GRL threw shade at Little Mix’s ‘Shout Out to My Ex’ and things got seriously messy
By Will Stroude
It’s not even been 24 hours since Little Mix released brand new single ‘Shout Out To My Ex’ and the girls have already been dragged into an apparent plagiarism row over the (frankly brilliant) song.
Soon after the girls performed the track live on Sunday night’s X Factor results show (October 16), fans of American trio GRL took to Twitter to suggest that it sounded a little too similar to their 2014 UK Top 20 hit ‘Ugly Heart’, using the hashtag #ShoutOutToUglyHeart.
The hashtag soon began to trend – helped in no small part by the fact the band – which exists under an almost entirely rather different line-up since ‘Ugly Heart’s release – tweeted it themselves tweeting it.
https://twitter.com/grl/status/787787205502656512
Things soon came to a head when the hashtag was tweeted from the account of late GRL member Simon Battle, who took her own life in September 2014 after battling with depression – a tragic incident which led to the band going on a prolonged hiatus and led to two more members quitting less than a year later.
After an understandable backlash from fans and followers, an apology was soon issued by the person running the account, who said they didn’t “mean it in in any horrible way”, and that the account is only used to promote The Simone Battle Foundation, which works to ensure the mental well-being of women in the arts.
https://twitter.com/GRLSimone/status/787811533275279360
“Absolutely disgusting what you tweeted on this account, you should be ashamed,” wrote one user.
“Whoever is tweeting from @GRLSimone‘s account is tarnishing her memory. She would want to spread love, not negativity,” wrote another.
Little Mix have yet to comment on the drama but, judging by the ferocity with which fans are continuing to get at each other, the fight looks far from over.
What do you think? Do ‘Ugly Heart’ and ‘Shout Out to My Ex’ stand up to indivodual scrutiny, or are they a little too close for comfort? Consider the evidence below:
Some girls got a lot of explaining to do. #ShoutOutToUglyHeart pic.twitter.com/RAoG1efG4L
— MOTHER FUCK’N ⭐️ boy (@aFUCKINGstarBOY) October 17, 2016
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