Lizzo is opening up about her reasons for sharing nude photos on Instagram, explaining that she believes the body positivity movement needs to move towards body normativity in order to progress.
Francis Specker / CBS via Getty Images
On Tuesday, Lizzo shared an unedited naked photo and explained that, while she would usually “fix her belly and smooth her skin,” she wanted to “celebrate” her body in its natural form.
The post was part of a partnership with Dove for their Self Esteem Project, which Lizzo said is “helping to reverse the negative effects of social media and changing the conversation about beauty standards.”
“Let’s get real y’all,” she wrote in the caption.
And in a conversation to promote the project, the “Juice” singer opened up a little more about her own body positivity journey, admitting that learning to love herself was a matter of “literal survival.”
Paras Griffin / Getty Images
“[If] I’m going to continue to live in this body and survive in this body and be happy and actually enjoy life, I need to find a way to like myself,” Lizzo said, according to People. “I was body negative for a long time.”
“Most people are taught that body negativity is normal, right?” the 32-year old continued. “Then I became body positive, which is the opposite of that. It’s disruptive.”
“I believe everything I say about my body,” she said. “But to push this conversation forward, we need to normalize it.”
The “Truth Hurts” singer went on to explain that, for her, the ultimate goal is “body normativity” — and that posting photos of herself isn’t seen as a “political statement.”
“It’s just my body,” Lizzo said.
“When you see it, keep it pushing,” she went on. “Keep that same energy that you keep with all the other bodies you see. That’s what body normative really means to me: I’m here, don’t say anything. It’s not a statement. It’s my body.”
Body normativity is something Lizzo spoke about during her cover interview for Vogue’s October issue last year, explaining her belief that the term “body positivity” has been commercialized and no longer benefits those who created it.
Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images
“What I don’t like is how the people that this term was created for are not benefiting from it,” Lizzo said at the time. “Girls with back fat, girls with bellies that hang, girls with thighs that aren’t separated, that overlap. Girls with stretch marks. You know, girls who are in the 18-plus club. They need to be benefiting from the mainstream effect of body positivity now.”
“With everything that goes mainstream, it gets changed,” she added. “It gets made acceptable.”
“I want to normalize my body. Not just be like, ‘Ooh, look at this cool movement. Being fat is body positive,'” Lizzo told Vogue. “No. Being fat is normal.”
“I think now, I owe it to the people who started this to not just stop [at body positivity],” Lizzo went on.
“We have to make people uncomfortable again, so that we can continue to change,” she said. “Change is always uncomfortable, right?”
