Lizzo said she had to "make peace" with a public narrative she cannot control, opening up on Sunday Today on October 4 about the aftermath of two harassment and discrimination lawsuits filed by former dancers — one of which was fully dismissed last month.
"I had to make peace with the fact that there's a version of Lizzo that exists now that the world controls," she told host Willie Geist. "The world controls the narrative, and I don't. But what I can control is who I really am." The Grammy winner said she doesn't need to "fight back" against what she calls lies: "I'm not a fighter. I'm a lover." She added that the ordeal taught her the music industry is a "headline game" — "How many headlines can I have out there about the things that I'm doing that I'm proud of, and that I actually did?" — and described the experience as an opportunity for self-reflection: "It's an opportunity for self-reflection and to learn about yourself, and to, even if you don't like parts of yourself, deal with it and work on it."
The legal saga began in August 2023, when three of Lizzo's former backup dancers — Crystal Williams, Arianna Davis and Noelle Rodriguez — sued her, accusing her of sexual harassment, weight-shaming and disability discrimination and of creating a "hostile, abusive work environment." Lizzo has consistently denied the claims. A judge previously allowed some of those claims to proceed while dismissing others, and the dancers' case remains active; her attorneys have called the claims a "fabricated sob story" from "opportunists" seeking "a quick payday."
The second lawsuit, filed a month later by former wardrobe assistant Asha Daniels alleging discrimination and harassment against Lizzo and her touring company, took a different path: Lizzo was dismissed individually from that case in 2024, and a federal judge threw it out entirely on September 1. Lizzo addressed that dismissal in an Instagram video at the time.
The Sunday Today interview — a "Sunday Sitdown" recorded at Books of Wonder in New York — also covered Lizzo's journey from classically trained flutist to pop star and her new children's book, "Lil Lizzo Meets Sasha B. Flootin'." But its emotional center was the reckoning with public perception: three years after the lawsuits made her name synonymous with a workplace scandal, Lizzo is trying to define herself on her own terms — even as one case is still working its way through the courts.