The drama surrounding JoJo Siwa’s dive into the world of music continues, as new info about her song, “Karma” has been unearthed — including a theory that it was originally written for Miley Cyrus.
Siwa has put a ton of emphasis on “Karma” leading up to and after its release. She went viral for saying that she told her label she wanted to “start a new genre of music" called “gay pop,” and cited “Karma” as part of this process.
She also told Billboard that they recorded it six different times with different producers, that the first recording was “a whole different song,” and insinuated the lyrics had shifted a lot, too.
It’s important to note that Siwa doesn’t have a writing credit on “Karma,” nor has she outright claimed to have written it (Tim James, Antonina Armato, and Desmond Child are credited for that). In fact, she’s acknowledged that the song was brought to her and rights had to be obtained in order for her to release it. But it’s also been evident from her interviews that she takes a lot of creative ownership out of how the song turned out.
Not long after the video was released, sleuths unearthed an “unreleased” 2012 music video from a singer named Brit Smith for a song called “Karma’s a Bitch.” To be clear, this is the exact same song Siwa released 12 years later. And it certainly doesn’t sound like the song went through a ton of revisions to get to where it is now.
With Siwa trying to draw comparisons between her starting her “bad girl” era to Cyrus’s own Bangerz era, it’s amusing that fans also discovered some evidence suggesting “Karma” may have initially been written for Cyrus herself.
TikToker @adamtheflop pointed out that an anonymous source told a Miley updates account on Twitter that the Hannah Montana star was planning to release a song called “Karma’s a Bitch.” Obviously, that never happened, but in 2012, when Smith was planning to release her song, Cyrus’s reply to one of her tweets gave credibility to the theory.
Songs initially being written for one artist and eventually being released by another instead is extremely common. It’s obvious from the discourse surrounding “Karma,” including claims Siwa “stole” the song, that this isn’t a widely understood fact.
But even among people who are aware of this practice, there’s a level of frustration surrounding how Siwa has spoken about the song. And it doesn’t help that this is the second song on her upcoming album (so far) this has happened with.
In the midst of all the attention, Smith told Page Six that she does think she was told that “Karma’s a Bitch” was originally written for and passed on by Cyrus when it was brought to her to record. She also shared that it was meant to be her first single, but her label ultimately wanted her to release a different song instead.
“And then I left the industry after that,” she said. “And so it hasn't seen the light of day until now.”
