Lizzo, Aries Spears.Photo: Arturo Holmes/FilmMagic; Albert L. Ortega/FilmMagic
While accepting her award in the video for good category, the 34-year-old “About Damn Time” singer thanked fans for “supporting me and loving on me” before calling out her critics.
“And now, for bitches that got something to say about me in the press,” she said, in a callback to Nicki Minaj’s nearly identical 2015 VMAs opener. “You know what? I’m not going to say nothing.”
“They be like, ‘Lizzo why don’t you clap back? Why don’t you clap back?’ ‘Cause, bitch, I’m winning, hoe!,” Lizzo said, to thunderous applause. “Big bitch is winning, ho! Best revenge is your paper, bitch!”
She later posted a clip of her speech to her Twitter, account, cheekily writing, “🗣KEEP MY NAME IN YO MOUF CUS I KNOW IT TASTE GOOD BITCH 🏆”
When asked about Lizzo’s music, Spears said “I can’t get past the fact that she looks like the s— emoji,” he responded. “She’s got a very pretty face, but she keeps showing her body off. Like, come on, you?”
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“I’m sorry, listen,” he said, explaining that while he’s not “the most in shape,” he is “funny, has swagger and confidence, and is at least decent looking” enough to attract the opposite sex.
“I think I’m at least handsome,” he said, adding, “A woman that’s built like a plate of mashed potatoes is in trouble.”
He then went on call out the “hypocrisy” in women who praise body confidence and “sisterhood” but won’t discuss health risks like “diabetes,” “heart problems,” “heart disease,” and “cholesterol.”
“Y’all will jump on me for making jokes but y’all won’t f—ing be real and go, ‘Sister, put the éclair down. This ain’t it. It’s treadmill time.’ "
From left: Lizzo and Bebe Rexha.Doug Peters/PA Images via Getty Images
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Lizzo has been open about herstruggles with body imagein the past, and has long been an advocate for positive body image, encouraging her followers to embrace their bodies at any size.
She’s also called out those who assume those with larger bodies automatically have health issues, saying “health is not just determined on what you look like on the outside.”
This March, Lizzospoke to PEOPLE for a cover storyon the Women Changing the World issue about feeling proud in her own skin despite what critics have to say.
“I think I have a really hot body! I’ma body icon, and I’m embracing that more and more every day,” she said at the time. “It may not be one person’s ideal body type just like, say,Kim Kardashianmight not be someone’s ideal, but she’s a body icon and has created a modern-day beauty standard. And whatI’mdoing is stepping into my confidence and my power to create my own beauty standard. And one day that will just bethestandard.”
As for her critics, Lizzo noted in an interview withZane Loweon Apple Music 1 that haters use her as “some sort of punchline” because “there’s levels to me that they don’t accept.”
“I’ve found that I’m always going to receive some sort of backlash or criticism whenever I put myself in a public space, just because of who I am and the way I choose to exist,” she said.
She also noted that people use “negativity as clout and attention” because it makes them “feel good.” And in turn, she’s tried her best not to pay them any mind.
source: people.com
