The GRC Trust v. Melissa Jefferson (“Lizzo”), et al.

2:2025cv10085 (C.D. Cal. 2025)

Comment by Charles Cronin

Attempting to monetize its ownership of the copyrights to the work of soul singer Sam Dees, the Georgia-based GRC Trust appears to be on a spree of infringement allegations against well-heeled pop stars including Kanye West and Melissa Jefferson (“Lizzo”). The complaint (below) in this claim against Jefferson is astonishingly weak, based on an unsupported assertion that Jefferson acknowledged using a sample of the Dee recording, ergo establishing striking similarity between the works in question. The complaint strikes me as the work of a paralegal relying on a form. It must, however, have caught the attention of Jefferson’s lawyers as the parties settled the case early in 2026.

More interesting, and significant, than this copyright dispute, however, was the amusing political fracas stemming from Jefferson’s song. It appears several rap performers have been preoccupied with particularly attractive, well-known white women, like fashion model Kate Moss, actress Sharon Stone, and, in the instant case, actress Sydney Sweeney.

The blue-eyed (and very pretty) Sweeney performed in a blue jeans ad for American Eagle clothier, which contained a play on the homophone jeans/genes. The ad prompted extravagantly mindless and insincere claims — prominently from third-tier academics desperate for publicity – that Sweeney and American Eagle were promoting racist views of physical beauty, and eugenics. The images of associated with Jefferson’s performance of “Good Jeans” (morbidly obese, sporting a grotesque denim bikini bottom) are poor support for these far-fetched assertions.

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Complaint: PDF