On Friday, June 5, Lizzo released her new album Bitch. It’s not doing so well.
In its first 24 hours of release, Bitch garnered just 633,914 streams on Spotify. That’s a far cry from the heights of Lizzo’s previous two albums, 2022’s Special and 2019’s Cuz I Love You, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart, respectively.
In the first half of the 2020s, Lizzo’s cultural presence was undeniable. Her single Truth Hurts went massively viral, launching her into the spotlight. Between 2020 and 2023, she won four Grammys and even an Emmy for her reality competition Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls.
But in the years since, Lizzo’s foothold in pop culture seems to have slipped. And according to the singer, a widespread shift in the music industry is to blame.
“I was a radio darling”: Lizzo says streaming is at fault
After Bitch’s underwhelming debut, some social media users wondered why the tide seems to have turned against Lizzo.
“Lizzo not having a fanbase is so weird to me when this woman was literally selling out arenas not even 2 years ago,” one user wrote in a viral post. “Like, where did those people go?”
Though plenty of other users had theories (including a lack of evolution in her sound, an online obsession with dunking on the singer, and simply the fickle finger of the music industry), Lizzo herself chimed in on the discourse with her own explanation for the decline in her fan base.
“I actually can answer this: The industry changed so much in the last 3 yrs,” Lizzo wrote. “Streaming replaced radio & I was a radio darling. That’s how my fans discovered my music.”
Lizzo added that “the very obvious & public attack on my career changed things” as well, likely referring to the lawsuit filed against her in 2023 by three former backup dancers who accused Lizzo of harassment, discrimination, and assault, among other claims. Lizzo has denied the allegations, and the lawsuit is ongoing.
Still, Lizzo wrote that she’s “out here doing my absolute best and u can’t knock a bitch for that.”
In a separate post, Lizzo wrote that she’s “never been a stream queen . . . but I ALWAYS been a HITMAKER.” She also responded directly to Bitch’s first-day streaming numbers, thanking her fans and writing, “I’m so proud of us LIZZBIANS!”
Is radio really dead?
Even after Lizzo’s explanation, social media users weren’t sold. Though it’s true that for music consumption, streaming continues to gain popularity, many users pointed out that the transition predated Lizzo’s loss of popularity. As early as 2021, streaming had surpassed radio as the most common way Americans listened to music, largely driven by Gen Z’s listening habits.
And though streaming may be popular, radio remains the most listened-to platform across all ad-supported audio for American adults, with Nielsen even noting as of June 2026 that radio’s share of daily listening time has increased quarter over quarter.
Where Lizzo’s assessment is correct is that she’s getting less radio airplay than she used to. Though her previous singles “About Damn Time,” “Truth Hurts,” and “Good as Hell” all spent weeks topping Billboard’s Radio Songs chart, none of her releases since 2023 have appeared on the chart at all, including any of the tracks from Bitch. Even if radio is alive and well, Lizzo’s time as a “radio darling” may be behind her.
