Taylor Swift Stands Her Ground Amid Accusations of Plagiarism 

Taylor Swift has responded to a lawsuit claiming she stole song lyrics by basically pulling a Mariah: “I don’t know her.”

Swift is currently being sued by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who wrote the song “Playas Gon’ Play” for former girl group 3LW, and as you may have guessed by the title, their chorus is lyrically very close to the chorus from Swift’s “Shake It Off.” (If this sounds familiar, it’s because they also sued her in 2018, but the judge dismissed it—the lawsuit was reopened last year, per Bustle.)

But there’s no way Tay could have copied the 3LW single because, as she said in her latest motion, she’d never heard it or even heard of it when she released “Shake It Off” back in 2014. As she explains in the motion, filed on August 6, she grew up listening almost exclusively to country music, rarely listened to the radio, and never watched TRL or MTV. An R&B/pop group wouldn’t have been on her radar.

In middle and high school, she said, she heard others use “playas gonna play” and “haters gonna hate,” and she later incorporated these common phrases into her chorus about shaking off negative feelings. Translation: It’s something everyone says; she didn’t get it from a song she’d never heard. Read the full declaration here:

This part did make me sad: “I do not own and have never listened to the albums Now That’s What I Call Music! 6 or Now That’s What I Call Music! 7.” No millennial girl’s childhood was complete without a dance party to the full Now! 1–10 discography. Though I think we can all agree it peaked at 5.

If you, like Taylor Swift until 2018, have never heard the 3LW single…here’s your chance!