free?

Do you?

Are you still the listeners?

Oh?

Baby? No? Baby? Yeah?

Because it changes you as a person. And is that a good thing of bad?

I think it's an amazing thing. I am. You know what, God really loves me.

I have to say that, and I feel like everything that happens to me is God, and God is preparing me for something that I don't even know about. But I feel like I readied myself now as I feel like a boss, like I feel like a better boss, I feel like a better friend. I feel like I know how to run a big operation, you know, because mind you back to the pandemic thing. I blew up in twenty twenty. In twenty nineteen, I had maybe four crew members. I had one roadie, I had a tour

That works for me.

And it was really weird, and I got a crash course and being an arena level artist, a big artist, like after literally being an indie artist for ten years and being in isolation for two years. So by the time I was running arena level operation, I didn't have no practice in that, I didn't have no experiences, and I learned the hard way how to be a boss. But I'm gonna be a better boss for it. And I'm really proud of myself. Yeah, if you're on my payroll, we're not going to the bar.

We're not gonna have drinks together. You know what I'm saying breakfast. But I got friends for that. I got friends for that.

Okay, I got two friends, my best friend Alexo Derilo from Ace Town. Shout out Houston, Texas and shout out Chante.

I knew what So what do you how do you decide like what's for the stage or what's for the public, and what's secret.

Now hm hmm, there's a lot that's sacred. You know, my my my parameter for what's for the world. If you really love something, keep that shit a secret. If you really love something, keep it a secret. If so, there are things that I protect now that you know. Before, I didn't think it of it as protection. I thought of it as like, oh my gosh, like I'm keeping something from my fans, I'm keeping something from the public, Like I want you guys to see this, like you

Term hard launched. That was me, you know, because I was like, gosh, like love, like I want y'all to see this. This is so beautiful.

And then the world got two seconds of my relationship and I was like, oh yeah, y'all know how to act.

I literally just I was looking to see I'm like, she ain't posted him in a minute.

Y'all know how to act. You lost your privileges?

Yeah, so all, yeah, all that cute ship, all that black love back in the vaults.

I mean, maybe I only saw the positive stuff because I thought I saw a lot of people that I was happy for you.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it was that bad.

Because I was literally on my Instagram looking I'm like, you know what minute people people.

Were really positive.

This isn't about like people, I do think that, you know, I don't want to give nobody an opportunity to destroy something good. And I found that it wasn't really necessarily about my relationship that people did that. It was other things, my other relationships where that happened, And I was like, I don't even want to give you the opportunity, no shade, like, no disrespect. I love everybody, thank you for being so cool,

So it's very protected. Yeah, nobody acted up.

I don't want this clip to go out and people being like, well, we didn't even say nothing wrong, Like, because I know how the internet can be, they'll take seven seconds and think that I'm saying something else.

But it was more so out of it was preemptive, you know what I mean.

But I've then you said it right something youself.

Yeah, it's that's simple. Yeah. Do you have any tear jerkers on love in real life? We do.

There's one song in particular that niggas had to leave a room.

It ran out. I said, I'm sorry. I had like, oh, I'm gonna get sad even though it's not. I mean, sometimes I feel that I wrote it. I lost my dog. I lost my dog and she was twenty years old.

Can you see she left the malties Yeah, And I lost her like in the thick of it December twenty twenty three, when I was like at my most depressed and then she left and I was like, mind you twenty years Like she like a grandma to me, you know, And that really broke me down.

And I wrote a song about it. But it wasn't just about Hookah. She said. I sampled her voice on the song, but it was a lost in general.

You know.

I lost my father very young, and so it was a song about grief and death. And I was like, don't put this on your album. Like I'm the happy girl, I'm the positive spin and you know, I was like, you know what, I owe it to myself, not just to my fans or to myself to put a song like this on my album.

And so there is a moment in there.

It's called Phone to Heaven, and so that's a little tear jerker, and there are some really raw emotional songs on there, like I got a song called like a Crime, and I think that you can decide what that song is about when you listen to it. I'm really excited for this album because I feel like as an artist, everybody got into my singles, but they never got into

Catalog I'm so proud of.

So this time I want people to get into the album, which is why I've been I've gone a little rogue, you know, opposite of what the label once for me, where I'm I'm service in music. I just dropped the demo to U Steal Bad today. Actually, wow, look at that timing. I dropped the demo to Steal Bad because

But people don't fucking know that.

They don't know the difference. Music is about feeling. Not everybody a music major had studied the theory behind no. They just want to feel it. And it felt like About Damn Time. And I should have followed my gut. But because for me, this album is rock and roll, and the demo version of Steel Bad that I put out.

Is very rock and roll. No shade to the other still bad.

I'm gonna let people decide which one they like more, because they both my babies.

One is just cuter.

People who listen to your music they know why you successful, right, But then you have some people who feel like you were only successful because at the time.

People were checking off boxes.

You're the black woman, you big, you know, diversity, all of that type of stuff.

What do you say to those people?

I would say that I created that lane. I don't think people were looking for diversity. I was undeniable, and that that created the trend of checking boxes. I don't disagree that at a certain point we started checking boxes. When it comes to checking a box of black, fat woman, I'm a ride for that every time.

I don't care.

I'm rooting for everyone black, and I'm rooting for everyone fat, black and woman.

I don't care. You don't have to if you're.

Not the most talented person in the world and you got pushed through yay, because it happens to other people.

All the time who don't look like that, and we deserve it. Mm hmm. I am big. We talk about baby, I'm big. I'm not the.

Biggest, so now, okay, I'm in a room full of people I trust.

Right the internet is like Liz O skinny now I am. I am well over two hundred pounds, you know what I'm saying. I'm five ft nine.

In a different direction.

I got double numbered pants on right now. But you're trying to be.

No, okay, yeah, because I think you look amazing. I think are you saying that you're bigger than what an industry standard is because you're not. You are bigger than what some people will determine the industry thing. But that standard is like going, it's twenty twenty five people. I don't even think that's next to any pop star right now, Like I'm still bigger than them.

Do you know what I mean?

You actually look normal compared to them. I'm just saying, oh, I hear you. Yeah, you look normal compared to it. But they look like.

Yeah, and that's what I mean, Like twenty twenty five people want to see people that look like them and that Yeah. But is it because a lot of my friends that I that I talk to that are on weight loss journeys, they have like a body dysmorphia thing where they're never in a.

Good place with themselves.

Did you experience that or do you deal with that sometimes?

Yes?

I actually didn't realize how much my body changed until I was filming the Love and Real Life music video.

I was in shock.

It shocked me because the way that I'm releasing Weight has been a long, slow process, Like people maybe not have seen me or been keeping up with me, but I've been posting about it and I'm in a calorie deficit.

So that's the one that sneaks up on you.

If you're in a deficit, for so long it eventually you're just you're just shedding like half a pound a week, you know, And then you look up and if it's.

Been fifty two weeks, that adds up.

So when I was filming Love in real life and they put the outfit on me and I seen the number size on the pants, I said, wait a minute, hold on, Like, there's not a two in front of it.

That's supposed to be a two right there. Why is that a one?

I was like, Okay, something has happened. You've crossed the threshold. Your body has done the thing. So now it's about controlling that and making sure that it doesn't get out of control. Because my mind will keep going even though my body is like, hey, we're good.

You know what I mean?

Because when I look in the mirror, I still see me in twenty twenty three, I still see me at a heavier weight. Thank God, I love myself because that's fine. I think that people who really experienced the body dysmorphia the most, they didn't like themselves at that size, and when they look in the mirror and they see that person, it's they get upset and it's not enough, and that's hard.

But those people with the opposite that they missed that weight because they were that weight for so long. Yeah, and it feels like that's not them anymore, like they miss that.

Person and that I experienced that too. I'll say this.

Only my big girls who have released some weight are gonna understand this.

How do I say this?

I felt, I say this is what I was lot of crazy.

Oh, here we go.

When I was bigger, I felt skinny. I felt skinnier than I do now.

When I was bigger. I'm not gonna hold you.

When I was in my string bikini and I was at my heaviest weight, I was like, skinny, bitch. And that's when I realized, like, thin is a feeling. It's not a look, and so is fat. Fat is a feeling Like you've ever been around somebody thin and she's like.

Ah, so fat, I feel so fat today Because it's a feeling. It's not real, you know what I mean.

Like society tries to tell you that it's real, and the scale tries to tell you, but it's really how you feel on the inside. So I felt skinnier then than I do now.

Maybe I'm told.

Because I get what you're saying, But if pounds, that's more than just right.

No, and let's be real, yes, like there is like a science behind it, like you know, there is an aesthetic to it.

But I also think that.

It We've seen where Jessica Simpson had on mom jeans in two thousand and five and they were calling her fat and she wasn't. So it gets misinterpreted in misconstrued all the time. There are objective truths. You know, there are people who are bigger, and I think that's and yeah, we fat. I like calling myself fat.

I think it's a race component too, though, because if Justice Simpson was black back then you'd be like, she thick.

You know, you're absolutely right. But that's a whole other conversation. That's a ted talk we can get into. We can get into that. I do want to racialization of beauty standards and.

How it was racist.

Let's talk about it.

Wait, what was your question gonna be?

Though?

Well, I was going to ask you, you know, what parts of your identity did the industry try to monetize or there I say, even exploit before you even understood it yourself.

Yeah, I didn't know, because you know, I was being myself and the industry is exploitative. That's that's its job. Its job is to because I think it's an industry.

There's car industries.

They're you know, getting a product out there, and they'll exploit the workers to do that, you know what I mean. So for me, I don't look at it as a negative thing. I know that word is so crazy, but it's like I was being sold. I was being packaged, marketed and sold for being my self and that was a weird that was a strange thing. I can't imagine people who have to fake their brand because that would drive me insane. I would be like, yo, dude, I don't want to do this shit. No mo, I don't

I don't want to be fat, you know what I mean. But you said, when did I realize it? Damn? I think maybe even now.

I think when I'm starting to release weight, that's when I realized it, because I remember I was. I was talking to my trainer at the time and I was like, yeah, I want to just like intentionally, like let go some weight, like a little bit smaller.

Da da da da da.

And he was like, oh, I'm about to fuck up your brand? And I was like wait what. I was like what does that mean? And I had to think about that for a while, like and then and that was when I was heavier and you know, X amount of pounds down. Later I saw the backlash. People were upset, and I was like, wait, what's happening? And that was what he was talking about, and two things are happening. The industry packaged and sold me and my fatness and my joy and all of that and marketed it to people.

How do I say this?

And being very respectful to my fans, because when it changed, it was like you aren't that person, You're you're a liar.

You know, you lie?

That wasn't real. I was sold, wasn't real. It's like I got the I got the package, I got the product, and then it was like always always works, and then it stopped working.

If you were so proud of it, why would you right?

And how do I say this?

But there are all kinds of issues, like you know, like health issues, yeah, like that can I'm along with obesity and things like being fat, and it's like why can't I want to, you know, why can't I do this for y'all bring more awareness to that part of it, and then we'd go on this journey together.

Y'all, my fans, y'all. You know, I'll say the only way I was able to.

Do what I've done and changed my body was because I loved myself. I've never done anything healthy or positive to myself out of hatred. I've been smaller than this before, and I was starving myself. I wasn't eating, and I was the most unhappy in my entire life, and I hated myself the most at my smallest, So you know what I mean. Like, I've also been heavier, and I've hated some of that too, and I've also loved some of that. It's just like it's just not one thing.

Said, ah fuck that. Yeah, I hated it, Haha. I hate it being being gotcha.

You got bamboodle, bitch, run me like no, Like, I'm going to be me through this entire process. And when people look back on this, they'll be like, yeah, yeah, she was right.

That's why I started the interview off talking about your mental health, and that's why I asked you the question about confidence and healing, because you know, people can talk all about the physical. The revolutionary thing about it to me is what you have done spiritually and mentally.

Yes, yeah, And it's a lot of work. And it's a lot of work.

And that's why I can say I am the best version of myself right now.

You know, there's people.

Like I said, like I said, I when I was younger and I had like very disordered eating and I was like really depressed and I was like really hard on my body. I was very small. There's people who look back at old pictures of that time in their life when they were small and like, oh god, I want to look like that again.

Oh that was it, honey.

If I could just go back to when I was nineteen, I don't want to go back to her. That might have been the worst version of myself sleeping in my car and you know, going through it and running into violent and dangerous situations. No, and not eating that that's what Liz will be eating because you aren't.

Baby.

No, there's nothing cute about hurting yourself. There's nothing cute about harming yourself. There's nothing cute about starving yourself. Like and and now it's like, I am the best version of myself, not because of how I look, even though I may be heavier than I was and small, you know, or heavy? What am I trying to say. I'm heavier than I was when I was at my smallest, and I'm smaller than I was and when I was at

Who knows. This is what's together? This is you know what I mean? And this is the most important part.

And that's the part that I hope to my younger fans and so people who follow me that they don't just see my body changing and me being happy. I hope they feel that it was mental work and it was emotional work, and no matter how my body changes, this is gonna be the most important thing to me.

Do you have real joy? No, because it feels like you were being joyful as a form of protests or maybe a survival tactic.

Maybe. Yeah.

I think that black joy in any form is resistance in this society, and I think it's radical in this society. I think seeing it from someone who looks like me is even more radical. And because of that, y'all don't see me ninety eight percent of the time like y'all see me two percent of the time. And why would I be miserable when I'm doing what I love? When y'all see me, I'm doing what I love. I'm either on stage, I'm shooting a music video, I'm doing an interview.

Where I mean always, we're in a system that doesn't want to see us joyful, you know what I mean?

They police our joys so much, and I think that my mission. I think everybody has different missions, you know, to help us, But right now, my mission is how do I help people find a community that brings them joy?

Because that's powerful.

I want to go back to the conversation that we almost got into about the black beauty standard and the difference with you being in the space that you're in. I remember it was a long time ago, Jillian Michaels. She came out and said something that the weight loss lady, and people defended you so gravely because they felt like she wouldn't have said certain things if you weren't a black woman this way. I mean it was she talked about. She basically said, why are we defending her weight? It's

Do you feel like that.

You know whose voice I listened to the less when they have comments about me is celebrities. I really, I never I don't care about other celebrities opinions on me, you know what I mean. It's interesting because it's like I care more about what my fans say about me and think about me that matters. I never hear these little trivial comments, and I only hear the apologies, you know.

You watch TV and the fat dude, he's like, oh, and then he falls over.

Trying to tie his shoe, and the kids are like, you know, and you laugh in front of your parents.

Your parents laughing too.

But if it was anything else, your parents would be like, don't laugh at that, you know what I mean. So we are socialized to make fun of fat people, and I think that some people pretend to care about fat people's health to just make fun of them, you know,

Gets to my ass for.

It, I'm gonna say, systemically, in America, the majority of fatness is due to things that are kind of out of your control. Our food system is abysmal. Our food system has so many invisible additives that have so much sugar and caloric density and toxins, and it is it is. How do I say this without getting political? I don't want to sound like RFK, but like it's poisoning us and in our communities too, in black communities at a

What's it called? Uh? What's what's it called?

In the middle of a desert when it's like green, the only thank y'all, come on, smart man. The only oasis in the food desert is fast food, is snack, food, is hot cheetos, It's bread forty d D D D. So when I was a kid, I grew up in Houston, Texas. A shout out to SWAT. I was in band rehearsal, and when I got thirsty, I drank sprite. I would chug this sprite and be like, oh, I'm so thirsty. Oh my hot cheetos. Every day at lunch and then our lunch, you're not gonna get a salad or a protein.

It was.

Cheese, stuffed bread, whatever that was. I don't know what the fuck that was. It was good, it was good. And so like, this is what we've been given.

You know, a lot of people's fatness is genetic, you know what I'm saying. So it's like and then there are people who, like, you know, we contend to overeat and stuff like that.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm not making a blanking statement about it, but I'm like a lot of it is out of our control.

Back here in social media too, because people aren't the activist they used to be so back in the day.

We play social media.

So it's like to sit up and just like criticize somebody for being like, hey, this is how I look right now, and you know what despite all odds, I'm okay with that.

That don't mean that I'm like, you know, being fat is it? Everyone should be fat? No, it's just like, damn, can a bitch like herself right now? Depressed? Right? And if my body changes cool? If I get bigger, that's none of your fucking business. If I get smaller, that's none of your fucking business.

But can I like myself right now so I can get through the day like you think, if I sit and go I hate myself. Let me just change and be skinny? Now, No, that's not how it works. So it's like, y'all want us to be miserable, but for what Because once I get small, you still not happy. So it's like, shut the fuck up, disrespectfully.

I like that.

Just for fairness of a conversation. She did, But the U turn because the people jumped on her. She said, I should have separated her from the conversation.

It's a that in there. But your point, by the way, exactly I was gonna say. You called it because it's never.

Been pre diabetic and this is not me flexing my health over nobody. But this is just me saving the facts. Don't ever put diabetes on me, I've never been pre diabetic. My father had type two diabetes, and it's like and when he passed away, I had from a young age.

She passed away when I.

Was nineteen twenty actually, oh my gosh, it was so long ago, but actually I'm twenty two. But when that happened to him, because he had hypertension and high blood pressure and type two from his eating habits. I have always been a healthy person. Even though I was physically larger, I was very conscious about what I put in my body.

I was very active. I would post.

Videos of me in the gym, running on a treadmill, lifting heavyweights. People would buy tickets to my show where I'm on stage for two hours, running back and forth playing the flute, doing choreography, rapping and singing an emoting and not being out of breath. Like I've always been a very active person. I'm always be a very healthy person. Yeah, never been pre diabetic. Honey, mind your business. That's between me and my doctor. And I'll get her on the phone too.

She loved to talk.

She takes a sugar drink.

No, no, I'm glad you said that. This is a this is a black coffee. And then I put in half a vanilla protein shake, so actually there's no sugar in this. It's it's because it's half of it. It's about ten grands of protein and the coffee is black. There's no sugar in this at all.

Shut up business.

Like I said, I got one last question because Lauren's stomach is overhead.

And crazy last night and like I'm literally just coming down from all the last night I went to drink.

It was so good, So over.

Here holding my stomach, boys crowding. But my last question, is there a version of lizzle we haven't seen yet?

And are you afraid to shure?

I'm not afraid, but I am protective. I think protection can be fear based. Sometimes a lot of people, like a protective mother is like, oh I'm afraid something might happen to my child. Let me be overly protective. So sometimes there's a like if y'all saw how I really you know am? Sometimes like when I'm working, I feel like people wouldn't understand, and it's like because I'm a very hard worker, I actually am.

Like ask anybody in this industry.

They're like, she wanted the hardest working, And I think the because I'm fat like the trope of oh she lazy or whatever comes in and I get that put on me, and so people don't put me in the category of the hardworking divas that we all know and love today. But I work very hard, and I don't show that side because you get to just enjoy the show, you get to just enjoy the product. But though I work hard, I'm very kind to the people who I

I have to.

I have to, like nobody knows what it feels like to be in a situation like that where it's so intense and the it's your first met and you are trying to do your best, and it's like to judge black women for working hard. I don't like this new this this new I don't know what it is, this new misconception or misperception of black women who are working hard for what they want where it's getting demonized, you

And we're working actively against the system of people, you know, and then.

The the things that get projected on us, you know, the personalities that get projected on us like that.

We have to overcome that too and subvert that.

So it's like, yeah, you don't see the hard working side of me, But I gets busy. My hairstyle is back there like bitch me and my agent like when do you stop? He like, I work with my other clients. I at least have a time to go get a cocktail.

You.

I've been working NonStop since I got here. I've been doing radio interviews. I did the met, I shot a music video after the met that night and still managed to change my outfit and go to the after parties and turn up. Then I had radio the next morning. Then I turned up again. I did had radio yesterday. I have a cover shot, a cover sh yesterday. I gotta cover shoot today. I'm out here working.

And came in here with the best energy.

You don't really tired. You didn't sound tired. We didn't know I didn't know you were tired til you said it. You know, I got a show. I got two shows, all in New York. And it's just like, because I love this shit, I loved I love to work, But

But we need.

But I love when Beyonce does it because it puts respect on it.

That's how we get down.

So that that part, I'm not gonna pull back the curtain because I already got enough falligations against me.

Let's keep Let's go to a record, man, let's go to a record. Let's get into it right now. New singles, Still bad.

Still bad? Which one are you playing? You're playing the disco version?

Now?

Which one you want to?

I love key, wish I could play Bitch? Can you do?

Y'all have bitch? Can we get bitch? We got bitch?

All right?

Thank you, Thank you for the conversation. To keep doing the work.

Man.

I love to see you blow up mind, body and spirit.

Thank you.

Listen to you.

It's the breakfast Club.

Good morning.

Wake that ass up in the morning.

The Breakfast Club.