{"id":804735,"date":"2020-02-28T14:43:02","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T21:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=959844"},"modified":"2020-02-28T14:43:02","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T21:43:02","slug":"lizzo-faces-countersuit-over-truth-hurts-credit-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/lizzo-faces-countersuit-over-truth-hurts-credit-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Lizzo Faces Countersuit Over \u2018Truth Hurts\u2019 Credit Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Three songwriters have filed a countersuit against Lizzo<\/a>, reasserting their claim that they helped write the pop star\u2019s breakout smash \u201cTruth Hurts,\u201d but were not properly credited on the song.<\/p>\n

The suit was filed by brothers Justin and Jeremiah Raisen, and Justin \u201cYves\u201d Rothman, who claim \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d emerged from a writing session with Lizzo and Jesse Saint John that produced a song called \u201cHealthy.\u201d They allege that \u201cHealthy\u201d contained elements that later appeared in \u201cTruth Hurts,\u201d including the memorable line, \u201cI just took a DNA test, turns out I\u2019m 100 percent that bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Raisens and Rothman first brought up their issues with the song last fall<\/a> in a non-legal setting, choosing instead to voice their complaints on social media. Lizzo, in turn, rebuffed their allegations<\/a> and eventually filed a lawsuit<\/a> seeking a declaratory judgement that the Raisens and Rothman had no claim to any kind of credit on \u201cTruth Hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new countersuit accuses Lizzo of a \u201cbad faith, unprincipled attempt to deny songwriting and producer credits and royalties\u201d to the the three songwriters, and alleges that \u201cLizzo would never have collected her Grammy Award [for Best Pop Solo Performance] but for the songwriting and producing contributions of [the Raisens and Rothman].\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lawyers for the three songwriters said in a statement, \u201cLizzo is a talented musician and performer who currently enjoys immense popularity based on a hit song that she did not write alone. The counterclaims we filed today seek a judgment from the court that the song that is now called \u2018Truth Hurts\u2019 originated in Justin Raisen\u2019s home recording studio from a collaboration among our clients, Justin and Jeremiah Raisen and Yves Rothman, along with Lizzo and Jesse Saint John. When the case proceeds to trial, we look forward to sharing the sound recordings, videos, photographs and musicology that 100% prove that collaboration. Our clients deserve their fair share of the recognition and revenue that comes from collaborating on a hit song.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lawyer for Lizzo did not immediately return Rolling Stone<\/i>\u2018s request for comment.<\/p>\n

The new countersuit offers a detailed breakdown of how \u201cHealthy\u201d and another song, \u201cGorgeous,\u201d allegedly came about over two April 2017 recording sessions at Justin Raisen\u2019s home studio. It alleges that while Saint John showed those in the studio a meme that contained the \u201c100 percent that bitch\u201d line, it was Jeremiah Raisen who encouraged Lizzo to use it in the lyrics to \u201cHealthy.\u201d (Saint John is credited on \u201cTruth Hurts,\u201d as is the musician Mina Lioness, who originally tweeted<\/a> the \u201c100 percent\u201d meme in February 2017.)<\/p>\n

Following the sessions, the countersuit claims that in May 2017 Lizzo\u2019s management told the Raisens that \u201cHealthy\u201d had \u201ca shot\u201d of making Lizzo\u2019s then-forthcoming EP. After that, they claim they didn\u2019t hear anything about the song until August, when they were informed that \u201cHealthy\u201d was not going to be used. \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d was released September 2017 and the suit cites a September 19th, 2017 Lizzo tweet, in which she thanked Saint John and stated that \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d came \u201cfrom a whole otha song we wrote,\u201d with the countersuit alleging that the other song was \u201cHealthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The countersuit later lays out the ways \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d and \u201cHealthy\u201d are allegedly the same, beyond the \u201c100 percent\u201d line. The suit states they have identical structures to the point that \u201cif the \u2018Truth Hurts\u2019 vocals are played over the music to \u2018Healthy,\u2019 every musical drop and change matches up perfectly when played in the same key.\u201d Other alleged similarities include Lizzo\u2019s vamping in certain parts of the song, a \u201cpiano-sound for the main underlying instrumental theme,\u201d a vocals-and-drum break down during the bridge and various melodic and rhythmic similarities in the bridge and in the delivery of the \u201c100 percent\u201d line.<\/p>\n

The suit additionally details the ways in which the Raisens tried to resolve the credit controversy with Lizzo, her producer Ricky Reed and others between fall 2017 and spring 2019. Most notably, the suit cites a March 26th, 2019 phone call between Justin Raisen and Lizzo, in which Lizzo allegedly \u201cadmitted to Justin that elements of \u2018Truth Hurts\u2019 never would have been created without \u2018Healthy,\u2019 and admitted that Reed suggested to her that they take elements from \u2018Healthy\u2019 for \u2018Truth Hurts.’\u201d It further states that during the phone call, Lizzo allegedly said she \u201cdid not want to share any percentage\u201d of \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d and claims that she \u201cused the call as an opportunity to intimidate Justin into stalling his efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

One factor potentially complicating the Raisens\u2019 claim to a credit on \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d is that, as previously reported<\/a>, the pair revoked their claim to the song via their publisher Kobalt last April. But the countersuit asserts otherwise, stating that they have not waived their claims to either \u201cHealthy\u201d or \u201cTruth Hurts,\u201d and are thus entitled to licensing fees, royalties and other profits from the song.<\/p>\n

The suit ultimately asks for the judge to dismiss Lizzo\u2019s lawsuit and to declare that the Raisens and Rothman joint authors and co-owners of \u201cHealthy\u201d and \u201cTruth Hurts,\u201d that \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d is derivative of \u201cHealthy\u201d and that they be properly compensated as such.<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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

Three songwriters have filed a countersuit against Lizzo, reasserting their claim that they helped write the pop star\u2019s breakout smash \u201cTruth Hurts,\u201d but were not properly credited on the song. The suit was filed by brothers Justin and Jeremiah Raisen, and Justin \u201cYves\u201d Rothman, who claim \u201cTruth Hurts\u201d emerged from a writing session with Lizzo […]<\/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":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-804735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-20 07:27:01","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":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}