Lizzo explains why she felt her “life was over” as she reflects on highs and lows of her career

The Batches and Cookies singer Melissa Viviane Jefferson, best known by her stage name Lizzo, recently appeared as a guest on the Armchair Expert podcast hosted by the Hit & Run actor Dax Shepard and Monica Padman.

According to Us Weekly, during a candid conversation with Shepard and Padman on the September 7, 2026 episode of the podcast, Lizzo, 38, opened up about the highs and lows of her career.

As she gained mainstream popularity in 2019, the Good as Hell singer Lizzo transitioned to acting in films and TV. After being the recipient of multiple prestigious music awards, including a Grammy, Lizzo even starred in her own 2022 docu-feature Love, Lizzo.

On the Armchair Expert podcast, while talking to Shepard about her fifth music album, released on June 5, 2026, which, according to Us Weekly, failed commercially, Lizzo mentioned her temporary break from music amid the 2023 controversy, which lasted until she started work on her fifth studio album. Lizzo then explained how she thought her "life was over" and said:

"I was like, 'Whoa, this feels like my life is over'. And so with the fame thing and the success and the public perception being super positive and being overly loved and people understanding me, I wasn’t looking over my shoulder for a shoe to drop because I really genuinely was moving so purely. I really, which they say you shouldn’t do, just really showed the whole world my heart."

She further noted:

"When everybody started hating me, I kind of didn’t understand. … I had experienced little waves of it, but this time after my [Special Tour] ended, it was legitimate. So I really did feel like my life was over because music had been my life, and I didn’t feel like anyone wanted me to make music anymore.”

While the Juice hitmaker, Lizzo, saw her fair share of highs and experienced numerous positive moments in her career, she also faced her lows and became part of controversies, which eventually led her to become the center of public scrutiny.

According to Us Weekly, Lizzo got dragged into a controversy in 2023, when a few of her backup dancers sued her and her production company, reportedly accusing them of racial and sexual harassment, weight shaming, and making them work in a hostile environment.

However, while the Water Me hitmaker denied all the allegations, eventually some of the claims against her production company were dismissed by the federal court because of insufficient evidence.

However, during her conversation with Shepard, Lizzo also talked about how after becoming famous she continued to feel like a "regular girl" and said:

"I wasn’t even really perceiving how famous I had gotten. I feel like a regular girl in the Twin Cities, walking into the bar, going to get some cheese curds and a beer. I still feel like that girl."

She went ahead and said:

"But the whole world is like, everything I did was news. I had been going full throttle. It was like a clothing line, TV show, tour, album, actually really doing well. I didn’t even know how well the album was doing. I wasn’t paying attention."

Lizzo wondered if she should "cease to exist"

While talking to Dax Shepard on the podcast, Lizzo opened up about the 2023 controversy and revealed how, at one point, she thought about whether she should "cease to exist," as she felt like no one wanted her to create music anymore. The singer-songwriter said:

"It was really heavy. It’s really heavy. And I think you have to kind of go to a very, very, very, very low place to be able to kind of float back up to the top."

She further added:

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"You know, what I came to is knowing who you are and not what you do. I feel like I had been identifying myself as what I do for so long, instead of remembering who I am because that’s my job. It was extremely freeing because I’m like, 'Oh, only I know me, only I know who I am and I need to remember that and not allow someone to change that because I can do that too.'"

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