It was only three short years ago that Lizzo was such a successful pop star that she could play a string of arena dates around Australia, performing for tens of thousands of fans across multiple nights at Sydney\u2019s Qudos Bank Arena and Melbourne\u2019s Rod Laver Arena as part of her Special world tour.<\/p>\n
Three years on, and Lizzo\u2019s newly-released fifth studio album BITCH is heading for such a disastrous debut this week, the star has already gotten ahead of the news, publicly offering up reasoning as to why her career has so dramatically waned in popularity.<\/p>\n
BITCH was released into the world last Friday, so we\u2019ll have to wait until later this week to discover where it\u2019s placed on the Aussie ARIA album charts (her last album debuted at number 2 here). <\/p>\n
But early signs internationally are not good: In the UK, where her last album Special was a silver-selling #6 hit in 2022, the country\u2019s early midweek chart shows BITCHlooks set to miss the top 100<\/a> entirely.<\/p>\n Other outlets have reported that in its first 24 hours of release, BITCH received just 633,914 streams worldwide on Spotify (that\u2019s across all of its 12 tracks). <\/p>\n By contrast, Taylor Swift\u2019s The Tortured Poets Department currently holds the record for most first-day Spotify streams, with 313 million. <\/p>\n \u201cLizzo not having a fanbase is so weird to me when this woman was literally selling out arenas not even 2 years ago,\u201d one person mused on social media this week.<\/p>\n \u201cLike, where did those people go?\u201d<\/p>\n That question earned a response from the woman herself, who argued that she was a \u201cradio darling\u201d who had been hurt by the shift to streaming, as well as weathering an \u201cattack\u201d on her career. <\/p>\n \u201cI actually can answer this: the industry changed so much in the last 3 yrs. Streaming replaced radio & I was a radio darling. That\u2019s how my fans discovered my music. Not to mention the very obvious & public attack on my career changed things. But I\u2019m out here doing my absolute best and u can\u2019t knock a bitch for that,\u201d she wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lizzo didn\u2019t expand on what she meant by the attack on her career, but she was perhaps referring to the lawsuit she faced in 2023<\/a> by three former backup dancers, who alleged sexual, racial, and religious harassment, creating a hostile work environment, and fat-shaming.<\/p>\n The accusers dropped all fat-shaming allegations in December 2025, but the suit is still ongoing as Lizzo refuses to settle and has vowed to clear her name of the remaining allegations. <\/p>\n But not all were sold on Lizzo\u2019s claim that she\u2019s a victim of the streaming era, seeing as she broke through in the streaming era. <\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Streaming has replaced radio\u2019? You would think Lizzo debuted in the 90s,\u201d one person tweeted.<\/p>\n \u201cStreaming replaced radio over a decade ago. What are you talking about?\u201d another asked.<\/p>\n \u201cThe shift to streaming happened about 12 years ago? The biggest most recent shift in the music industry is the focus on TikTok in the last few years, which is how Lizzo got most of her hits no?\u201d another asked, pointing out that Lizzo\u2019s biggest hits flew up the charts after gaining traction on the platform. <\/p>\n Reviews for BITCH have not been great: \u201cLizzo returns, but it doesn\u2019t seem like her heart is in it,\u201d wrote Rolling Stone<\/a> in a two-and-a-half star review, bemoaning the album\u2019s \u201ctired moves and cynical appeals to the streaming algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n The Guardian <\/a>gave the album two stars, writing that \u201cLizzo still sounds lost amid these weak genre-hopping songs\u201d and wondering if \u201cperhaps the zeitgeist has simply left her behind\u201d?<\/p>\n Lizzo might have seemed like something of an overnight success when her single Truth Hurts became a surprise viral hit in 2019, but she\u2019d had a long career before that, releasing her first album back in 2013. In fact, Truth Hurts was already two years old by the time it caught on in 2019 (and a huge follow-up hit, Good As Hell, had actually first been released in 2016).<\/p>\n The star\u2019s last major worldwide hit was the 2022 single About Damn Time, a US number one that went on to win the coveted Record of the Year award at the 2023 Grammys. <\/p>\n Read related topics:Melbourne<\/a>Sydney<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was only three short years ago that Lizzo was such a successful pop star that she could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[227611,7605,227614,227608,1128,87020,227623,227626,227609,18,117,1015,227616,227612,227619,227622,227621,227610,19,17,227617,227620,337,3323,179778,1539,161032,89512,27250,227618,227625,227624,227607,13599,227613,8632,973,4474,227615,393,19366,19692],"class_list":["post-527477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-album-charts","tag-america","tag-arena-dates","tag-arena-tour","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-backup-dancers","tag-disastrous-debut","tag-dramatic-fall","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-europe","tag-fanbaselizzo-claims","tag-fat-shaming-allegations","tag-genre-hopping-songs","tag-hit-maker","tag-hits-flew","tag-hostile-work-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-looks-set","tag-midweek-chart-shows","tag-music","tag-music-industry","tag-nick-bond","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-playing-multiple-arena","tag-qudos-bank-arena","tag-radio-darling","tag-religious-harassment","tag-rolling-stone","tag-streaming-era","tag-studio-album","tag-taylor-swift","tag-the-tortured-poets-department","tag-truth-hurts","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-world-tour"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}