Judge denies Lizzo request to toss out sexual harassment lawsuit

A Los Angeles judge has denied a motion by Lizzo to toss out a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by three of her former backup dancers allowing the case to move forward toward a trial. However, they did dismiss some of the accusations brought.

Lizzo argued last year that case should be dismissed under California’s anti-SLAPP statute — a special law that makes it easier to quickly end meritless lawsuits that threaten free speech (known as “strategic lawsuits against public participation”). Her lawyers argued that the accusers were using the lawsuit to “silence” her.

However, Judge Epstein ruled that the anti-SLAPP statute didn't fit all the lawsuit's allegations. He tossed out some claims – including a particularly loaded charge that Lizzo fat-shamed one of her dancers – but ruled that remainder of the case could go forward.

The case against Lizzo, filed in August by dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez, accuses the singer (real name Melissa Jefferson) and her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. of creating a hostile work environment through a wide range of legal wrongdoing, including not just sexual harassment but also religious and racial discrimination. The alleged weight-shaming, the lawsuit claims, amounted to a form of disability discrimination.

In one particularly vivid allegation, Lizzo’s accusers claimed she pushed them to attend a live sex show at a venue in Amsterdam’s famed Red Light District called Bananenbar, and then pressured them to engage with the performers, including “eating bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas.” After Lizzo herself allegedly led a chant “goading” Davis to touch one performer’s breasts, the lawsuit says, Davis eventually did so.

Lizzo and Shirlene Quigley, the captain of the singer’s dance team, will still have to face other allegations of sexual harassment, as well as accusations of racial and religious discrimination.