Lizzo Says That "Cancel Culture Is Appropriation"

"There was real outrage from truly marginalized people and now it's become trendy, misused and misdirected"

Photo: Jora Frantzis

BY Megan LaPierrePublished Jan 9, 2023

You can always count on Lizzo to drop a self-empowerment bop, body a flute solo and call it like she sees it. After previously drawing attention to the anti-black origin of pop music, the musician has shared some thoughts on cancel culture.

"This may be a random time to say this but it's on my heart... cancel culture is appropriation," Lizzo tweeted yesterday (January 8).

She continued, "There was real outrage from truly marginalized people and now it's become trendy, misused and misdirected. I hope we can phase out of this & focus our outrage on real problems."
 
This follows Lizzo's recent commentary on body shaming, saying in a TikTok video late last week:

I've seen comments go from, "Oh my gosh, I liked you when you were thick. Why did you lose weight?" "Oh my gosh, why did you get a BBL? I liked your body before," "Oh my gosh, you're so big. You need to lose weight but for your health," to "Oh my gosh, you're so little. You need to get ass or titties or something," "Oh my gosh, why did she get all that work done? It's too much work."

Are we okay? Do you see the delusion? Do you realize that artists are not here to fit into your beauty standards? Artists are here to make art. And this body is art. I'mma do whatever I want with this body. I wish that comments costed y'all money so we could see how much time we are fucking wasting on the wrong thing. Can we leave that shit back there please?


Points were made. Of course, Lizzo is hardly the first person to weigh in on so-called "cancel culture," with Helena Bonham Carter and The Simpsons producer Al Jean among the latest to share their disdain for and nervousness about it, respectively. As for appropriation, Chet Hanks is here for your consideration.

Lizzo made an example of accountability-taking last year when she shared a new version of her song "Grrrls" mere days after drawing criticism for the use of an ableist slur in the original recording.

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