Celebrity
Taylor Swift Says She’s Never Heard Of 3LW Until Her Song “Shake It Off” Got Sued For Plagiarism
“I had never heard the song… or the group.”
Taylor Swift has filed a sworn declaration against the lawsuit claiming she plagiarized a part of the lyric for her hit song “Shake It Off.” The 32-year-old insisted that she’s never heard the song until the copyright lawsuit was made.
The lawsuit was filed by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, the songwriters for “Playas Gon’ Play,” that they wrote for the 3LW group back in 2000.
The former R&B group consists of Adrienne Bailon, Kiely Williams from ‘Cheetah Girls,’ and Naturi Naughton from ‘Power.’ The views on the video reached 15 million and grew ever since the lawsuit was made as thousands, just like Swift, shared that they weren’t even aware of the group.
Taylor Swift stated, “The lyrics to ‘Shake It Off’ were written entirely by me.Until learning about Plaintiffs’ claim in 2017, I had never heard the song ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ and had never heard of that song or the group 3LW.”
The issue of the plagiarism was regarding the lyric that read “playas they gon’ play and haters they gonna hate.” Swift’s lyric for her song was “playas gonna play, play, play, play, and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate.”
Taylor also shared that she was inspired to pen the song from the horrible criticisms and scrutiny she was put under since her fame rose. She saw people using “clickbait reporting” and “public manipulation” to gain leverage and hence, decided to focus on music and close her ears to the criticism.
“I recall hearing phrases about ‘players play’ and ‘haters hate’ stated together by other children while attending school in Wyomissing Hills, and in high school in Hendersonville.”
“These phrases were akin to other commonly used sayings like ‘don’t hate the playa, hate the game,’ ‘take a chill pill,’ and ‘say it, don’t spray it.’”
She also doubled back on the fact that she’s never heard of the group nor the song by revealed that she couldn’t watch TRL (Total Request Live) until she was 13. She does not recall ever hearing any part of the song on any kind of media.
Her mother also emphasized the fact that she “carefully monitored both the television she watched and the music she heard” and never allowed her sleepovers at her friends’ houses as she preferred to have them come over.
The copyright lawsuit was initially made in 2017 and dismissed in 2018. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald refused to dismiss the case due to “enough objective similarities” between the songs.
