Lizzo's lawsuit against three songwriters last October has been hit with a countersuit, in which they claim that they deserve credit for writing her breakout hit, "truth Hurts." Lizzo initially filed the lawsuit against the two brothers Justin and Jeremiah Raisen, as well as Justin “Yves” Rothman, seeking a determination that they did not deserve credit for the song. However, the Raisens and Rothman have fired back, alleging that they assisted in writing an eerily similar song with Lizzo called “Healthy" months earlier.
“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. “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. When the case proceeds to trial, we look forward to sharing the sound recordings, videos, photographs and musicology that 100% prove that collaboration. Our clients deserve their fair share of the recognition and revenue that comes from collaborating on a hit song.”
The countersuit claims that, according to a musicologist, there are “strikingly similar lyric and musical elements” in the two songs. Both songs open The now-famous line, “I just did a DNA test / turns out I’m a 100% that bitch,” open both “Healthy” and "Truth Hurts." Furthermore, the next line in "Healthy" is “even when I’m holistic,” while in “Truth Hurts,” it's the strikingly similar “even when I’m crying crazy.” The use of piano, Lizzo’s “vamping,” and the overall structure of the chorus and verses are also very similar in both tracks. In the initial suit, Lizzo claimed that the songwriters had given a written waiver of any right to the song. When she first caught wind of the whole scandal, she wrote on social media: "The men who now claim a piece of Truth Hurts did not help me write any part of the song. They had nothing to do with the line or how I chose to sing it. There was no one in the room when I wrote Truth Hurts, except me, Ricky Reed, and my tears. That song is my life and its words are my truth."