Lizzo Opened Up About How Her Anxiety and Depression 'Didn't Go Away' Upon Becoming Famous

For years, Lizzo's continued to prove she's not afraid to speak openly about navigating her own mental health. But the Grammy-winning artist just got even candid, revealing that her meteoric rise to fame "didn't change" the fact that she still struggles with depression and anxiety.

In a recent interview with Variety, Lizzo opened up about what it was like to suddenly have such a massive platform despite still being the person she's always been, which is, in her words, "that bitch." But she's also more than just that: She's someone who continues to manage a years-long struggle with mental illness...just now with a shelf-worth of golden statues and awards.

"Fame happens to you, and it's more of an observation of you," she told the publication. "People become famous, and it's like — my DNA didn't change. Nothing changed about me. My anxiety didn't go away. My depression didn't go away. The things that I love didn't go away. I'm still myself. But the way y'all look at me and perceive me has changed. It's a very weird, kind of formless thing."

Lizzo's sudden loss of anonymity seemingly served as a sort of shock to the system that she, unlike many others in the spotlight, wasn't prepared for: "I don't want to seem ungrateful. It was sad, and I had to talk to my therapist about the loss of who I was. Most famous people have been famous just as long as they've been a person, so they have acclimated more to it."

"I was going into dive bars and getting shitfaced in 2018," she continued. "And nobody knew who I was, and nobody was bothering me. By 2019, I noticed I couldn't go to restaurants with my dancers and stuff. I had to call security, and they had to call a car, and we had to sit and wait." The experience made her feel like she was "a burden" to her friends, adding, "Things are different now. It bummed me out, because you do lose a sense of your privacy and yourself, the old self."

As mentioned above, Lizzo's long been open about her challenges with mental health, with the Houston-raised singer telling Texas Music in 2019 that she first found herself in a "dark place" during college. She told the outlet she experienced bouts of depression for years due to family issues, financial instability, and body image issues. (

"There was nobody else out there who looked like me. If there had been, I wouldn't have had these obstacles that I needed to lose weight or change my hair or have light skin to be accepted," she said at the time. "I remember one day being like, 'This is it.' Twenty-some-odd years of me believing that one day I'd wake up and be some other girl. You're going to look this way for the rest of your life. And you have to be okay with that."

Despite amassing a newfound global following thanks to the success of "Truth Hurts" and several subsequent hits,she's all about keeping it real with her millions of fans across the globe — especially when it comes to what she still goes through mentally. In June 2019, for example, Lizzo got especially candid about being "depressed" and feeling as if "there's no one [she] can talk to because there's nothing anyone can do about it" on Instagram. The following day, Lizzo took to the 'gram again, sharing a video in which she talks about the power of being "emotionally honest" when she's struggling with "moments of darkness."

"I learned in the last 24hrs that being emotionally honest can save your life. Reaching out may be hard but as soon as I did it, I was immediately covered in love. I used to think of sadness as a constant with fleeting moments of joy in between... but it's a wave 🌊joy🌊sadness🌊joy🌊sadness🌊 and my sadness can be as temporary as my joy," she wrote in the caption.

The artist's also honest about relying on coping skills such as therapy, meditation, and, of course, music to get her through, what she's called, the "darkest days." And need not forget about the fact that Lizzo serves up self-love in spades, making for the perfect antidote to what can feel like an endless loop of negativity these days. (Read more: Lizzo Shared a Powerful Video of Her Daily Self-Love Affirmations)

As she told Variety, "Sometimes I've got to remind myself I'm the shit. I forget who I am a lot. I'll be like — wait, I'm that bitch."