According to a lawsuit filed on Sept. 16, pop star Miley Cyrus is being sued.
As People reports, the lawsuit was brought by Tempo Music Investments, which owns the rights to Bruno Mars’ hit song “When I Was Your Man.” The lawsuit states that there are many “striking similarities” between Bruno Mars’ song and Cyrus’s hit song, “Flowers.”
“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 court documents allege, according to Rolling Stone.
The documents continues, saying “Flowers” “duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements” of “When I Was Your Man.” According to People, the suit also claims that “the opening vocal line from the chorus of ‘Flowers’ begins and ends on the same chords as the opening vocal line in the verse of ‘When I Was Your Man,’” released in 2013.
Cyrus wrote “Flowers” with songwriters Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack, who are also named in the lawsuit. Cyrus won her first two Grammy awards for the song.
“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 alleges, Rolling Stone reports.
Now, Tempo Music Investments is seeking an undisclosed amount of damages and asking Cyrus and the other defendants to “stop reproducing, distributing or publicly performing ‘Flowers.’”
Cyrus’s team has not yet responded to the lawsuit, People reports. Mars is not named as a plaintiff.