A filmmaker has alleged she was ‘gaslit’ by Lizzo.
Oscar-nominated Sophia Nahli Allison’s allegations that the 35-year-old Grammy winner – real name Melissa Viviane Jefferson – ‘gaslit’ her come hot on the heels of a bombshell lawsuit filed against the A-lister.
This week it emerged that Jefferson has been accused of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment by three former dancers.
And on Tuesday night, 36-year-old Allison published a tweet claiming she worked with Jefferson in 2019 only to find her ‘arrogant, self-centred and unkind’.
Allison explained that she intended to direct Jefferson’s documentary but ‘walked away’ from the project two weeks later after being ‘disrespected’.
The filmmaker’s full tweet read: ‘I do not usually comment on anything pop culture related. But, in 2019, I travelled a bit with Lizzo to be the director of her documentary. I walked away after about two weeks. I was treated with such disrespect by her.’
Allison added: ‘I witnessed how arrogant, self-centred and unkind she is. I was not protected and was thrown into a s****y situation with little support. My spirit said to run as fast as you f*****g can and I’m so grateful I trusted my gut.’
She went on: ‘I felt gaslit and was deeply hurt, but I’ve healed.
‘Reading these reports made me realise how dangerous of a situation it was. This kind of abuse of power happens far too often.’
Allison concluded: ‘Much love and support to the dancers.’
Although Allison didn’t name the project she’d temporarily worked on with Jefferson, last year the singer released a documentary called Love, Lizzo, which followed her career and rise to fame.
Earlier this week, paperwork obtained by multiple US outlets alleged Jefferson pressured one of her dancers to touch a nude performer at a club in Amsterdam and ‘called attention’ to another performer’s weight gain.
The suit also named her production company, Big Grrrl Big Touring, Inc, and her dance captain, Shirlene Quigley, as defendants – but not every claim was related to all three.
NBC News reports that Arianna Davis and Crystal Williams were hired by Jefferson after competing on her reality show, Watch Out for the Big Grrrls in 2021, but were both fired.
Noella Rodriguez was hired in the same year but resigned in 2023.
The paperwork alleges Jefferson invited her dancers to a strip club following a performance in Amsterdam earlier this year and – although attendance was not mandatory – those who attended were reportedly ‘favoured’ by the musician.
It is claimed that she ‘began inviting cast members to take turns touching the nude performers, catching dildos launched from the performers’ vaginas, and eating bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas’, before she ‘began pressuring Ms Davis to touch the breasts of one of the nude women’.
When she declined, Jefferson allegedly led a chant and goaded her, after which a ‘visibly uncomfortable Ms Davis [engaged] with the performer’.
After this, she allegedly pressed a member of her security team to get on stage, yelling ‘take it off’, according to the outlet.
Jefferson was accused of making comments directed to Davis’ weight following an appearance at SXSW and told the dancer she seemed ‘less committed’ to her role – an exchange that legal documents reportedly described as a ‘thinly veiled’ mention of her weight.
‘In professional dance, a dancer’s weight gain is often seen as that dancer getting lazy or worse off as a performer,’ the paperwork states, via Variety.
‘Lizzo’s and Ms Scott’s questions about Ms Davis’s commitment to the tour were thinly veiled concerns about Ms Davis’s weight gain, which Lizzo had previously called attention to after noticing it at the South by Southwest music festival.
‘Although Lizzo and Ms Scott never explicitly stated it, these questions accompanied by Lizzo’s statements made after the South by Southwest music festival gave Ms Davis the impression that she needed to explain her weight gain and disclose intimate personal details about her life in order to keep her job.’
It was also alleged that Jefferson had accused dancers of drinking before performances – allegations that Williams vowed were untrue.
USA Today reports that she accused them of ‘not performing up to par and repeatedly accused the dancers of drinking alcohol before shows even though the dance cast had never partaken in such a practice’, via the paperwork.
Per the suit, they were forced to go through an ‘excruciating’ audition to keep their spots, with Williams reportedly losing her job in a public manner after, because of budget cuts.
The dancers are seeking damages for emotional distress, unpaid wages, loss of earnings and attorney fees for the allegations, including sexual, religious and racial harassment, disability discrimination and false imprisonment – but an amount has not been made clear.
After the lawsuit was filed, another dancer named Courtney Hollinquest took to social media to comment on Davis, Williams and Rodriguez’s lawsuit, saying: ‘This was very much part of my experience’.
Hollinquest also clarified that she is ‘not part of the lawsuit’.
Jefferson has yet to speak out over the claims.
Metro.co.uk has contacted Lizzo, Allison and Hollinquest for comment.
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