Ariana Grande harshly criticized President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday after the White House used her song Byereleased in 2024, in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) TikTok video showing federal agents arresting and handcuffing people.
In the comments section of the video, the Grammy winner asked the administration to stop using her music, Reuters reported. “Please never use my music again in connection with this barbaric, inhumane and atrocious nonsense.”
To date, Grande's comment no longer appears in the comments section.
A spokesperson for Grande confirmed to Variety that the singer wrote the comment, but “for some reason it is not publicly visible” on the post. A source told both Reuters and Variety that Grande's team is considering how to remove her music from the video.
In a statement to Rolling Stone in response to Grande's claims, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said: “We will say it again one last time: What is truly barbaric, inhumane and atrocious are the criminal illegal immigrants who have hurt and killed innocent American citizens.”
This isn't the first time Grande has sparked a reaction from the White House. In September 2025, he reshared a post on Instagram denouncing the Trump administration for ICE raids and transphobic rhetoric. According to Variety, the post was written by activist Matt Bernstein and asked the question: «It's been 250 days. Now that immigrants have been violently torn from their families and their communities have been destroyed, now that transgender people have been blamed for virtually everything and live in fear, now that free speech is on the brink of collapse for all of us, have your lives gotten better?”
In response, White House deputy spokesman Kush Desai told Entertainment Weekly at the time: “Save yourself the tears, Ariana. Because President Trump's actions ended Joe Biden's inflation crisis and are bringing trillions of dollars in new investments.”
Trump has drawn the ire of several musicians for using their music, often without permission. It happened especially during his 2024 election campaign. From Canadian singer Céline Dion to the family of soul icon Isaac Hayes, many musicians have made public statements and sent cease-and-desist letters to Trump via lawyers.
From Rolling Stone US.
