One week after filing a lawsuit against Lizzo, the star’s former backup dancers Crystal Williams, Arianna Davis and Noelle Rodriguez are doubling down on their allegations.
“We were treated poorly. Nobody did anything about it when we tried to speak up and advocate for ourselves. So now we’re doing it,” Williams tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I know that my mind feels a lot clearer. There was a lot of anxiety and a lot of feelings of being overwhelmed once our suit was made public. But today, I feel very proud to be pursuing this with these ladies.”
After their bombshell complaint — in which the dancers alleged several employment violations, ranging from assault and sexual, racial and religious harassment to weight shaming and false imprisonment — was filed on Aug. 1, Lizzo denied the allegations in a lengthy statement on Instagram two days later.
“My work ethic, morals and respectfulness have been questioned. My character has been criticized,” wrote Lizzo, in part. “These sensationalized stories are coming from former employees who have already publicly admitted that they were told their behavior on tour was inappropriate and unprofessional.”
Now, all three dancers maintain that what they filed in court is all true: Williams and Davis claim wrongful termination, and Rodriguez maintains she resigned from her role to protest their firings.
The complaint alleges that when the dancers banded together to request a retainer (they allegedly weren’t allowed to take other jobs throughout the duration of the tour), they were scolded by someone working for the management team for “unacceptable and disrespectful behavior” they were told was grounds for termination.
“[Those accusations] only came after [the] dance cast, that was predominantly either Black women or women of color, started advocating for themselves and asking for better treatment and to be paid what we deserve on the job,” says Williams.
Adds Rodriguez: “And I really feel like that never applied to me because I voluntarily left on my own terms. I was so disgusted by the treatment that I saw.”
Since the start of her career, the “Truth Hurts” singer has positioned herself as a champion for body positivity, but Davis (who sat next to Williams and Rodriguez during their interview with PEOPLE but declined to speak) also claims in the complaint that she was singled out for gaining weight before she was eventually fired in May 2023.
“They took a concern, but kind of a fake concern under the guise of, ‘What’s wrong with you? You’re different,'” says Rodriguez. “I think an important thing to note as far as the body shaming and stuff is that if it were never an issue, why was it brought up in a meeting by Lizzo that people get fired for gaining weight? I would never think of hearing a statement like from her or even being a reason for firing somebody.”
Davis and Williams began performing with the “Good As Hell” singer after competing on her reality television show, Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, in 2021. The show was an opportunity to give plus-size dancers representation, Lizzo explained to PEOPLE last year. “It’s more important to me to have those kinds of women next to me on stage than to have the most technically skilled, amazing dancer that’s not a reflection of how I look,” she said.
Rodriguez was hired in May 2021 to perform in Lizzo’s “Rumors” music video and became part of her dance team on the Special Tour this year.
“It wasn’t until after the cameras stopped rolling that I really saw the other side of Lizzo and saw her for what she is because, sadly, she’s not the same behind closed doors,” Williams alleges. “When the cameras aren’t rolling, she’s not the same person everybody sees on their TV screen.”
While on tour in February, Lizzo allegedly invited her dancers to Bananenbar, a strip club in the Red Light District in
Amsterdam; Davis and Rodriguez claim they went “out of fear of losing their jobs.” While there, Lizzo allegedly “began leading a chant” to get Davis to touch one performer’s breast, despite her desire not to do so, they claim in the suit. “I’m good,” David reiterated three times loud enough for everyone to hear, she claims in the complaint.
Later that night, Lizzo allegedly badgered a security guard to get on the club’s stage “until he submitted to her demands,” per the complaint. Once in the spotlight, it states, his pants were pulled down, exposing his bare backside. The complaint alleges that Lizzo began yelling “Take it off!” while a club performer hit him with whips.
“I was uncomfortable. I was sick to my stomach for Arianna and the embarrassment I saw because she clearly did not want to do it,” Rodriguez tells PEOPLE, looking over to Davis. “But I totally understand how somebody in a position of power could have that power over somebody to make her feel like she had to. When your job is constantly dangled in front of your face every day — and you’re being threatened for termination for these different reasons or accusations that aren’t true — of course you’ll want to make somebody happy and make them feel like, ‘I am a team player.’ I saw how uncomfortable she was and was even the one that was like, ‘You know what, Ari? Let’s go.'”
The dance captain Shirlene Quigley — who’s also named in the lawsuit — is being accused by the trio of making sexually explicit comments to the dancers and engaging in religious harassment. Quigley “made it her mission to preach” Christianity to the dancers and was fixated on Davis’s virginity, the complaint claims.
In an Aug. 4 Instagram post, Quigley denied the allegations, calling them “baseless but also profoundly hurtful.”
“We could be at a lunch break and eating, talking, having a normal conversation, and we might think, ‘Oh, maybe she’s bringing notes, maybe she has something to say in regards to the show,”‘ says Williams about Quigley. “But then she just hits us with some religious Jesus talk.”
The complaint also alleges mistreatment from Lizzo’s management and production company, Big Grrrls Big Tour, Inc., toward the dancers. Lizzo’s team, which the suit claims consisted entirely of white Europeans, allegedly accused the Black members of the dance team of “being lazy, unprofessional and having bad attitudes,” the complaint states.
“I do think that Lizzo was enabling and enforcing a racist system,” claims Williams. “She has an entirely white management team, so she kind of left it up to them to have the deciding factor on how we were handled. She was always siding with them. Even though she wasn’t being racist herself, she was still enabling it, unfortunately. It’s one of those things where the oppressed then becomes the oppressor whenever they get the power to do so.”
A rep for Lizzo, the production company and Quigley have not responded to multiple requests for comment from PEOPLE. Lizzo’s attorney, Marty Singer, provided a statement, saying: “The lawsuit filed by the three dancers against Lizzo and the other defendants is specious and without merit. There are no legitimate claims in this lawsuit. We are confident that Lizzo will be completely vindicated in this matter.”
In the complaint, Williams claims she accidentally brushed up against one of the tour bus drivers. “You can back up on me again,” the driver allegedly said to her, implying that her “accidental touch gave him sexual gratification,” according to the filing.
“I brought it to the girls. At first, I didn’t want to say anything just because we know management’s history and how they handle things whenever you bring things to them. But the girls encouraged me to,” claims Williams. “I told them what happened, and they made it into a joke. They started laughing when I told them that one of the bus drivers — somebody we are in close proximity with every day going to these different cities, undressing, dressing up, things like that — and they made it into a joke. So, I already know from my past experiences with them every time something gets brought up, it’s not handled.”
During the Specials Tour in Montreal on May 3, according to the complaint, all the dancers had an “emergency wardrobe fitting” on their day off for their show at the Bell Centre in Canada the following night. The security team was allegedly instructed to confiscate the dancers’ phones as they entered the room.
“This was actually not a fitting. This was a meeting with Lizzo. Obviously, she’s upset. So we’re like, ‘OK, thank you for not being truthful with us,”‘ claims Rodriguez. When Lizzo found out that dancer Davis had previously recorded her giving performance notes a few days earlier — Davis suffers from an eye condition, per the complaint, and during stressful times, makes audio recordings so she can review them later — Lizzo became enraged, according to the filing.
“Between her and the dance captain Shirlene, they were accosting Arianna and making her an example in front of the rest of our dance cast,” claims Rodriguez. “I’ve just never experienced such disgusting behavior. I was sick to my stomach. Everybody in that room was in tears out of shock or fear. We were hysterical. We were just like, ‘I can’t believe this is what was done to us.'”
Moments later, Rodriguez says she resigned, telling Lizzo she felt unsafe and disrespected. “I was consistently being talked down to. It was just too much at that point. I really thought it would end up in Lizzo saying: ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ or ‘Let’s just part ways’ or ‘Let’s talk about this and understand why you feel this way’ because of her brand and everything she stands up for. I really thought that that was the route it would take,” Rodriguez tells PEOPLE.
According to the complaint, fellow dancers had to physically hold the singer back from “hitting” Rodriguez. “I did believe if another dancer wasn’t there as that barrier, Lizzo would have definitely hit me,” says Rodriguez.
Afterward, Rodriguez claims she had to have a few dancers escort her away because she was fearful of Lizzo. “They were scared we would run into Lizzo in the lobby or the elevator returning to my hotel room. They’re like, ‘You need protection. She has her security. Who do you have?'”
According to the complaint, Williams was fired a week prior due to “budget cuts” and “not having the best attitude at times and coming across as snarky.”
“You see this pattern of every time I speak up and advocate for myself, I’m either retaliated against, or there’s some gaslighting or anything to discredit what I’m saying,” says Williams. “Instead of her addressing the issue, Lizzo wants to point fingers back at the other person who’s bringing up an issue.”
After news of the lawsuit broke, others who have worked with Lizzo spoke out in support of the dancer’s claims. “I’m not a part of the lawsuit – but this was very much my experience in my time there. Big shoutout to the dancers who had the courage to bring this to light,” former dancer Courtney Hollinquest wrote on her Instagram story. Quinn Whitney Wilson, Lizzo’s former creative director also added on Instagram: “I haven’t been a part of that world for around three years, for a reason. And I grieve parts of my own experience.”
Now the trio say they aren’t backing down. “All of Lizzo’s former employees that have also come forward — we’ve given them the confidence to stand up, and they’re giving us the confidence to continue the fight,” Rodriguez tells PEOPLE. “What our movement alone started in my eyes … we’ve already won.”
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