It didn’t take long for news of a lawsuit against Lizzo to put a dent in her sales and streaming activity. Multiple metrics — such as on-demand audio streams and Instagram followers — reveal a small but noticeable fan backlash in the week following news that the singer was sued in a Los Angeles court by three tour dancers who claimed the “Special” singer subjected them to sexual harassment and a hostile work environment.
From August 1 — the day the lawsuit became public — to August 8, Lizzo’s daily U.S. on-demand audio streams fell 21.7% while her daily U.S. track sales have declined 35%, according to Luminate.
Almost half of the decline in U.S. track sales appears to be the result of a drop-off in sales of “Pink,” Lizzo’s contribution to the Barbie: The Album soundtrack. Excluding “Pink,” Lizzo’s track sales declined 19.3% from August 1 to August 8. The decline in her on-demand audio streams excluding “Pink” was unchanged at 21.7%.
The cumulative loss over the seven-day period is relatively minor: about 6 million on-demand audio streams with a royalty value of roughly $10,000 to her record label, according to Billboard’s estimate. Smaller yet is the cumulative decline in royalties from track sales of roughly $1,000 over the same period.
The financial damage would be far greater if Lizzo’s streams and sales continue to be impacted by the controversy. The lawsuit could remain in the public spotlight for some time: The attorney representing the three plaintiffs claims to have received “at least six other inquiries” from people with similar stories regarding their employment by Lizzo. If her U.S. sales and streams continued at the current rate, the cumulative decline in U.S. royalties from streams and track sales would amount to about $89,000 over the first 30-day period and $320,000 over a 90-day, three-month period.
Although her streaming numbers dropped considerably, Lizzo lost just 0.1% of her Spotify followers, amounting to roughly 6,000 of her 5.6 million followers, in the seven days after news of the lawsuit broke. But the singer took a bigger hit on social media. In the week after the lawsuit, Lizzo’s Instagram followers fell 1.7% to 13.4 million while her TikTok followers declined 0.7% to 26.8 million, according to Chartmetric.
Social media numbers fall when services occasionally remove fake followers, but “it is highly unusual to see these simultaneous declines in follower accounts on multiple services,” says Chaz Jenkins, Chartmetric’s chief commercial officer. Artists’ followers tend to increase steadily over time. In fact, before the lawsuit, Lizzo’s Instagram never declined more than 0.1% over any seven-day period in 2023. .
Seeing some fans’ reaction to Lizzo’s lawsuit recalls how Doja Cat lost about 600,000 Instagram followers in roughly two and a half weeks, according to Chartmetric, after the rapper traded barbs with her fans. She received none of the groundswell of support that Jason Aldean experienced after CMT’s decision to pull the video for his song “Try That in a Small Town” sparked a national conversation. From July 1 to August 10, Aldean’s YouTube subscribers grew by 10.9% to 2.7 million, his Instagram followers increased 5.9% to 4.3 million and the track went to No. 1 on the Hot 100. But, as Kanye West’s rebounding music consumption suggests, listeners may not stay mad for long.
