Lizzo is just one example of an increasingly common phenomenon: high-profile employers facing media scandals and expensive litigation due to toxic workplace allegations.
According to recent reports, pop star Lizzo has been dropped from the shortlist of performers being considered for the Super Bowl halftime show. This is the latest public setback for the embattled star, who was recently sued by three former dancers alleging that her company created a hostile work environment of weight-shaming, sexual harassment, extreme stress, and other problems. The resulting media coverage presented a damning story to the public, and Lizzo’s online streams and downloads plummeted dramatically while her image transformed overnight.
However, as is common in many of these situations, the lawsuit generating such breathless negative media coverage is itself quite weak. The suit is rife with questionable assumptions and leaps of logic. The most publicly damaging allegations — such as those of weight shaming lack any substantiation whatsoever. At times the lawsuit reads like the diary of a person afflicted by paranoia. Perhaps this is why Lizzo and her team confronted the main claimant about her mental health at one point, as the lawsuit alleges.
Yet the flawed nature of the lawsuit has not prevented it from causing tremendous damage to Lizzo’s image. Almost no one will actually read the lawsuit or read it with a critical eye, as the claimants and their attorneys well know, but bad headlines generated by the lawsuit are the real objective anyway. Those headlines can force an employer to the settlement table, no matter the facts: many of these suits are blatant money grabs aimed at easy settlements.
Toxic workplace allegations are becoming increasingly common, particularly in situations with high-profile targets and heavy media attention. Often these allegations entail lawsuits, but in many cases, damaging media coverage is the goal of disgruntled ex-employees.
Recently, talk show host and pop star Kelly Clarkson was accused by multiple anonymous employees in a hit piece by Rolling Stone. According to her accusers, her highly rated “The Kelly Clarkson Show” is run by overly demanding producers who don’t pay lower-level staff what they believe they should make. Similar allegations dogged the canceled HBO Max shows “Lovecraft Country” and “The Other Two,” while the Woody Harrelson series “The White House Plumbers” officially paused production to deal with workplace toxicity claims. In another arena, famous celebrity chef and restauranteur Barbara Lynch found herself besieged in the press recently over her supposedly toxic managerial style.
If you find such claims highly subjective, you are correct. In fact, the problem with many of these toxic workplace scandals is their basis on the claimant’s subjective perception and understanding of events. Whereas the bar for establishing a toxic workplace claim was once quite high, it has now become unnecessary to prove anything at all to launch a negative media campaign, damage the target’s reputation, or even cancel the target altogether.
In hindsight, Ellen DeGeneres may have been the canary in the coal mine. In 2020, the media gleefully disseminated and amplified the claims of anonymous ex-employees who complained about the high-stress environment on “The Ellen Show.” A number of these overwrought allegations bordered on the comical, and one might wonder how much of this much ado about nothing is the result of a discordance between generational worldviews: one can detect in many of these allegations a particular whine indicative of a younger, self-entitled perspective. At any rate, despite any proof of actual misconduct, “The Ellen Show” was canceled within months.
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If it feels as if we have been down this road before, perhaps that is because the new #Toxic Work movement feels similar to #MeToo in a number of concerning respects. Both movements contain threads of well-intentioned sentiment but are all too often weaponized to settle personal grievances, generate media coverage, and make money. And just as heavily publicized #MeToo claims often rely less on legitimate evidence of wrongdoing and more on subjective “she-said” accounts, so too do many allegations of workplace toxicity presented in the media and in high-profile civil litigation. In far too many situations, the truth doesn’t matter and it certainly doesn’t outweigh the power of dramatic, attention-grabbing misconduct headlines. And of course, the reputational and professional damage done is generally irreparable even if the claims can be legally invalidated.
Perhaps we would do well to take a lesson from #MeToo’s failures all too clearly illustrated in the hoax against Johnny Depp exposed last year in court and reserve judgment on toxic workplace allegations until such claims have been proved in court. A successful career takes decades to build but only hours to destroy in our current cancel culture.
Kristen Lacefield, PhD, Lecturer of English & Media Studies. Kristen is an independent new media journalist and one of the most outspoken critics of the #MeToo movement and cancel culture. She is known as “Colonel Kurtz” on social media and broadcasts on Instagram and YouTube.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
