Lizzo’s former backup dancers are urging an appeals court to reject the superstar’s free speech arguments and allow their blockbuster sexual harassment lawsuit to go to trial.
A Los Angeles judge ruled at the start of 2024 that three dancers on Lizzo’s Special tour can move forward with some of their legal claims against the star (Melissa Jefferson). While the judge dismissed a headline-grabbing claim about fat-shaming, he said there should be a trial on equally salacious allegations that Lizzo pushed her staff to touch nude performers and eat bananas out of their genitals while attending sex shows in Amsterdam and Paris.
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Lizzo’s lawyers are appealing that decision, arguing over the summer that group outings were part of the singer’s creative process and thus should be shielded by First Amendment free speech protections. But in a Monday (Dec. 8) response brief, obtained by Billboard, an attorney for the dancers says there’s no real connection between these sex shows and Lizzo’s art.
“Defendants have not met their burden of showing how inviting employees to eat fruit from dancers’ genitals at a nightclub or pushing Davis to touch the breasts of a sex performer bears a functional relationship to the creation of Lizzo’s music or to the dancers’ performance,” wrote Ari Stiller, who’s representing dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez on appeal.
Stiller says it’s not enough for Lizzo to claim she was hoping the dancers’ work on the Special tour would be inspired by these shows in Amsterdam and Paris. “Under that standard,” the lawyer argues, “Johnny Cash could shoot ‘a man in Reno just to watch him die’ and claim protection if he hoped it would inspire his performance.”
Davis, Williams and Rodriguez shocked the music industry when they filed their blockbuster lawsuit against Lizzo in 2023. An avowed supporter of body and sexual positivity, Lizzo fervently denied the claims and said, “I cannot accept or allow people to use that openness to make me out to be something I am not.”
Judge Mark H. Epstein winnowed down the dancers’ lawsuit last February, throwing out claims that alleged Lizzo shamed them for gaining weight on tour. Judge Epstein said such allegations were barred by California’s anti-SLAPP statute, which protects against meritless litigation that threatens free speech.
However, the judge determined that the dancers’ sexual harassment claims did not fall under the anti-SLAPP umbrella. He said these allegations should go to trial, as should a claim that Davis was subjected to “false imprisonment” when Lizzo’s staff held her in a hotel room to search her phone after she was fired.
Lizzo’s appeal will likely be argued at some point in 2026. If she wins, the dancers’ case will be over. If the appellate court sides with Davis, Williams and Rodriguez, the lawsuit will return to Judge Epstein’s court for an eventual jury trial.
Meanwhile, wardrobe designer Asha Daniels also sued Lizzo in 2023, alleging she faced a “culture of racism and bullying” on the Special tour. A judge ruled last year that Lizzo couldn’t personally be sued in this instance, but Daniels’ claims against the singer’s company Big Grrrl Touring remain pending.
