Lizzo isn’t one to shy away from talking about life’s difficult topics—like beauty standards, body neutrality, and mental health.
The megastar has been open and honest about her experience with anxiety and depression online, and in a new interview with Variety, she shed light on how her rise to fame affected her mental health.
For Lizzo, stardom came practically overnight—and it was an overwhelming experience, to say the least. While everything around her changed rapidly—her ability to roam public spaces, her friend groups, her social media follower count—inside, she was still the same person with the same struggles.
“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,” she told Variety.
“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.”
The adjustment was difficult, and her therapist helped her grieve the loss of her “old” self. “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 sh*tfaced in 2018,” she explained.
“And nobody knew who I was, and nobody was bothering me. By 2019, I noticed I couldn’t go to restaurants with my dancers and stuff.”
It was then that she knew things had changed. And at first, it was upsetting—she felt like a burden to her friends.
Three years later, she’s settled into her place in pop culture (and has three Grammys to show for it). “I’m good with it now,” she said. “I’m fine. I’m young. I’m talented. I deserve the attention.”
But she still has off days where her anxiety and depression creep back in—and fame often makes her feel even more isolated. In June 2019, she shared a vulnerable Instagram during a low point, and urged others to seek help if they felt similarly.
“I learned in the last 24hrs that being emotionally honest can save your life. Reaching out may be hard but as soon as I did it, I was immediately covered in love,” she wrote.
“I used to think of sadness as a constant with fleeting moments of joy in between… but it’s a wave 🌊joy🌊sadness🌊joy🌊sadness🌊 and my sadness can be as temporary as my joy.”