Ariana Grande has ripped into the White House for using her song.
Donald Trump’s administration has developed a taste for pinching artists’ music for its propaganda videos to celebrate ICE deportations, infuriating musicians and sparking public spats and demands that they desist.
Vocal ICE critic Grande, 32, is at the center of the latest incident, in what has become one of the defining dynamics of the Hollywood-Washington relationship during Trump’s second term.
@whitehouse Bye-bye 👋 President Trump has delivered the most secure border in history
♬ original sound - The White House
On Thursday, she responded to a TikTok posted by the White House showing people being escorted in handcuffs and loaded into cars under the flash of blue lights. Over the top of it, her song “bye” played.
“Please do not ever use my music in relation to this barbaric, inhumane, heinous nonsense,” Grande responded in a now-deleted comment, reported Reuters and TMZ. “F--- ICE,” she added.
Firing back at the Wicked actor, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said: “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.”
Why her comment was deleted isn’t known at the time of writing, although the Daily Bast has reached out to the White House and Grande’s representatives to find out.
Her outcry did appear to have some effect, however, because, at the time of writing, the TikTok clip says it has no sound.
Reuters reported that a source said the Academy Award nominee’s team had been looking into how to get it taken off the montage, captioned, “Bye-bye. President Trump has delivered the most secure border in history.”
Grande has form when it comes to attacking the widely criticized, massively publicized mass-deportation push and was seen wearing an “ICE OUT” pin to the Golden Globes earlier this year.
She has also posted advice and tactics for her millions of followers on how to contact their senators if they witness an ICE deportation in their state.
She also used her social media profile to ask people who voted for Trump whether their lives had gotten better since he returned to power.
Many A-list celebrities have joined in the chorus decrying ICE and its deportations, which have been criticized for being heavy-handed and at times brutal.
Actors Pedro Pascal, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Eva Longoria, musicians Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, Tyler, the Creator, and Neil Young have all condemned ICE or the administration as a whole.
Meanwhile, several musicians have locked horns with the administration over the use of their music, including Celine Dion, Rihanna, Jess Glynne, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, and Beyoncé.
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