Grammy-winning singer Lizzo has broken her silence in a candid new interview, opening up about how the past three years of legal battles, public scrutiny, and professional turbulence have fundamentally changed her relationship with her own image.
Speaking to Willie Geist on the October 4, 2026 episode of Sunday Today, Lizzo confronted the uncomfortable reality that her reputation now partly belongs to public opinion rather than to her.
“I had to make peace with the fact that there’s a version of Lizzo that exists now that the world controls. The world controls the narrative, and I don’t,” she told Geist. “But what I can control is who I really am.”
The statement came three years after two separate lawsuits turned one of the music industry’s most beloved figures into one of its most scrutinised.
In August 2023, three of Lizzo’s former backup dancers, Crystal Williams, Arianna Davis, and Noelle Rodriguez, filed a lawsuit against her, her production company, and her dance captain, alleging a disturbing range of workplace misconduct including sexual harassment, racial and religious discrimination, a hostile work environment, and weight-shaming.
In her Sunday Today interview, Lizzo went deeper beyond the legal outcomes as she said, “I’m not a fighter. I’m a lover,” she said.
She explained why she has chosen not to engage in prolonged public combat over her reputation despite feeling the injustice of the narrative that formed around her.
She also used an appearance at her former high school to offer a more human perspective on the experience, telling a group of student band musicians something that cuts to the heart of everything she has been through.
“You’re not supposed to be happy all the time,” she said.
