Lizzo asks court to toss sexual harassment suit filed by backup dancers

LOS ANGELES (CN) — Lawyers for pop star Lizzo appeared in a Santa Monica courtroom Wednesday to ask a state court judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by three of her former backup dancers, who claim Lizzo created a hostile work environment and routinely allowed them to be subject to sexual harassment and discrimination based on their race, religion and body type.

Lizzo, 35, is a singer and rapper, as well as a renowned flautist, who has sold more than 6 million albums worldwide. She is also an actress, having appeared in the movie "Hustlers" and the television show "The Mandalorian." And she is an outspoken supporter of LGBTQ+ awareness, abortion access and body positivity — making some of the claims leveled against her all the more surprising.

Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez sued Lizzo, as well has her touring company and the captain of Lizzo's dance team, Shirlene Quigley, in August. In their complaint, the dancers claim Lizzo pressured them into going to clubs while on the road.

They say that one night, while on the road filming a reality show, Lizzo took the cast to a nude burlesque show in Amsterdam's red light district and "invited" everyone to "take turns touching the nude performers, catching dildos launched from the performers’ vaginas, and eating bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas." Davis, who was a virgin, and whose virginity was a subject of constant chatter on the tour, claims she was pressured into touching the nude breast of one of the performers.

Describing another instance when a security guard was pressured into performing a strip tease, the plaintiffs say they 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."

Lizzo has denied most of the accusations and made some of her own. In her motion to dismiss the suit, filed in October, she said the three dancers were disciplined for bad behavior, that they "missed flights, arrived late and hung over to rehearsals and drunk to performances, entered into consensual sexual relationships with male crew members on tour, exhibited a rapid decline in the quality of their dancing and professionalism and ultimately conspired to make and disseminate an unauthorized recording of a creative meeting with Lizzo and the dance cast."

In the motion, she went on to call the plaintiffs "opportunists" pushing a "fabricated sob story."

Lizzo seeks dismissal under California's anti-SLAPP statute, a legal maneuver often used by media organizations and artists to quickly dismiss a civil suit, and force the plaintiff to pay the defendant's attorneys fees, if the complaint is meritless and designed to limit the defendant's right to free speech and public participation.

On Wednesday, Lizzo's lawyer argued that most of what went on behind the scenes on the Lizzo's tour, including much of the star's late-night carousing, were part of the creative process and therefore fell under the protection offered by the anti-SLAPP statute.

"Tour is not a 9-to-5 job," said Lizzo's attorney Melissa Lerner. "While these outings were not staff meetings, they were intended to build camaraderie and inspire cohesion."

She added: "Lizzo was under the impression that the performance of the dancers was lagging, and that they needed inspiration I think it is very clear that it is part of the creative process."

In their opposition to the anti-SLAPP motion, the three dancers argued the behavior they're suing over — including "unsolicited, incessant imposition of her Christian faith, discussing masturbation, performing the act of oral sex on a banana during breaks, pressuring to touch a nude sex worker in Amsterdam" — were not done in the furtherance of free speech, art or creativity.

"How is Lizzo forcing Ariana Davis to touch a women’s breast in furtherance of making a show?" plaintiff's attorney Ronald Zambrano said on Wednesday. "There has to be a functional connection between the act and the furtherance of free speech."

Team-building and bonding, he argued, are not a close enough connection to be afforded the protection of an anti-SLAPP motion.

Zambrano underlined that point, pointing to claims that Quigley, a devout Christian who often proselytized to the other dancers, would also talk plainly about masturbation, saying at one point, "Masturbating is against my religion, but I today I had an oopsie.” At other times, she would, according to the complaint, "simulate oral sex on a banana in front of the rest of the dance cast," making the three plaintiffs feel uncomfortable.

"How does Ms. Quigley talking about masturbation further the protection of free speech?" Zambrano said, later adding: "Had our complaint had to do with her concerts, what she said during concerts or rehearsals, my case would have been in a worse position."

Along with harassment and the setting up of a hostile work environment, the dancers levy a range of other causes of action, including assault stemming from an incident when Lizzo menacingly waved a fist at one of the dancers after she quit, telling her, "You’re lucky. You’re so fucking lucky!”

Other claims stem from an incident in which Davis made an audio of a meeting — according to her, in order to remember the instructions because of a medical condition that causes her to forget stressful interactions. But Lizzo and her team took the recording to be a breach of confidence and possibly even a violation of her nondisclosure agreement and fired her. Eventually, Davis says, Lizzo's security team searched her phone to make sure the videos were deleted. From that, Davis claims both false imprisonment — she says she felt she couldn't leave the room until her phone was searched — and discrimination based on a disability.

"Could any reasonable juror conclude that the reason your client was terminated was because of a disability, as opposed to what Lizzo believed was a major breach of nondisclosure?" LA County Superior Court Judge Mark Epstein asked Zambrano.

"Yes," the lawyer replied.

The judge said he would wait at least three weeks before issuing a ruling. He gave no indication as to which way he was leaning.

After the nearly two-hour hearing, Zambrano told reporters that he thought the judge would "carve out some stuff," meaning he would dismiss some of the causes of action, but not all of them.

"I think most of it will survive," Zambrano said.

Lawyers for Lizzo and Quigley declined to comment.

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