Miley Cyrus Sued Over ‘Flowers’ In Lawsuit That Claims She Ripped Off Bruno Mars Song
Written by Bill Donahue on September 17, 2024
Miley Cyrus has been hit with a lawsuit that claims her chart-topping “Flowers” infringed the copyright to the Bruno Mars hit “When I Was Your Man,” setting the stage for a legal battle over two tracks that many fans already saw as connected.
Filed Monday in Los Angeles federal court, the case claims that Cyrus’ track – which spent eight weeks atop the Hot 100 after it was released in January 2023 – “duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements” of the earlier track.
The complaint was filed not by Mars himself but by an entity called Tempo Music Investments that bought a share of the copyright to his song from one of its co-writers. In it, lawyers for that group claim the two songs have “striking similarities.”
“Any fan of Bruno Mars’ ‘When I Was Your Man’ knows that Miley Cyrus’ ‘Flowers’ did not achieve all of that success on its own,” lawyers for Tempo Music write. “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.’”
A spokesperson for Cyrus did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations.
Tempo is hardly the first to note connections between the two songs. When “Flowers” was first released, many fans saw it as an “answer song” to Mars’ earlier track — with Cyrus directly responding to the song’s regrets. Where Mars laments that “I should’ve bought you flowers… take you to every party, ’cause all you wanted to dance,” Cyrus protests on “Flowers,” that “I can buy myself flowers… I can take myself dancing.”
The reason for the references? According to internet speculation, Mars’ song was a favorite of Cyrus’ ex-husband Liam Hemsworth and her allusions were a reference to their split.
At the time, legal experts told Billboard that Cyrus was likely not violating copyrights simply by using similar lyrics to fire back at the earlier song – a time-honored music industry tradition utilized by songs ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” to countless rap diss records.
“This is great fodder for fan theories, but lawyers should have nothing to do with it,” Joseph Fishman, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville, said at the time. “Using one song to issue a retort to an earlier song is not, by itself, infringement.”
But in Monday’s complaint, attorneys for Tempo argue that the similarities in Cyrus’ song extend well beyond the clap-back lyrics, including “melodic and harmonic material,” “pitch ending pattern,” and “bass-line structure.”
“Immediately upon the release of ‘Flowers,’ the public recognized the striking similarities between the song and ‘When I Was Your Man,’” Tempo’s lawyers write. “The combination of elements – both musical and lyrical – confirm that ‘Flowers’ copies extensively from ‘When I Was Your Man.’”
Following the filing the lawsuit, some copyright experts remain skeptical. On social media, Fishman said the merits of Tempo’s case were “weak” and that the musical similarities were rooted in commonplace song elements that also exist in other tracks like Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” or Ace of Base’s “It’s a Beautiful Life.” He also questioned why Mars himself was not involved.
Aaron Moss, a veteran copyright litigator at the law firm Greenberg Glusker, cited numerous other songs that “reply to other songs,” including “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division and “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille: “It’s not copyright infringement folks,” Moss said.
An attorney for Tempo did not immediately return a request for comment.
