Lizzo wanted to change how she looks because she didn’t feel ‘worthy’.
Lizzo: has admitted she used to want to change the way she looked before she became body positive.
This week, the Grammy-winner posted an unedited nude snap online in a bid to change “the conversation about beauty standards” as part of Dove’s Self-Esteem Project, which aims to highlight how dangerous social media and filters can be in making young people not feel “good enough or worthy of likes”.
And the ‘Jerome’ singer has opened up about her own journey with her body and the positive impact seeing someone who looked like her wearing bikinis inspired her to embrace her natural beauty.
She said: “I was following people before who I thought were beautiful and they were society’s beauty standard. Looking at them made me have this desire to edit or to change or think that I wasn’t worthy. I don’t want one person’s beauty to diminish the other.
“One day I stumbled upon Gabi Fresh. She had the first bikinis for fat girls. I was so excited. I was like, ‘She looks like me, right?’ I hit that follow button so hard.
“That led me to this beautiful world of women who looked like me.”
The ‘Good As Hell’ hitmaker has “nothing to hide” and “no shame anymore” as she is happy in her own skin.
Speaking on Zoom as part of a discussion for the Self-Esteem Project, she continued: “As most people know I did an interview about What’s Underneath Project years ago and I took off all my clothes. I took my wig off and talked about the things I loved about myself. I was like, if anybody wants to see how I really look, all they got to do is go to YouTube.
“From then on, I was like, I feel I have nothing to hide. There’s no shame anymore. I just post myself. It’s like, you take me as I am. You don’t have to love me.”
Lizzo: added how her body is “not a political statement” and she wants to see “body normativity” take over from the body positivity movement.
She explained: “I’m going to continue to live in this body and survive in this body and be happy and actually enjoy life, I need to find a way to like myself. I was body negative for a long time.
“Most people are taught that body negativity is normal, right? Then I became body positive, which is the opposite of that. It’s disruptive.
“I believe everything I say about my body. But to push this conversation forward, we need to normalise it.
“It’s not a political statement. It’s just my body. When you see it, keep it pushing. Keep that same energy that you keep with all the other bodies you see. That’s what body normative really means to me. I’m here, don’t say anything. It’s not a statement. It’s my body.”