Lizzo Addresses Fatphobic and Racist Comments on "Rumors" Music Video
The artist broke down in tears on Instagram Live.
Last week, Lizzo dropped her “Rumors” single in collaboration with Cardi B, as well as the track’s music video. Since its release, the visual has garnered over 12 million views worldwide.
However, despite the music video’s success, fatphobic and racist hate comments surfaced over the weekend. Lizzo took to Instagram Live to express her thoughts on the matter: “It’s fatphobic, it’s racist and it’s hurtful. What I won’t accept is y’all doing this to Black women over and over and over again, especially us big Black girls. When we don’t fit into the box that you want to put us in, you just unleash hatred onto us. It’s not cool.”
The Grammy Award-winning artist also pointed out to her fans that she normally doesn’t let haters get to her. In this case, Lizzo explained how hard she worked on her latest music video that she couldn’t tolerate the hateful comments this time around.
In support of her fellow collaborator, Cardi B tweeted: “‘Rumors’ is doing great. Stop trying to say the song is flopping to dismiss a woman’s emotions on bullying or acting like they need sympathy. The song is top 10 on all platforms. Body shaming and callin’ her mammy is mean and racist as f*ck.” She another tweet, she added: “Whether you skinny, big, plastic, they going to always try to put their insecurities on you. Remember these are nerds looking at the popular table.”
For those who are unaware of the term “mammy,” it is a “racist caricature of an overtly happy, heavyset Black woman who worked in a subservient role to white people,” as per NBC. “These people who are saying this are probably the same people who are mad when I’m being hypersexual and the mammy trope is actually completely desexualized,” Lizzo said. “So it can’t both be true — make it make sense. I really think people are just mad to see a fat Black woman that makes pop music and is happy.”
