It’s been five days since Lizzo celebrated her comeback with her new hit single “Rumors,” which features famous rapper Cardi B. The song is doing well in the charts and has already made its way into the TikTok universe, with people dancing to the catchy tune of the song. Most people know that Lizzo is very vocal about body positivity and actively fights against fat-shaming and bullying.
Unfortunately, the singer herself is often targeted by racist, fat-phobic and outright bullying comments. The singer recently took to Instagram live and shared her feelings with her fans, saying, “On the days when I should feel the happiest, it just… I feel so down.” She continues, “Sometimes it feels like the world just don’t love me back.” In the video, the artist is seeing crying over the hurtful comments she’s facing. You can check out the 13-minute video below.
Her guest artist, Cardi B. also took to social media and expressed her anger and frustration with bullying comments towards Lizzo, calling the remarks “mean and racist as fuck.” Now, Facebook took the initiative and started deleting harassing comments on the artist’s posts. They even go as far as to ban repeat offenders from their platform.
Rumors is doing great. Stop trying to say the song is flopping to dismiss a woman 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 & racist as fuck. pic.twitter.com/Dr2t06mjEs
— iamcardib (@iamcardib) August 15, 2021
Some comments called Lizzo “Mammy,” which is both racist and fat-phobic. Ferris State University explains the Mammy caricature, “During slavery, the mammy caricature was posited as proof that blacks — in this case, black women — were contented, even happy, as slaves. Her wide grin, hearty laugher, and loyal servitude were offered as evidence of the supposed humanity of the institution of slavery.”
The essay also states that the caricature is often used to “desexualize” black women. Lizzo recently uploaded a TikTok dueting a fan who called out people calling her “Mammy.” The artist says, “This is exactly why I started off the song with ‘they don’t know I do it for the culture.’ These people who are saying this are probably the same people who are mad when I am being hypersexual and the mammy trope is actually desexualized. So it can’t both be true. Make it make sense.”