FEATURE Lizzo: A Queen
FEATURE Lizzo: A Queen with a Golden Voice, Great Attitude, and Perfect Body Jason Sheeler & Sasha Bokamoso My editor asked me to describe the multiple Grammy winner in one sentence. All I could come up with was that — Lizzo is a Queen with a golden voice, great attitude and a perfect body! As Jason Sheeler rightly puts it, - “there was no Lizzo before Lizzo.” I cannot agree more! “I think I have a really hot body! I’m a body icon, and I’m embracing that more and more every day,” says Lizzo, sitting down in the study of her home beneath a platinum record. The Grammy winner — and cover star of PEOPLE’s Women Changing the World issue — is clear that she has no problem talking about her body. Because, as she says, why should she? “It may not be one person’s ideal body type just like, say, Kim Kardashian might not be someone’s ideal, but she’s a body icon and has created a modern-day beauty standard,” she tells PEOPLE. “And what I’m doing is stepping into my confidence and my power to create my own beauty standard. And one day that will just be the standard.” Now 33, Lizzo lives high up on a hill above Los Angeles. It’s on one of those misleading, circuitous paths. Just when you think you’ve arrived, there’s another hill. Then one more. Then a big gate with a small, hidden door. That’s pretty much how her road to 44 www.glamsquadmagazine.com
FEATURE success has been, Lizzo says. Switchback turns. Trapdoors. No trail map. “I had to blaze a trail,” she says. “There was no Lizzo before Lizzo.” Nearly three years ago Lizzo worked her way to the front of the pop culture scene— singing, dancing, rapping and playing the flute on her first No. 1 song, “Truth Hurts”—and quickly became unstoppable. “I deserve the spotlight,” Lizzo tells PEOPLE. “I deserve the attention. I’m talented, I’m young, I’m hot. You know? And I’ve worked hard.” Born Melissa Viviane Jefferson, she was raised in Houston by her mom, Sharie, who had a small business, www.glamsquadmagazine.com 45
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