253: Lizzo's Legal Troubles: Analyzing the PR & Legal Challenges Amidst Harassment Accusations with Emily D. Baker

Oh, Lizzo. In case you did not hear about the recent allegations against the singer, here's a quick review. Well, now to the growing reaction in this war of words, really between superstar.

Lizzo and three of her former dancers. The dancers sued Lizzo this week alleging they were weight shamed and sexually harassed. That Lizzo created a hostile work environment. Lizzo responded yesterday, posting a statement on social media in part calling the allegations false and outrageous.

That was a clip from the Aug. 4 broadcast of NBC Morning News. Now you were hearing anchor Savannah Sellers and Joe Fryer discuss the case, but with a particular angle to the story. And it's one of my favorites, the official media response.

Public relations and crisis management expert Molly McPherson joins us now to talk more about this. Molly, let's look at Lizzo's response here, which we talked about 24 hours ago yesterday morning. In addition to calling the allegations false and outrageous, Lizzo also said the sensationalized stor stories are coming from former employees who have already publicly admitted that they were told their behavior on tour was inappropriate and unprofessional. The attorney for the dancers quickly responded to that, saying Lizzo's denial only adds to his client's emotional distress. This is your area of expertise. What do you make of that statement? The entire statement that came out from Lizzo yesterday.

What do I make of that statement? Well, when someone's in a bind, it's time to read between the lines of the statement. Let's go. Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. In this episode, Lizzo's legal troubles exploring the complex employment lawsuit and the reputation repercussions. In this episode, I speak with Emily D. Baker, the Internet's go to legal Analyst, as we break down the key facts surround funding this case, including claims of uncomfortable sexual situations involving Lizzo's employees. They're bananas. So as we delve into the legal aspects of the situation, we're going to analyze the claims of weight shaming and racial discrimination and yes, the sexual harassment claims made against Lizzo. We'll also talk about the role of transparency in court proceedings and how it affects public perception and accountability. So get ready for an insightful discussion on Lizzo's legal and PR troubles. What a week for me. Well, and for Lizzo. Lizzo had absolutely no consideration for my travel schedule last week. On Tuesday, I was in Wisconsin conducting an all day workshop. I was piloting a New workshop all about, well, what I talk about each week on the podcast, how to navigate the pricklier side of stakeholder engagement. I was in a room with 61 people to pilot this course, and it was a very engaging day. A lot of back and forth, a lot of feedback, and at the end of it, I always walk away with the same feeling. It does not matter what the industry is. If it's business, if it's professional, or even if it's personal, if it's a regular person, the hoi polloi, or a big singer like Lizzo, if your business or your brand or you run into any type of trouble, your customers can turn on you, your people can turn on you. And when they do, it happens quickly and decisively, which is something I needed to do. Because as soon as that class ended, I was in my car, ready to hop to MSP to catch my flight. It was tight, but the Lizzo story popped up. I was tagged in a lot of posts on social media, and then I read the news stories and I thought, okay, before I get on the road, I just have to jump into the fray here. It was. It was a big story and people were asking. So I quickly hopped on to TikTok just to give a few thoughts about the reputational risk and what we needed to hear from Lizzo at that moment. And I also noted how it was interesting from a news cycle point of view that as this story was making its way, you know, to from the news outlets and social media, and there was also a pending news story just waiting in the wings and all the news stories at that point. So I was in the central time zone, so I was hearing of the nightly newscast, you know, starting from the east, from Eastern Daylight Savings time, to be technical, and they were breaking in or discussing that there was going to be a statement oppressor from Special counsel Jack Smith in regards to President Trump's second federal indictment and this one related to his trying to overturn the 2020 election results. You know, a minor offense. But as I heard this, I thought, wow, what an interesting news cycle we have for Lizzo. Yes, the story marinated for a while, but now it's going to be bumped off the front pages because of President Trump. It doesn't mean that it's going away, but big news outlets are going well and small local news as well, smaller news outlets, digital news, whatever. All news, all news outlets were going to lead with President Trump unless it was entertainment focused. So, hey, there was a win right there for, for Lizzo, and it made Me wonder, was that intentional? Was that a legal move by the dancers suing Lizzo or was it a legal move by Lizzo's team? Now, Lizzo is represented by Marty Singer. Who is Marty Singer? I've discussed him on this podcast before as it related to Ricky Martin. I also talk about Marty Singer in my book Indestructible, as it related to Bill Cosby, other clients, John Travolta, Kim Kardashian, Chris Brown, Jonah Hill, Tristan Thompson, Quentin Tarantino. You're starting to get a sense of the Marty client base. You know, your boring clients, right? Joking. So he's an LA based lawyer from Brooklyn, New York. And if you want to have any sense of who Marty Singer is, there was a quote in vanity fair in 2017 saying this from Marty Singer, quote, I love a lot of my clients and I care for them. And if somebody Fs with my clients, they're effing with my family or they're effing with me, end quote. And effing. He didn't say effing. Vanity Fair used asterisk. So legal is what this PR crisis is all about. Which is the reason why I asked Emily D. Baker to join me to discuss the allegations against Lizzo, her response and the potential impact on her brand. So we're going discuss the allegation, the mixed reactions, the legal battle and how it's unfolding, and also the public perception and the legal maneuvers. Now, before I get to the interview, I did receive this question in my PR confidential community. You can find that at 5me, Molly McPherson. It is my free hangout where you can ask me questions. I will also drop podcasts early there. I'll answer any question that you have about pr, so join it. It's free. And the question was this. Given the recent lawsuit filed against Lizzo by three of her former dancers alleging sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, what could be the potential legal and public relation implications for Lizzo? And I answered that question on the site by saying, hey, you just have to listen to this podcast because Emily D. Baker is going to jump in the fray with us. But before we do, I know what you're wondering. Well, what did Molly McPherson have to say on NBC News now about the PR response? Here we go. Well, it's not unexpected that she came out in full denial mode. People were a little surprised about the delay. That delay gave social media a lot of time to inject commentary, and the commentary was not positive. So Lizzo had to dig herself out of a reputation hole. Hole. Why Did I say hole on the air? To be honest, it just came to me. I had my quote down pat, but I don't think I had the ending. So out of thin air I pull whole. But Lizzo is certainly in one, so let's see how she can dig her way out of it. Here's my interview with legal expert Emily D. Baker. Emily, you and I are both having a day, aren't we? The Lizzo statement has come out. You and I have been deep diving on Lizzo and the lawsuit from two different angles. Public relations for me and legal for you. I am so happy to speak with you today.

I'm so happy to be here. It's. This has been a lot and it's been a minute since we've had a new kind of big celebrity lawsuit. So this definitely has had its moment in the media, hasn't it?

Well, let me ask you this. What would you consider the last celebrity lawsuit was that was similar to this one?

I. I don't know, similar to this one because employment law. But the last, I mean, the last story that was really big celebrity driven was the Gwyneth Paltrow trial a number of months back. Is the other than like the Kevin Costner divorce, which has gained some traction, but in court, like getting ready to battle it out in court. Celebrity driven Paltrow is the first thing my brain goes to. But these employment cases don't generally pick up as much traction as this. The last employment case I covered out of California was allegations against Kanye not paying backup dancers for Sunday service. And that was really just a work time, break time, lack of adequate meal breaks and stuff like that lawsuit, it wasn't nearly as salacious as the allegations in this lawsuit.

Well, already right there, I like how you're framing this. This is an employment case. It's nothing sexy, you know, that we're thinking of. There's huge legal peril for a celebrity. It really comes down to an employment case, but with a huge celebrity. So for our tent pole, we have, we have Gwyneth and now we have Lizzo. Now this, as I mentioned, the statement came out today. I did a breakdown from a public relations analysis and you are here to talk about the legal aspect of it. Now, I know from my replies on TikTok and Instagram, so many people already know who you are and they absolutely love you and they're looking forward to this conversation. But tell any of our anyone who's completely clueless to you any everything about you and what you're doing now.

Absolutely. I'm Emily D. Baker I am a lawyer. I've been an attorney for over 17 years, which sounds wild to say. I was a deputy district attorney, trial attorney for over 10 years. I've worked in a myriad of other law including being a research attorney for civil judges and working in consulting. And now I am a content creator. I do legal analysis and legal commentary of pop culture cases. I'm a huge pop culture fan and I like breaking down the facts behind the lawsuits. And really oftentimes in cases like this that ends up being the facts behind the headlines because the headlines and the lawsuits don't always match up. And really taking a dive into what the legal is and helping you understand it. And sometimes, just sometimes, I do live trial coverage when there are these big celebrity driven trials in court and help explain what's a hearsay objection and when's it proper.

Oh, and incredibly valuable. So you deal with facts. I deal with public relations where there often isn't fact, where they are trying to smooth over the fact or cover the fact. So let's merge both of our expertise together and break down what's happening with Lizzo here today. Now what I had mentioned on my TikTok post today, the official response came out. I had been tracking it for two days thanks to a lot of people on TikTok who immediately tell me when things arrive in the news. In her response, what I was waiting to see and what I assumed is that we would see some form of a denial. Were you surprised to see that in the statement?

I was not surprised at all to see us. And again, being an employment lawsuit, this is normally what the employer says. The employer will normally say. These are disgruntled employees. They didn't get a raise or a promotion or whatever thing they wanted. They separated from employment, they were fired for cause and now they are suing over things that are sensationalized or blown out of proportion. Some of the things in this lawsuit are maybe put in there more for the media than for the legal allegations. But some of the things in the lawsuit are going to be a legal issue. So we'll see. But I'm not surprised. It's, it's a response maybe a little more personal than you would see from a company, but it is, is truly a employee employer situation and this is an employer response. These are false allegations.

So Emily, could you just describe what is in this lawsuit in general so we understand what Lizzo is up against right now legally?

Absolutely. I'm going to go through the causes of action first before we get to the facts, because I'm sure the audience has heard the facts. Like the facts are what's in the headlines, the facts are what's being talked about, or the facts as allegedly. And I always remind my audience that lawsuits are allegations and shade they haven't been through the court process yet. And in civil court that can take years, which we'll have to talk about creating a PR nightmare because by the time it resolves, the case is already won or lost in the court of public opinion by the time it's ever resolved in court. But this is a hostile work environment for sexual harassment case. It is a religious harassment cause of action, failure to prevent that harassment, racial harassment, disability discrimination, interference with prospective economic advantage, which we can talk about assault and false imprisonment. So the assault and false imprisonment causes of action are at the bottom. While they might be less headline grabbing, those causes of action could be very, very difficult legally to deal with versus the other ones that are going to have to go to a jury to decide. Is this a hostile work environment? It's very fact specific. It's very workplace specific. And at the end of the day, it comes down to a jury saying, oh, that's wild. Or oh, in this work environment that's really not outside of the norm.

Okay, I don't understand legal other than watching people like you, but is this a case that can be settled out of court? Could she pay her way out of this?

I have, I have a question for you about that too. With the allegations being so big in the media, of course it could settle. Most cases do settle. Especially if this is going to be a trial where there's a parade of other former employees that come in and support these allegations. And we've seen some of that on social media with other former employees coming out saying, this was my experience too. That does not look good for a jury. So if this is the tip of the iceberg and there's more to come out, I think there's a lot of incentive to settle. If there's room to fight this, then there's less incentive to settle. Because the public opinion of a settlement, though, it's not always proper. The public opinion of a settlement is, oh, you did something wrong and you're settling it to make it go away. Even though it just might be a cost benefit analysis for the company saying, we're going to spend X amount of money to fight, we're going to spend X amount of money to settle. It's better to just use the money to settle. But the public doesn't always see that as a cost benefit analysis. Sometimes they see it as an admission of guilt, even when it's not.

Yes. And what I find interesting about this case is she's being represented, allegedly by Marty Singer. Have you. Do you understand that? Yeah. And so Marty Singer, who I consider a Hollywood fixer. Capital H, capital F. And how this statement has been written, it's written in a way where they want to settle. Like they do not want to have the legal liability there, but they're writing to. They're writing a denial. But also writing a denial in a way that they do want to settle. It is a risk to take because it does hurt your reputation. As you mentioned the last time, that I'm aware that he did this, like he represented Bill Cosby, if that gives you a sense of the type of people he represents. And also Charlie Sheen. But most recently, in terms of a TikTok, I did. He also represented Ricky Martin, who was.

I forgot about that.

And Ricky Martin was accused by a family member. It was like a loose definition of a family member of some sexual impropriety. We weren't quite sure. But very damaging to his reputation. And if you remember, Ricky Martin came out, he did a video statement, full denial, Full denial. And then the family member retracted it. And then it went away.

And it all went away.

So legally. Right. It all goes away. But reputationally, no one's heard from Ricky Martin. And also no one will ever forget. I don't think this case with Ricky Martin, even though you just said that you did and you're a lawyer, but I. This kind of stuff sticks with you.

Yeah. I had forgotten Marty Singer represented him. I remember the facts of the case.

Yeah.

And that's the thing, is that these things, the allegations live on forever. And that's something anyone can file a lawsuit for anything. But especially when they get picked up by the media and especially when the allegations are bad, the behavior is bad, whether it's legally actionable or not, the behavior being alleged here is bad. So it's damaging PR ways. Even if they lose some of these counts when they ultimately go to court or if they settle, I think they're in a difficult position. But this case became so public so fast, I don't think it can quietly settle. This is going to be a case that. That even when it settles, everyone's going to want to follow up on it. And I think Lizzo probably knew some of these allegations the company would have had to been notified about before lawsuits filed. So I think that they knew this was coming or at least they should have known that this was coming and didn't settle it before it hit the media, which is also interesting.

Okay, so let's talk about what hit the media. So where did they get the information that it became a news story? And talk to me about the filing.

Absolutely. So this filing, when you look at filings on the Internet, the. The thing I look for first is the filing stamp. It's normally either in the upper corner or across the top. If it's e filed, the the public information that's out there, the public complaint is not the filed and stamped complaint. So even though we're told this was filed August 1st, it hasn't wound its way through the system yet. So when you go into LA courts particularly you can go to the website, you can go in and search for cases by name, by case number, if you know something's coming. Or for the court watchers who are, you know, working at media companies, I'm sure TMZ has somebody who's kind of running these things somewhat regularly making seeing if there's a new filing. This was not found in the court system. This was placed with media from the plaintiff's attorneys. This had to have been given to the media directly because it didn't come out of the court system. It's a non filed complaint. We saw this a lot in the Britney Spears case where TMZ would have filings before they would hit the court system and sometimes before the opposing counsel would have them. So this was disseminated to media before it went through the court filing system.

How common is that?

It depends on the case. It was very common in the Britney Spears case, but it's a benefit for plaintiffs. And when we're talking about civil law, all of this is strategic. It's much different than a criminal case where there's an incident, then there's a warrant, or then there's arrest. And there's a very set process. Civil law is much more based on gamesmanship and it can place. The lawyer's job is to put their clients in the best position. Having this public is the best position for these plaintiffs, whether they want to settle or don't. Getting their story out there puts them in a tremendous advantage and others came forward who are not part of this lawsuit to validate the story. And those are potentially very good witnesses for a jury. Because if a jury looks at people who stand to benefit financially and then looks at neutral third parties who validate that claim, it's much easier for a jury to come back with a big jury award.

So someone like the filmmaker Sophia Nali Allison. So she said that Lizzo treated with her disrespect. Do you think that she's any part of this case or she just happened to come out on her own in support of these dancers?

It seems that she came out after two of the other dancers came out on Instagram and said, this was my experience too. And I've seen other former employees kind of rumbling about this, that they were afraid to speak up. But now that somebody has spoken up, it kind of opens the floodgates. I don't think they're part of the lawsuit. I think they spoke up organically. They might have been given a heads up that this lawsuit happened. But if you don't want to speak up on social, because I'm sure Lizzo has a massive fan base, that there's always room for that fan base to turn on you when you speak against the person that they love. So if you're not involved in this lawsuit and your name's not already out there, it's definitely a conscious choice to come up and support those who have chosen to sue. And we don't see that in every case. And we've seen it with at least three people as of today in this case, which is always very telling.

Yes. And I did. I've noticed a lot of the Lizzo fans or stands out there defending her stridently but also being very harsh, you know, on these dancers. I mean, they're just absolutely coming after them. Now, when you're talking about the strategic play here, the, the dancer, the attorney for the dancers, Ron Zambrano, said in a against Lizzo that the, the allegations are stunning in nature. We call the that, we call that a quotable quote that gets picked up fast. Quote how Lizzo and her management team treated their performers. Performers seems to go against everything Lizzo stands for publicly, while privately she weight shames her dancers and demeans them in ways that are not only illegal, but absolutely demoralizing. That's according to Zambrano. Have you seen that type of language before from a lawyer?

Oh, sure, all the time. I mean, it's framing your case for the media to really understand what your case is. This is a 30 plus page, 44 page complaint. So you need, you need it to be understood really quickly. And again, law is advocacy. Zambrano's job is to advocate for these plaintiffs with no mercy given. So, yeah, some of the allegations in here are absolutely staggering and stunning. And yes, they very much go against Lizzo's public Persona, even Though I wouldn't be surprised to find other cases very similar to this within the industry. We've seen tons of stuff within the industry where people aren't treated well, they're working long hours, they're not treated well on set. This isn't uncommon. This is a much more fact specific lawsuit than like Kanye West's dancer saying we weren't paid, we weren't given breaks, we were overworked. That didn't have as much fact based of what's going on outside of the work environment as this did. This had quite a lot more information in it.

Now, I had posted something to TikTok today where I was analyzing the statement and I was using a formula that I use with my clients. I call it an indestructible PR formula. And when it's. You're writing a response to a crisis or sit where something has happened in the simplest form, it's own it, explain it, promise it. You want some form of ownership to what happened. And I predicted that she was going to fully deny all the charges. But as you discuss it as an employee employment issue, something that does come up when it is a legal issue. There is the legal risk that's involved and there's that balancing act that we cannot create a legal liability. But we also need to make sure that we maintain our trust or we restore it quickly. It's all about the reputation. And when it comes to owning it, you know, people look at that as apologizing or being accountable to something. But sometimes, particularly in these legal cases, you don't necessarily have to admit to anything, but sometimes you can show remorse for it. I did not see any of that in the statement at all. So my question for you is because it was employment and because it could be related to, you know, just working harder. What she's framing herself as is a hard working artist. I felt like that could have been a place where she could have gone a little bit because reasonable people could understand the overworked nature. Right. But she did a full complete denial. So could you tell me about that? Like, is that a legal maneuver that they decided to go all in on 100% deniability and admit to nothing?

I don't know if they could have expressed remorse. I don't know if they. They were in a. The legal plus the pr. They were between a rock and a hard spot with this. Because everyone is talking about this and because of the way the complaint was written, with so many details of the employment, you come away with this impression of a work environment that is completely unacceptable for anyone. And the dancers alleging that they are weight shamed, that they are discriminated against racially, and then sexually harassed are three things that specifically go to Lizzo's brand. This isn't, we didn't get lunch breaks or we didn't. We worked overtime without pay or we were held between tours, but we weren't paid, but we weren't allowed to get other work. This isn't that this goes specifically to her brand. So I think she had to say something. I'm not surprised a full denial was crafted because if you start admitting some things on Social, if it plays in front of a jury, it's like, well, you admitted this. And she talks about some of the allegations vaguely, but not all of them. She says that she was very open with her sexuality and she doesn't want that used against her. So she talks about a bit about it, but not all the way. But she's being sued, her company's being sued, and one of her other employees that seem to be in a management role is being sued in this. There are three defendants. So she also has to think about protecting her company and. And potentially the behavior of another employee. Because yes, employers can in cases be responsible for what their employees do or failing to stop their employees from doing things. And that was happening here too.

Yeah. And not only was it a full denial, but what usually comes with a full denial is blaming. They aren't going to take anything. As a matter of fact, they're going to turn around and point it back. I would assume, I mean, you're more of a legal expert on this, that part of it is that kind of that threat. And also to fully put them in their corner, so to speak. But what do you think about just the blame shift piece of it?

We see that in law all the time. Right. Especially in employment law. This is employment law. Cases go like this. An employee leaves or gets terminated ensues, and the employer says, I did not discriminate, harass or do whatever. In fact, they weren't a great employee and that's why they were fired. So in employment cases, this is the playbook is it's not the employer's fault, it's the employee's fault. And the employee is saying, this work environment was completely unacceptable. And when it comes down to determining the hostile work environment that's alleged here, a jury has to decide if this is an outrageous work environment and the employer is going to say no. They were given the option to come to these after work events and there was. They weren't forced to do these things, and they made these choices. So that is how it plays out in court. And legality and morality split here, because morality, it feels really, really gross to be like these women felt like they had no. No choice or autonomy at work. But then it's going to shift back around in court and say, well, these are all the choices that they made. And that's the adversary system in the court of law, which actually can keep people from deciding to come forward. For plaintiffs to come forward in a case like this is a massive calculation. They know they're going to get taken to task by Lizzo's fan base. They know that their names are connected with this. They have to wonder if they're ever going to be able to work in their industry again. Because it so often happens that once you've been kind of labeled as. As difficult or as a troublemaker or whatever in an industry with a lawsuit against your employer, that no one else is going to want to hire you. So they have to. They have to weigh all of that and say, no, it's still worth it. So to even put your name on a lawsuit like this and put it out there takes a tremendous amount of risk assessment for these dancers. And the dancers might have said once they were fired, they were going to speak up and protect other dancers. I haven't seen if they've made any statements about that, but I definitely have seen the other. Other former employees coming up in support. So the calculation for a plaintiff here, and I've seen people say, this is a money grab or this is that. But the calculation for them is at their reputational risk as well. Because even if they're right, at the end of the day, some employers don't want to take on the employee that sued because they don't want to be sued. And once someone has shown the courage to stand up and say, I'm not going to take treatment like this, they're like, we don't want to run that risk. And that's a cost that you can't really appreciate because no one's going to say that's why you're not getting hired. And that's when you see people just chilled by different workplaces and different workplace environments from coming forward for sometimes decades with. With this kind of bad behavior.

Yes. And this is something that happens in the reputation realm as work as well. You could get through the legal challenge. You could still have your fans come back to you, but there's that. That third layer of brands and people sponsoring you and Wanting to work with you now, you're going to become more toxic. You know, you're going to be like a kryptonite brand and no one's going to want to touch it. That's where I think, like, the true risk is like, I think there's always going to be fans there and stands there. But some brands, they just, they don't want to touch it. It's just like too, it's just too hot for them. Now, I know that you look at the language and the tone of these responses all the time. What did you notice in Lizzo's response in regard to any words in the language that she used that stood out to you or the tone here?

I think it's interesting how she called the, the allegations sensationalized stories because we do see the most salacious details picked in the headline and picked in all of the headlines and the, the kind of intimate details of this lawsuit. So I'm not surprised the word sensationalized was used. I'm not surprised that they were shifting it to saying that the dancers were inappropriate and unprofessional on tour when the dancers are alleging that that's what was going on with Lizzo and her tour company. So it does, does go a distance to flip it and it really isn't, again, an apology. It is a very specifically worded denial. But it also says she would never criticize or terminate employee because of their weight. That goes to one of the allegations. But there are so many allegations here and that seems to be one that is really specifically targeted. But I'm not surprised by that, given Lizzo's brand and given the fact that the fans have been saying. I'm heartbroken that these allegations are coming out because, like, not Lizzo is what I saw so much on social media, people being like, not, not you. Please, no. Please, no. And I think this takes into mind what people were saying on social media.

Yes, it absolutely does. Now, speak for a moment, and you and I cannot speak with authority on this at all. But what about race? I was wondering if race would be brought into the statement at all. And I don't know if, because we are dealing, you know, with women of color. If I was kind of surprised that it didn't come in that they may want to use that. I don't see it in here at all. So, I mean, I guess it's a net neutral on that. But do you have any thoughts on that? Because in some cases, a lawyer in the wordsmithing might leverage that. But we don't see that here.

They were completely silent as to the allegations and the allegations of racial discrimination in this lawsuit. And it might be because they don't even want to get into the weeds with it. We can absolutely have racial discrimination lawsuits where the employer and the employee are the same race. That is absolutely something that can legally happen. The allegations in the lawsuit were that the way the dancers were talked to was different. The dancers who are black were spoken to differently than other dancers. And that's going to have to just come out in front of a jury. But there wasn't specific language in that. There. There. The allegations could have been more firm. I hope there is more there that we will see come out in the court process. But if I'm on the defense, if I'm the employer side of it, when the allegations are more vague, I'm not going to then dial down on them. And this is not really going to Lizzo specifically. It's going to the touring company. Even though the headlines kind of made it seem like Lizzo had said something, this is going to those employed by the touring company treating the black dancers differently than treating other dancers and other employees. So I. I'm not surprised that Lizzo's statement didn't say anything because those allegations are being leveraged against the company. Really?

Mostly, yeah. And they're. And they're trying to. Because certainly in the reporting, you had to really read the entire story to know where the accusations landed. You know, what they're accusing Lizzo of as opposed to the company. But you're right. In the media sense, everyone just says Lizzo. No one's even thinking about the company now. Now, let's assume for a moment that she does not settle and the management company does not settle. What type of burden of proof does does Lizzo and the team need to provide?

So when we get into civil lawsuits, we are well below that, beyond a reasonable doubt that everyone's familiar with from. From criminal. And you're getting into that more likely than not standard. So it is a much easier standard if this ends up going to trial in California. I still have questions about whether this case will land in California. California is a very favorable state to employees, is very protective of employees. But some of this behavior happened in Amsterdam. Some of it happened in New Orleans. I through reading the lawsuit, it was hard for me to parse what behavior actually happened in California other than the dancers and Lizzo live in California, the companies in Delaware. So it's hard to evaluate because I don't know if this lawsuit is going to end up in California. Once we get past initial litigation, I think there will be a lot of fighting to get this lawsuit out of California.

Oh, okay. Is it most likely to land in California?

I don't know. Unless they amend some things in the complaint. The action, the parties are in California, but the action, the subject matter, none of it's alleged in California. And so I don't. I couldn't tell where the. And the complaint is completely silent to it. I couldn't tell where the reality show was filmed. Was that filmed in California or not? It doesn't say. I think if it's my assumption is that if it was in California, they would be putting that in there heavily to show the court this is a California issue between California residents. Instead, they say these are California residents, stuff happened. So we don't know where all the stuff happened. And I don't know if California is going to be the right venue, even if the plaintiffs want it to be. And this is a critical part of litigation that nobody. We don't talk about often because it's not nearly as. As sassy and attention grabbing. But it's the reason the Depp v. Heard case went the way that it went, because the laws in Virginia were so much more beneficial to Depp, when you look at that case, than they would be in California. So even though Depp and Hurd lived in California, the printing presses for the Washington Post were in Virginia, and they ended up in Virginia through a lot of very, very smart legal maneuvering. So while the plaintiff's lawyers might want it to be in California, Lizzo's lawyers are going to want this to not be in California. Unless they are really going to just settle it, they will try to kick it out to another jurisdiction.

And where would that be? Where would Marty Singer right now if it's not settled, where would he go?

I mean, L.A. he would say, you have to find. He. If I'm the defense attorney, I'm saying I'm not going to tell you where the right venue is. This is the wrong one. Try again.

Oh, okay, I see. Yeah.

This isn't the right venue because some of the stuff's in Amsterdam, some of the stuff is in France. I don't know where the show was filmed and where the contracts were signed to employ them. I don't know where the touring company actually works out of, even though they're based out of Delaware. There's facts that are silent here that are missing. But if I'm the defense, I'm not providing that answer. I'm providing problems, not. Not solutions.

Okay, well, speaking of solutions, is, are there any strengths to her case at all or to the management's case that you see?

Some of the allegations are. Are almost filler in this. They give an overall perception of a. Of a workplace that you don't want to work in, but they don't necessarily go to one of the causes of action. But what's funny to me in the way this complaint is written is some of the allegations that I think are the strongest are buried at the bottom under the stuff that's a little more salacious. But then again, if you're the media, you're maybe not getting to page 44 to talk about, you know, the assault and the false imprisonment cases that are pled very strong. So if you are the defense, you're definitely turning around on a lot of this. This speculative or opinion or this is how the employees felt, but not what they were told. And those things getting left to a jury to decide really depends on the jury that you get on whether they agree with the employer or the employee. And that's the risk both parties run.

So what is the most problematic part of this case against Lizzo, the management company?

What.

What is. Which is what is making her most nervous right now and keeping her up at night?

I don't know how you get away from the false imprisonment and assault allegations. I don't. I can't. Most of the things I can argue both sides on, but one of the employees got fired very publicly in a very embarrassing way, and then security stopped her in a room. And like, you can't leave anywhere till I search your personal phone. No, you can't do that. I don't see any other explanation of how that went down other than if they're going to argue this never happened. But based on everything in the lawsuit, it would be hard for me to believe that this event never happened. That is a tough one to get around because they kept her after she was terminated outside of her will. When she said, I want to leave, they're like, you're not leaving here till we're searching your phone. And then the assault charges. I think when we talk about assault, a lot of people think criminal or cardi b throwing a microphone or something. But this assault and battery are two different concepts. And the assault is the apprehension of the thing and the battery is the touching thing. So you can have an assault where nobody is struck. And that fact scenario there were said in the lawsuit alleged that multiple dancers went with the person who was threatened and assaulted because they were afraid. So if there are three, four witnesses that surrounded this, this employee after she quit because they were afraid that she was going to be struck by Lizzo, that. I don't know how a jury sees another side of that other than Lizzo saying, well, I was joking when I was balling my fist and saying, you're really lucky and other people intervened. I wasn't going to strike her. Okay, well were you trying to instill fear that you were going to strike her? Because that's still an assault and that still goes very much against Lizzo's brand. I think those are difficult allegations to deal with. I think that the, the hostile work environment, sexual harassment is a difficult allegation to deal with.

Okay, coming at this from the non legal perspective, is any of this criminal or is it all civil?

This is all civil. However, could an assault be criminal? Yes. I'm not sure where that conversation took took place because it was unclear from the complaint. It might have been in New Orleans. I don't think a police report was ever made. Can you file a police report on an assault like this, even if there's no physical touching? Yes, you can? I don't think that was done. Could it be done? Yes. Same with false imprisonment. False imprisonment in most jurisdictions is a crime. Did anyone file a police report on that? It doesn't seem that they have. It wasn't in the complaint that they did. So they're going after these civil causes of action. Sometimes there's overlap, but if their goal is to resolve this lawsuit and then move on and be recompensated for their harm, I don't know if filing a police report helps them in any way. I don't need to know if they need a restraining order against Lizzo, if that's a true concern of theirs or if they're worried that, that something is going to come out from this down the road. So these, it depends on the jurisdiction as to where they would fall. The assault would probably fall in a misdemeanor in most jurisdictions. I, it would depend on the jurisdiction on the false imprisonment. So it seems that no police reports were made, even though that is always their choice. But they, these are recent events, so that could still happen. I would be surprised if it.

Okay.

Once they've done.

Yeah. So it's very difficult to do. Because you're saying in your research that there wasn't a police report.

It seems that there wasn't. If there was, it would generally have been mentioned in this, in this lawsuit to give kind of credence to what's being said. It's like this happened and she went to the airport and she called local police and filed a police report. You would generally expect to see it here, but because I haven't seen exactly where it is, went to the airport in what city, it's hard to check and see if that's been done.

Okay.

Could it have been?

Yes.

Would I be surprised if it was done? Yes, because it's not mentioned anywhere.

Okay. Now, in, in your experience, you certainly have very deep knowledge from the legal aspect, but you also cover a lot of these cases that fall into popular culture. I mean, that, that you, you do live streaming. You have a huge fan base yourself. You know, people who really follow these legal stories that fall under popular culture. Does this Lizzo story have the same feel to it that any of the other stories that you've covered since your time that you've been a content creator?

I. I don't know yet because I already see the interest waning a little bit. So I don't know if this is going to have the legs that some of the others do. Once you get past the, the headlines about what happened in Amsterdam and France, at the end of the day, it's an employment lawsuit. Employees and employers disagree quite often. I've had other employment lawsuits that I've covered of YouTubers to which I always say, Y' all need HR stat. Like, there's, there's definitely a way to. And to not run a business. So I don't know if this will, will hold interest in the legal case other than the resolution of the case. Where some cases, people are interested at every single legal turn, this is going to get really technical really quick, and that doesn't pull the attention. And if it does stay in California and does go to trial, it won't be televised. It will be like, reported by, in courtroom reporting. Because Los Angeles does not do any remote access or, or allow recording at all anymore. So it won't pick up and run that way. So it's a little different. It's interesting because it could end up if it was televised, like a Gwyneth Paltrow case where going into that trial, a lot of people were very much against Paltrow in there. Why didn't she settle and why is she going to trial on this? And she's the worst. And by the end of the trial, I definitely saw a shift and people were like, oh, no, he's lying on her. Like, that's not what happened at all. So I don't know yet. It's too soon to tell on the initial filing how long of a story this will be.

Okay. Am I understanding this correctly? You cannot film any court proceeding at all in California.

Los Angeles does not allow it. Other places in California do. But Los Angeles denies the requests every single time. I've seen them made for years now.

When was the last time we all watched a case in Los Angeles?

It might have been.

I was going to say, is it O.J. is this.

It might have been.

Is this like an unofficial OJ rule or something?

Well, they started doing remote audio access during the pandemic where you could listen in and they did that with one Britney Spears hearing and it got red disseminated throughout the Internet and they pulled the entire program for the entire county. So I think LA county is very much now a show up in person or don't. Courts are open if you come and sit here with a pen and a notebook, but that's it. Some judges will allow laptops for media and that's about as far as they will go.

Okay, that's interesting.

You can request it it but it is denied.

But if you're running Court tv, that was a tough ruling for Court tv obviously because that's where all the headline cases are. Interesting. I never thought about that.

And LA doesn't want to deal with it. You can film outside the courthouse. There's depending on the courthouse. I've worked in a lot of the courthouses in la. Depending on the courthouse, there are areas where you can film. My first post on Instagram ever, ever, ever was of all of the media vans waiting for Lindsay Lohan to come to court when I was working at the same courthouse where she was being prosecuted. And it was. I have never seen media event that many media vans. Like it was impossible to get into work that morning because it was ever. They were everywhere and you could only film outside of the courthouse. So then there's that drive to get the shot between a car and the door because that's the only place you can film. And it was.

So even now in these cases you'll see the media doing like the court walk. Do we still see that sometimes?

Yeah, you can film outside the courthouse. Those are public sidewalks. But some courthouses have underground entry. So yeah, you will see people coming in underground and up through the courthouse and you won't even get that, that walk between the outside.

Like President Trump today.

President Trump today.

So then let me ask you this, like what was the last case that you covered where someone was filmed? Like when was the last Big case in Los Angeles County. Like, when was the last, like, celebrity?

I mean, there's been a bunch of them that have gone to trial. Megan Thee stallion in the Tory Lanez case recently went to trial, but it's not filmed. It's all in court reporting. And you have to rely on really tenacious beat reporters to get in there and do it. Because there are celebrity cases happening all the time. They are not recorded.

Okay, so is there any other county that. Where you can't record?

Well, all of federal court you can't record. Federal court doesn't allow any video, audio. And I think that we're all worse off for it. I have very strong opinions, but I'm also very, very biased in this because I cover court proceedings. And I think that people understand the rulings of juries better when they can just see it for themselves and see how the evidence plays out. And I think there's a better understanding of our court system where you see attorneys arguing over, is this evidence or is this not evidence? And what are the rules of evidence say? Because it's. When you're a non lawyer looking at it, you're like, but it seems like that should be evidence. And it's like, well, it's not because you can't authenticate it and you don't know if it's real or not. And that's going to get worse with things like, you know, AI and deepfakes. So helping people understand the process can help them understand the entire system or see where the system is not working or where they disagree with it. Because if you don't understand how the court system works, it's hard to then advocate for change in the laws because you don't see the natural result of the law. When the laws impact how we go to court, you have to understand how the court part works to understand how.

The law part works.

And those are all separated and as they should be. But it's, it's frustrating to me when we don't have that transparency that technology makes very, very available. And some courts are great about it. The court in New Mexico for the Rust hearing is like, we'll just put everything on our YouTube channel. Don't worry, we will just handle it and we'll disseminate it that way. Some courts stream their daily proceedings on YouTube. Hey, you want to see what's going on in this courthouse in your local jurisdiction, what this judge is doing? Come see it. And people vote for their judges. How do you know if you like a judge or not?

Yeah, you wouldn't know unless you had perspective on that. Okay. You touched on rust. You said Russ for a moment. I remember that I'm doing this only in my brain and I have to dig pretty far back when. So it was in New Mexico. And I remember when it was all first released. Wasn't there something with the judge where they. They did the information and they wanted to make it public, but was a judge pressured to not or something. Was there something about the publicity of the trial or am I.

No, there's been a lot of motions about the publicity of the trial and the judges wanted to make sure that things are handled properly. But they took it under. They took the reins on it and said we will make the court hearings public on our own. Some of the filings have been. Have been kept back. Some of the police recordings were initially kept back but then were released. It's a very interesting case. Even though Baldwin is out of it. I'm not done yet with this case because we still don't know how a live bullet wound up on this set. And all of the speculations I had have now been disproven in reports and I'm like, okay, now it's a bigger mystery. So this case is getting ready to go to preliminary hearing.

Oh, is it? So are we going to see a case? Is there going to be a rest case trial?

There is a rusty. We're trying on against the Armor.

Oh, against Armor. But, but Alec Baldwin. Did I miss that? He's. He's completely.

He was dismissed completely.

Wow. Is that good lawyer.

A lot of shenanigans in this case. We might need a whole other episode.

Is that good lawyering?

I think Baldwin's attorneys did a very, very good job. But there they made some really fascinating legal arguments. And the DAs in New Mexico were like, we're not going to be pressured by these fancy New York lawyers. They said it in legal filings, these fancy New York lawyers. And you could see this push pull. But they brought in a special prosecutor who was making jokes about this case being good for their re election campaign because they're also a legislator. And then they had to remove. There's a new special prosecutor. But there was this plea deal that the new special prosecutor doesn't like and the whole case is just been wild. So yes, good lawyering and yes, that's going to happen if you're a smaller jurisdiction. D a taking on someone with money and yes, fancy New York lawyers, they are going to bring every single argument they can down on your head. That's their Job.

Oh, my gosh.

But the civil lawsuits on that are. There's tons of them, and those are ongoing as well. So all of those civil lawsuits are going to. I don't know how this movie resumed production. I don't know if anyone's going to want to see it. It's. I just don't know.

Okay, So I, you know, we talked about Al Baldwin. We touched on Gwyneth Paltrow. Let's just talk about public perception. I mean, I know this is. This falls into my lane, but I'm very. I'm very interested in hearing your opinion on this because you follow so many of these cases with celebrities and people in the public eye. What is the trend or the through line for these. When someone. When charges are brought against someone, what happens to them reputationally? Do you notice they all take a certain hit in the same place or is it different in terms of the outcome?

I think it can depend. But there is always an initial. There's always an initial, what did you do? Like, there's always that initial response of, like, what did you do? Not necessarily an initial response of. Of, did you do this? And that has been consistent as long as I've been watching cases. So it's. It's interesting to watch how slow the process can take for people to fight to regain their reputation. And that's in the defamation cases. I look at something that's really interesting to me, and this is more your lane. A defamation case can take years to resolve. There's one I'm covering with a tiktoker who made allegations against a university professor in Idaho with regard to the Idaho murders, accusing the professor of being the murderer. Well, that's all out there, but now they're into the litigation on the defamation case. Will the media pick up the headlines that this professor won or lost a defamation case down the road? I don't know. Three years from now, if anyone will still be following, I probably will. Yeah, you will.

Yeah. Well, and you'll have to tell me. I'll be curious, too. Yeah. Defamation, difficult to prove.

How do you deal with that? Once it's. I always say, I hope you don't mind the cursing, but I say sometimes with these things, the shits out of the horse. And even if the allegations aren't proven all the way or aren't proven at all, they're still out there. And I don't know how you rein that back in and recover from it. And that's why we're seeing these defamation cases. But again, it's Not a perfect remedy because it takes years and social media spreads so fast at the beginning, and then that cycle's gone and it's on to the next. But it's still out there like this. The professor in Idaho, if she ever wants to change jobs and somebody Googles her, this will all come up.

Yes.

Even if reasonable minds go, clearly this is all nonsense, it will follow her forever. Even if she wins a defamation suit.

Yes. And I deal with that in my job all the time with people and, you know, they reflexively, they want to sue for defamation. And, you know, and I tell them it is so difficult, you know, to prove it. And just from my perspective, like, let's create new information and put it out there, page one of Google so we can correct the record that way. Because it's so difficult. You know, the one name that you did bring up. I see. I tend to think when anyone is involved in a court case, no matter what the charge is, but even from Alec Baldwin, like, Alec Baldwin killed someone. I mean, even though he did not intentionally mean to do it. But I do think there will be a time that Alec Baldwin will come back. I do think, you know, no one will ever, you know, forget what he's been associated with. But when you mentioned Gwyneth Paltrow, she was someone who I felt was really strategically creating absurd goop news, which I think is a strategy that she or that company deploys often. And that was the whole bone broth publicity. I felt it during that trial.

Yes.

I felt it was the diversion from the trial because I think they assumed it was going to look negatively on her, that that team was going to really paint her in a light that we. They were going to goopize her. Right. They were going to make her look every inch of goop that she was. But I don't think what they counted on was how bad their client was. I mean, it was. It was a. It was so fascinating to watch that trial. I mean, they lost it for themselves. I look at it, Gwyneth Paltrow didn't win that trial. Terry. I forget his name. Sanderson.

Okay.

I don't know how I came up with that. They lost it. Oh, my gosh. It was fascinating.

I agree with you. But if that hadn't been televised, would that have had the correction, the course correction that we saw?

No, absolutely not. Because they could have framed it exactly what they. How they wanted to. So Gwyneth and her team were probably gritting their teeth, thinking of all, why did this have to happen in Park City? When in the end, it benefited them. So people could see it firsthand as an L. A.

They never would have gotten that on tv.

Yes, absolutely.

Wow.

Oh, my gosh. Okay, so last question, Emily, a year from now, what's up with Lizzo?

I want to see the initial filings. If they try to change venue, if they get. If not change venue. That's not the artful term. But if they are able to fight the jurisdiction and win, it might push this closer to settlement. But I. If this settles, I mean, a year is fast for an employment claim. If this settles, we might not hear more of it. I'm also curious. Here's my other caveat. Does the employment contract have an arbitration clause? Is this all going to get pushed into arbitration and not dealt with publicly because of a clause in the employment agreement, which is possible. So I'm curious to see what Lizzo's legal team does, but I'm very interesting. How do you reputationally, other than the statement, do you take time off of social media? Do you get back to business as usual? I haven't looked at the comments sections a ton today since she made a statement, because I've been talking about this lawsuit all day. But yesterday it was a lot of the. Not you, Lizzo. And I imagine today it's more of the same. I don't know what you do next as a public person, because you can't just wait for the court to play out because it could be years.

Yeah, it could. I. I think when you read a lot of the commentary that it is firmly against Lizzo, a lot of people are shocked by it. Most people believe it. I think the other element of this and this is going into anything to an area that there's no confirmation on this whatsoever. And this is more blind gossip. But when you get into artists who are considered industry plants, where there's been. They're created like a machine, they become a machine, and they're created and manufactured to entertain us. But when an industry plant potentially allegedly goes sideways, how much energy are we going to put into that person anymore? As an artist? It's a tough call because before this case, she was beloved. I would say people loved her. And also she was the artist when that. When the song girls came out and the term spaz was in there, where not many people knew that it was derived from spastic. I don't know how like that got beyond a record company. However, it got beyond a lot of people in the public. But for people in terms of ableism, you know, when that comes into Our modern culture. People want to note that she reacted quicker than I have seen any person in the public space ever react to anything. I thought that was, was remarkable. So it's so unusual to see that person and that team in this situation.

It's a very interesting situation. And she did, she's like, I, I think what she said and please correct me if I'm wrong, my memory is she said I did not know and I am mortified that I didn't know and now I know. But it was, it was exactly what you said with your process. She took full accountability and said this is how I'm going to do better going forward. I didn't know. And I think, think when somebody said I truly didn't know and I did not mean that and I can correct it, she immediately course corrected. And I think even the people that don't like Lizzo, it didn't seem that there was like fiery burning heat for Lizzo. It was, people were just like eh, like it wasn't, it wasn't all consuming. It was people who love Lizzo and people who are just like meth to Lizzo. But I think after this that's going to shift because again, when you've got allegations that employees who have really not any position of power at all being coerced in their work environment to get into very graphically sexual situations where they're uncomfortable and when they're saying they're uncomfortable and they're continuously pushed beyond their comfort zone, there's not a lot of tolerance for that behavior. We've been through that. People are done with sexual harassment in the workplace. It is a workplace, there are boundaries. And that's where people I think are so outraged on this is that how do you go from being sex positive to being coercive? And that's it. It's shocking because the allegations here go against all of her public Persona that people rallied behind and loved.

Yeah, I, yeah, I agree with you. I don't think she's necessarily going away. But no one can't unhear or unsee these allegations. And eventually and the court process will take a long time and people will just shift and move on to other people and new artists will be manufactured and it might just pass her by, you know, or not. We'll certainly have to see. But this is one of these bigger stories that I definitely think took hold. I do believe, yeah, the media is going to wane on it because there isn't a next story. And I, I'm in a position right now. I just have a network reaching out to me right now telling me that I'm 100% confirmed to talk about this case tomorrow at 7am and I'm supposed to do it on Sunday night as well over in Australia, but probably by then even they might even cut it on the Monday morning. I don't think anything will happen unless there's more, more to the story or if Lizzo does something different like she makes some big reputational shift there. But my guess, Marty Singer, we're going to see more of like a Ricky Martin maybe just type, you know, just kind of step back into the scene for a little bit or behind the scenes, calm down, stay out of the spotlight for her to come back again and maybe address it.

Unless other, unless other employees come forward now that she's made a statement. I think it's, it's the we're into the, like this is going to get into the weeds litigation that not everybody's interested in, not everybody wants to know about subject matter jurisdiction, the rest. But if other employees come out, I think it will re reignite this story. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. There was a lot of support very quickly, which we don't see in a ton of cases, especially employment cases. That was that. And I think that lends a lot of credence when the Internet's like, yeah, lawsuits or allegations. But look at how many people have started to come forward and say that they stand by those allegations too, even though they have nothing to gain and maybe more to lose by attaching their name to saying yes. This was my experience too, with somebody who was a beloved public figure.

Now, speaking of beloved public figures, Emily D. Baker, where can people find you to learn more about these cases and just your analysis of it, which is so fascinating, which, by the way, you will be found again speaking with me because the next time another big case comes up, I'm, you know, you're on my speed dial right now because you are absolutely fascinating. But where can people find you?

I would love to have more conversations, Molly, and then bring you, bring you over to my world too, to talk about the PR of how you handle this because lawsuits are becoming such a big PR vessel. Those, those Satan shoes with Nike. And they use their lawsuit as their PR statement because the media wasn't picking up their denials strong enough, so they just sued over it to get the headlines. PR and legal are very closely aligned these days and savvy lawyers know how to use that to their advantage, particularly in the civil realm. But I Am everywhere at the Emily D. Baker. I live stream on YouTube. I live stream trial coverage normally on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but when there are big cases going on like rust, I will stream every day of the proceedings. I have a podcast called the Emily show that goes live on Wednesdays and you can find all my legal analysis from Lizzo and the bananas to what's going on in Idaho and, and others. So from criminal to civil, all the pop culture, that's what I cover.

Oh, well. And I am so pleased that you took the time to speak with me today because, yeah, you and I really threw this together because Lizzo threw, throw a ringer at us. But I, I should have predicted it. I should have known when President Trump was going to into that courthouse. I should have known that Marty Singer said, okay, we got to find a way in the news cycle where we'll be in and then we'll be out. I mean, the news cycle favored her in an unbelievable way. For her to be bookend, bookended by President Trump is, I mean, you can't.

Plan that right, because all the news stations are like, okay, civil lawsuit, goodbye. We've got another indictment, you know, an arrest, a court appearance, a plea. Yeah, I don't think the plaintiffs anticipated that happening when, when they filed this lawsuit.

So we shall see. There might be more leaked stories out there to keep the plaintiff side in the news. Emily, thank you so much for speaking with me. I really enjoyed this. Hopefully we'll speak again on the next big case.

Thank you.

My thanks to Emily D. Baker for sharing her legal wisdom again. You can find her@emilydbaker.com also on YouTube, Patreon and all the socials. And again, if you have any questions for me can reach me at the PR Confidential Community. It's a free resource to you, the listeners and followers to ask me your questions. Any PR question, go ahead and ask it now. In every podcast, I include one indestructible PR tip and it is this. Never forget the power of public sentiment, particularly when you're going through an issue or time of crisis. And it could be legal as well. The public, your public, your stakeholders, they are always, always looking for accountability, even if it's just a smidge of it. We know in the face of legal issues, your legal liabilities are strong, and that can be first and foremost, but full deniability, it may give you your legal out, but it almost guarantees you will also be out with your people. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.