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Lizzo Sued For Sexual Harassment By 3 Former Dancers
The pop star is being accused of taking dancers to a club and asking them to touch nude performers, among other things.
Pop superstar Lizzo is being sued by three of her former dancers who are accusing her of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The lawsuit also alleges that the dancers were subjected to “excruciating” auditions after being accused of drinking on the job and were pressured to touch a nude dancer at a club in Amsterdam.
The dancers claim the incident took place during a trip to the Amsterdam strip club, Bananenbar, after a performance earlier this year. According to ABC News, who obtained a copy of the lawsuit, it states that 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. Lizzo then turned her attention to Ms. Davis and began pressuring Ms. Davis to touch the breasts of one of the nude women.”
The lawsuit was filed against Lizzo, whose real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, her production company (Big Grrrl Big Touring), and dance captain Shirlene Quigley, who is being accused of proselytizing to other performers and criticizing dancers who have had premarital sex, while also sharing her own vulgar sexual fantasies. The suit also alleges Quigley simulated oral sex and publicly discussed the virginity of one of the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs, who brought the case against Lizzo, are Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams, and Noelle Rodriguez.
Davis and Williams were former contestants on Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls reality series that featured plus-size dancers competing to work for the pop star. The celebrated show won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Competition Series over the much-loved RuPaul’s Drag Race.
According to the suit, two of the three dancers were fired earlier this year. Davis claims she was fired “on the spot” because she had recorded a meeting days after an “excurutianing” 12-hour rehearsal where Davis was so afraid of losing her job if she left to use the bathroom that she ended up soiling herself.
Williams lost her job after she challenged Lizzo in a meeting and Rodriguez reportedly resigned in solidarity with the other dancers and says in the lawsuit that she “feared that Lizzo intended to hit her and would have done so if one of the other dancers had not intervened,” according to Page Six.
The suit also alleges weight-shaming, false imprisonment, religious and racial harassment, and interference with prospective economic advantage.
“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,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer Ron Zambrano said in a statement.
At the time of writing, Lizzo has yet to come forward with a statement in response to the allegations.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
