She nearly quit after its release - When the song didn't reach as many people as she'd hoped, Lizzo wanted to quit. "The day I released 'Truth Hurts' was probably one of the darkest days I've had ever in my career," she told People. "I remember thinking, 'If I quit music now, nobody would notice. This is my best song ever, and nobody cares.'"

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Perseverance is the message -

"Now the song that made me want to quit is the song that everyone's falling in love with me for," she continued. "[It's] such a testament to journeys: Your darkest day turns into your brightest triumph."

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'Truth Hurts' charted two years after its release -

The song became a viral sleeper hit in 2019 after gaining popularity on the TikTok video sharing app and being featured in the Netflix film 'Someone Great.' It was her first song to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

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Wrapping up the decade - Billboard named 'Truth Hurts' as a defining song of the decade, as it delivered the empowering message of self-love in a decade where the term became most necessary.

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A defining moment for the Internet's influence on music - The "I just took a DNA test" lyric went viral on social media, and it actually originated from a meme Lizzo saw, a meme that came from a tweet whose author now has a songwriting credit.

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'Cuz I Love You' -

Released in April 2019, Lizzo's third studio album featured guest appearances from rappers Missy Elliott and Gucci Mane. Lizzo re-released 'Truth Hurts' on the deluxe version.

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Grammy nomination domination -

Lizzo received the most nominations of all artists for 2020, with eight in total, four of which are in the top four categories: Best New Artist and Record, Album, and Song of the Year.

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Not just influential in music -

Fashion search engine Lyst's Year in Fashion report looked at data across six million fashion products to determine the 10 celebs whose style drove the biggest spikes in searches, sales, news coverage, and social media mentions in the year. Lizzo was number eight on the list.

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Rise of the leotard -

As people finally caught on to the magic of Lizzo, demand for her signature leotards reportedly rose 28%.

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The VMAs were a pivotal fashion moment for her -

August 2019 saw the MTV VMAs, which included Lizzo's now-famous '80s lilac off-the-shoulder dress.

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It kicked off her fashion fame -

The singer's fashion has been a breakout search term since September 2019, and she's made great strides for underrepresented body types in Hollywood.

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The tiny purse moment -

At the 2019 American Music Awards, she carried this super tiny Valentino purse down the red carpet, which turned out to be the biggest event of the night, spawning thousands of memes.

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The airport fashion moment -

She also went viral after turning up to the airport still in the extravagant, fluffy, hot pink Marc Jacobs coat she wore to New York's Met Gala the night before.

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Obama named 'Juice' one of the best songs of 2019 -

Her catchy hit 'Juice' has become another self-love anthem, and earned her a tear-jerking career moment when Barack Obama named it one of his favorites.

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The rise of a new diva -

The body confident star also posed for Playboy in 2019, becoming only the second plus-size model to do so in its 66-year history.

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She didn't change, the times did -

While it seems Lizzo surfaced at the right time with the right content, she has been pushing positivity for a long time. "Then the culture changed," she told Time magazine. "There were a lot of things that weren't popular but existed, like body positivity, which at first was a form of protest for fat bodies and black women and has now become a trendy, commercialized thing ... Suddenly I'm mainstream!"

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She doesn't mind what she represents to you -

Lizzo made a decision to love herself, which some call brave, but was really just her choosing life. "If that's body-positive to you, amen. That's feminist to you, amen. If that's pro-black to you, amen. Because ma'am, I'm all of those things," she told Allure.

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She's not fading like a trend - Lizzo spoke to The Cut about the passing hashtags for body positivity and said, "That's just hopping on a trend and expecting people to blindly love themselves. That's fake love. I'm trying to figure out how to actually live it."

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Much needed light in dark times -

In a time rife with artifice, hatred, and insincerity, Lizzo's honesty and relatability makes her the perfect star, as she truly just makes people feel good.

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She gives people her mantra at live shows -

If you see her perform live, she may start out the show asking you to repeat her mantra: "I love you. You are beautiful. And you can do anything."

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It's not all smooth sailing -

"I have to bite my tongue on certain things," she says, referring to online comments."When people challenge my talent, they challenge whether I deserve to be here. They challenge my blackness."

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She wasn't always confident -

She even said that in March 2019, right before hitting her stride, "I didn't feel sexy, and I didn't know when it was going to end. There were times when I would go onstage and be like, 'Y'all, I'm not going to lie. I'm not feeling myself.' Sometimes I'd break down and cry."

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She's real -

One thing that sets Lizzo apart from the commercial self-love movement, which she has criticized before, is that she knows that part of being enough means acknowledging and respecting your imperfections.

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Taking a break from social media -

Lizzo recently tweeted that she's taking a break from Twitter because there are "too many trolls," and that she'll be back when she feels like it. While she preaches self-love, she remains candid about the struggle.

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Lizzo: The defining star of the moment

How she went from sleeping in her car to dominating radio

07/01/20 | StarsInsider

CELEBRITY Musicians

If you have working ears, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Lizzo. Named Time’s 2019 Entertainer of the Year, she embodies the revolutionary spirit of the moment by loving everything about herself that society at large has tried to deem unlovable. But despite how many people she's empowered, there’s a lot that people don’t know about her.

For example, her now-famous self-love anthem entitled ‘Truth Hurts’ actually came out much more quietly a couple of years ago, and it nearly ended her career. Find out how Lizzo’s difficult past catapulted her into becoming the inspiring, effervescent face of the self-love movement across music, fashion, and more.