Ariana Grande has once again criticized Donald Trump’s administration for using her music in a social media post. This time, the Team Trump account featured her song We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love) in a TikTok post that tagged the Grammy-winning artist.
The post, uploaded by Trump’s team on Thursday, showed clips of the president approaching a podium to speak, with text from Grande’s 2024 hit overlaid on the video. The text read: “Me and my truth we sit in silence… men can’t have babies and should never compete in women’s sports.” The caption of the post stated, “This shouldn’t be controversial!” and included hashtags, including Grande’s name.
In response, Grande commented, “Never use my music again. Also your truth is false.” The sound on the post has been disabled and Grande’s comment appears to have been removed, but screenshots of it have been reposted by the audience.
In June, Grande had previously criticized the administration for using her song Bye in a TikTok video about immigration policy. She described the use of her music in relation to the video as “barbaric, inhumane, heinous nonsense.”
Resistance from Taylor Swift to ABBA
While wrapping up her Eternal Sunshine Tour in London, Grande joins a long list of performers who have spoken out against the Trump team for using their songs. Many artists, including Neil Young, John Fogerty, Queen, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, Beyoncé, and the estates of Leonard Cohen, Prince, and Tom Petty, have objected to the use of their music by Trump’s team.
Trump’s team frequently includes songs from contemporary pop artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Katy Perry in their social media posts. Some artists, such as Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny, have swiftly taken action to have their music removed from Team Trump’s social videos due to copyright infringement claims.
Although political campaigns can obtain licenses to use songs from music-rights organizations, individual artists have the right to opt out for various reasons. Artists who have not opted out can still voice objections to the use of their music.