Lawyer Is Questioning The Lizzo Allegations After Actually Reading The Lawsuit — 'I Feel Bad For Lizzo'
She agrees that there are obvious lapses in judgment. But actual crimes and discrimination? The lawsuit itself isn't all that clear.
Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com; @janelle_rb / TikTok; Canva Pro The allegations against Lizzo by former dancers Noelle Rodriguez, Arianna Davis and Crystal Williams are so explosive they seem to some people to be kind of unbelievable, and a lawyer on TikTok says there's good reason for that. She says the actual legal filings tell a somewhat different story about some of the allegations than the one ricocheting through the media.
A labor lawyer is questioning the Lizzo allegations after reading the actual legal filings.
Janelle Romero, a New York City-based labor and discrimination lawyer known as @janelle_rb on TikTok, said in a recent video that lawsuits like the one against Lizzo come across her desk on the daily, and she sees some holes in this one.
Two of the plaintiffs, Arianna Davis and Crystal Williams, have already sparked questions about their credibility following an appearance on TMZ. With their lawyer seated between them, Davis and Williams admitted that they were never actually told their jobs were contingent upon meeting certain demands by Lizzo, but rather that it just felt that way.
Surely, there's no smoke without fire and the established facts of the lawsuit point to several lapses in judgment on Lizzo's and other staffers' parts, to say the least. But when it comes to the actual allegations, Romero says it's hard to connect some of the dots.
In particular, the lawyer is questioning the Lizzo allegations that pertain to fat-shaming — both those in the lawsuit and those in the media.
Davis' accusations of fat-shaming are arguably among the most explosive to come out of the lawsuit, simply because of Lizzo's one-woman crusade about self-acceptance and body positivity. But the lawsuit itself tells a potentially different story, Romero says.
Reading directly from the filings, Romero reported that the lawsuit says Davis was asked if she was "struggling with something" as Lizzo and other staffers had noticed she had become "less bubbly and vivacious" since first joining the tour.
Davis says this question, coupled with alleged comments about her weight made after an appearance at the South by Southwest music festival, "gave [her] the impression" that she was being asked to "explain her weight gain" and that if she didn't, it would cost her her job.
But as Romero points out, the comments from South by Southwest on which this allegation hinges are neither documented nor specified in the lawsuit. "What were the comments?" Romero mused. "We don't know, because for some reason they forgot to put them in the complaint."
Davis' filing goes on to say that after explaining she was struggling with multiple mental health challenges, Lizzo gave her time off from the tour to attend therapy and that she felt her employment was contingent on accepting this offer as well. But Romero questions this allegation, too.
"Is it possible that Lizzo was calling this girl out…?," she said. "Yeah. Is it possible that Lizzo just noticed that this girl was down because she had anxiety and depression… and [Davis] took it personally as an attack…? Also yeah!" But because the allegations are so lacking in specificity, Romero concluded, "we don't know."
Romero feels that the religious discrimination and sexual harassment allegations against Lizzo's staff in the lawsuit, however, are obviously problematic.
The lawsuit also alleges that Lizzo's choreographer Shirlene Quigley created a hostile working environment by making wildly inappropriate and intrusive sexual comments, and constantly proselytizing about her Christian faith at work — an allegation that only became easier to believe after Quigley posted a bizarre and zealously religious video on social media the day the allegations dropped.
Romero also says that from a legal perspective, the allegations against Quigley are pretty cut-and-dried because the fact the superior to whom Davis and another plaintiff voiced their complaints about Quigley chose not to do anything is a clear violation of labor practices.
"Legally, when you complain to somebody above you about something someone else in the workplace is doing, it is their responsibility to escalate that complaint to somebody who should be able to handle it," Romero said in a follow-up video.
But when it comes to the sexual harassment allegations against Lizzo's transportation workers, the charges again fall prey to a lack of evidence since the plaintiffs failed to document neither the harassment nor the communications with senior members of Lizzo's camp to whom they reported it. "Situations like this are exactly why I say it is so important to document your evidence and... make your complaints in writing," Romero said.
Romero says that regardless, the allegations point to a profound lapse in judgment on Lizzo's part.
Still, she thinks the media narrative casting Lizzo as a supervillain is out of step with the facts.
Romero was careful to point out that none of these discrepancies means the plaintiffs are lying. And of course, there really is no defending the allegations made against Lizzo when it comes to the parties she held in strip clubs in Amsterdam and Paris. The mere inclusion of employees at these events adds up to a pretty shockingly poor judgment on Lizzo's part, to say the least.
As Romero put it, "there are definitely lines in that employer/employee relationship that were crossed." But she thinks the way Lizzo has been made into an abusive, predatory villain is unfair, especially since many of the plaintiffs' claims "hold more weight in the court of public opinion and headlines" than in a courtroom.
And she says the way the plaintiffs and their attorney are handling things speaks volumes. "Most of the time when you file a case of discrimination, your attorney doesn't want you to talk about it," she said. "Their attorney has them on TMZ." Romero says this is likely part of a strategy to quickly extract a settlement from Lizzo rather than go to trial—where the inconsistencies will of course not hold up in court.
Romero urges people to wait to form their judgments about the allegations against Lizzo until they have a handle on the facts. And when it comes to this case, a lot of the facts are pretty hard to suss out.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.