Lizzo’s new album “B*tch” sold only 2,649 copies in its first week and missed the Billboard 200 entirely.
The album dropped earlier this month and was her first big release since her 2022 album “Special,” which followed years of radio hits and mainstream pop dominance.
Lizzo has said the album’s performance reflects changes in the music business and the fact that fans no longer discover songs the same way they did when radio carried more weight. She also claimed the streaming era has made that path more complicated.
The numbers also come as Lizzo continues to deal with fallout from a 2023 lawsuit filed by former backup dancers, who accused her of sexual misconduct and creating a hostile work environment. Lizzo has denied the allegations and is fighting them in court.
She has also referred to what she called a “very obvious and public attack on my career.”
“Everything that I have shown the world is me. And I think that always puts someone in a vulnerable position. I think pop stars have built a sort of protection of themselves, and they put the pop star character in the front. And then the real them gets to sit in the back. I never did that because I came from the indie world,” she recently told The New York Times.
“This is who I am. I don’t have anything to hide. I love myself. And the world loved me back for it. I think that the beauty of everything is that I get to evolve as a person, and I get to have more depth as a person, because it isn’t always happy-go-lucky. And I feel like moving forward — it’s kind of hard to talk about.”