SZA is sharing love for Lizzo amid the harassment lawsuit brought by three of the “Special” singer’s former dancers in August.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, SZA declined to comment on the legal issues directly, but she did have positive things to say about her good friend and musical collaborator. “I’m just saying, based on the values and the energy that I see in my friend, I just really think that she’s a beautiful person,” she said. “I just really pray that everybody recovers from this because everybody deserves to heal and feel safe and feel loved.”
SZA added, “I just really hope that everybody ends up feeling like that when this is all said and done. Because that’s the bottom line.”
The lawsuit, filed in August in Los Angeles by dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez, accuses Lizzo (real name Melissa Jefferson) and her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. of a wide range of legal wrongdoing and included dozens of pages of detailed allegations.
In one 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. The lawsuit also detailed alleged outbursts by Lizzo, including an “excruciating re-audition” in April after she accused the dancers of “drinking alcohol before shows”; one dancer claims the ordeal continued for so long that she wet herself because she feared she would be fired if she left the stage. The case also claims Lizzo repeatedly told dancers “none of their jobs were safe” and raised “thinly veiled concerns” about a dancer’s weight gain.
Lizzo denied the claims in a response shared to Twitter, calling them “false allegations” and “sensationalized stories.”
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