Ariana Grande slams White House for using her song in “barbaric” and “inhumane” ICE video
Ariana Grande has condemned the White House for using her song ‘Bye’ in a TikTok video promoting ICE.
The video, which is soundtracked by her 2024 song, which depicts ICE agents arresting people, is captioned, “Bye-bye. President Trump has delivered the most secure border in history.”
While the video is still able to be watched on TikTok, ‘Bye’ has since been removed as the soundtrack following Grande’s critical comments.
Per Reuters, she wrote underneath the video, “Please do not ever use my music in relation to this barbaric, inhumane, heinous nonsense. Fck ice.”
Grande’s comment is no longer visible on the post by The White House. However, her team have denied that the singer personally removed it.
A spokesperson confirmed to Variety that Grande did post the comment but said “for some reason it’s not publicly visible”.
Abigail Jackson, spokesperson for the White House, has since hit back at Grande, telling Variety, “We’ll say this one last time: what’s actually barbaric, inhumane, and heinous are the criminal illegal aliens who have injured and murdered innocent American citizens.”
Grande is not the first major artist to have had her song used, without permission, by the US government to promote ICE on social media, which has also happened to the likes of Radiohead and Sabrina Carpenter, who both publicly condemned ICE for doing so.
It also happened to Olivia Rodrigo, who had previously been a vocal critic of ICE’s actions. Her song ‘All-American Bitch’ was used in a video by the Department of Homeland Security without permission.
Last week, the star, whose new album You Seem Pretty Sad For a Girl So In Love is out today, opened up about the ordeal, stating, “It was so deeply disturbing to see that propaganda, and the fact it was my song in there made me feel even more enraged.”
Rodrigo added of ICE, “What they’re doing is so awful and barbaric and cruel. I am really sad to be in a country that thinks that’s OK.”
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