Lizzo was “completely blindsided” by sexual harassment lawsuit: “I did nothing wrong”

nme.com:

Lizzo has broken her silence on the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against her in 2023, saying she “did nothing wrong”.The singer was sued by three former dancers back in August 2023, who claimed they’d been subject to sexual harassment and a hostile workplace environment while on tour.

Lizzo denied the claims and said that the situation had left her contemplating quitting the music industry.A ruling in January saw a judge dismiss some elements of the case, but allow it to proceed, with a status conference is set to take place in January.Now, Lizzo has opened up about the lawsuit in a new interview on the Baby, This Is Keke Palmer podcast.She told Palmer she had “needed time to process” in 2023 following her first arena tour. “I was literally living in my dream, and then the tour ended, and three ex-dancers just completely, like, blindsided me with a lawsuit,” she said, adding that she was “completely surprised” by the complaint.“I was very deeply hurt because these were three ex-dancers, so they weren’t on the tour.

They didn’t, like, finish the tour out with us. But even regardless of that, these were people that I gave opportunities to,” she added.“These were people that, I liked them and appreciated them as dancers, respected them as dancers.

So I was like, what? But then I heard all the other things like sexual harassment, and I was like, they’re trying well, I don’t know what they’re trying to do, but these are the types of things that the media can turn into something that it’s not,” she continued.Lizzo went on to say that she was most upset by the allegations of sexual harassment, but dismissed many of the claims as “silly”.