Nothing? “Oh, well…” and again, that laugh. On like a half day-they’d come and show off their horse.” Did she have a horse? “Hell no! I don’t like to get on top of things,” she laughs. There were kids who used to ride their horses to school. She tells me it was more country than urban-it used to be all cow farms-and yes, she says, “There’s horses. Melissa Viviane Jefferson was born 34 years ago in Detroit, then moved to the Alief area of Houston when she was nine. As a fat Black woman, this country has never gone forward it’s stayed pretty much the same for me.” If I see hope in this country, it will come from the accountability of the people who have the privilege. I don’t think there was a time when were treated fairly and with respect.

“The way Black women have been treated in this country has made me feel very hopeless. I’d like to be an optimist, but I’m a chronically disappointed optimist,” she continues.

Black people have been dehumanized so much-especially Black women.

The façade that ‘America, we’re all in this together.’ No, we’re not. It’s about white male supremacy it’s always been about white male supremacy in this country and the people who are complicit in helping uphold it-who are a lot of white women. “An overwhelming amount of people did not agree with what the Supreme Court did. “The Supreme Court has politicized law and made it a weapon against human rights,” she adds. Photographs by CAMPBELL ADDY Styled by PATTI WILSON Headpiece by Luis De Javier gloves by Tableaux Vivants bracelets by Cartier rings by Bulgari. Lizzo, photographed on August 4 in Los Angeles. “It’s mine,” she said with her very distinctive, very ebullient laugh, “I bought it.” Her long acrylic nails were painted a pale pink, and her hair was dark and wavy. Now back home, somewhere in the hills of Los Angeles, she gestures to the pool and the trees and the grass outside the floor-to-ceiling glass walls and says, “I like nature.” She’s wearing a black strapless dress from her own Yitty shapewear line, long Chanel pearls, and Yitty platform slides, which she kicked off as we sat and talked. Within days of the release, Special debuted at number two on the Billboard charts and the single “About Damn Time” went to number one. There were back-to-back promotional appearances in New York City (where years ago, she tells me, she had her first anxiety attack, and adds that it’s always stressful when she goes to New York). She released her second major-label studio album, Special, with a five-song outdoor performance on the Today show summer concert series in over 85-degree July heat.

Much better lyrics