A fashion designer who worked for singer Lizzo has filed a lawsuit against her and members of her team claiming racial discrimination and sexual harassment created a hostile work environment. This is the second lawsuit filed against Lizzo in recent months:

“I felt like I was living in a madhouse,” fashion designer Asha Daniels, 35, told NBC News the day beforeshe filed her lawsuit against Lizzo and other members of the singer’s team. “It was totally shocking.”

“I was listening to this Black woman on this huge stage have this message of self-love and caring for others and being empathetic and being strong and standing up for others,” she said. “And I was witnessing myself, the dancers and the background vocalists and my local team in every city be harassed and bullied regularly.”

The suit, filed Thursday by lawyers for Daniels in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accused wardrobe manager Amanda Nomura of doing stereotypical impressions of Black women, referring to the performers as “fat,” “useless” and “dumb,” and forcing them to change in front of a mostly white, male stage crew who would “lewdly gawk” at them, the suit says.

There’s a lot more to the story, most of which involves the conditions the dancers worked under and Daniels’ interactions with the wardrobe manager. Some of the issues she raises would be considered a problem for any work environment, i.e. a manager who allegedly texted sexually graphic images to people on the staff.

Daniels claims she brought her concerns about what was going on to the tour manager and was fired a few weeks later. But even after that she was asked to continue doing design work and she agreed. She claims she had physical and psychological problems as a result of continuing her work. She considered suing Lizzo over “the most toxic work environment she’d ever experienced” but didn’t do so until she learned of the lawsuit that was filed in early August.

That previous lawsuit was filed by three of Lizzo’s dancers who also claimed they were subjected to a hostile work environment.

The dancers accused Lizzo — a performer known for embracing body positivity and celebrating her physique — of calling attention to one dancer’s weight gain and later berating, then firing, that dancer after she recorded a meeting because of a health condition.

That dancer was Arianna Davis. The health condition was some sort of eye problem. In any case, Lizzo learned someone had recorded one of her staff meetings and allegedly freaked out and had dancers’ phones confiscated by security. The lawsuit states, “Lizzo became furious, hurling expletives at the group and stated that she was going to go around the room, person-by-person until someone told Lizzo who made the recording.” Davis confessed to recording the meeting and said she’d wanted to have a copy of Lizzo’s show notes but also said she had deleted the video. She was fired on the spot then forced to wait while security went through her phone to make sure there was no video recording. Because of this delay in allowing her to leave she is also claiming false imprisonment.

The previous lawsuit also described a wild night at a strip club in Amsterdam.

At the club, Lizzo allegedly “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,” the suit says. “Lizzo then turned her attention to Ms. Davis and began pressuring Ms. Davis to touch the breasts of one of the nude women.”
Davis declined, according to the suit, and Lizzo allegedly led a chant goading her to do so. After Davis declined three more times, the chant “grew louder and more strident, demanding a visibly uncomfortable Ms. Davis to engage with the performer.”

When Davis eventually acquiesced and briefly touched the performer, the group burst into laughter, the suit says. Afterward, Lizzo allegedly pressed a member of her security staff to get on stage and began yelling, “take it off,” according to the suit.

The timing of the new lawsuit couldn’t be worse for Lizzo who is expected to accept an award today for her philanthropy and social justice work.

The entertainer will be honored with the BMAC Quincy Jones Humanitarian Award at the Black Music Action Coalition’s 2023 BMAC Gala, which is set for Thursday, Sept. 21, at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif…

Lizzo will receive the BMAC Quincy Jones Humanitarian Award in recognition of her philanthropic work and commitment to social justice.

I guess we’ll see how that goes.