Lizzo’s Dethroning Has Been Swift

The internet is many things, but most of all it’s swift. On Tuesday, an employment lawyer representing Lizzo’s former backup dancers, Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams, and Noelle Rodriguez, sent around a lawsuit filed against their former employer. These dancers are alleging several things against the performer including failure to prevent sexual or religious harassment, disability discrimination, and assault. (Lizzo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Hours after the initial headlines posted, Courtney Hollinquest, another former dancer, who clarified she is not part of the lawsuit, voiced her support for those that sued. Soon thereafter, Quinn Wilson, Lizzo’s former creative director, echoed Hollinquest’s sentiments, adding that “I haven’t been apart [sic] of that world for around three years for a reason.”

Around dinnertime, Sophia Nahli Allison, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, who had been hired to make a documentary on Lizzo admitted that she walked away from the project after two weeks. She said she “witnessed how arrogant, self-centered, and unkind [Lizzo] is.” 

By Tuesday night, while in Boston, Beyoncé left the name “Lizzo” out of her “Break My Soul” remix. The song used to go “Betty Davis, Solange Knowles / Badu, Lizzo, Kelly Rowl.” In videos from the crowd, it sounds like she just repeats “Badu.” 

Davis and Williams joined Lizzo’s team after competing as contestants on Lizzo’s Amazon Prime reality show Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls in March 2021. Lizzo hired Rodriguez for her “Rumors” video and kept her on afterward. Davis and Williams were fired in the spring of 2023, after which, Rodriguez resigned. Besides listing Lizzo as a defendant, the suit adds her production company Big Grrrl Big Touring, Inc. (BGBT), and Shirlene Quigley, captain of her dance team.

The suit claims that Quigley, the dance captain, is a devout, proselytizing Christian, and became obsessed with Davis’s virginity and “singled out“ Rodriguez as a “non-believer.” Quigley, they allege, did not believe in premarital sex, but would speak continually about masturbation and simulated fellatio on a banana. Complaints about her, the lawsuit claims, would go unheeded. 

They are also accusing the production company of offering them an unfair rate of 25% of full pay while they were on retainer and barred from seeking other dance work (other performers were allegedly paid a 50% rate for such a setup). In the spring, management agreed to a 50% retainer but by then its relationship with the dancers was “very strained,“ according to the suit. (Quigley and BGBT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) 

The dancers, the lawsuit alleges, were “exposed to an overtly sexual atmosphere that permeated their workplace,” where outings with nudity and sexuality “were a focal point.” In Amsterdam, for example, during a night the dancers felt was obligatory to keep their job, they attended the club Bananenbar. 

“While at Bananenbar, things quickly got out of hand,” the lawsuit reads. “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 performing at the club. Lizzo began leading a chant goading Ms. Davis. Ms. Davis said three times, loud enough for all to hear, ‘I’m good,’ expressing her desire not to touch the performer.”

Davis finally did so. “Plaintiffs were aghast with how little regard Lizzo showed for the bodily autonomy of her employees and those around her, especially in the presence of many people whom she employed,” the suit reads. Most ironically perhaps, Davis’s lawyer claims that Lizzo’s public posture of weight inclusivity did not extend to the dancers. She felt she had to “explain her weight gain and disclose intimate personal details about her life in order to keep her job,” the suit claims.

Though this allegation would be shocking against anyone, it’s especially so against Lizzo, who has made herself the face of body positivity and inclusivity in the music world through self-love anthems like “Good as Hell” and “Juice.” She has a size-inclusive line of shapewear and has spoken at length about her own relationship to her body.