Every pop star has a career-defining performance. For Madonna, it was “Like a Virgin” at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. For Britney Spears, it was “I’m a Slave 4 U” at the same show, 17 years later. And for Lizzo, inarguably 2019’s buzziest breakout star, it was “Truth Hurts” at the BET Awards this past June.
Clad in a bridal getup and flanked by 11 dancers, also dressed in white, Lizzo delivered a spellbinding rendition of her smash hit, which reached number-six on Billboard‘s Hot 100. She sang live. She danced. She played the damn flute (which, if you’re a Lizzo fan, shouldn’t come as a surprise). Her performance was so good Rihanna herself gave it a standing ovation.
Fans are still talking about it months later. Just look at these YouTube comments as proof. They’re all positive—or at least, that’s the intention—but there’s a caveat. See if you can figure it out:
Each one of these remarks seems to express surprise at Lizzo’s confidence, as if it’s something that shouldn’t be inherent. When Madonna and Britney delivered those aforementioned performances, people didn’t marvel at their strength. As thin women, our culture expects them to have a certain base level of confidence. Meanwhile, it’s viewed as shocking or novel when a plus-size woman, like Lizzo, displays the same agency.
“When people look at my body and be like, ‘Oh my God, she’s so brave,’ it’s like, ‘No I’m not,'” Lizzo, 31, tells Glamour. “I’m just fine. I’m just me. I’m just sexy. If you saw Anne Hathaway in a bikini on a billboard, you wouldn’t call her brave. I just think there’s a double standard when it comes to women.”
A byproduct of Lizzo’s meteoric rise to fame is that she’s become a face of the body positivity movement. She embraces it, but wishes people would stop thinking it’s miraculous for a plus-size woman to have confidence.