Source: Jamie McCarthy / Getty
Lizzo has opened up about the allegations made in an explosive lawsuit. The ‘Special’ singer says she was surprised by allegations made by three of her former dancers that she provided a hostile workplace environment and shamed them because of their weight. In 2023, three dancers filed a suit, also claiming that Lizzo sexually harassed them.
Lizzo says she can speak out now because she’s been dismissed from the case, but she is still fighting for her company to be removed as well.
Born Melissa Jefferson, Lizzo, now 36, has become one of the industry’s top-selling female artists after Prince nurtured her earlier in her career. She’s released four studio albums and earned four Grammys but has been bullied online for her weight. In a recent appearance on Keke Palmer’s podcast Baby This Is Keke Palmer, she said the allegations were hard to take, given that she’s championed women throughout her career.
“We’re continuing to fight the other claims until they’re all dismissed — not dropped, but dismissed,” Lizzo said. “It is a big victory. Let’s be clear: I did nothing wrong. I do have now this learned experience that is preparing me for the boss that I’m becoming. This experience hasn’t stopped me from being me.”
The claims of sexual harassment stem from a nightclub outing in Amsterdam. The dancers —Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams, and Noelle Rodriguez— say they were forced to touch the performers at a live sex show. In the suit, the dancers say that the afterparties were non-mandatory but that Lizzo rewarded people who regularly attended them. At this one, the suit says, Lizzo requested “cast members to take turns touching the nude performers, catching dildos launched from the performers” vaginas, and “eating bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas.”
Davis says she was pressured to touch the nude breasts of one of the performers and was laughed at when she did. Lizzo says the characterization of what happened in Amsterdam is inaccurate.
“I went on my own because I was in Amsterdam … I didn’t take [the plaintiffs] anywhere. They came to the club I was at, and it was no mandatory invitation, and I didn’t even know that those two particular dancers were coming. Mind you, only two of them came, even though all three of them said they did; it was only two.”
Lizzo says the sex show has been going on since 1945 without any problems and describes the evening as “fun.”
“I don’t think that people who I employ should even be privy to how I am in a bar at this point,” Lizzo said. “I think that this experience taught me healthy boundaries, but to be real with you, it was such a fun night… I think there’s a time where there’s a difference between having boundaries and professional boundaries … It’s nuanced. It’s a new conversation in this industry.”
She told Palmer that the lawsuit felt like a “betrayal” and that since then, she’s realized that she has to set a firm line between her personal and professional life. But Lizzo says she will continue to fight to have the lawsuit dismissed.
“People should not be able to just say anything about somebody and put it in the media and ask for money,” she added. “You shouldn’t be able to do those things.”
