Lizzo has been suffering a huge blowback on her sexual harassment lawsuit scandal after three of her former dancers accused her of scathing allegations about her bad behavior on tour.
Now, the judge has denied her motion to have the lawsuit tossed out. However, a part of it has been cleared already.
Lizzo Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Update
According to Billboard, Judge Mark Epstein has denied tossing the entire lawsuit out, but he cleared some accusations against Lizzo.
Judge Epstein cleared Lizzo of the accusation that she fat-shamed one of her former dancers, Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams, and Noelle Rodriguez, who filed the lawsuit.
In 2023, Lizzo argued that the whole lawsuit should be junked under California's anti-SLAPP statute, a law that makes it easier to quickly end meritless lawsuits that threaten free speech. The Grammy-winning singer's lawyer argued that the accusers are using the lawsuit to "silence" her.
Meanwhile, Judge Epstein begged to differ, pointing out that the anti-SLAPP statute does not apply to the case.
"It is dangerous for the court to weigh in, ham-fisted, into constitutionally protected activity," Judge Epstein wrote. "But it is equally dangerous to turn a blind eye to allegations of discrimination or other forms of misconduct merely because they take place in a speech-related environment."
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Lizzo Sexual Harassment Allegations
Among the strangest accusations that the three former Lizzo dancers said in their lawsuit was that Lizzo had invited her dancers to a club in Amsterdam, Netherlands while on tour last February 2023.
Allegedly, she has urged them to "take turns touching the nude performers, catching dildos launched from the performers' vaginas, and eating bananas protruding from the performers' vaginas."
One of the three dancers even pointed out that she was coerced into touching a stripper's breast. Lizzo also did the same thing in Paris.
Lizzo's lawyer, Melissa Learner justified that Lizzo's outings were "protected by the First Amendment" because they furthered Lizzo's "explicit and expressed creative purposes." (via Rolling Stone)
She also mentioned that the dancers were aware that Lizzo thought of their performance as "lagging" which is why she devised the said outing to get a "new injection of creativity and some new inspiration."
Judge Mark Epstein was even shocked with the justifications that Learner has put forward - saying that the said activities "enable bonding" and "inspire cohesion and confidence" among the performers - reducing the complainant's issues to "team building."
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