The allegations expose a culture of hypocrisy and racism: the dancers claim they were regularly fat shamed for any weight gain and were treated worse than the white dancers in the company. Lizzo seemed to resist all that, so the charges against her, her production company Big Grrrl Big Touring (BGBT), and her dance captain Shirlene Quigley are particularly explosive. Be BLACK, says the culture industry, but not toooooo Black, and be soulful but not toooooo sad, and also be very, very pretty, but don’t look toooooo Black. Every Black female performer has had to negotiate that difficult terrain, of making her mark with a unique style while struggling against the demand that she hew to stereotypes. Black women’s bodies have historically served, in complicated ways, to evoke both their history as subjects of rape and slavery and as objects of desire. Lizzo is famously not a thin white woman, and has been praised for daring to perform in very sexual attire, in a culture that regularly shames women and especially Black women who are read as fat or sluts, or both. The details are shocking, and run counter to a carefully tended public persona.
Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams, and Noelle Rodriguez allege “sexual, religious, and racial harassment, disability discrimination, assault, and false imprisonment,” to quote from Vulture, which also features this analysis by Tirhakah Love. Three of her former dancers filed a lawsuit last week, which you can read about here. Most of it all in one place, at the same time. The Lizzo story has everything you could want: fruit, sex, sweat, dancing, vaginas.
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