Dirty Pop

Asha Daniels is suing the Grammy winner and her team one month after similar litigation was filed by former dancers. A rep for Lizzo denies the two have even met

A fashion designer who toured with Lizzo earlier this year has filed suit against the singer and members of her team, alleging that while Lizzo preached body positivity and inclusion, her employees were forced to work in a “racist and sexualized” environment.

Asha Daniels filed suit in Los Angeles on Thursday against the star, her production company, her wardrobe manager Amanda Nomura and her tour manager Carlina Gugliotta, alleging, among other things, that they made racist and fat-phobic remarks and denied her medical care, leading to anxiety and PTSD.

“I felt like I was living in a madhouse. It was totally shocking,” Daniels, 35, told NBC News. “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. And I was witnessing myself, the dancers and the background vocalists and my local team in every city be harassed and bullied regularly.”

Daniels claims in the suit, which was obtained by PEOPLE, that she designed custom pieces for the dancers on Lizzo’s tour in September 2022, and was asked to join the tour a few months later to help keep the costumes in good shape.

The designer alleges she was “looking forward” to working with the Grammy-winning singer, 35, as she admired her values — but instead faced a rash of alleged harassment from Lizzo’s team.

The allegations are similar to that of a previous suit filed in August by three of Lizzo’s former dancers who claim the tour was rife with sexual, racial and religious harassment. The “Truth Hurts” singer has refuted all claims against her, saying on social media that she is “not the villain that people and the media have portrayed me to be these last few days.”

“Lizzo is the boss so the buck stops with her,” Daniels’ lawyer, Ron Zambrano, said in a statement. “She has created a sexualized and racially charged environment on her tours that her management staff sees as condoning such behavior, and so it continues unchecked. Lizzo certainly knows what’s going on but chooses not to put an end to this disgusting and illegal conduct and participates herself.”

Lizzo's rep Stefan Friedman tells PEOPLE in a statement: “As Lizzo receives a Humanitarian Award tonight from the Black Music Action Coalition for the incredible charitable work she has done to lift up all people, an ambulance-chasing lawyer tries to sully this honor by recruiting someone to file a bogus, absurd publicity-stunt lawsuit who, wait for it, never actually met or even spoke with Lizzo. We will pay this as much attention as it deserves. None.”

In Daniels’ suit, she alleges she joined the tour in February, and often had to work lengthy shifts seven days a week, during which she was allegedly denied breaks. The suit also claims that Daniels was instructed to never interact directly with Lizzo so as not to make her “jealous,” and was told she should not “dress attractively” in front of the “About Damn Time” singer.

The filing claims Daniels witnessed a “culture of racism and bullying,” and that she’d watch as Lizzo’s stage crew, comprised mainly of white men, would “lewdly gawk, sneer and giggle” as the Black dancers hurried through outfit changes with little to no privacy.

Daniels claims she took her concerns to Nomura, her supervisor, but was told to leave it alone. She also alleges that Nomura often made “racist and fat-phobic comments,” and that Nomura would mock not only Lizzo’s dancers, but Lizzo herself, by doing impressions and by calling Black women on the tour “dumb,” “useless” and “fat.”

The suit also claims that Daniels was twice denied medical care while at work; in the first instance, she and Nomura were moving a heavy rack of clothing when Nomura allegedly rolled the rack over Daniels’ foot. After Daniels complained of being in pain, Nomura — who is also being sued for assault — allegedly shoved her into the rack and scolded her for making “excuses.” Daniels claims she rolled her ankle in the incident, and was later forced by Nomura to wear “painful” tennis shoes instead of the orthopedic shoes she’d come to work in.

Later, Daniels also claims that on the day she was fired, she suffered an allergic reaction, but was denied medical care by Nomura and the management team.

Elsewhere in the filing, Daniels claims a manager sent a graphic photo to a group chat with dozens of people, and that the crew “openly” discussed “hiring sex workers for lewd acts, attending sex shows, and buying hard drugs” during a tour stop in Amsterdam.

Daniels says she voiced her concerns to Gugliotta, who was sympathetic, but who also allegedly told her after she was fired that Nomura “wanted [her] gone” for speaking up.

The suit says Daniels “suffered constant anxiety and panic attacks during the tour from the racist and sexual environments,” and “continues to suffer ongoing anxiety and PTSD after the tour,” as well as “migraines and migraine-induced eye twitch and ocular distortions, brain fog and fatigue.”

The new filing comes one month after the suit filed by three of Lizzo’s dancers, who are each named in Daniels’ suit. Daniels’ filing claims she watched as Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez were “forced to change in and out of their clothing in small, tight, changing areas… with little to no privacy whatsoever.”

Lizzo’s attorney Marty Singer has said his client plans to sue for “malicious prosecution.”