At the center of the controversy, which precedes and is unrelated to the allegations of sexual harassment, are the dialogues of 14 dancers who were allegedly shown without their consent in the Love Lizzo documentary.
Six months before three dancers sued Lizzo for sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, 14 other dancers who worked with the pop star settled out of court over the documentary. With love, Lizzo. This is reported Los Angeles Times.
At the center of the controversy, which began in January 2023, is a five-minute documentary that aired on HBO Max in November 2022. These are images and intimate dialogues of dancers, used without their knowledge or at least without their consent or compensation, in which they spoke of their difficulty in coping with misogyny, fatphobia and racism. According to their legal representative, the documentary “would have exploited and violated the sense of emotional security that the women had in that moment.”
The images in question were taken during a rehearsal for the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards. According to Alan Brunswick, a producer at Boardwalk Pictures, the women gave their consent and knew they were being filmed. They found out that the scene would be included in the documentary when they received an email offering $350 plus royalties.
As of February 2023, in exchange for signing a confidentiality agreement, the dancers received between $7,000 and $7,500 each, for a total production cost of $109,551.
