They call each other “girls,” even though they are grown women now, some of them grandmothers in their 60s. Few look it: most are lithe and fit from a lifetime of exercise. Early this morning they convened for a variety of fitness classes, including a “twerkout workout,” a “hot heels dance class,” and “cheer Zumba,” followed by a panel on the “Good, Bad, & Ugly” of cosmetics procedures. Now they are buzzing around a banquet hall set up in a club-seating deck on the upper level of Nissan Stadium in Nashville, home of the Tennessee Titans. There are nearly 500 former N.F.L. cheerleaders—Washington Redskinettes, Seattle Sea Gals, Chicago Honey Bears, Buffalo Jills, and the queen supremes, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. (“When they walk in, you can just tell,” says one alumna.) They have gathered for the biennial National Football Cheerleaders Alumni Reunion, and the room is crackling with the bubbly brand of energy that many of the girls call “sparkle,” which also serves as an implicit dress code. There are sparkles on dresses, sparkles on earrings, sparkles on stilettos. “It’s awesome to get re-united with my cheer sisters, as we like to say,” gushes Jennifer Hathaway, a former Atlanta Falconette whose eyes are dusted with sparkly shadow.
The ex-cheerleaders have been drawn here by their shared past—a collective nostalgia for their days on the sidelines, their moment in the spotlight. But despite their giddiness at being re-united, they know there is no escaping the present. Over the past year, the N.F.L. has faced a rash of lawsuits and ugly allegations over its treatment of cheerleaders. Five former members of the Washington Redskins squad say the team flew them to Costa Rica in 2013, stripped them of their passports, and required them to pose topless before wealthy fans. In March, former cheerleader Bailey Davis sued the New Orleans Saints for firing her over an Instagram photo she posted of herself in a lacy bodysuit. And in June, six former cheerleaders filed a federal sex-discrimination suit against the Houston Texans, alleging they were paid less than the state’s minimum wage and relentlessly body-shamed by the squad coach, who called them “jelly bellies” and “crack whores.” “I had no idea that once I became a Houston Texan cheerleader, all of my dreams would slowly be shattered,” one of the plaintiffs, Morgan Wiederhold, said at a news conference.
Sex on the Sidelines: How the N.F.L. Made a Game of Exploiting Cheerleaders | Vanity Fair