Singer Lizzo was a guest on The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder and played herself on season one, episode five. The creators said they chose the singer as a guest star because of her “message of empowerment.”
In an interview with Insider, the show’s creators Bruce W. Smith and Ralph Farquhar explained how Lizzo playing herself fit perfectly into the episode despite it being easier for them to create a character for a guest celebrity.
“It’s easier for us to half folks play characters because then if we wrote [a part] for Lizzo and Lizzo said no then now we got to rewrite this whole d**n thing,” Farquhar explained. “But sometimes — I’ll just use Lizzo as an example — we just loved her whole message of empowerment, [and to] be yourself. And so that was critical.”
Farquhar added, “So it wasn’t just Lizzo, it’s what Lizzo stands for that we wanted in the piece.”
In the episode, Lizzo teaches Penny (played by Kyla Pratt) to embrace her deep singing voice and gets her to perform on the stage, which Lizzo was invited to perform on at Oscar Proud’s amusement park, Snackland.
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Following the announcement of The Proud Family reboot, many celebrities reached out to Smith and Farquhar about getting on the show. One of them was actress, singer and soon-to-be mom Keke Palmer.
“Keke called me up when she read the announcement and said, ‘No way are you doing this show without me.’ So, we had to,” Farquhar shared.
Smith and Farquhar had numerous celebrities like Cardi B and Saweetie reach out to be included. However, the number of people contacting them surpassed the show’s limit.
The guest stars who are definitely on The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder are Lil Nas X, Normani, Chance the Rapper, Gabrielle Union, Al Roker, Leslie Odom Jr., Jaden Smith, Tina Knowles and more.
