Lizzo.
Photo: Dave Simpson/WireImage
Three of Lizzo’s former dancers have filed a lawsuit against her, her production company Big Grrrl Big Touring, Inc. (BGBT), and dance captain Shirlene Quigley. The dancers, Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams, and Noelle Rodriguez, allege sexual, religious, and racial harassment, disability discrimination, assault, and false imprisonment, according to a press release. Following the announcement of the lawsuit, some of Lizzo’s former collaborators have shared support for the accusers as well as their own experiences.
The dancers claim while on tour Lizzo invited them to a nude-performance club in Amsterdam and went “out of fear of losing their jobs.” While there, the lawsuit claims that Lizzo “began leading a chant” to get Davis to touch one of the performer’s breasts. “Ms. Davis said three times, loud enough for all to hear, ‘I’m good,’ expressing her desire not to touch the performer,” the lawsuit states. “Davis eventually acquiesced, fearing it may harm her future on the team.” Later that night, they allege Lizzo “badgered a member of her security team to get on stage where she pulled down his pants and hit him with whips.” The next week, the plaintiffs say Lizzo took her dance team out without telling them they were going to a “nude cabaret bar” in Paris.
The lawsuit also alleges mistreatment from BGBT toward the dancers. “BGBT’s management team consisted entirely of white Europeans who often accused the Black members of the dance team of being lazy, unprofessional, and having bad attitudes,” the lawsuit states.
Additionally, Davis describes being fat-shamed by Lizzo and choreographer Tanisha Scott. “Lizzo and Ms. Scott pressed Ms. Davis for an explanation why she seemed less bubbly and vivacious than she did prior to the tour starting,” the lawsuit says. “In professional dance, a dancer’s weight gain is often seen as that dancer getting lazy or worse off as a performer. Lizzo 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.” Davis was later fired for taping a meeting.
Davis and Williams first met as participants on Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, Lizzo’s reality competition show, which found dancers for her team. While on the show, Quigley was a dance captain and a judge, and, the lawsuit alleges, often proselytizing her Christian beliefs. “Ms. Quigley discovered that Ms. Davis was a virgin and Ms. Davis’s virginity became a topic of extreme importance to Ms. Quigley. In the months to follow, Ms. Quigley would routinely bring up Ms. Davis’s virginity in conversations with Ms. Davis. Ms. Quigley even mentioned Ms. Davis’s virginity in interviews she participated in and later posted to social media, broadcasting an intensely personal detail about Ms. Davis to the world.” After Davis and Williams made the team, which Rodriguez was also on, Quigley allegedly continued proselytizing and “singled out Rodriguez as a ‘non-believer.’”
Williams was also fired, purportedly due to budget cuts, leading Rodriguez to resign. “Lizzo aggressively approached Ms. Rodriquez, cracking her knuckles, balling her fists, and exclaiming, ‘You’re lucky. You’re so fucking lucky!’” the lawsuit alleges. “Neither security nor management did anything to de-escalate the situation. As Lizzo left the room, she raised both her middle fingers and yelled, ‘Bye, bitch!’”
Sophia Nahli Allison, a documentarian who was hired to do a doc on Lizzo, shared her own experience on social media August 2. “In 2019, I traveled a bit with Lizzo to be the director of her documentary,” she wrote on social media. “I walked away after about 2 weeks. I was treated with such disrespect by her. I witnessed how arrogant, self-centered, and unkind she is.”
“For clarification, I’m not apart of the lawsuit — but this was very much my experience in my time there,” Courtney Hollinquest, one of Lizzo’s former dancers, wrote in an Instagram Story. “Big shoutout to the dancers who had the courage to bring this to light.” Quinn Wilson, Lizzo’s former creative director, backed up Hollinquest, reposting her story and adding: “i havent been a part of that world for around three years, for a reason. I very much applaude the dancers courage to bring this to light. And I grieve parts of my own experience. Id appreciate space to understand my feelings.” Pop singer King Princess, Wilson’s girlfriend, also backed up Wilson on Instagram. “My girlfriend is not only my family, she is a dedicated creative who tirelessly works to support the art/artists she believes in,” she wrote. “I have watched her be underpaid, undervalued, and deeply mistreated first hand by people who have more fiscal and social power than her.”