Lizzo hires lawyer who has represented Bill Cosby and Johnny Depp for her case against former dancers
Keryn Donnelly
Featured Image Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for dcp. Paul Harris/Getty Images.
Lizzo has hired a top notch lawyer to defend her against a lawsuit that includes allegations that she religiously and sexually harassed staff.
Three former stage dancers - Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez - have claimed the singer violated California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act by allowing a hostile work environment to persist that included sexual harassment and religious harassment, assault and disability discrimination.
Among the claims against Lizzo is that she 'pressured Ms Davis to touch the breasts' of a performer in a nightclub in Amsterdam.
Davis has also accused the singer, and dance choreographer Tanisha Scott, of fat-shaming her.
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"In professional dance, a dancer's weight gain is often seen as that dancer getting lazy or worse off as a performer. Lizzo's and Ms Scott's questions about Ms Davis's commitment to the tour were thinly veiled concerns about Ms Davis's weight gain," the documents allege.
The dancers allege that 'only the dance cast - comprised of full-figured women of colour - were ever spoken to in this manner, giving [the dancers] the impression that these comments were charged with racial and fat-phobic animus'.
Singer spoke to TMZ about Davis' claims.
TMZ had obtained video shot in April 2023 of Davis praising the 'About Damn Time' singer.
"It's been so amazing and such a beautiful journey. I look up to her so much. I just want to follow in her footsteps, and I just want to share that with the Queen Lizzo herself," she says in the footage.
According to TMZ, the video was recorded after the European leg of Lizzo's tour and following season one of Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, which is after the claims in the lawsuit allegedly occurred.
"These do not sound like the words of someone who was harassed or discriminated against by someone they described as 'THE QUEEN'," Singer told the publication.
Singer's long list of Hollywood clients earned him the title of Entertainment Lawyer of the Year from the Beverly Hills Bar Association.
His famous clients include Bill Cosby, Johnny Depp, Charlie Sheen, John Travolta, Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Kim Kardashian and Ricky Martin.
"For every story Singer kills or gets taken down, there's another he's delayed, or defanged, or pushed off the front page, or had corrected or retracted," Vanity Fair wrote in 2017.
“Singer is a kind of legal termite.”
Most recently the lawyer defended Jonah Hill after Zoey 101 alum Alexa Nikolas claimed the actor assaulted her during a party when she was 16 years old and he was 24.
He told Deadline at the time that the accusations were 'a complete fabrication' adding that 'it never happened'.
He then claimed Nikolas was 'a serial accuser who has made assorted accusations against multiple men in the entertainment industry'.
Lizzo has posted a statement on Instagram defending herself against the allegations.
"Usually I choose not to respond to false allegations but these are as unbelievable as they sound and too outrageous to not be addressed. These sensationalised stories are coming from former employees who have already publicly admitted that they were told their behaviour on tour was inappropriate and unprofessional," she wrote.
She continued: "I am not here to be looked at as a victim, but I also know that I am not the villain that people and the media have portrayed me to be these last few days. I am very open with my sexuality and expressing myself but I cannot accept or allow people to use that openness to make me out to be something I am not.
"There is nothing I take more seriously than the respect we deserve as women in the world. I know what it feels like to be body shamed on a daily basis and would absolutely never criticise or terminate an employee because of their weight."
Responding to Lizzo's statement, Davis told the BBC: "She's less of a villain and more of an anti-hero to me... a villain is someone with no redeemable qualities.
"They are just bad and evil and terrible.
"But an anti-hero is someone who does bad things but had redeemable qualities.
"Do I think Lizzo can take this, and change and be who she says she is?
"Yes, absolutely."