Taylor Swift sued for $42m by singer who claims she stole his 'haters gonna hate' lyric for 'Shake It Off'
Jesse Graham's song sounds absolutely nothing like the 1989 singer's chart-topper
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Your support makes all the difference.She might have had her fun dressing up as Olaf from Frozen over Halloween weekend, but Taylor Swift has been left with a fright after being accused of stealing lyrics.
R&B singer Jesse Graham has filed a $24 million lawsuit against the singer, alleging that she ripped the chorus for “Shake It Off” from his song “Haters Gonna Hate”.
The two songs sound nothing like like each other, but Graham told the New York Daily News that “her hook is the same as [his]”.
“If I didn’t write the song ‘Haters Gonna Hate’, there wouldn’t be a song called ‘Shake It Off’,” he said. “At first I was going to let it go but this song is my song all the way.”
Graham’s lyrics read: “Haters gonna hate/ Players gonna play/ Watch out for them fakers/ They’ll fake you every day.”
Swift’s meanwhile, go: “Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play/ And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”
Before taking legal action, Graham asked Swift’s management if his name could be added as a co-writing credit on “Shake It Off” along with writers Max Martin and Shellback.
He added that a selfie with Swift wouldn’t go a miss, either, but Team Tay responded saying that his claim was unfounded.
“Haters Gonna Hate” appears on Graham’s album The Sexy Ladies, which is barely known and likely to have received little to no airplay, making it very possible that Swift had never heard it.
A legal source reportedly told Perez Hilton: “Mr. Braham, who is representing himself, cannot claim copyright protection for the phrases ”haters gone hate“ and ”playas gone play“ because the Copyright Act does not protect short phrases and these phrases are not original to him. In addition, and most damning to Mr. Braham's claim, the two songs have absolutely nothing in common.”
Graham runs a church organisation called New Day Worldwide and also plans to sue CNN for the title of its morning show New Day.
Representatives for Taylor Swift had no comment on the lawsuit.
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