{"id":491570,"date":"2019-10-23T15:39:38","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T21:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=902891"},"modified":"2019-10-23T15:39:38","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T21:39:38","slug":"lizzo-sues-songwriters-claiming-stake-in-truth-hurts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/lizzo-sues-songwriters-claiming-stake-in-truth-hurts\/","title":{"rendered":"Lizzo Sues Songwriters Claiming Stake in \u2018Truth Hurts\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lizzo<\/a> has filed a lawsuit against three songwriters who claim they were not properly credited as co-writers on her hit song, \u201cTruth Hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, obtained by Rolling Stone<\/em>, comes after brothers Justin and Jeremiah Raisen publicly claimed they were part of an April 2017 writing session with Lizzo that produced a demo, \u201cHealthy,\u201d that included the line, \u201cI just took a DNA test, turns out I\u2019m 100 percent that bitch.\u201d On Instagram, Justin Raisen claimed he and his brother were never properly credited for the song, and that their attempts to solve the matter were repeatedly shot down. Around the same time, another writer at the session, Justin \u201cYves\u201d Rothman, also claimed that he was also uncredited as a songwriter.<\/p>\n

Along with filing the suit on Wednesday, Lizzo rebuffed<\/a> the Raisens\u2019 claims on Twitter, saying, \u201cThe men who now claim a piece of \u2018Truth Hurts\u2019 did not help me write any part of the song. They had nothing to do with the line or how I chose to sing it. There was no one in the room when I wrote \u2018Truth Hurts,\u2019 except me, Ricky Reed and my tears.\u201d Lizzo also reiterated that the \u201cDNA test\u201d line was inspired by a meme she saw, and she\u2019s since given a writing credit to singer Mina Lioness, the person whose tweet inspired that meme.<\/p>\n

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The suit, meanwhile, claims the Raisens did not collaborate with Lizzo or anyone else to create \u201cTruth Hurts,\u201d and says that they, their publishing company and lawyer previously withdrew any claim to \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d earlier this year. It also seeks a similar declaration that \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d doesn\u2019t infringe on any copyright owned by Rothman.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we filed a lawsuit on Lizzo\u2019s behalf to establish, in a court of law, that the Raisens are not writers of \u2018Truth Hurts\u2019 and have no right to profit from the song\u2019s success,\u201d Lizzo\u2019s lawyer, Cynthia Arato said in a statement. \u201cThe 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\u2019 false claims and their campaign of harassment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither the Raisens nor a rep for Rothman immediately responded to Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2018s request to comment.<\/p>\n

According to the lawsuit, the Raisen brothers previously tried to claim they each owned 10 percent of \u201cTruth Hurts,\u201d and that the dispute was holding up Lizzo\u2019s ability to license the song to third parties. In April, the suit alleges, the matter seemed to be settled when Lizzo and her representatives finalized an agreement with the Raisens and their publishing company, Kobalt, that stipulated the pair did not have a claim to the song. Following that agreement, Lizzo was able to start licensing \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d and, on April 17th, the song notably appeared in the trailer for the Netflix comedy, Someone Great<\/i> \u2014 the catalyst for the song\u2019s belated rise to Number One.<\/p>\n

While the suit claims the Raisens previously reaffirmed the status of the April agreement after some confusion over their appearance on an ASCAP database entry for the song, after \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d went to Number One in September, the duo again tried to claim a 20 percent stake. Along with alleging the Raisens only reinstated their claim because of the song\u2019s success, the suit alleges the brothers \u201cengaged in a pattern of harassment directed at Lizzo and the co-writers of \u2018Truth Hurts,\u2019\u201d including \u201can intentionally misleading social media campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Rothman, the suit alleges that, since the commercial release of \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d in September 2017, he hadn\u2019t previously tried to stake a claim to the song until earlier this month. The suit claims that on October 14th \u2014 one day before the Raisens posted about the dispute on Instagram \u2014 Rothman filed his own formal demand claiming he was one of the writers on the demo and seeking a five percent stake in the song. \u201cLike the Raisens\u2019 claim, Rothman\u2019s claim has no merit,\u201d the suit reads. \u201cRothman did not write any part of the material in question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lizzo is also seeking unspecified damages stemming from attorneys fees and other \u201ccosts,\u201d ostensibly tied to revenue lost from being unable to license \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d to third parties in the middle of this dispute.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lizzo has filed a lawsuit against three songwriters who claim they were not properly credited as co-writers on her hit song, \u201cTruth Hurts.\u201d The lawsuit, obtained by Rolling Stone, comes after brothers Justin and Jeremiah Raisen publicly claimed they were part of an April 2017 writing session with Lizzo that produced a demo, \u201cHealthy,\u201d that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-music-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 03:19:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}