Lizzo Hit With Sexual Harassment Lawsuit By Former Tour Dancers

Lizzo is facing a lawsuit from three tour dancers who claim that they were subjected to sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, including being pressured to touch nude dancers during a live sex show.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles court, Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez accuse Lizzo (real name Melissa Jefferson) and her BIG Grrrl Big Touring Inc. of a wide range of legal wrongdoing, also including racial and religious discrimination.

In one particularly vivid allegation, the lawsuit claims that Lizzo pushed the dancers to attend a sex show in Amsterdam’s famed Red Light District and then pressured them to engage with the performers.

“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,” the lawsuit claims. “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.”

After Lizzo herself lead a chant “goading” Davis to touch the performer, the lawsuit says, Davis eventually “acquiesced in an attempt to bring an end to the chants.”

The lawsuit also claims that the captain of Lizzo’s dance team forced her religious beliefs on the plaintiffs and took repeated actions that made them uncomfortable, including commenting about their sexual virginity and simulating oral sex on a banana in front of them.

A representative for Lizzo did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.

Notably, the lawsuit claims that Lizzo “called attention” to a dancer’s weight gain after a performance at South by Southwest – a particularly loaded allegation against an artist who has made body positivity a central aspect of her personal brand. The lawsuit says Lizzo and other staffers “never explicitly stated it” but gave off the impression that Davis “needed to explain her weight gain and disclose intimate personal details about her life in order to keep her job.”

In a statement to Billboard, the dancers’ attorney Ron Zambrano called particular attention to those allegations about weight gain: “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.”