A new complaint has been filed against Lizzo, in which it is alleged that she has been accused of sexual harassment as well as creating a hostile work environment.
The singer from About Damn Time, who is 35 years old, is said to have been identified in legal filings as a result of the fact that three of her former dancers have spoken out against her.
They charged in the document, which was acquired by numerous US sites, that she encouraged one of them to touch a naked performer at a club in Amsterdam, and that she ‘called attention’ to a performance’s weight growth. Additionally, they claimed that she ‘called attention’ to a performer’s weight gain.
In addition to her, the lawsuit cited as defendants her production firm, Big Grrrl Big Touring, Inc., and her dancing captain, Shirlene Quigley; however, not every allegation was linked to all three defendants.
The Grammy winner, whose actual name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, reportedly recruited Arianna Davis and Crystal Williams after they competed on her reality programme, Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, in 2021. However, both of them were later terminated from their positions. NBC News reports.
The same year that Noella Rodriguez was hired, in 2023 she handed up her resignation.
According to the documentation, Jefferson allegedly invited her dancers to a strip club after a concert in Amsterdam earlier this year. Attendance was not required, but those who did attend were allegedly ‘favoured’ by the artist.
It is claimed that she ‘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’, before she ‘began pressuring Ms Davis to touch the breasts of one of the nude women’.
When she declined, Jefferson allegedly led a chant and goaded her, after which a ‘visibly uncomfortable Ms Davis [engaged] with the performer’.
After this, she allegedly yelled at a member of her security team to step on stage while pressing them to do so, saying “take it off.” This information comes from an outlet.
Jefferson was accused of making comments directed to Davis’ weight following an appearance at SXSW, and told the dancer she seemed ‘less committed’ to her role – an exchange that legal documents reportedly described as a ‘thinly veiled’ mention of her weight.
‘In professional dance, a dancer’s weight gain is often seen as that dancer getting lazy or worse off as a performer,’ the paperwork states, via Variety. ‘Lizzo’s and Ms Scott’s questions about Ms Davis’s commitment to the tour were thinly veiled concerns about Ms Davis’s weight gain, which Lizzo had previously called attention to after noticing it at the South by Southwest music festival.
‘Although Lizzo and Ms Scott never explicitly stated it, these questions accompanied by Lizzo’s statements made after the South by Southwest music festival gave Ms Davis the impression that she needed to explain her weight gain and disclose intimate personal details about her life in order to keep her job.’
Williams swore that the reports that Jefferson had accused dancers of drinking before performances were not accurate, although it was reported that Jefferson had accused dancers of doing so.
According to papers obtained by USA Today, she is quoted as saying that she accused them of “not performing up to standard and constantly accused the dancers of consuming alcohol before concerts even though the dancing ensemble had never partaken in such a practise.”
According to the lawsuit, they were had to endure a “excruciating” audition in order to maintain their positions, and Williams is said to have subsequently been fired from her employment in a very public manner due to financial constraints.
The star of “Good as Hell” was accused, in another part of the documents, of criticising Davis for recording a meeting due to a health problem, as she allegedly sought a copy of the performance notes. This accusation was made because Davis recorded the meeting.
Lizzo is believed to have reacted to her with the following phrase when she stressed that she did not intend for the tape to do any harm: “There is nothing you can say to make me believe you.”
‘Ms Quigley and Lizzo then took turns berating Ms Davis,’ NBC reports that the paperwork read. ‘After castigating Ms Davis, Lizzo fired Ms Davis on the spot.
Before leaving the meeting, Rodriguez is said to have conveyed her sentiments to Jefferson, stating that she considered the move to be disrespectful and announcing that she would retire as a result of her views.
The complaint claims that the celebrity replied by “cracking her knuckles, balling her fists,” and using an obscenity to tell Rodriguez that she was “fortunate.” She also allegedly yelled a slur and raised both middle fingers as the dancer was leaving the room.
It is unclear whether or not Jefferson was aware of any complaints being made against him.
The dancers are demanding damages for emotional anguish, unpaid pay, loss of earnings, and attorney’s costs for the accusations, which include sexual, religious, and racial harassment, handicap discrimination, and false incarceration; however, a number has not been made known. In addition, the dancers are claiming that they were falsely imprisoned.
The allegations have not been addressed by Jefferson as of yet.
Source My Celebrity Life.
