Throughout her career, Lizzo has been a leading force in body acceptance. She has faced opposition from the public and the industry in regards to her weight, but Lizzo has managed to take that negativity and turned it into motivation to become the award-winning international superstar that she is. The 33-year-old multi-hyphenate entertainer recently sat down with Variety for a cover story and during the discussion, Lizzo spoke candidly about representation in Hollywood. She mentioned her reaction to seeing Eddie Murphy don fat-suits for several films, including The Nutty Professor.
“It’s funny, because I’m the biggest Eddie Murphy fan of all time,” Lizzo said. “But he definitely had a collection of fat-suit movies that people would be laughing at, but I would feel sad.”
Dimitrios Kambouris / Staff / Getty Images
“Not because I felt like, ‘Oh, my gosh — that’s me.’ But I had this empathy for Professor Klump [in The Nutty Professor],” she added. “Like, the scene where he opens his drawer and there are all these candies and M&Ms in his desk? I could literally cry right now thinking about it. People around me were laughing, but I hide food, too. I feel him. I feel sympathy and empathy for him.”
Lizzo also mentioned that she did audition for the role of Ursula in the live-action adaptation of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, but eventually lost out to Melissa McCarthy. “But you know, I’m fine as hell. That has nothing to do with Ursula, but I was down to make Ursula a THOT, shaking ass.”
Maybe she’ll fulfill her THOT Ursula dreams one day. Check out the trailer for Murphy’s hit 1990s film The Nutty Professor below.
[via]