Lawsuit accuses Miley Cyrus of copyright infringement over hit song ‘Flowers’

(KTLA) – A music investment company is coming after Miley Cyrus like a wrecking ball with a lawsuit over her Grammy award-winning song “Flowers.”

The Disney Channel alum released the hit song after her public divorce from actor Liam Hemsworth. When it debuted in January 2023, many listeners drew parallels between “Flowers” and Bruno Mars’ 2012 song “When I Was Your Man.”

The chorus of “Flowers,” some said, appears to be a response to the chorus of “When I Was Your Man,” with Cyrus singing that she can “buy myself flowers” and “hold my own hand.” In Bruno Mars’ 2012 song, he sang, “I should have bought you flowers/and held your hand.”

Now, Tempo Music Investments is suing the singer for copyright infringement.

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In the lawsuit, filed in a Los Angeles courtroom on Monday, Tempo Music Investments says it owns “the copyright interests” to the “When I Was Your Man,” having acquired it from Philip Lawrence, who co-wrote the song alongside Mars, Ari Levine and Andrew Wyatt.

Rolling Stone reports that Mars is not named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

“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. ‘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,” the lawsuit states, per Rolling Stone.

Songwriters Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack, who wrote “Flowers,” are among the many defendants in the case. Others named include Sony Music Publishing, Apple, Target, Walmart and other companies.

“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 complaint continues. “With ‘Flowers,’ Cyrus, Hein, and Pollack have created a derivative work of ‘When I Was Your Man’ without authorization.”

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The company is seeking for Cyrus to be barred from distributing, reproducing and publicly performing the song, according to PEOPLE. Tempo Music is also requesting damages; however, the amount is not known.

The hit song earned Cyrus awards for record of the year and best pop solo performance at the 2024 Grammys.

Miley and Mars have yet to publically respond to the suit.

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