Ariana Grande Faces Lawsuit Over 'God is a Woman' Music Video

Ariana Grande is facing legal trouble over her "God is a Woman" music video after a Las Vegas-based artist is suing the singer-actress for copyright infringement.

Grande released a very artistic video for "God is a Woman," the second single from her Grammy-nominated Sweetener album, in July 2018. A lawsuit was filed against Grande for this video by Las Vegas artist Vladimir Kush and his company Kush Fine Arts Las Vegas in Nevada on Thursday. The artist and his company claim Grande copied their image of a woman in a candle flame, according to Billboard. Kush also alleged the image in Grande's video was very similar to paintings he copyrighted in 1999 and 2000.

It's uncertain how much Kush aims to obtain in the lawsuit, but he also hopes to secure a court order to have the 25-year-old's music video pulled from the internet.

At this time, the Nickelodeon alum's video holds nearly 200 million views on YouTube. Grande wrote the song alongside Max Martin, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Rickard Göransson Savan Kotecha. Salmanzadeh is also the song's producer. The song's subsequent music video was directed by Dave Meyers, produced by Nathan Scherrer and edited by Nick Gilberg.

Grande is listed on the lawsuit alongside Universal Music Group, Meyers, Scherrer and Gilberg.

Grande opened up to Australian radio host Smallzy in July about why she chose to release "God is a Woman" as the second single from Sweetener.

"You get to a point when you're like hey, ok so I could either do this thing that to me seems really dope and genuine and awesome and important makes me feel empowered and great and take whatever comes with it because I'm just being honest," she said. "Or I could be safe and be like boring and not feel as passionate when I'm on stage about what I'm singing."

Grande has faced a copyright infringement lawsuit before. In 2016, the singer was sued by Alex Greggs. He accused her 2015 single "One Last Time" of copying a 2012 track he penned for Skye Stevens, called "Takes All Night." According to court documents obtained by Variety, the lawsuit alleged that "the rhythm of the two compositions may differ" but Grande's single still apparently possessed "substantial similarity on the most important rhythmic placement of the pitches on strong melodic and harmonic beats."

In January, rapper Princess Nokia accused the Scream Queens alum of ripping off her song "Mine" from 2017 in her latest single "7 Rings," which is the second single from her forthcoming fifth studio album Thank U, Next. In a since-deleted video posted to Instagram, Nokia noted the similarities between the two tracks by playing Grande's and then her own.

"Does that sound familiar to you? 'Cause that sound really familiar to me," Nokia, 26, said. "Ain't that the lil song I made about brown women and their hair? Hmmm... sounds about white."