Gabourey Sidibe Says Kathy Hilton’s Lizzo Mix-Up Felt Racial

Only in fame do you win an Oscar nod and still get called by your character’s name while being mixed up with a woman you’ve never even met.

Gabourey Sidibe has finally said out loud what a lot of people thought in 2022 watching Kathy Hilton’s TV blunder: this wasn’t just an oops, it stung.

On a new podcast, the Precious star unpacked Hilton confusing her with Lizzo and made it clear – for Black women, this kind of “mix-up” doesn’t land as harmless.

The Moment

Let’s rewind to August 2022, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. Kathy Hilton, socialite and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills fixture, was playing a celebrity photo game called “Will Kathy Know Them?”

A picture of Lizzo pops up. Hilton squints and guesses, “I feel like I do know her. Is that Precious?” according to original coverage of the segment in August 2022 and recaps of the episode.

The audience laughs, Andy Cohen laughs, everyone does that nervous-TV-giggle. Hilton then tries to explain, saying that’s what she calls Sidibe – “Her nickname’s Precious to me” – while guest Crystal Kung Minkoff gamely chirps that Lizzo is, in fact, “precious.”

Fast-forward nearly four years. On the One54 podcast, released this week, Sidibe finally addresses it. She says she’d actually been to Hilton’s house for a meeting about dressing her and remembers thinking, “I know you, Kathy.”

Then she drops the line that cuts through all the nervous laughter: she’s often mistaken for “many a Black fat” woman, and it’s “always weird and tinged with racism,” according to the podcast interview as summarized in new reporting on February 7, 2026.

The Take

Here’s the thing: if this were just one rich lady not knowing pop stars, we’d all move on. But Sidibe nailed why it lingers – this is what it looks like when the culture flattens Black women into one interchangeable body.

Kathy Hilton didn’t just confuse Lizzo and Gabourey Sidibe. She saw a plus-size Black woman and reached for the one role – not even the person, the role – that stuck in her mind.

Sidibe’s comment about being called “Precious” instead of her actual name is the quiet heartbreak in all of this. She has an Oscar nomination, a long TV resume, a memoir, producing credits – and yet a decade later, she’s still “that girl from that movie” to people who’ve actually done business with her.

When a woman you’ve had a fashion meeting with still calls you by your character’s name on national TV, that’s not just awkward – that’s a system showing its seams.

Hilton’s camp, for its part, has leaned on the “bad eyes, bad nerves” defense, which may all be true on a human level. Live television is chaos; plenty of celebs have blanked on names with a camera in their face.

But intent and impact can both exist. Hilton might not have meant harm. It still lands in a world where Black actresses have talked for years about being mistaken for one another, while white counterparts with similar looks are treated as distinct individuals.

So yes, Sidibe laughing about it on a podcast is shade, but it’s also a small act of workplace hygiene. She’s drawing a line: Learn my name. Learn what I do. And please stop using “I don’t know who anyone is” as a personality trait when the collateral damage is always the same kind of woman.

Receipts

Confirmed:

• The mix-up occurred during an August 2022 episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in a game called “Will Kathy Know Them?” where Hilton guessed Lizzo was “Precious,” referring to Sidibe’s character. This was captured in the original broadcast and widely reported at the time.
• In a new episode of the One54 podcast released this week, Sidibe says she’s been to Kathy Hilton’s house for a meeting about dressing her and describes the incident as “weird” and “tinged with racism,” as quoted in coverage dated February 7, 2026.
• Sidibe states on the podcast that she has “been confused for many a Black fat [woman]” and that it’s a recurring, uncomfortable experience.
• Hilton previously addressed the 2022 gaffe on social media, saying her “vision is awful” and that the screen was so far away she couldn’t recognize other celebrities like Justin Timberlake or Melissa Etheridge, according to her public comments cited in entertainment news reports from August 2022.

Reported:

• An unnamed insider told E! News in 2022 that Hilton felt “terrible” about the mistake, gets nervous on live TV, and “would never intentionally hurt anyone’s feelings,” as relayed in later write-ups.
• The same source claimed Hilton “doesn’t know who anyone is,” offered as context rather than a direct quote from Hilton herself.
• A representative for Hilton did not immediately respond to new requests for comment on Sidibe’s remarks, according to coverage dated February 7, 2026.

Backstory (For the Casual Reader)

If you’re not living in Bravo-land, here’s the quick cast list.

Gabourey Sidibe broke through in 2009 with Precious, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She’s since starred on shows like Empire and American Horror Story, written a memoir, and worked behind the scenes as a director and producer.

Lizzo, for her part, is a Grammy-winning singer, rapper, and flutist who became one of the defining pop stars of the late 2010s and early 2020s, known for hits like “Truth Hurts” and “About Damn Time,” as well as her body-positivity messaging.

Kathy Hilton is the Beverly Hills matriarch – sister to Kyle Richards and mom to Paris Hilton – who joined The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as a “friend” of the cast and quickly became a meme machine for her spacey, out-of-touch rich-aunt energy.

Put them together, and you get that 2022 talk-show moment that seemed, at first, like another chaotic Kathy-ism. What Sidibe just did was remind everyone that for the people on the other end of those moments, it’s not always a harmless blooper reel.

Question for readers: When a public figure blames “bad eyesight” or nerves for a racially charged mistake like this, does that soften it for you – or is it past time we expect more care from people with that big a platform?

Sources

• Original reporting on Gabourey Sidibe’s podcast comments and recap of Kathy Hilton’s 2022 mix-up, published February 7, 2026.
• Coverage of Kathy Hilton’s August 2022 Watch What Happens Live appearance and subsequent social media explanation, August 2022.
• Follow-up reporting citing an unnamed insider speaking to E! News about Hilton’s reaction and feelings after the incident, August 2022.