Lizzo accused of sexual harassment & weight-shaming by former dancers

Three of Lizzo’s former backup dancers are suing the singer, her production company, and her dance captain for sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment, among other allegations.

Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams, and Noelle Rodriguez filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday, NBC News reports, naming Lizzo, Big Grrrl Big Touring, Inc., and dance captain Shirlene Quigley as defendants.

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In a statement, the trio’s lawyer, Ron Zambrano, said, “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.”

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Lizzo is known for championing body positivity onstage and in her music. But according to the suit, she allegedly questioned Davis’s commitment to her role in comments the dancer felt were “thinly veiled” allusions to her weight.

The suit also alleges that Lizzo pressured Davis to touch a nude performer at a Berlin nightclub earlier this year.

Quigley is accused in the suit of religious harassment for allegedly taking “every opportunity to proselytize” about her Christian beliefs to “any and all in her presence regardless of protestations.” Quigley allegedly regarded Rodriguez as a “non-believer” and pressured her about her own religious beliefs. She also allegedly discussed the fact that Davis was a virgin in interviews and in social media posts.  

The suit accuses touring company employees of making comments that were “charged with racial and fat-phobic animus.” The dancers were allegedly scolded for being “unacceptable and disrespectful” when they asked to be compensated for their downtime. According to the lawsuit, “Only the dance cast — comprised of full-figured women of color — were ever spoken to in this manner.”

Lizzo allegedly subjected dancers to an “excruciating” 12-hour rehearsal, during which Davis was so afraid she would lose her job, she soiled her pants.

Williams was allegedly fired after confronting Lizzo about the singer’s accusations that dancers were drinking before performances. Rodriguez reportedly complained to a manager about the public manner in which Williams was fired, leading Lizzo to bring the matter up “repeatedly” in an April 27 meeting.

Davis was allegedly fired in May after Lizzo discovered she had recorded that meeting. The suit says that employees confiscated dancers’ phones during the subsequent meeting in which Davis was fired and that a member of Lizzo’s security forced Davis to remain in the room to search her phone for the recording.

During the same meeting, Rodriguez resigned, citing the mistreatment of her fellow dancers. The suit alleges that Lizzo responded by “cracking her knuckles, balling her fists.”

According to Jezebel, others who have worked with the singer have come forward to corroborate Davis, Rodriguez, and Williams’s allegations.

“I’m not apart [sic] of the lawsuit – but this was very much my experience in my time there,” former backup dancer Courtney Hollinquest wrote in an Instagram post. “Big shoutout to the dancers who had the courage to bring this to light.”

In response to Hollinquest’s post, Lizzo’s former creative director Quinn Whitney Wilson wrote, “I haven’t been apart [sic] of that world for about three years, for a reason. I very much applaude the dancers [sic] courage to bring this to light. And I grieve parts of my own experience.”