In The Wake the Lizzo Debacle, One Is Reminded That Madonna’s Own Behavior Toward Her Dancers Might Not Have Sat So Well With People Today

As Lizzo has gone expectedly silent amid a climate that doesn’t take so kindly to emotional abuse anymore, one can’t help but think back to a time when it was easier to “get away with” being both a bit bawdy and “bullying” with their dancers. For example, no one was about to cry “sexual harassment lawsuit” or “failure to prevent and/or remedy hostile work environment” in 1990, the year Madonna spent touring the world with her coterie of hand-picked gay male dancers. Many of whom contributed to making the subsequent Truth or Dare documentary as entertaining and eye-opening as it was. Indeed, they tended to feel the same way. Which is why select members of the troupe did decide to sue her after the film’s release. Those members being Kevin Stea, Gabriel Trupin and Oliver Crumes. 

Funnily enough, it was also three dancers (Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez) from Lizzo’s The Special Tour who decided not to take any further abuse from the erstwhile Svengali formerly pulling the strings. In Stea, Trupin and Crumes’ scenario, the affront came when they realized the extent to which they and their personal lives were paraded in Truth or Dare. With the lawsuit also filed in California, the dancers cited the emotional detriment of Madonna featuring scenes in which the dancers “discuss[ed] intimate facts about their personal life not previously known to the public.” Chief among them, the fact that Kevin and Gabriel were gay, and did not necessarily want that information to be so public at a time of peak homophobia in the U.S. Of course, Madonna would likely insist that she did them and the world a favor by committing something akin to “immersion therapy.” Getting viewers accustomed to seeing more gay men onscreen, as well as forcing Kevin and Gabriel to be “open” about who they were, etc. Where was the “harm” in that (apart from to the eyes of Republicans “hate watching” the documentary)? 

What’s more, this height of Madonna’s career (so oversaturated that she eventually quipped that she only ever felt overexposed at the gynecologist’s) did not exist at a time when “consent” was such “a thing.” Not sexually or otherwise. And, to that end, it does bear noting that Truth or Dare was produced by Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films, therefore it was also named in the suit against Madonna and her company, Boy Toy Inc., as well as Propaganda Films (co-founded by “Madonna music video director,” David Fincher). 

The lawsuit itself arose at the beginning of 1992, which was evidently already establishing itself as a tumultuous year for Madonna. And yet, the dancers weren’t about to, well, dance around the issue at hand. While Stea and Crumes were more concerned about rightful compensation for their images being used, Trupin was most harmed by the personal life damage it did, stating that he had to undergo therapy afterward because it “exposed him to contempt and ridicule.” Just as Lizzo’s own dancers are at this moment in time by those who refuse to believe their “god” could do any wrong. And they, too, are being asked, “How could you?” Not just by Lizzo fans, but Lizzo herself, who claims to have been “blindsided” by the dancers’ complaints. Even though said dancers stated that multiple attempts were made to get Lizzo’s attention re: the severity of the matter, and the lawsuit was the last-ditch effort to do so. In which case, mission accomplished. 

With Madonna, the relationship with her dancers was a bit different. Not just because they were gay men who themselves thrived on sexual energy coursing through their veins the way Madonna did (and still does), but because Madonna “cultivating” them for her tour was considered more groundbreaking in that period due to their sexual orientation. While some (including Lizzo herself) would point out that Lizzo hiring “fat” dancers is also groundbreaking, it doesn’t hold the same political gravity as what Madonna was doing in 1990, and at an apex of the AIDS epidemic no less. And so, with this in mind, the dancers were likely “just grateful” to be considered for such a major world tour at all. In fact, their presence in Truth or Dare was one of the first mainstream instances of homosexuality displayed onscreen, prompting many men to come out afterward. 

Nonetheless, that wasn’t “enough” to keep Madonna’s trio of dancers from speaking up about their violation of privacy. With Trupin’s experience being that “director Alek Keshishian told him he could delete any footage he believed was an invasion of privacy, and says that when he asked that the scene in which he kisses the other dancer [“Slam”] be removed from the completed film, Madonna shouted, ‘Get over it, I don’t care!’” Something, of course, that Lizzo would never be free to say today. Though we all know she wants to. Because the thing about major celebrities hiring “backup” is that they become mere brushstrokes in the painting of the “star” herself. Who wants the painting to look a certain way without considering the, shall we say, painstaking strokes it takes to make it look that way. 

We may never know if the dancers of Truth or Dare were genuinely “okay” with Madonna’s sexually charged presence both onstage and off (see: the Evian bottle scene) during the Blond Ambition Tour, or merely responding to it “positively” because they were a product of the time they lived in. When you really were expected, especially as a dancer, to just be grateful to have work with such a big star, and one who paid so well. Plus, as Madonna was sure to point out, most of the dancers had never been given the chance to “see the world” as the Blond Ambition Tour was about to enable them to. Something that Madonna felt proud of in terms of her ability to “give that” to them, which, in turn, allowed for effortless emotional manipulation. Manifest in the more than somewhat problematic voiceover of Madonna saying, “The innocence of the dancers move me. They’re not jaded in the least. They haven’t been anywhere. This was the opportunity of their lives. And I know that they’ve suffered a great deal in their lives, whether with their families or just being poor or whatever. And I wanted to give them the thrill of their lives. I wanted to impress them. I wanted to love them.”

Taking in such scenes and presentations as this prompted bell hooks to write, “Given the rampant homophobia in this society and the concomitant heterosexist voyeuristic obsession with gay lifestyles, to what extent does Madonna progressively seek to challenge this if she insists on primarily representing gays as in some way emotionally handicapped or defective? Or when Madonna responds to the critique that she exploits gay men by cavalierly stating: ‘What does exploitation mean?… In a revolution, some people have to get hurt. To get people to change, you have to turn the table over. Some dishes get broken.’”

It was obvious that, more than viewing her dancers as “dishes” to be (further) broken, she saw them as her little dolls. To play with and “position” as she wanted. All while assuming that the dancers would be ecstatic merely for the privilege of being around her. And for a time, they were. To boot, every dancer has ostensibly “made peace” with what happened, with Madonna even joined onstage by Jose Xtravaganza for her Finally Enough Love Pride event in June of 2022. The dancers also “expressed themselves” regarding the Blond Ambition Tour via their own 2016 documentary, Strike A Pose. So who knows? Maybe Lizzo’s dancers will one day make their “catharsis doc” as well, and could even end up saying they harbor no ill will toward the self-proclaimed “Big Girl.” Who, in a similar fashion to Madonna, expected nothing but gratitude.

In that spirit, Lizzo was reported as saying something to the effect of, “You know dancers get fired for gaining weight; you should basically be grateful to be here.” Where once (including in 1990) this “logic” might have gone largely unquestioned, it’s becoming less and less acceptable to put up with abuse just because someone is a “major pop culture fixture.” In other words, celebrity/pop icon privilege is slowly but surely starting to unravel. And one tends to believe that the recent barrage of onstage attacks has something to do with that. Not just because fans feel entitled to a “piece” of the celeb or want to create a viral moment with them, but because they no longer seem to believe a celebrity is an “untouchable creature.” Wanting to prove that point by more literally knocking them off their pedestal. 

The modern genesis of this may very well have started with what Madonna’s dancers did. In J. Randy Taraborrelli’s Madonna: An Intimate Biography, the revelation about the trio suing her is described as follows: “Madonna was angry about the suit. ‘Those ingrates,’ she said to one colleague. ‘To think that I made them who they are, then they treat me like this.’” A line that reeks of Norma Desmond-level delivery. Taraborrelli added, “Shortly after the suit was filed, Madonna happened upon Oliver Crumes at a party. ‘If you want money,’ she told him, her tone arctic, ‘why don’t you sell that Cartier watch I bought for you?’” Everything about this exchange (whether “lore” or not) exhibits what’s wrong with how celebrities view the people in their employ. 

Regardless, some can still only see it from the celebrity’s side, with Keshishian defending Madonna back then by saying, “…it was extortion, in my mind. They’d signed the releases and it wasn’t as if we were filming it in secret. The cameras were there all the time. They did the interviews. What did they think was being filmed—a home movie!? I didn’t respect that. I felt bad for Madonna because she really did love those kids and they turned around and did that. That’s why celebrities grow more and more weary of getting close to anybody.”

By the same token, that’s why people in the arts grow weary of working with celebrities: the expectation that they can be treated “lesser than” just because they’re working for some post-modern equivalent of a deity. Even so, there’s no denying that the current trio of dancers’ lawsuit against Lizzo is a harbinger of change. A warning to other singer-industrial complexes that what might have eked by largely unpublicized (with Madonna eventually settling out of court), therefore unchecked, is not going to anymore.