Lizzo could be facing further legal action on the heels of a lawsuit filed by three tour dancers who claimed in a complaint filed last week in Los Angeles that the “Juice” singer subjected them to sexual harassment and a hostile work environment that included allegations that they were pressured to touch nude dancers during a live sex show.
According to a statement from attorney Ron Zambrano — who is representing dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez — “we have received at least six inquiries from other people with similar stories since we filed the complaint.”
Zambrano added that, “Noelle, Crystal and Arianna have bravely spoken out and shared their experiences, opening the door for others to feel empowered to do the same. Some of the claims we are reviewing involve allegations of a sexually charged environment and failure to pay employees and may be actionable, but it is too soon to say.”
At press time a spokesperson for Lizzo had not returned a request for comment on Zambrano’s statement.
The complaint filed last week on behalf of Davis, Williams and Rodriguez accused Lizzo (born Melissa Jefferson) and her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. of a wide range of legal wrongdoing, including racial and religious discrimination. Among the allegations in the suit were claims that Lizzo pushed the dancers to attend a sex show in Amsterdam’s famed Red Light District and pressured them to engage with the performers.
The lawsuit also claimed that the captain of Lizzo’s dance team, Shirlene Quigley, forced her religious beliefs on the plaintiffs and took repeated actions that made them uncomfortable, including commenting about their virginity and simulating oral sex on a banana in front of them.
In one of the most notable allegations, the suit claims that Lizzo, who has made body positivity a key aspect of her brand, “called attention” to a dancer’s weight gain after a performance at the South by Southwest festival.
Last Thursday, Lizzo issued her only response to date to the suit, calling the allegations “false” and “sensationalized stories” in a statement on Twitter. “I am not the villain that people and the media have portrayed me to be these last few days,” Lizzo wrote. “I am very open with my sexuality and expressing myself but I cannot accept or allow people to use that openness to make me out to be something I am not.”
She said that the allegations that she and her company created a hostile work environment that included allegations of religious and racial discrimination were “unbelievable as they sound and too outrageous to not be addressed.”
Lizzo specifically addressed the allegation that she had “called attention” to a dancer’s weight gain, saying, “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.”
Though Lizzo did not specifically address the individual accusations in the suit in her statement, she called them “sensationalized stories [that] are coming from former employees who have already publicly admitted that they were told their behavior on tour was inappropriate and unprofessional.”
In a response, Zambrano said Lizzo’s statement “only adds to our clients’ emotional distress”; at press time the names of the alleged six other people reportedly contacted Zambrano after the suit was filed had not been released. Billboard has reached out to one of Lizzo’s lawyers, Marty Singer, for comment on Zambrano’s statement but had not heard back at press time; according to NBC News, Singer had recently called the lawsuit “specious.”
Following the suit and Lizzo’s statement, filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison — who at one point had been attached to direct the singer’s Love, Lizzo documentary — explained on her socials why she left the project. “In 2019, I traveled a bit with Lizzo to be the director of her documentary. I walked away after about 2 weeks. I was treated with such disrespect by her,” Allison wrote.
“I witnessed how arrogant, self-centered, and unkind she is. I was not protected and was thrown into a sh-tty situation with little support,” she added. Allison also said her gut told her to leave the project, and that she is “grateful” that she did, adding that she “felt gaslit and was deeply hurt.” At the time Lizzo’s reps had not returned Billboard‘s requests for comment on Allison’s claims.
Earlier this year, Amazon Studios announced that auditions had begun for the second season of Watch Out for the Big Grrls, a series that chronicled the singer/rapper’s search for her next crew of “BIG GRRRL” dancers to accompany on her 2022 tour; according to NBC, among the six unnamed people Zambrano has talked to, some said they worked on the Amazon series.
In addition, on Tuesday, the Jay-Z-founded Made In America festival, which was to feature headline sets from Lizzo and SZA, announced that it was pulling the plug on this year’s edition due to “severe circumstances outside of production control.” A statement from organizers did not give specific reasons for the cancellation and a spokesperson for promoter Live Nation referred Billboard to the statement without offering additional comment. NBC reported that before the suit against Lizzo was filed, an unnamed source close to the production said that ticket sales for this year’s Made in America fest in Philadelphia were “not good.”
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