It appears Lizzo has un-quit. Almost a year after the singer vaguely announced her intention to step away from the limelight, she's back with a new song called "Love In Real Life."
On Feb. 13, Lizzo posted an Instagram reel in which she spray-painted the words "BYE BITCH" over a large print of the cover art to her 2023 album Special. The next day, she took to a Twitch livestream to confirm that the Special era was indeed over and that "Love In Real Life" was on the way. (She also mentioned that she once nearly started a three-piece band called Pussy Lasers with SZA and a third singer she did not name. That would've been interesting.)
"Love In Real Life" marks Lizzo's comeback after getting hit with two lawsuits from multiple former employees accusing her of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, hence why she temporarily "quit." (She denied the allegations.) One of those lawsuits cited a team outing at an Amsterdam strip club during which Lizzo allegedly encouraged the plaintiffs to "[eat] bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas," among other salacious activities. On a December 2024 interview on Keke Palmer's podcast, Lizzo again insisted that everything was consensual. “I don’t think that people who I employ should even be privy to how I am in a bar at this point,” she said. “I think that this experience taught me healthy boundaries. But to be real with you, it was such a fun night.”
Lizzo co-wrote "Love In Real Life" with her "About Damn Time" co-writers Eric Frederic, Theron Thomas, and Blake Satkin, and like that Special lead single, Satkin and Ricky Reed co-produced it. "Love In Real Life" has a Colin Tilley-directed video inspired by Michael Jackson's "Thriller" clip, and on streaming services it comes alongside a short spoken word intro track, the 22-second "Everything Was So Much Simpler." On that one Lizzo says, "Everything was so much simpler/ And that's exactly what I need/ No views/ No likes/ Real love/ In real life."
Watch and listen below.
