Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Lizzo Hit With Second Plagiarism Lawsuit

ACL Music Festival 2019

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Unapologetic songstress Lizzo will soon have to face the music against claims that she plagiarized her huge hit “Truth Hurts.”

Producer and songwriter Justin Raisen claims that Lizzo is unfairly taking credit for its opening line when he wrote the line as a part of another song two years ago.

In an Instagram post on Tuesday( Oct. 15), Raisen claimed that he and his brother, Jeremiah Raisen, were part of a collaborative studio session with Lizzo and fellow songwriters Jesse Saint John and Yves Rothman, which took place back in April 2017.

“Coming forward publicly to family, friends, artists, and colleagues seems to be the only way at this point in relieving some of our emotional distress caused by this,” he added. “The last thing we want to do is throw any negativity toward Lizzo’s momentum and movement as a cultural figure. If we believe in what she’s preaching, believing in ourselves & our own voices is something we thought she’d understand.”

Raisen then went on to state that they reached out to Lizzo privately to resolve the issue but was dismissed forcing them to go public.

“After reaching out to Ricky Reed and Lizzo’s team about fixing it, we put the song in dispute in 2017 when it came out,” Raisen continued. “We’ve tried to sort this out quietly for the last two years, only asking for 5% each but were shut down every time.”

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The Truth about “Truth Hurts” On April 11th, 2017, we wrote a song called “Healthy” w/ Lizzo, Jesse St John, and Yves Rothman at our studio. “I just took a DNA test turns out I’m 100% that bitch” was taken from “Healthy” and used in “Truth Hurts”. We were never contacted about being credited for the use of the parts of “Healthy” (melody, lyrics, and chords) that appear in “Truth Hurts”. After reaching out to Ricky Reed and Lizzo’s team about fixing it, we put the song in dispute in 2017 when it came out. We’ve tried to sort this out quietly for the last two years, only asking for 5% each but were shutdown every time. Coming forward publicly to family, friends, artists, and colleagues seems to be the only way at this point in relieving some of our emotional distress caused by this. The last thing we want to do is throw any negativity toward Lizzo’s momentum and movement as a cultural figure. If we believe in what she’s preaching, believing in ourselves & our own voices is something we thought she’d understand. Shout out to the singer Mina Lioness ( @minalioness ) for tweeting “I just did a DNA test turns out I’m 100% that bitch”. A meme of that came up in our writing session & inspired the lyric and melody we wrote together. If Ricky and Lizzo’s team decide to settle this dispute with us, we would like to share some of the proceeds with Mina for her influence on Healthy. The clip below shows a video & photos from the day we wrote “Healthy” along with the comparisons between the two works. All the Love, Justin & Jeremiah Raisen #lizzo #truthhurts #healthy #billboard

A post shared by Justin Raisen (@justinraisen) on

Justin Raisen makes the second songwriter to accuse the “Juice” singer of ripping her now signature line.

In February of 2018, Lizzo, whose real name is Melissa Jefferson, was accused of stealing the lyric from British singer Mina Lioness, who claims that Lizzo stole the line from her viral tweet.

“Now everyone believes those were your words, when in fact they were mine. My creativity, my wit and my comedy.” Lioness tweeted.

Lizzo responded to Lioness’s complaint at the time, noting that she had never seen the viral tweet.

“I’ve never seen ur viral tweet but I’m glad it exists,” she tweeted.

Despite the controversy surrounding the now-infamous line, Lizzo has always maintained in previous interviews about the song that the inspiration for the line to an Instagram meme that stated, “I’m 100% that bitch.”

While Lizzo has yet to respond to the recent allegations, she did take to Twitter to post a seemingly unbothered tweet.

Source: HipHopWired.com

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