On Tuesday’s complaint was filed where three of Lizzo’s tour dancers blamed the singer for sexual harassment while creating a hostile work environment through sexual, racial, and religious harassment on various occasions between 2021 to 2023.
The dancers also claimed that, a body positivity and self-love champion, criticized a dancer’s recent weight increase and later criticized, then dismissed that dancer for recording a meeting.
Shirlene Quigley, Lizzo’s dance captain, is also accused of pushing her Christian beliefs on other performers and mocking those who had premarital sex, while also imitating oral sex, expressing obscene sexual fantasies, and challenging one performer’s virginity.
However, The lawsuit does not state if Lizzo was mindful of Quigley’s alleged behavior, but the complainants told that dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams, and Noelle Rodriguez believe that she was aware of Quigley’s charges, according to their lawyer, Ron Zambrano.
As Lizzo’s real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson her production firm, Big Grrrl Big Touring, Sexual harassment, hostile work environment, false detention, and interference with prospective economic advantage are all claims. Not every claim was filed against every defendant.
Zambrano said in a statement “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,”
However, Lizzo could not be instantly reached for comment.
Earlier this year, the suit details an incident at an Amsterdam club in which the singer allegedly “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 suit says.
When Davis refused to touch one of the performers’ breasts where Lizzo allegedly began goading her on.
“Plaintiffs were aghast with how little regard she showed for the bodily autonomy of her employees and those around her, especially in the presence of many people whom she employed,” the suit says.
In 2021 singer presents for Amazon while Davis and Williams began performing with her after appearing on the dance competition show Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, Williams claims that in April, she stepped up during a meeting in which she accused dancers of drinking before performances, resulting in a heated exchange between them.
When Rodriguez brought up the matter with Williams and Davis, they claimed to have been fired. “we’ve never had problems with you”. The suit claims that Rodriguez, as “one of the few members of the dance cast who is not black, was not painted with the same generalized and unfounded criticisms as the black members of the dance cast”.