So let’s get started. How do Chris Evans and Lizzo feel about their (internet-created) baby?
Lizzo bursts out laughing.
“There is no Chris Evans baby, no entanglement, though we’ve had some conversations and he’s cool as hell,” Lizzo, 34, says. “However, as this documentary shows, I am committed.”
The documentary is called “Love, Lizzo,” and the commitment is with comedian Myke Wright, a longtime friend and on-again, off-again lover.
“Oh, yeah,” she says, smiling. “It’s always on right now.”
‘I’m scared,’ says Lizzo as she performs onstage with James Madison’s 200-year-old crystal flute.
For longtime Lizzo fans, the singer’s decadelong journey from flute-playing obscurity to chart-topping celebrity is well-known, with an emphasis on her emergence as a body-positive icon with both a shapewear line (Yitty) and an Emmy (for “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls”).
“Love, Lizzo” candidly fills in the blanks for those who have a skewed perception of the performer. It goes beyond how the proudly plus-size rapper rose to fame with hits like “Juice,” “Good As Hell,” and the Grammy-winning “Truth Hurts,” and delves into hardships like being fat-shamed, losing her father at the age of 21, living out of her car, and, despite success, dealing with everything from online trolls to love-life woes.
Like Lizzo, the documentary is unblinking. There’s Lizzo as her chubby younger self. Lizzo worked hard in high school and college to improve her classical flute playing. Lizzo, the homebody, vanishes into books. Lizzo and her scuffed-up Subaru. Lizzo sobs while listening to a Harry Styles breakup song. Lizzo is completely at ease in various states of undress.
“The question isn’t how honest I am; it’s how comfortable people are not being themselves,” she says. “But this world hasn’t made space for being yourself, they’re made space for fitting in somewhere, and I never did. So I decided to create my own space, and I’m happy there.”
Lizzo is at ease while twerking. In fact, she made headlines last September when she went to the Library of Congress to see a crystal flute given to President James Madison and twerked on social media while playing the rare instrument.
Twerking is serious business for Lizzo; in a TED talk, she delves into the deep African influences of the rear-shaking movement.
“I’m fully prepared to face criticism when this film is released, particularly on the subject of twerking,” she says. “It’s not just people who despise me and are fatphobic who have issues; even people in the (Black) culture who understand twerking criticise me.
“Giving American Blackness a classical etymology is important to me because American Blackness is often taken over by culture and diluted. I’m not trying to persuade you to like twerking or to decide whether it’s good or bad. I’m just pointing out where it comes from.”
Lizzo tries not to show her frustration with her critics. This is a woman on a mission who appears to be determined to overcome any obstacles in her path.
“I was made for this life,” she says. “The documentary tries to show that throughout I have always pushed it to the max, always been a hard worker with a goal. I’ve been through so much that winning awards and working on dream projects doesn’t feel like work.”
With a long-gestating fourth studio album – “Special,” with its infectious chart-topping single “About Damn Time” – now behind her and her plus-size dancer “Big Grrrls” competition show humming along, could movies be next?
“Hey, it doesn’t get any bigger than HBO Max, honey,” she jokes about the platform that will air her documentary. However, Lizzo has demonstrated a talent for acting, as evidenced by her deft comedic guest host (and musical guest) performance on “Saturday Night Live” earlier this year. She does not dismiss the idea, but qualifies it.
“I can never just do things for the sake of doing them, so this first film project I’m putting out there, well, it’s an introduction to who I am,” she says. “I’ve had huge offers for things that went on to be big, but I turned them down because I didn’t want to be known as the girl from that movie, but rather as the girl with the music.”
The mission was completed. Although things did not turn out exactly as a younger Lizzo might have hoped.
“Growing up, I always wanted to be a famous flautist, maybe not James Galway famous, but first chair in a symphony, you know,” Lizzo says. “That did not occur. But then I’m at the Met Gala (last May), playing this $55,000 flute on the red carpet, and I’m like, oh, fifth-grade me is happy, I fulfilled her dreams.”
