Taylor Swift is in the midst of a legal dispute involving a Florida-based artist.
Kimberly Marasco sued the “Eras Tour” headliner for $30 million in February, alleging copyright infringement. This is the second time Marasco is suing Swift after “Marasco was unable to serve Swift with the first lawsuit in a timely manner.” This ultimately led to Judge Aileen Cannon dismissing Swift from the suit that was filed last year.
Marasco is back at it again, and she appears to have ammunition this time around. According to a new report by Newsweek, Marasco’s lawsuit has included and mentioned a number of big-name celebrities.
Apart from Swift, songwriters Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner were also named as defendants in the case. The lawsuit also includes Universal Music Group, Inc., as well as Republic Records.
Interestingly, multi-Grammy Award-winning artist Beyonce was also mentioned in the case.
“Beyoncé is not a defendant in the lawsuit, but Marasco mentions one of her songs,” Newsweek’s report read.
“Marasco alleged that Swift’s ‘The Man’ contains original expressions from the plaintiff’s poem ‘Ordinary Citizen.’ Marasco noted that defense attorneys previously compared a verse of ‘Ordinary Citizen’ to Beyoncé’s ‘If I Were a Boy.'”
While not named as defendants either, artists such as Lady Gaga (she was “featured in an exhibit”), Elton John (“the defense previously compared Marasco’s poems to ‘Candle in the Wind’ by Elton John”), Chaka Khan (defense attorneys also “compared” Marasco’s work to one of Khan’s songs) and Brad Paisley (“referenced in the lawsuit”) were all also mentioned in Newsweek’s report.
Even Elon Musk (“Marasco mentions a poem she wrote” about Musk in her lawsuit) and Kim Kardashian (“an accompanying exhibit mentions her”) were mentioned in the report.
All defendants in the case have reportedly been “successfully served with the lawsuit,” except for Swift.
The “Fortnight” singer has not released an official statement to address the controversy.
Right now, Swift has been spending most of her time with her boyfriend, Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs. The couple is reportedly taking advantage of the time they have together while they still can. Both Swift and Kelce are reportedly anticipating a sudden shift in their relationship once their respective work schedules start getting extremely busy again.