By now, you’ve probably heard of the lawsuit filed against Lizzo, her production company, and her dance captain. The singer’s former dancers are accusing the Lizzo of creating a hostile work environment, harassment, false imprisonment, and more. However, now things have gotten worse from a cultural standpoint. The world’s biggest entertainer, Beyoncé, omitted Lizzo’s name during her remix to the hit song “Break My Soul” during her wildly popular Renaissance world tour stop in Boston. Instead of saying the singer’s name, she repeated the name of another singer: Erykah Badu.
Beyoncé has not spoken explicitly about Lizzo and this lawsuit. However, social media has been ablaze with different theories of why she omitted Lizzo’s name from the remix. Many thought this was Beyoncé’s way to lowkey support the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Lizzo, a moment to show solidarity with victims of such horrible things as those that have been alleged. But while digging deeper, social media investigators have come up with another theory. Recently, Erykah Badu seemed to shade Beyoncé online, accusing her of “copying her style.” Could it be that Queen Bey was trying to shade Erykah Badu back by mentioning her four times in a row? Or was it really to take out the name of the flute-playing hit singer whose reputation has now taken a serious hit? Or could it be both?
Now, Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles has given her opinion. She pointed out that Bey also excluded Kelly Rowland, her Destiny’s Child collaborator, and inserted her biological sister Solange’s name instead. Furthermore, Knowles told social media to “stop.”
The Beyoncé stain is out there now, whether it was intentional or not. This is never good for anyone’s career! Beyoncé’s global pull is huge and having this kind of attention is going to severely hurt Lizzo’s career and image in my opinion. Lizzo has finally issued a response in which she notes that she has been a victim of body-shaming and wouldn’t fire someone because of their weight. She calls the myriad allegations “false” and “too outrageous to not be addressed.”
Knowing that Lizzo has been such a big fan of Beyoncé has made this incident even harder to watch play out. But the pain that the plaintiffs endured must be highlighted. This situation has been so difficult in part because of what Lizzo has represented.
Lizzo is the unconventional star who made it. Her rise to the top in the music business has been such a victory for Black women and especially plus-size and fat women. She has been a unique presence amidst a sea of cookie-cutter women in the music industry. Lizzo is the one we were all rooting for. But this lawsuit has brought out quite a few people who’ve had troubling experiences with Lizzo and her company, including filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison. Again, how long did people keep quiet because Lizzo was the one we wanted to see succeed?
Regardless, we hope that the alleged victims receive justice. We do not expect Beyoncé to speak out about this situation, as she is usually very careful in how she approaches such matters.
(featured image: Kevin Mazur, WireImage for Parkwood)
