President Donald Trump is in hot water for more than just the ongoing impeachment inquiry. After Prince’s hit song “Purple Rain” was used at Trump’s Minneapolis campaign rally Thursday night, despite prior promises not to use any of the singer’s music, the late pop icon’s estate released a scathing statement forbidding the Trump campaign from playing Prince’s music at rallies.
“President Trump played Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ tonight at a campaign event in Minneapolis despite confirming a year ago that the campaign would not use Prince’s music,” Prince’s estate said in a tweet on Thursday night. “The Prince Estate will never give permission to President Trump to use Prince’s songs.”
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Shared alongside the tweet was an October 2018 letter from Trump lawyer Jones Day in which it was agreed the re-election campaign would “refrain from using Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ or any other Prince music, in connection with campaign rallies or other campaign events.”
“Without admitting liability, and to avoid any future dispute, we write to confirm that the Campaign will not use Prince’s music in connection with its activities going forward,” the letter added.
This marks the second time this month that Trump has come under fire for his use of an artist’s music. On Thursday, Oct. 3, POTUS’ account shared an edited clip of Nickelback’s 2005 hit “Photograph” that included a soundbite of Joe Biden saying he never talked to his son, Hunter, about his business dealings in Ukraine. Sharing it with the caption “LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH!” the video cut to a clip from the Canadian rock band’s music video with a photo of both Bidens with a Ukrainian gas executive on a golf course.
The video was pulled from the site in less than 24 hours after Warner Music filed a copyright complaint, and while the band has not publicly commented on the odd use of their song, they are certainly seeing the effects.
According to Billboard, “Photograph,” the lead single from Nickelback’s fifth studio album, All the Right Reasons, saw a 569 percent increase in downloads and was streamed 772,000 times between Oct. 2 and Oct. 3, a 38 percent increase from its streams between Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, which totaled 558,000.
Additionally, several more artists have expressed their wishes to not have their music associated with Trump or used at his events, including Adele, Elton John, Queen, Neil Young, R.E.M., Twisted Sister, The Rolling Stones, Pharrell, and Rihanna, as well as several more.
