Miley Cyrus Sued For Copyright by Music Rights Powerhouse: Star Accused of ‘Intentionally Copying’ Bruno Mars In Grammy-Winning Song Flowers
Miley Cyrus has been accused of stealing portions of Bruno Mars track When I Was Your Man in her Grammy-winning hit Flowers.
Sept. 17 2024, Published 12:32 p.m. ET
Miley Cyrus is being sued for ripping off a Bruno Mars song on her global hit Flowers.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the singer and her co-writers have been accused of copying portions of the 24K Magic hitmaker’s track When I Was Your Man in a lawsuit filed on Monday.
Flowers spent eight weeks at number one in the U.S. last year.
Mars himself is not named as a plaintiff, it’s Tempo Music pushing the charge who say they own a portion of When I Was Your Man purchased from co-writer Philip Lawrence.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles federal court, claimed that Flowers - which won Cyrus her first-ever Grammy - includes unauthorised “exploitation” of the song.
Co-writers Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack are also named, and Sony Music Publishing, Apple, Target, Walmart and other companies are accused for distributing the song.
Bruno Mars released song When I Was Your Man in 2012.
The lawsuit states: “Any fan of Bruno Mars’ When I Was Your Man knows that Miley Cyrus’s Flowers did not achieve all of that success on its own. Flowers duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements of When I Was Your Man, including the melodic pitch design and sequence of the verse, the connecting bass line, certain bars of the chorus, certain theatrical music elements, lyric elements, and specific chord progressions.”
It continues: “It is undeniable based on the combination and number of similarities between the two recordings that Flowers would not exist without When I Was Your Man. With Flowers, Cyrus, Hein and Pollack have created a derivative work of When I Was Your Man without authorisation.”
Flowers won Cyrus best pop solo performance at the Grammys earlier this year: the same category Mars was nominated for.
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The song also won Record Of The Year - which honors songwriters - and was nominated for Song of the Year, but was beaten by What Was I Made For? by Billie Eilish.
Flowers also spent eight weeks at number-one in the U.S. last year
Around the time the song was released, Cyrus’s fans spotted apparent similarities to When I Was Your Man.
In her song, Cyrus seemingly flips the lyrics from Mars’s song: “I should’ve bought you flowers/ And held your hand/ Should’ve gave you all my hours/ When I had the chance/ Take you to every party/ ‘Cause all you wanted to do was dance/ Now my baby’s dancing/ But she’s dancing with another man.”
Fans noticed the similarities between both tracks when Flowers was released last year.
The lyrics to Flowers include the chorus: “I can buy myself flowers/ Write my name in the sand/ Talk to myself for hours/ Say things you don’t understand/ I can take myself dancing/ And I can hold my own hand/ Yeah, I can love me better than you can.”
Fans also noted that Cyrus seemed to use a similar melody in her chorus to the one in Mars’s track.
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