Related videos:
The singer Ariana Grande demanded that the White House remove her song "Bye" from a video posted on TikTok featuring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents handcuffing migrants, delivering a direct and straightforward message: "Please do not use my music for this barbarity, inhumanity, and atrocity. Screw ICE."
The video, shared on June 11 by the official TikTok account of the White House, used the lyrics "Bye Bye, boy bye, bye bye, it's over it's over oh yeah" as background music for images of arrests, accompanied by the caption: "Bye-bye The president Trump has achieved the safest border in history."
The song, from the album Eternal Sunshine, had reached number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and had gone viral on social media, making it an attractive target for the administration's communication strategy.
When Grande tried to protest in the comments of the video, the White House deleted his messages.
Far from remaining silent, the artist repeated the comment multiple times and posted screenshots as evidence of the systematic deletion.
His team also took legal action, managing the copyright to block the audio of the video.
Hours later, the video was muted and the White House eventually removed it from its profile, although various users managed to share it on their social media.
The spokesperson for the administration, Abigail Jackson, responded with a statement, as reported by Milenio: "We will say it one last time: what is truly barbaric, inhumane, and atrocious are the illegal foreign criminals who have harmed and killed innocent American citizens."
The incident is not an isolated case. In recent months, the Trump administration has systematically used viral songs to accompany videos of immigration raids, without obtaining the artists' consent.
Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, SZA, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, and MGMT are among those who have publicly protested the unauthorized use of their music in content from ICE or the Department of Homeland Security.
Carpenter described the use of her song "Juno" as "wicked and repugnant," while Rodrigo condemned that her song "all-american bitch" was used in a self-deportation video, calling ICE's actions "unthinkable."
The context of the controversy is that of a maximum pressure immigration policy: since January 2025, the Trump administration has accounted for over 605,000 deportations and 1.9 million self-deportations, with ICE operating at a capacity of up to 72,000 detainees.
The border czar himself, Tom Homan, acknowledged that between 35% and 40% of those detained have no criminal records.
The incident occurred days after Grande launched her The Eternal Sunshine Tour on June 6 at the Oakland Arena, in front of more than 17,000 spectators, placing her at the peak of her public visibility. According to some analysts, this may have influenced the choice of her music by the White House communication team.
This is not the first time that an artist has been involved in a clash like this with the administration: in January 2025, Selena Gomez posted a video crying over the ICE raids, to which the White House responded with its own video featuring mothers whose children had allegedly been victims of undocumented immigrants.
Filed under: