Lizzo takes legal action over allegations she stole “Truth Hurts”

Lizzo is not taking allegations about her hit “Truth Hurts” lying down.

Last week, Justin Raisen posted a video on Instagram calling out the singer and insisting she plagiarized a song he wrote during a writing session in 2017 called “Healthy.” He also compared the tunes, which have similar rifts and starts out with the same line, “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that b*tch.”

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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 Oct 14, 2019 at 11:50pm PDT

“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,” he says in the video. “We’ve tried to sort this out quietly for the last two years, only asking for 5% each but were shut down every time.”

The superstar whose song has been at the No.1 spot for seven weeks is asking a judge to declare that the three songwriters do not have any rights to the song they claim she stole from them.

Music producer claims he wrote Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts,” and wants credit

Lizzo took to social media to explain the situation to fans along with the caption, “Truth Hurts… but the truth shall set you free…”

“There was no one in the room when I wrote ‘Truth Hurts,’ except me, Ricky Reed, and my tears. That song is my life, and its words are my truth,” she said.

Her lengthy statement explains that “Truth Hurts” was inspired by a popular meme in 2017 that was inspired by a Twitter post by singer Mina Lioness that read, “I did a DNA test and found out I’m 100% that bitch.”

Now, Lizzo has added Lioness as a credit co-writer on the successful song.

Lizzo’s attorney, Cynthia Arato, confirmed to Pitchfork that she has filed a lawsuit on the singer’s behalf.

“Today we filed a lawsuit on Lizzo’s behalf to establish, in a court of law, that the Raisens are not writers of ”Truth Hurts” and have no right to profit from the song’s success. The Raisens did not collaborate with Lizzo or anyone else to create the song, and they did not help write any of the material that they now seek to profit from, which is why they expressly renounced any claim to the work, in writing, months ago, as the lawsuit makes abundantly clear. Although it is all too commonplace for successful artists to be subjected to these type of opportunistic claims, it is nevertheless disappointing that Lizzo had to take this step to put an end to the Raisens’ false claims and their campaign of harassment.”