Paramore’s Hayley Williams has rebuffed allegations that the salon she co-founded in Nashville, Fruits Hair Lab, fostered a toxic workplace environment. “I will no longer hold my team back from stopping assholes who are trying to take advantage of and attack my character,” she said.
The whole dispute played out in the comments section of an Instagram post shared last week by one of Williams’ other business ventures, the hair dye company, Good Dye Young. The GDY page had posted a statement from Williams for World Mental Health Day, in which the musician spoke about her own mental health struggles, as well as the need for greater resources and support systems for those grappling with similar issues.
A few people claiming to be former employees of the Fruits Hair Lab, then popped up in the comments, taking issue with Williams’ statement and calling it “performative.” They said the salon was a difficult place to work and alleged that complaints about issues were ignored (via Twitter and Stereogum).
Williams, in response, stressed that while she co-founded the salon, she is “not the boss,” doesn’t have a job title there, and has “interacted with the stylists at our salon only a handful of times” (a salon manager, she noted, oversees the day-to-day business). And while acknowledging the salon had seen some employee turnover, she ultimately dismissed the claims from the aggrieved former employees.
“When this group of Fruits employees chose to leave, the remaining team of stylists reported that the environment in the salon became immediately more positive and less toxic,” she wrote. “Do with that what you will.”
She added: “Next, there are things being said here about both GDY and Fruits that are provably false. This situation has so much more context than I feel is appropriate to share on the internet.”
Williams further denied claims that she, or others at GDY, were deleting comments from the former employees on the post. And, pushing back against the accusations that her original message was “performative,” Williams said that the staffs at GDY and Fruits were privately told last week that their health insurance will now “include unlimited mental health services” starting next month.
“If keeping that private was performative, well then fuck me I guess,” Williams wrote.
