Body-positive singer Lizzo embraces the word 'fat' because everyone has it

If the body-positive world had a mascot, it would be Lizzo.

The singer unabashedly flaunts her body, she’s a spokesmodel for Lane Bryant, and she named her sophomore album Big Grrrl Small World. She shakes her glitter-covered booty on Instagram. With pure light and fun, Melissa Jefferson aka Lizzo is working to change the beauty standards in music. In a new interview, she opens up about body confidence and her plan to destigmatize the word fat.

Lizzo has been aware of her size since a young age, and even then, she decided she wasn’t going to let others judge her. “There was this boy in fifth grade, and he would call me fat ass all the time. He was the most popular guy in school, real cute, a basketball player,” she explained to Self. “Around seventh grade, I was like, ‘Yeah my ass is fat. What’s good?’”

She takes “fat” quite literally — not as an insult, but as a part of life. “Everybody has fat on their bodies,” she told the magazine. “You literally need bones, muscles, fat, cartilage, organs, and water. If you don’t have those in your body, are you alive?”

Lizzo’s music is filled with body-positive anthems, and her own body confidence comes out onstage. She performs in lingerie, dances with a team called “Big Girls,” and asks the audience to sing along with her lyrics like “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100 percent that bitch.” Even when propping herself up, her music manages to be inclusive: She recently collaborated with Spotify to test her fans’ own percentages.

Whether you’re singing her lyrics or following along on her Instagram, Lizzo wants you to do it with confidence. Her game plan: “If you are yourself long enough, the world will accept you. That’s the lesson I learned with my bigness.”

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