Miley Cyrus sued over alleged Bruno Mars plagiarism in 'Flowers'
Miley Cyrus has been accused of copying a popular Bruno Mars song for her Grammy-winning hit "Flowers," according to a new lawsuit.
While a music rights-acquiring platform is coming hard at the songstress with heavy claims, the Silk Sonic singer, a secondary subject of the suit, is conspicuously out of the picture, as he is not listed as a plaintiff in the complaint.
Tempo Music Investments, a company claiming to own a share of Mars' song's – "When I Was Your Man" – copyright, has sued the former Disney superstar for copyright infringement. Legal documents reportedly point out numerous similarities between "Flowers" and Bruno's 2011 track, targetting Cyrus for "intentionally copying" it.
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According to TMZ, the incendiary lawsuit against the Wrecking Ball hitmaker asserts that Miley ripped off the melody, harmony and chorus of "When I Was Your Man," and she wouldn't have secured her Grammy Award earlier this year without Bruno. Tempo Music also claims that Cyrus' song mirrors chord progressions and lyrics of the decade-old top-charting timeless hit.
"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,'" the agency alleges. What is Tempo Music's endgame here? They want Miley to stop performing or distributing "Flowers" altogether, and are after her money following the unbeatable success of the "Endless Summer Vacation" album track.
It is worth noting that dozens of fans jumped at the opportunity to highlight the thematic similarities between Miley and Bruno's songs in 2023 once her tune hit streaming platforms. Media outlets and netizens speculated that Cyrus had "flipped" the 2011 song in an attempt to reference her former romance with Liam Hemsworth.
He reportedly once dedicated "When I Was Your Man" to Miley, and then she dropped the tune on his birthday, indicative of her new era's commencement.
While Cyrus' song is quintessentially a breakup anthem empowering self-love, Bruno's song, penned over a decade ago– at a time he feared losing his girlfriend Jessica Caban – voices regrets after a relationship. "Flowers" apparently samples Mars' hit track but reworks the lyrics, seemingly taking a dig at her past flame due to "When I Was Your Man"'s purported connections to her former marriage.
