Brit Smith Addresses the Controversy of Her and Jojo Siwa’s Identical New Songs

Original Karma singer, Brit Smit, came to JoJo Siwa’s defense amidst allegations of her new song being stolen. Siwa was under a lot of fire from the internet when fans noticed evidence of both Miley Cyrus and Brit Smith working with the song in the early 2010s. 

Smith originally recorded her version of “Karma’s a Bitch” in 2012 as her scrapped debut single. Smith instead attempted to launch her career with the single “Provocative,” which ultimately did not perform well, causing Smith to leave the industry. Previous to this, Cyrus had turned down “Karma’s a Bitch” in 2010 for her album Can’t Be Tamed. 

While many people are mad at Siwa for allegedly stealing Smith’s song, Smith has no writing credit for the song. The songwriters Antonina Armato, Tim James and Desmond Child share the writing credit for this track, with there being rumors of Cyrus also having a hand in the writing of the song but removing her writing credit before the song was sold to Siwa.

Not long after the release of Siwa’s version of the song, unreleased clips from Smith’s 2012 music video started to quickly make their way around the internet, gaining a lot of traction as it did. Many listeners preferred Smith’s version, leading her to release the full version for the first time over ten years after recording it. 

Smith’s version of the song peaked at number No. 8 on the US iTunes charts, surpassing Siwa’s peak of No. 89. UWM sophomore occupational science student, Hunter Brown, is a big fan of Smith’s version of “Karma.” 

“Jojo’s version overall seems so much tackier. She isn’t the bad girl that she is trying so hard to be, and you can hear the insincerity in the song. Brit’s just sounds better,” Brown said. 

As the love for Smith’s version of the song grew, so did the hate for Siwa. Smith took to TikTok  to defend her saying, “’She was totally in the right to record her version, and I hate to see that anybody would think that I’m a part of any kind of bullying or anything like that.” 

Siwa released the song on April 5 as the first step in her big rebrand, intending to help her find a more mature audience. She then followed the song with a risque music video to solidify her spot in a more mature genre. 

“I knew that it was a special song,” Siwa told  TMZ. “I knew that it fit. I knew that it was exactly the vision that I wanted to create for the world,” she said. When asked about the controversy behind the song, Siwa told TMZ, “I did not steal anything. There’s no such thing as stealing.”

When the interviewer explained Smith’s viral success, Siwa said it was “clearly not that viral cause I haven’t even seen it.”

Through the success of Smith’s version of Karma, Smith plans on releasing new music for the first time since her 2014 single “Provocative” ft. Will.i.am. Smith plans to release her full EP on May 17th. 
“The support you’ve shown me and you guys saying ‘we wanna make her dreams come true 12 years later’ has just been so unbelievably nice and even kind of inspired me a little bit to think about stepping back into this possibly,” Smith said on her TikTok.