Lizzo Was a New Kind of Diva. Now She’s in a New Kind of Scandal.

Before she decided to sue Lizzo for sexual harassment, assault, and a number of other offenses earlier this year, the backup dancer Arianna Davis wondered if she was blowing her concerns with her work environment out of proportion. Touring with the widely beloved rapper and singer, she had witnessed some bizarre things: The lawsuit she filed with two other dancers includes the words “bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas.” (More on that in a bit; Lizzo has denied all the allegations.) But something about her experience seemed familiar, like it fit a script. Davis told CNN, “I just chalked it up to, you know, Oh, Lizzo might be a diva.”

Davis was voicing a common idea: Some kinds of artists can’t help but make the people around them feel a bit like trash. The term has long been tinged with misogyny and awe, and rather than grow obsolete with the progress of pop-culture feminism over the years, it has only become more relevant. Today I have a called , focused on soloists—mostly women—who voice their desires in ways that cause spectacle and controversy. I didn’t set out to write so frequently about these sorts