Lizzo Tells Letterman Why The George Floyd Protests Give Her Hope

In this clip from the upcoming third season of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Lizzo talks with David Letterman about systemic racism, or as Letterman puts it, the "virus that's been with us for 400 years."

"To me, it looked like this goon was happy to behave the way he behaved while being videotaped," Letterman said of ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on George Floyd's throat until he died. "And then you realize 'oh, yeah, this is the way of the world.'" 

Lizzo discusses feeling hopeless after the killing of unarmed Jamar Clark back in 2015 just down the street from her house in Minneapolis, which was the inspiration for her song "My Skin," and then the murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, but says that the response to George Floyd has left her cautiously optimistic.

"This time, I saw something different. I saw the sudden allyship of young white people, which I'd never seen," she explained. "I also saw people in the news realize that it's more than just a hashtag and a moment and a movement and us complaining and that it's a real systemic poison. That got me, for the first time, a little hopeful."

My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman returns October 21 on Netflix.

Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.