Lizzo and Live Nation pledge $1 million to abortion rights groups

Lizzo has announced that she’ll be donating $500,000 from her next tour to abortion rights groups, along with a matching donation from Live Nation, bringing the total pledge up to $1 million. The news comes in response to yesterday’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, leading to abortion being immediately highly restricted or banned in several states in the U.S., and in danger of facing similar restrictions in many others.

Initially, the announced donations were going to go entirely to Planned Parenthood; some time later (and after a few polite requests from followers on Twitter), Lizzo tweeted a second time to establish that the donations would be split between PP and the National Network Of Abortion Funds, a network of groups that work “to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access.”

In addition to the donations, Lizzo also urged her followers to action, writing on Twitter, “The most important thing is action & loud voices. @PPFA, @AbortionFunds, & organizations like them— will need funding to continue offering services to people who are most harmed by this ban,” and that, “Black women & women of color have historically had disproportionately less access to family planning resources—this is a great loss but not a new one.”

Live Nation also issued a statement announcing the match, along with a pledge to pay travel expenses for employees who need to access “women’s healthcare services” outside their home state; several other media companies have made similar pledges, or reiterated such provisions in their benefits packages, this weekend. Lizzo’s Special tour is scheduled to kick off in September.

Numerous celebrities spoke out yesterday and today in protest of the Supreme Court decision, joining their voices to a much wider protest movement that’s seen people take to the streets around the country to express their anger at Roe’s overturn.