This submit accommodates dialogue of sexual harassment.
It positive looks like the Lizzo sexual harassment lawsuit is transferring nearer to trial.
Transient recap: Final summer time, Lizzo was sued by three former dancers for sexual harassment and making a hostile work atmosphere.
“The beautiful nature of how Lizzo and her administration group handled their performers appears to go in opposition to every little thing Lizzo stands for publicly,” the dancers’ lawyer, Ron Zambrano, stated in a press release, “whereas privately, she weight-shames her dancers and demeans them in methods that aren’t solely unlawful however completely demoralizing.”
The day after the lawsuit turned public, Lizzo publicly claimed that the allegations have been “false” and “outrageous.” “I’m not right here to be checked out as a sufferer, however I additionally know that I’m not the villain that folks and the media have portrayed me to be these previous couple of days,” she wrote in a press release.
Nonetheless, the backlash was decisive. Extra former collaborators got here ahead with allegations of their very own, whereas the lyrics to Lizzo’s 2021 track “Rumors” have been additionally re-examined — particularly, the portion the place she raps, “Needed to minimize some hoes unfastened, yeah / NDA, no unfastened lips.”
Now, Billboard reviews {that a} Los Angeles decide has denied a movement on Lizzo’s behalf to throw out the unique lawsuit, and has usually cleared the best way for the case to proceed transferring ahead.
Billboard’s breakdown of the authorized choice is thorough, and I’ll strongly encourage you to learn it there. In easiest phrases, although: Just a few components of the lawsuit have been thrown out — particularly, allegations involving a nude photoshoot for Lizzo’s actuality TV present Watch Out for the Massive Grrrls, a dancer who claimed she was fired on account of psychological well being points, and one other dancer who claimed that Lizzo’s group interfered along with her means to get future work.
In any other case, Lizzo — alongside along with her dance captain Shirlene Quigley — remains to be at present dealing with the aforementioned allegations of sexual harassment and racial and spiritual discrimination, regardless of Lizzo’s try and dismiss the go well with by means of California’s anti-SLAPP statute.
“It’s harmful for the courtroom to weigh in, ham-fisted, into constitutionally protected exercise,” Decide Mark H. Epstein wrote in his ruling. “However it’s equally harmful to show a blind eye to allegations of discrimination or different types of misconduct merely as a result of they happen in a speech-related atmosphere.”
We’ll see what occurs subsequent with the lawsuit.
