Lizzo opens up about the perils of fame—and why it didn’t help her battle depression

If you ever thought that fame would be the solution to all of your problems, think again—that’s the message Grammy-winning artist Lizzo has sent out in a new interview with Variety, in which she opens up about her mental health journey, how superstardom has affected her and more.

"Fame happens to you, and it's more of an observation of you. People become famous, and it's like—my DNA didn't change. Nothing changed about me," she said to the outlet. "My anxiety didn't go away. My depression didn't go away. The things that I love didn't go away. I'm still myself. But the way y'all look at me and perceive me has changed. It's a very weird, kind of formless thing." 

This isn't the first time Lizzo has been candid about her struggles. Just a couple of years ago, in 2019, she posted a video of herself on social media and captioned it, "I self-love so hard because everything feels like rejection... it feels like the whole world be ghostin me sometimes. Sad af today. But this too shall pass. S/O all the messages of love. Thank you." 

In her latest interview, the star reveals that, also in 2019, when her celebrity reached peak heights, she no longer felt able to freely go out with her dancers and her friends—a fact of life that contributed to her low mood. 

"I had to call security and they had to call a car and we had to sit and wait," she said. "And I was like, 'Damn. I'm just a burden to my friends and things are different now.' It bummed me out because you do lose a sense of your privacy and yourself, the old self. I'm good with it now. I'm fine. I'm young. I'm talented. I deserve the attention."

Things have gotten better since then, says Lizzo, also noting that her therapist helped her come to terms with a lot of issues. "I don't want to seem ungrateful," she says. "It was sad and I had to talk to my therapist about the loss of who I was [pre-fame]. Most famous people have been famous just as long as they've been a person so they have acclimated more to it. I was going into dive bars and getting shitfaced in 2018. And nobody knew who I was and nobody was bothering me." 

Needless to say, we're excited that people now know who she is as Lizzo's artistry deserves all the attention and awards it can get. That being said, we're grateful for her honesty about the potential for destruction that fame brings along with it and are here to wish Lizzo the best of luck in her mental health journey moving forward.