Following a year full of career-defining firsts, Lizzo recently landed on the cover of Rolling Stone. While her rise to stardom is underscored by her relentless body and sex positivity, the profile is careful to note the trials that led to her success—which included facing her anxiety, even when it cropped up in the middle of a performance.
The multi-hyphenate Grammy nominee told Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos that she experienced an anxiety attack while performing “Jerome”—possibly at a show in Toronto—but she just kept singing. “I just start processing and thinking about other shit, and my mouth is just moving and the words are coming out,” she said.
This isn’t the first time she’s opened up about how mental health has impacted her work. In her December cover story for British Vogue, she told Zing Tsjeng about how her anxiety is a “fast-paced thing” that appears in certain social situations. “My heart is racing and my brain is firing off and I’m just making all these jokes and then I’m like, actually spiraling,“ she said. "The louder and funnier I am, you should probably ask me if I’m OK.”
However, her experience with anxiety also motivates her to work harder. “I don’t know why, but my anxiety sometimes fuels who I am as a performer and who I am as an artist—and I know that is not the case for everyone,” she said. “I don’t know if my body just, like, out of a desperate need to find a place for my anxiety or find a use for it, takes it and puts it there.” Lizzo treats her anxiety with a regimen that includes acupuncture, meditation, and breathing exercises.
Last June, she opened up about her mental health in an Instagram post. “I self-love so hard because everything feels like rejection… it feel like the whole world be ghostin me sometimes,” she wrote in the caption. “Sad af today. But this too shall pass. S/O all the messages of love. Thank you.”
However, the low moments haven’t put the brakes on her meteoric rise. Her sleeper hit, “Truth Hurts,” reached the top of the Hot 100 last year.
Read Rolling Stone’s cover story here, and catch up on all the lyrics to Lizzo’s biggest hits on Genius now.
