HIZZO4EVER: The American beauty standard should not stand in the way of Harry Styles and Lizzo being perceived as a possible couple

Harry Styles and Lizzo are undeniably one of the most iconic celebrity friendships of our time. Performing together in concert, covering each other’s songs on the radio and Styles serenading her from the stage at Love On Tour — they’ve been absolutely spoiling us with gems of subtle intimacy for years.

However, there’s been a disparity in the responses to Lizzo and Styles being spotted together compared to the coverage of him being linked to other famous faces. The utter lack of dating rumors all comes down to deep-rooted fatphobia and racism ingrained in the media.  

He’s rumored to have dated Victoria’s Secret models Cara Delevingne, Nadine Leopold, Sara Sampaio and a slew of others even though he’s never publicly flirted with any of them. Why is it that merely being in the same room with these women prompts dating rumors, but there are no suggestions that Lizzo and Styles are more than friends?

This response — or lack thereof — is discretely racist and fatphobic. No one speculates that Lizzo and Styles are dating since she doesn’t look like the sample-size, white women he’s constantly linked with.

Lizzo and Styles may maintain to the public that they’re just friends, but judging from some of their recent public interactions, I’d beg to differ. 

During their joint performance of Lizzo’s “Juice” at a New Year’s Eve show in 2020, Lizzo pointed to Styles on the lyrics, “You better come get your man, I think he got lost in my DMs,” while Styles sang, “I wanna be way more than friends,” before holding hands with Lizzo for the remainder of the song, which had me up out of my chair screaming over how obsessed I am with their relationship. 

Additionally, at award shows Lizzo and Styles have been seen openly flirting, not to mention cuddling during interviews like with Jack Whitehall at the Brit Awards. In 2020, they went on BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge set together where they made playfully crude jokes about collaborating in areas other than their music. 

Despite their open flirtation and subtle clues, the majority of the media response to them has always been in the context of friendship. This is an anomaly compared to any other time Styles is so much as seen with female celebrities — which results in almost entirely dating rumors. 

Fans on Twitter have pointed out that Lizzo is pretty much the only female celebrity that Styles isn’t rumored to have dated and we should all be questioning why the usual widespread dating rumors are nowhere to be found.

Whether or not Hizzo is more than an innocent friendship (it is), the platonic responses when they’re spotted together shine light on the fatphobia and racism that many experience in dating, proving what a close-minded society we live in and how much work there is to be done when it comes to what love should look like.