Four months after filing a lawsuit rejecting their claim on her number-one hit song “Truth Hurts,” producers Justin Raisen, Jeremiah Raisen and Justin “Yves” Rothman have filed a lawsuit claiming they once helped co-create a Lizzo song called “Healthy” that they allege is, well, maybe not 100% that song, but similar enough to “Truth Hurts” that they should receive credit on the Grammy-winning tune.
“Lizzo is a talented musician and performer who currently enjoys immense popularity based on a hit song that she did not write alone,” their attorney Lawrence Iser said in a statement Friday. “The Counterclaims we filed today seek a judgment from the court that the song that is now called ‘Truth Hurts’ originated in Justin Raisen’s home recording studio from a collaboration among our clients, Justin and Jeremiah Raisen and Yves Rothman, along with Lizzo and Jesse Saint John.”
According to Variety, the trio says they have “sound recordings, videos, photographs and musicology” backing up their claim, an assertion Lizzo has previously denied. “There was no one in the room when I wrote ‘Truth Hurts,’ except me, Ricky Reed, and my tears,” she wrote on Instagram in October.
This past fall, the singer responded to the Raisens’ attempts to establish a songwriting claim with a lawsuit of her own. “Today we filed a lawsuit on Lizzo’s behalf to establish, in a court of law, that the Raisens are not writers of ‘Truth Hurts’ and have no right to profit from the song’s success,” her lawyer Cynthia Arato said in a statement on October 23. “Although it is all too commonplace for successful artists to be subjected to these type of opportunistic claims, it is nevertheless disappointing that Lizzo had to take this step to put an end to the Raisens’ false claims and their campaign of harassment.” While it probably wouldn’t provide any legal clarity, boy, we would love to hear “Healthy” in comparison. You know, to educate ourselves on Bop Law.
