Taylor Swift Responds To Resurrected ‘Shake It Off’ Lawsuit In New Statement

Taylor Swift has responded to a claim made by band 3LW that hit track ‘Shake It Off‘ plagiarised some of their lyrics, declaring herself the sole writer of the song, reports the Guardian.

“The lyrics to ‘Shake It Off’ were written entirely by me,” Swift wrote in a declaration on Monday. 3LW claimed that she stole lyrics from their 2000 hit ‘Plays Gon’ Play’ which includes the lyric “Playas, they gonna play. And haters, they gonna hate.”

Songwriters Sean Butler and Nathan Hall first brought the claim against Taylor Swift in 2017 where a judge savagely said the lyrics were “too banal” to be copied, citing 13 similar songs. However, a US federal court reversed the outcome in 2019.

“Until learning about plaintiffs’ claim in 2017, I had never heard the song ‘Playas Gon’ Play’, and had never heard of that song or the group 3LW,” Swift included her statement.

Swift also declared that the lyrics to the song were inspired by the intense public speculation and scrutiny around her personal life at the time. “With ‘Shake It Off’, I wanted to provide a comedic, empowering approach to helping people feel better about negative criticism through music, dance, and the personal independence enabling one to just shake off the negative criticism.”

She added that she came across the phrases “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” while at school.

Her supportive mother also filed an affidavit to the court, for some reason.

Andrea Swift stated she “carefully monitored both the television [Swift] watched and the music she heard” as well as the family’s shared computer. “Taylor did not attend sleepovers at friends’ houses as a young girl because we lived on a farm until she was 10 years old and I always preferred having friends come over to our home,” she said.

It’s not clear what her point is, but growing up on a farm does sound fun.