HOW CAN WE MISS YOU IF YOU WON’T GO AWAY? Lizzo is not the first diva to come crawling back.

Five days after announcing on social media that she was abandoning music, Lizzo, the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter, clarified that she was not quitting after all. Her about-turn had the feel of someone storming out of a blazing row having had the last word, only to find they had left their coat on the back of a chair.

Lizzo, whose real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, is not the first star to shock her fans with a dramatic declaration that was later recanted.

Frank Sinatra led the way when he retired in 1971 two years after the release of My Way, aged 55 – only to come out of retirement two years later and play another thousand concerts.

But the age of social media appears to have made it much easier for performers both to retire and then promptly return.

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Digital quitting takes being a diva to self-defeating extremes. Lizzo, like many others, appears addicted to sympathy.

As with Sinatra, nobody really believes these artists are gone for good when they quit, but their digital platforms demand fake finality and the stars demand fake horror. Lizzo is not entirely correct when she says: “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Lizzo’s brief timeout gets her headlines coming and going, and keeps these headlines from recirculating: Lizzo accused of sexual harassment and fat-shaming Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez.

Related: Lizzo expressed interest in banana sex-shows years before allegations. “In the lawsuit, the dancers claimed that ‘things quickly got out of hand’ after ‘Lizzo began inviting cast members to take turns touching the nude performers, catching dildos launched from the performers’ vaginas, and eating bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas’.”

And, via the Power Line Week in Pictures, Lizzo’s return to performing could have serious repercussions in the Pacific Rim: