Lizzo gives writing credit and files separate harassment suit for ‘Truth Hurts’

Lizzo is giving credit where credit is due, but she’s also serving lawsuits where lawsuits are due. The multi-talented musician is one week away from her single "Truth Hurts" becoming the longest running number one song on the Billboard charts by a female rapper, but before celebrating her achievement, Lizzo has some housekeeping to do. Namely, give one person a writing credit and file a harassment lawsuit against two others.Lizzo took to Twitter on Wednesday night to clarify her next steps, revealing that she’s planning to give a writing credit to singer Mina Lioness who came up with the now-iconic song lyric, “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100 percent that b***h.” Lizzo and Lioness have previously spoken publicly about the origins of the line, with the women tweeting one another in February 2018. At the time, Lizzo said that while she had seen a meme with the DNA line, she did not believe it was Lioness who was behind it.

Inspirational or not, when it’s not your words and you use it for your own gain you still give credit to who said it. I am the creator of that meme, the writers credit lands here.

— Legendina (@MinaLioness) February 9, 2018

Now Lizzo is changing her tune and has decided to give the British performer a writing credit on her hit song. Sharing the news on Twitter this week, Lizzo wrote, “I later learned that a tweet inspired the meme.” Speaking of Lioness, Lizzo added, "The creator of the tweet is the person I’m sharing my success with."Two people Lizzo is not sharing her success with are songwriting brothers Justin and Jeremiah Raisen. The Raisen brothers claimed in an October 2019 Instagram post that they have been fighting with Lizzo and her team for two years for what they see is their rightful songwriting credit for the same track. The Raisen brothers claim they were in the studio with Lizzo and helped write the demo "Healthy," with parts of the song, including the DNA line, making it into "Truth Hurts."Revealing that they’ve attempted to settle the matter privately, the brothers wrote, "After reaching out to Ricky Reed and Lizzo’s team about fixing it, we put the song in dispute in 2017 when it came out. We’ve tried to sort this out quietly for the last two years, only asking for 5% each but were shutdown every time." Feeling that coming forward publicly was their only option left, the brothers said that their intention is not to "…throw any negativity toward Lizzo’s momentum and movement as a cultural figure. If we believe in what she’s preaching, believing in ourselves & our own voices is something we thought she’d understand." The Raisen brothers added that Mina Lioness should be properly credited and said that if they win their lawsuit and earn 5 percent of profits from the single, they will share the earnings with Lioness.Lizzo responded on Twitter yesterday and again denied that the men had any rights to the songs and were not part of its creation.

pic.twitter.com/Q4AKIPhMiE

— #STREAMTRUTHHURTS (@lizzo) October 23, 2019

The "Juice" singer has now filed a lawsuit against the Raisen brothers to establish that the pair were not involved in the making of her hit song. Lizzo’s attorney Cynthia Arato has made a statement about the case, saying “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.”[video_embed id='-1']Lizzo's had a big year and she's just getting started[/video_embed]