Spooky season is here, and Lizzo leaned into it during her Madison Square Garden show last night. The singer wore a neon and nude catsuit, featuring a spider-like design. It’s giving Spider-Woman meets pop star vibes:
Lizzo had her hair styled down in waves and wore a smoky eye for makeup.
Lizzo recently made headlines for playing former President James Madison’s 200-year-old crystal flute at the Library of Congress during her Washington, D.C. concert. The Library of Congress tweeted that Lizzo did not harm the instrument after some conservative pundits tried to make it out like she defiled it. “For those concerned about the flute: Music Division curators made sure it could be played without damage,” the organization tweeted out. “This sort of thing is not all that unusual, in fact. Some of the Library’s priceless instruments were donated with the stipulation that they remain functional & be played.”
Lizzo spoke herself to NPR in August about her history playing the flute. She was chosen by a flute specialist teacher to play the instrument in fifth grade. “I don’t know why she picked me,” Lizzo said. “I think—later on, she was like, you know, you just had a good embouchure. I could tell you’d have a good flute embouchure, which is, you know, your mouth. But I don’t know. And I was, like, grateful because I wanted to play flute. I thought it was the coolest instrument. But, you know, who could have known? All the cool girls play clarinet anyway.”
“I was very, very, very serious [about my flute career],” Lizzo said. “I studied flute. I played it every night. When I was a senior in high school, or a junior, I started studying with the principal flutist of the Houston Opera, and she was also a professor at the University of Houston. So I was studying with Sydney Carlson for years. And she was kind of, like, priming me to go to U of H. She got me my scholarship to U of H. And then, when I was studying with her there, she was setting me up to study at the Paris Conservatory.”
“I was going to to study flute at the Paris Conservatory,” she continued. “And I was going to really just, you know, wait in line for that first chair. I saw a life of Concert Black and Boston Pops and traveling the world. And when that didn’t pan out for me, I was very depressed. I was very sad. I don’t really know what happened. I think the pressure of those two worlds kind of got to me. Because I was waking up every morning at like 6 A.M. for marching band at U of H, and then I would go to the rehearsal hall, and I would practice in this tiny room for hours.”
“And then at night, I would stay up and rap at fashion shows, and try to stay up, and keep up with all the fraternities and sororities,” she said. “And that was really taking a toll on me. And I was like, who are you, you know? At this point, you could do it all through high school, but you’re in college now. You’re about to be who you’re going to be forever. And now, who is that?”
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.