Lizzo Hit With Sexual Harassment Lawsuit By Former Tour Dancers
Lizzo is facing a lawsuit from three tour dancers who claim that they were subjected to sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, including being pressured to touch nude dancers during a live sex show.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles court, Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez accuse Lizzo (real name Melissa Jefferson) and her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. of a wide range of legal wrongdoing, also including racial and religious discrimination.
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In one particularly vivid allegation, the lawsuit claims that Lizzo pushed the dancers to attend a sex show in Amsterdam’s famed Red Light District and then pressured them to engage with the performers.
“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,” the lawsuit claims. “Lizzo then turned her attention to Ms. Davis and began pressuring Ms. Davis to touch the breasts of one of the nude women performing at the club.”
After Lizzo herself led a chant “goading” Davis to touch the performer, the lawsuit says, Davis eventually “acquiesced in an attempt to bring an end to the chants.”
The lawsuit also claims that Shirlene Quigley, the captain of Lizzo’s dance team, forced her religious beliefs on the plaintiffs and took repeated actions that made them uncomfortable, including commenting about their sexual virginity and simulating oral sex on a banana in front of them.
Representatives for Lizzo and Quigley (named in the lawsuit as a co-defendant) did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
Notably, the lawsuit claims that Lizzo “called attention” to a dancer’s weight gain after a performance at South by Southwest – a particularly loaded allegation against an artist who has made body positivity a central aspect of her personal brand. The lawsuit says Lizzo and other staffers “never explicitly stated it” but gave off the impression that Davis “needed to explain her weight gain and disclose intimate personal details about her life in order to keep her job.”
In a statement to Billboard, the dancers’ attorney Ron Zambrano called particular attention to those allegations about weight gain: “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.”
Other key allegations in Tuesday’s complaint include:
? Rodriguez says she was “singled out” by Quigley, the dance team captain, as a “non-believer,” and was subjected to “preaching” even after she specifically requested that Quigley “refrain from impressing her religious beliefs” on her, including being pressured to participate in team prayers.
? Williams and Davis claim that tour bus drivers played sexually-explicit songs and made comments that made dancers “incredibly uncomfortable and fear for their safety,” including a sexually-charged statement from one driver after one dancer accidentally brushed into him. But they say that higher-ups “did nothing to make the dancers feel any safer” after they reported it.
? The lawsuit claims that Big Grrrl Big Touring “treated the black members of the dance team differently than other members,” including accusing black dancers of “being lazy, unprofessional, and having bad attitudes” while “none of these same allegations were leveled against dancers who are not black.”
? Lizzo allegedly subjected the dance team to an “excruciating re-audition” in April after repeatedly making unfounded accusations that the dancers had been “drinking alcohol before shows.” Davis claims the ordeal included no bathroom breaks for hours: “She was afraid that if she left the stage at any point during the audition she would be fired [and] eventually lost control of her bladder.”
? The lawsuit cites other alleged outbursts from Lizzo, including one in which she fired Davis “on the spot” after she privately recorded a meeting. After Rodriguez complained about that interaction and said she would resign, she says Lizzo “aggressively approached” her with balled fists. “Ms. Rodriguez feared that LIZZO intended to hit her and would have done so if one of the other dancers had not intervened.”
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