Zara Larsson has become the latest artist to have their hit song hijacked by the White House for an offensive TikTok video showcasing ICE.
On Thursday, the Swedish singer blasted the Trump administration’s social media team for using her “Midnight Sun” to soundtrack clips of ICE agents arresting people alongside the caption “Never ending deportations.”
“I’m just sad. My heart is heavy seeing that, because I wish I could speak to whoever made that video,” Larsson said in a video response posted on TikTok. “I wish I could talk to you, and I wish I could help you remember that you and I, we aren’t that different at all. And we’re not that different from the people in the video, either. The biggest difference between us is that we were dealt a different hand in life.”
@zaralarsson #stitch with @The White House
The singer continued, “I consider myself so lucky with the life that I’ve been dealt. The fact that I’m born in Sweden, I’ve had an education and I’ve had all these opportunities just sort of laid out in front of me. I can travel and get to do all these amazing things. That’s luck. There are people out there who are not that lucky, and they want to have a better life for their families or for themselves and their children. I just don’t understand how it could be the worst thing in the world to be an undocumented immigrant.”
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It’s become an unfortunate badge of dishonour in recent years that if your song is popular enough, eventually the Trump White House will use it in unsavory ways on social media: Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Ariana Grande, and many more have been in Larsson’s situation for similar reasons.
“This video is so dehumanizing. These people in the video are real people,” Larsson continued. “It’s so crazy how everything is so meme-ified, especially ‘Midnight Sun,’ which is about feeling connected to nature, the universe and people, essentially. And this just creates this massive divide between people. I just don’t get it. It’s so fucking uncool… You guys are such fucking losers, like it’s crazy.”
From Rolling Stone US
