Singer Miley Cyrus is reportedly facing a lawsuit over her most successful single to date, “Flowers.” The lawsuit alleges the song copied several components from a Bruno Mars song.
Her hit single “Flowers,” from her 2023 album “Endless Summer Vacation,” has drawn comparisons to Mars’s “When I Was Your Man” from his 2012 album “Unorthodox Jukebox” since its release.
“Flowers” ruled the charts in the second half of 2023 and even into 2024, taking the title of most-streamed song of 2023. It also earned 31-year-old Cyrus her first Grammy award earlier this year.
YouTube/Recording Academy / GRAMMYs
However, the song is being accused of copying the melody, harmony, and chorus, according to TMZ.
The court dockets were filed by Tempo Music Investments, a company that invests in music rights, have been discovered. It was launched in 2019 by Providence Equity Partners and Warner Music Group (WMG). Mars is signed to Atlantic Records, a subsidiary of WMG. Bruno Mars is not a named party in the lawsuit.
Tempo Music Investments alleges that many “recognized the striking similarities” between the two songs upon the release of “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 documents state, adding that “Flowers” “duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements” of Mars’ track.
Did Miley Cyrus Copy Bruno Mars?
While the songs seem to share much of the same DNA, content creator Adam Barrera explains the difference between the songs. He notes that Mars and his co-writers are not credited on the song, which plays as a direct response to the lyrics in “When I Was Your Man.”
“So why is this? Well, even though the lyrics of ‘Flowers’ relate to the lyrics of ‘When I Was Your Man,’ there are no similarities in the melodies or instrumentals,” Barrera explains.
Barrera continued: “If Miley had sung the lyrics, using the same melody as “When I Was Your Man” or even a similar instrumental, then this would have been an interpolation and we would have seen Bruno and his co-writers credited.”
The Success of “Flowers”
The lawsuit comes almost a year after Cyrus released the song, which is an empowerment anthem about a woman’s recovery from an unsatisfying relationship.
“One year ago today ‘Flowers’ started making people happy & that makes me happy. Love you. Thank you,” she wrote on Instagram, before signing off the message with, “XO MC.”
The track spent eight weeks at the top of the US Billboard characters and skyrocketed to the top of Spotify’s charts, becoming the most-streamed song in a single week in the app’s history.
Mars’s “When I Was Your Man” also topped the Billboard Hot 100 in April 2013 after it was first released.
