Lizzo’s Touring Company Wins Dismissal of Former Wardrobe Worker’s Remaining Claims

Lizzo appears in an Instagram video posted Tuesday after a federal judge dismissed the remaining claims against her touring company in a lawsuit brought by former wardrobe worker Asha Daniels. Lizzo, who had been dismissed as an individual defendant in 2024, said she was “relieved” by the ruling. (Lizzo/Instagram)

Lizzo has scored another major legal victory, but one of the most important distinctions in the singer's long-running court battles remains easy to miss.

A federal judge has thrown out the remaining claims brought by former tour wardrobe worker Asha Daniels against Lizzo's touring company and other defendants, ending the case at the trial-court level nearly three years after Daniels sued.

U.S. District Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha granted summary judgment Tuesday to Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. and the remaining defendants.

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Lizzo, whose legal name is Melissa Jefferson, had already been dismissed as an individual defendant in the case in December 2024.

Daniels worked in wardrobe during the European leg of Lizzo's “Special” tour in 2023. She later sued alleging sexual and racial harassment, disability discrimination and other mistreatment.

The judge concluded that the evidence Daniels presented did not establish several of her claims under the legal standards required to send them to trial.

Among other findings, the court concluded that Daniels had not shown conduct demonstrating generalized hostility toward women or that men and women were treated differently in a way that supported her Title VII claims.

The court also rejected her racial-discrimination and disability claims.

Lizzo celebrated the ruling Tuesday on social media.

She said she was relieved by the outcome and maintained that the allegations against her and her company were unfounded.

Daniels' attorney disputed that interpretation of the case, arguing that the court improperly evaluated evidence that should have been considered by a jury and indicating that Daniels is considering her next steps.

The ruling is significant, but it does not end all of the litigation surrounding Lizzo's workplace.

Daniels' case is separate from the lawsuit filed in 2023 by former dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez.

That lawsuit generated widespread attention with allegations involving sexual harassment and a hostile work environment. Lizzo has denied the allegations.

Some claims in the dancers' case have been dismissed, but the litigation has not been completely resolved.

That distinction is particularly important because the two cases were filed within weeks of each other and have frequently been conflated in coverage of the allegations surrounding Lizzo.

Tuesday's decision concerns Daniels and her work with the wardrobe department.

For that case, at least at the federal trial-court level, there will be no jury trial on the remaining claims.

Nearly three years after Daniels sued, the remaining defendants have won summary judgment.

Dame Dash’s Life Story Is Going Up for Auction to Pay His Creditors

Damon “Dame” Dash, left, and Singa B pose for a photo in 2019. Dash, the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder, is facing the court-approved auction of his life-story rights, name, image and likeness and more than 100 hours of archival material as part of his bankruptcy case. (Photo courtesy of Singa B/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Dame Dash spent decades insisting on ownership.

Now a bankruptcy court is preparing to sell the rights to tell his story.

A Florida bankruptcy judge has approved plans to auction a package of assets tied to the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder that includes rights to his life story, name, image and likeness, along with more than 100 hours of video footage, photographs and memorabilia.

The opening bid: $37,000.

The money won't go to Dash.

It will go toward paying his creditors.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Roberta A. Colton approved the bidding process Tuesday as part of Dash's bankruptcy case, moving forward with a sale proposed by court-appointed trustee Traci K. Stevenson.

Everlasting Films LLC has submitted the $37,000 initial bid.

Dame Dash is aggravated after seeing Loren Lorosa report on his bankruptcy pic.twitter.com/JJvfonTTSe

— 2Cool2Blog (@2Cool2Blog) August 7, 2026

Other prospective buyers have until Sept. 23 to submit competing offers. Because bids must increase by at least $10,000, another bidder would have to offer at least $47,000.

If qualifying competing bids are received, an auction is scheduled for Oct. 1. Colton is expected to consider final approval of the winning sale Oct. 27.

The unusual collection of assets goes considerably further than the right to make a conventional authorized biography.

Court filings describe rights to Dash's biography, voice, image, likeness and other identifying characteristics, as well as the ability to portray events from his life.

The package also includes more than 100 hours of video, photographs and memorabilia and rights connected to an unreleased film project involving Roc-A-Fella.

That footage could prove particularly valuable because Dash was present for one of the most consequential runs in modern hip-hop business.

Dash co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records with Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Kareem “Biggs” Burke in the 1990s. The label became the home of Jay-Z's rise from independent rapper to one of music's biggest stars and later released records by artists including Kanye West, Cam'ron, Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek and Freeway.

The company also became part of Dash's public identity as he championed entrepreneurship and ownership while expanding into fashion, film and other businesses.

The irony of that history is difficult to miss.

A man who spent years publicly preaching the importance of controlling one's work could soon have another party acquire the contractual rights to commercially tell his life story.

The proposed sale follows a long series of financial and legal problems for Dash.

He filed for bankruptcy in September 2025 after years of judgments, tax liabilities and other debts.

His once-substantial interest in Roc-A-Fella has already been sold.

Dash's one-third stake in the company was auctioned in 2024 after a federal judge ordered the sale to satisfy a judgment against him. New York state ultimately acquired the stake with a $1 million bid, with proceeds applied toward Dash's debts.

The life-rights sale would turn another part of Dash's history into an asset for creditors.

Everlasting Films, the initial bidder, would receive a $3,700 breakup fee if another buyer ultimately wins the assets under the proposed bidding terms.

Dash did not appear at Tuesday's hearing, according to Complex, and had not publicly commented on the court's latest decision as of Wednesday afternoon.

The $37,000 bid should not be confused with a final valuation of Dash's life story. It establishes the floor for a competitive sale that could produce higher offers before the Sept. 23 deadline.

What the eventual buyer could acquire, however, is unusually broad: not simply permission to make a film about a former music executive, but an archive of material from someone who was inside Roc-A-Fella during a formative period in hip-hop history.

Nearly three decades after helping build a record company around ownership and independence, Dash is watching bankruptcy court turn his own story into something that can be sold.

Cassandra Wilson, Singular Voice Who Connected Jazz, Blues and R&B, Dies at 70

Cassandra Wilson performs at the Ottawa Bluesfest in Ottawa, Ontario, on July 3, 2008. The two-time Grammy Award winner, whose rich contralto and adventurous approach brought jazz into conversation with blues, R&B, folk and other musical traditions, died Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, in her native Jackson, Mississippi. She was 70. (Photo by Scott Penner/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Cassandra Wilson, the two-time Grammy-winning singer whose unmistakable contralto carried blues, R&B, folk, country and the sounds of her native Mississippi into some of the most adventurous jazz recordings of her generation, has died. She was 70.

Wilson died Tuesday morning in her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, Hinds County Coroner Jeramiah Howard confirmed. Her longtime manager, Robert Torre, announced her death Wednesday, saying Wilson died peacefully at home surrounded by family and close friends.

A cause of death was not announced.

Wilson emerged as a major voice in the 1980s and became one of jazz's most distinctive stars during the following decade, challenging expectations about both what a jazz singer should sound like and what songs belonged in a jazz repertoire.

Her breakthrough 1993 album, “Blue Light ’Til Dawn,” drew from blues, jazz, folk and popular music and included her interpretations of songs associated with Robert Johnson, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell.

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“New Moon Daughter” pushed the idea further in 1995, moving from Billie Holiday and Son House to Hank Williams, Neil Young and the Monkees without losing the musical identity holding it together.

The album earned Wilson her first Grammy Award for best jazz vocal performance.

She would win again for “Loverly,” released in 2008, and received four Grammy nominations during her career.

Wilson's reach also extended into hip-hop during a period when the genre's relationship with jazz was rapidly evolving. She appeared on “Swept Away” from the Roots' 1995 album “Do You Want More?!!!??!,” a record that helped establish the Philadelphia group's live-band approach to hip-hop.

For Wilson, crossing those boundaries was less a detour than an extension of where she came from.

Born in Jackson in 1955, she grew up listening to music that included Motown, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. Her father, Herman B. Fowlkes, was a musician, and Wilson began piano lessons at 6 before taking up other instruments.

After spending time in New Orleans, she moved to New York in the early 1980s and became associated with saxophonist Steve Coleman and the M-Base Collective, the experimental group of musicians whose ideas helped reshape contemporary jazz.

Wilson eventually moved toward the spacious, acoustic sound that became one of her signatures.

Her low, instantly identifiable voice could make familiar material sound as though it had originated somewhere else entirely.

That quality allowed Wilson to move through musical traditions that were often separated by genre labels — Delta blues, jazz standards, rock, folk, R&B and country — while keeping Mississippi at the center of her sound.

Jon Batiste, who toured with Wilson early in his career, remembered that quality Wednesday.

In a tribute posted after her death, Batiste wrote that Wilson's combination of folkloric, R&B, diasporic, experimental and popular music had a major influence on him. He said her Mississippi heritage remained present regardless of how far her music traveled stylistically.

“She was one of the first people to take me on tour around the world, the great Cassandra Wilson,” Batiste wrote.

Jackson Mayor John Horhn also paid tribute to Wilson, saying the city had lost an extraordinary native daughter and the world a singular musical voice.

Wilson's later work continued to resist easy categorization.

In 2015, she released “Coming Forth by Day,” an album honoring Billie Holiday released during the centennial of Holiday's birth. It would become Wilson's final studio album.

The National Endowment for the Arts named Wilson a Jazz Master in 2022, placing her among recipients of one of the nation's highest honors for jazz musicians.