Haters gonna hate, players gonna play, and little-known R&B singers are gonna sue, sue, sue.
The New York Daily News is reporting that a 50-year-old R&B singer named Jesse Graham has filed a $42 million lawsuit against Taylor Swift, claiming his 2013 non-hit “Haters Gone Hate” was ripped off by the pop superstar. The paper says that the suit was filed after Swift refused to take a selfie with Graham.
As confirmed by 2015 high school yearbooks across the country, Swift’s 2014 hit “Shake It Off” does in fact feature the lyrics “Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play/And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” That’s a little too close for Graham’s comfort, apparently. His song, which has no other similarities to Swift’s outside the lyrics, contains the phrase “Haters gonna hate, players gonna play.”
As a result, Graham says he’s owed money, especially since Swift uses his phrase roughly 72 times in “Shake It Off.”
“Her hook is the same hook as mine,” he tells the Daily News over the weekend. “If I didn’t write the song ‘Haters Gone Hate,’ there wouldn’t be a song called ‘Shake It Off.'”
Radio.com reports there has been no comment just yet from Swift’s camp.
Judge for yourself.