When Lizzo was growing up in the ’90s, she never saw anyone who looked like her on TV. “The choice of Black girls they used in media was the same kind of Black girl,” the Grammy-winning singer says, alluding to the rail-thin figures of celebrities. As a teenager, Lizzo remembers the tabloids body-shaming Jessica Simpson. The 33-year-old marvels: “Y’all want me to believe this is an overweight, obese woman and that she should be ashamed of how she feels — how the fuck was I supposed to feel?”
Has there been more body inclusivity in storytelling since then? Sure, but “it’s not happening quickly by no means,” says Lizzo. “It’s happening very slow and select, and there’s a long way to go. But I have seen it budge, and that’s better than nothing.”
Now she wants to give the movement another shove. Lizzo — whose real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson — is moving beyond her already well-known talents as a vocalist, songwriter and virtuoso flute player. She hopes to conquer TV next as the star and executive producer of Amazon’s new reality TV series “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” a show that was born out of professional necessity. For as long as she’s been famous, Lizzo has made a point of hiring plus-size backup dancers — whom she affectionately calls “the Big Grrrls” (they even have their own Instagram account, @thebiggrrrls) — to join her onstage. She says it’s comforting to see an extension of herself in the spotlight.
But the job searches have been challenging, since plus-size women often have a far more difficult time landing an agent. Out of this frustration came an idea for a series. After posting an open-call audition on social media, Lizzo sorted through tens of thousands of applicants before settling on the finalists for “Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” which premieres on Prime Video on March 25.
The result…