Lizzo says the Ozempic boom is squeezing plus-size fashion and modeling work

On Nov. 24, Lizzo published an essay on Substack saying the popularity of weight-loss drugs has narrowed the room available to people in larger bodies, and answering critics of her own weight loss ^[1].

The 37-year-old singer pointed to two changes she says she has seen: extended clothing sizes growing harder to find, and plus-size models losing work. She tied both to demand for drugs like Ozempic. "We have a lot of work to do, to undo the effects of the ozempic boom," she wrote ^[1].

Her own weight began dropping in the fall of 2023, a stretch she described as "severely depressed" and "deeply suicidal," following a lawsuit from former backup dancers who alleged sexual harassment and a hostile work environment. Lizzo has denied the allegations ^[1]. She took up Pilates and lost some weight without meaning to, she said ^[1].

She wrote that thinness was never the goal, saying she will always have "the skin of a woman who carries great weight" ^[1]. According to the essay, she still weighs more than 200 pounds, and she said she kept the exact amount to herself so readers would not hold themselves to a standard ^[1].

Weight, she wrote, had served as "a protective shield" and as something she wanted to release rather than lose. She said she had been carrying grief since her father's death in 2009, abusive relationships dating to 2011, and the responsibility of supporting her family since 2016 ^[1].

Turning to the body-positivity movement, she said its message shifted once it turned into a business, and that "once something becomes for everyone, the people that it was originally created for are edged out" ^[1]. She described judgment arriving from two sides at once: "We're in an era where the bigger girls are getting smaller because they're tired of being judged. And now those bigger girls are being judged for getting smaller by the very community they used to empower," she wrote ^[1]. Changing your body should be permitted, she added: "There's nothing wrong with being fat. But if a woman wants to change, she should be allowed to change." ^[1]

She closed by calling herself "a proud big girl" and saying she has work ahead to regain the movement's trust ^[1].

Why it matters for patients

The essay arrives as semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound) have become common topics of conversation, and it describes a social pressure that many people on these drugs recognize: opinions about your body arriving from people who feel entitled to offer them ^[1]. Lizzo's account also describes that pressure running in both directions, with people who lose weight drawing criticism from the same community that once embraced them ^[1].

What the essay does not do is measure any of it. No figures are given for how many people use weight-loss medications, how clothing size ranges have changed, or how much modeling work plus-size models have lost, so the size of the shift she describes has not been reported ^[1].

The piece also never identifies a medication she may have taken. It refers generally to weight-loss medications and to the "ozempic boom," and whether she has used a GLP-1 drug has not been disclosed in the essay ^[1].

Nothing in the essay addresses insurance coverage, pricing, supply shortages, side effects, or who qualifies for treatment, and it does not offer research on the medication market. It is one person's account of how the culture around body size has changed, not data on how many people are affected ^[1].

What happens next

No campaign, petition or dated plan is described in the essay. Lizzo writes only that there is work to do to undo the effects she describes, without saying what that work would involve or when ^[1].