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Lizzo fires back at harassment, hostile work environment allegations
Entertainment Aug 03, 2023
Lizzo performing in 2018. | Photo courtesy of David Lee/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
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Grammy-winning singer Lizzo fired back Thursday against allegations by three former backup dancers who accused her and her production company of harassment and hostile working conditions, calling the accusations “unbelievable” and “outrageous.”
“Usually I choose not to respond to false allegations but these are as unbelievable as they sound and too outrageous not to be addressed,” Lizzo wrote on her Instagram page. “These sensationalized stories are coming from former employees who have already publicly admitted that they were told their behavior on tour was inappropriate and unprofessional.
As an artist I have always been very passionate about what I do. I take my music and my performances seriously because at the end of the day I only want to put out the best art that represents me and my fans. With passion comes hard work and high standards. Sometimes I have to make hard decisions but it’s never my intention to make anyone feel uncomfortable or like they aren’t valued as an important part of the team.”
The singer’s comments came two days after three former backup dancers filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court saying they endured sexual harassment, a hostile work environment and even weight-shaming at the hands of Lizzo and the Big Grrrls Big Touring company.
“The stunning nature of how Lizzo and her management team treated their performers seems to go against everything Lizzo stands for publicly, while privately she weight-shames her dancers and demeans them in ways that are not only illegal but absolutely demoralizing,” the dancers’ attorney Ron Zambrano said in a statement announcing the legal action by Crystal Williams, Arianna Davis and Noelle Rodriguez.
According to the lawsuit, Davis and Williams met Lizzo in March 2021 while preparing to be contestants on the singer’s reality show, “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls.” They also then met Shirlene Quigley, a judge on the show and the dance team captain. Quigley is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that Quigley routinely preached her Christian religious beliefs to the defendants, and when she found out that Davis was a virgin, Quigley would routinely bring it up in conversations and even discussed it in interviews that were later posted to social media, “broadcasting an intensely personal detail … to the world.”
Rodriguez was hired in May 2021 to appear in Lizzo’s “Rumors” music video.
Once the three plaintiffs were chosen as backup dancers for Lizzo, Quigley continued to preach Christianity while deriding premarital sex and routinely discussing her sex life with her husband, according to the suit.
During a February 2023 tour stop in Amsterdam, Lizzo invited the dancers to the Red Light District and took them to a bar that featured nude performers, according to the suit. The complaint alleges that Lizzo invited dancers to touch and interact with the nude performers in a sexually charged atmosphere, then pressured Davis to touch the breasts of one of the nude female performers, to which Davis eventually acquiesced, fearing it might affect her job if she didn’t.
The suit also contends Lizzo took dancers and crew to a nude cabaret bar in Paris the following week.
The plaintiffs also allege that the management of Big Grrrl Big Touring treated Black members of the team differently, accusing them of “being lazy, unprofessional and having bad attitudes.”
According to the suit, Lizzo and another choreographer confronted Davis in an April 2023 conversation that included questions that were “thinly veiled concerns about Ms. Davis’ weight gain, which Lizzo had previously called attention to after noticing it at the South by Southwest music festival.”
The suit alleges that Williams was fired under the guise of budget cuts, while Davis was fired in May 2023 for recording a meeting the dancers had with Lizzo about their performances. Rodriguez quit after seeing Williams and Davis get fired, prompting what the lawsuit describes as an angry response from Lizzo.
“Lizzo aggressively approached Ms. Rodriguez, cracking her knuckles, balling her fists, and exclaiming, `You’re lucky. You’re so (expletive) lucky!”‘ the suit states. “Ms. Rodriguez feared that Lizzo intended to hit her and would have done so if one of the other dancers had not intervened.”
The suit seeks unspecified damages.
In her statement Thursday, Lizzo — whose real name is Melissa Jefferson — insisted she is “not the villain that people and the media have portrayed me to be.”
“I am very open with my sexuality and expressing myself but I cannot accept of allow people to use that openness to make me out to be something I am not,” she wrote. “There is nothing I take more seriously than the respect we deserve as women in the world. I know what it feels like to be body shamed on a daily basis and would absolutely never criticize or terminate an employee because of their weight. I’m hurt but I will not let the good work I’ve done in the world be overshadowed by this. I want to thank everyone who has reached out in support to lift me up during this difficult time.”
In response to Lizzo’s statement, Zambrano — the plaintiffs’ attorney — said the singer’s remarks only add to the women’s “emotional distress.”
“The dismissive comments and utter lack of empathy are quite telling about her character and only serve to minimize the trauma she has caused the plaintiffs and other employees who have now come forward sharing their own negative experiences,” he said in a statement. “While Lizzo notes it was never her intention `to make anyone feel uncomfortable,’ that is exactly what she did to the point of demoralizing her dancers and flagrantly violating the law.”
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