Now we have touch down, all eyes are on which vegan hot spots Lizzo will decide to hit up during her stay in Perth.
That’s because the A-list vegan finds herself flying into a vegan storm engulfing our city’s restaurant scene and it’s a battle the About Damn Time singer knows all too well.
Chefs will be on the edge of their seats as only a few weeks ago Connolly’s Fyre restaurant sparked a row that went global by banning vegans for leaving negative reviews and threatening his business dubbing them “a pain in the a…”.
Enter Lizzo. A welcome ally to the under siege diet scene. She is a staunch promoter of the animal-free ideology and has been open about her own vegan journey.
“Being raw has a lot of internal benefits,” Lizzo, who graces RAC Arena on Friday, said.
“Those (internal benefits) are the ones that are important to me,” she continued. “(Being raw) boosts your immune system (and) it gives your digestive system a break. And it just boosts your energy.”
She’ll certainly be catered for in every pocket of our city with a plethora of top vegan eats from Fremantle’s Tonic & Ginger to Mount Lawley’s Veggie Mama and The Clean Food Store in Subiaco, to name only a few.
Lizzo knows being vegan attracts flak, and haters have come after her about her size.
“Shout out to all my fat vegans — we look as good as we feel … and to the haters, good luck chasing that narrow beauty standard,” she once posted.
The 35-year-old from Detroit says she was first introduced to the dietary ideology when she moved to Minneapolis to start her recording career.
“Minneapolis has really, really real good vegetarian and vegan food options,” she said.
“I really discovered my vegetarianism and my veganism there. I found places that were really creative with how they made vegan food and it wasn’t just fluff, just tofu, just seitan. It was like, finding ways to make vegetable-based proteins.”
Because of her size, Lizzo has found herself constantly having to convince people she actually follows the diet.
“People were like, ‘You’re a vegan? What, are you deep frying the lettuce?’” she recalled. “I’m not a vegan to lose weight, I just feel better when I eat plants. I feel very lucky because I don’t feel that weight gain is bad anymore. Nor is weight loss — it’s neutral. And food is fun. I love eating, and I have a chef now, and I’m not thinking about it. I had a brownie last night.”
She details her health snacks on her Tik Tok routinely — they include apple beet salad, vegan chocolate chip cookies and ice cream, kale and berry smoothies, plantains and corn chips with thick vegan cheese sauce.
She has found veganism has cured her heartburn and acid reflux as one health benefit experienced.
“As a new vegan, I’m enjoying exploring flavours from plants & plant-based proteins!’ she posted.
She certainly isn’t alone in the fame game when it comes to vegan followers which also include the likes of Billie Eilish, Elliot Page, Lewis Hamilton, Pamela Anderson, Sia, Toby McGuire, Ruby Rose and Natalie Portman.
Lizzo, real name Melissa Viviane Jefferson, certainly can relate to the angst and aversion vegans experience from others and restaurants like Fyre.
Her weight battles beleaguer her online relationship with fans, who refuse to accept she works out and follows a diet because of her size.
Hitting out in the past at trolls, she revealed, “I’ve been working out consistently for the last five years and it may come as a surprise to some of y’all that I’m not working out to have your ideal body type. I’m working out to have my ideal body type. And you know what type that is? None of your f***ing business because I am beautiful, I am strong, I do my job and I stay on my job.”
One of those famous trolls was rapper Kanye West who criticised her size in an interview saying, “It’s actually clinically unhealthy, and for people to, to promote that… it’s demonic.”
Well-versed at perennially having to justify her existence to the likes of West, she said: “People have been calling me fat my entire life…And if one person says it, then another person says it, it multiplies like a f***ing virus. If enough people on the internet start echoing sentiments about you, it becomes part of your public persona and it’s out of your control.”
It wouldn’t be a surprise if vegans in Perth get a shout-out from their famous sister during her RAC stage date…she certainly had no hesitation hitting back at West on that occasion.
“I feel like everybody in America got my motherf***ing name in their motherf***ing mouth for no motherf***ing reason,” she said on that occasion.
“I’m minding my fat Black beautiful business.”
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