An American pop-country prole is staging a coup d’état against the Queen of Christmas, claiming she stole “All I Want For Christmas Is You” right from his little country boy hands. Yes, that’s right, Mariah Carey is being sued.
According to TMZ, Mariah Carey is being sued by Andy Stone — frontman of Vince Vance & the Valiants — for copyright infringement and misappropriation, alleging he co-wrote the Valiants’ track with the same title five years before the Queen released her festive slapper in 1994 (and about 14 years before it had Love Actually in a chokehold).
In the complaint filed in New Orleans’ federal court last week, Andy accuses the Songbird Supreme and her co-writer Walter Afanasieff of being “knowingly, wilfully and intentionally engaged in a campaign to infringe” his copyright.
But wait, there’s more! Despite sounding nothing alike, having completely different lyrics and embodying polar opposite vibes, Andy alleges the dynamic Christmas duo wanted to “exploit the popularity and unique style” of his song. You can watch them for yourself and decide.
Listen, Andy, my good man: do you feature in Mariah’s music video with a Whoville-esque beehive and plaited ratty as a department store shop assistant, Christmas bauble, and personal shopper?
And similarly, is Miss Thing from the Valiants frolicking in the snow with a dog pretending to be a reindeer, cuddling tiny rabbits, and taming a little dove in the group’s music video? No, there is not, and we can also add “Animal Whisperer” to Mariah’s list of accolades.
Andy wants $AU27 million in damages for alleged financial loss, because for some reason he is making a kerfuffle about this almost 30 years after Mariah released the song. And according to Forbes, she makes around $US2.5 million per year from it, so if my calculations are correct, that’s quite a bit of schmoney.
The Queen is yet to respond to the lawsuit.
Songs also can’t have the same name anymore, so someone’s gotta tell Charli XCX and Justin Bieber (and Madison Beer and Céline Dion et cetera) that one of them has gotta change their tracks titled “Baby” to something else, STAT, in case there’s another lawsuit cooking.
