Just Cuz We Love Her, Here Are 10 Fascinating Facts About Lizzo

Lizzo wasn’t born Lizzo – but her moniker was inspired by her real name. Born Melissa Jefferson, she explained during a February 2019 interview with The Cut that she’s been called Lizzo since middle school, and she first created the nickname after forming a rap group called the Cornrow Clique with two of her classmates. Though she initially went by Lissa, she changed it to Lizzo after being inspired by JAY-Z’s “Izzo.” As she told 88Nine Radio Milwaukee back in 2016, she’s been Lizzo ever since. “[Lizzo] kind of stuck with me and I brought it with me,” she said. “It made me feel way more comfortable.”

She may be a classically trained flautist now, but when Lizzo was first starting off on the instrument, she was largely self-taught. She told CBS News in October 2019 that she would learn to play songs by ear, and afterwards, she would use the sheet music to figure out the notes. “. . . by the time I got private lessons, they were like, ‘Whoa, like, where did you learn technique? You’re like a wild horse. And that’s an amazing thing, ’cause you have all this power. And you have all this style. But we need to give you some technique,'” she recounted. “And so I had to actually go back and learn how to, like, play notes properly when I got older.”

Lizzo spent the summer after dropping out of college with her family, where she suffered through an identity crisis and, unintentionally, retreated within herself for three months, communicating only in shrugs. Her silence put a strain on her relationship with her mother, though they’ve since reconciled. “My mom is still like – anytime I’m quiet she’s like, ‘Hey, Melissa! Don’t go nowhere!'” she told Greenroom Magazine in 2015. “[I went] crazy . . . in a good way though, because I got inspired. That was a summer of metamorphosis.” In that time, Lizzo realized what she really wanted to do with her life: become a singer.

Lizzo dealt with something even more difficult soon after dropping out of college: the death of her beloved father, who’d supported her performance dreams since the very beginning. That year was the lowest point in Lizzo‘s career – as well as the most transformative. “Twenty-one was the worst year of my life,” she told Teen Vogue in June 2018. Though the experience made her stronger, Lizzo doesn’t think everyone should have to hit rock bottom in order to grow. “That’s just the society we’re all unfortunately born in – the one where you have to hit your worst and hate yourself in order to love yourself,” she added.

In 2016, Lizzo signed with Atlantic Records, and a year later, she released “Truth Hurts,” which she considered the best song she’d ever written. Though she felt confident that it would be an instant success, it’s wasn’t, and the song’s relative failure made Lizzo question whether a career in music was even worth pursuing. “The day I released ‘Truth Hurts’ was probably one of the darkest days I’ve had ever in my career,” she confessed to People in July 2019. “I remember thinking, ‘If I quit music now, nobody would notice. This is my best song ever, and nobody cares.” However, the people who loved her did care. “. . . my producer, my publicist, and my family, they were like, ‘Just keep going because this is the darkest before the dawn,'” she added.