Another Stella Lefty song has come under plagiarism scrutiny this week (total is up to FIVE now), but are people just looking for reasons to bash her now? Let’s dive in…
As you likely already know, Stella Lefty is an indie-folk-leaning “country” artist — I put country in quotations, considering it’s incredibly hard to label the Chicago native in the genre — who dropped her first single, “Kiss Me,” back in November 2024. She released a few songs throughout 2025, but her first viral hit came earlier this year when she released a song called “Thinking ’bout You,” which has racked up over 62 million streams on Spotify alone after first popping up on… you guessed it… TikTok.
With her popularity, however, has come a lot of scrutiny. Many asked how an artist like Lefty became so popular so quickly, and a lot of skeptics have pointed towards the rising country star having a billionaire father. Stella Lefty’s real name is Stella Lefkofsky, and she’s the daughter of Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, who currently serves as the founder and CEO of Tempus AI, a health technology company.
Thanks to her father’s net worth of $5.8 billion and her absolutely absurd rise to fame, which includes additions to major festivals such as Lollapalooza, CMA Fest, Stagecoach and Austin City Limits, selling out her headlining debut tour, Long Way Home, in days, making her Opry debut on September 2nd and her hit song, “Boston,” rising all the way to #2 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, the term “nepo baby” and “industry plant” have began being hurled towards her.
Of course, there are plenty of successful artists in all genres that have come from wealthy backgrounds, with Gracie Abrams, Lady Gaga, 1975 frontman Matt Healy and even Taylor Swift herself all having rich, affluent parents. And being from Chicago doesn’t preclude you from being a country singer. Hell, Whiskey Riff got started in the Windy City.
However, the bigger issue for her, in my opinion, is that half of her songs, seem to sound exactly like hits from other artists. In two cases cases so far they are direct interpolations of other hits, where the publishing credit has been given, leading many to dub her “Stella Thefty.”
Over the past few months, an incredible four of the 14 songs present on her debut album, Long Way Home, have sounded eerily similar to past hits from other artists. While “Boston” and “Summer You Were Mine” were the two highest-profile tracks that retroactively credited both Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” and The Chick’s “Summer You Were Mine” respectively, an additional two tracks were discovered over the few weeks.
The first new addition is Stella’s “Why Wouldn’t We,” which has a melody in the chorus that’s incredibly similar to Blake Shelton’s 2017 #1 hit, “I’ll Name the Dogs,” going as far as to use the same “You’ve got X, I’ve got Y” formula in its lyrics. I’ll admit that this one is a bit of a reach, but given the first two, all of her music is now under the microscope.
Additionally (and perhaps the most egregiously), her track “Misery” has the EXACT same melody as “A Million Dreams” from the musical, The Greatest Showman.
And now, a fifth song has been called into question and it’s yet another interesting one. This time it’s none other than Wheatus’ 2000 pop-punk classic, “Teenage Dirtbag,” sounding incredibly similar to “Seven Eleven.”
Below, you can see a chronological order of “interpolation” discoveries over the past month or so, starting with the “Boston” and “Stick Season” comparison and ending with today’s “Seven Eleven” and “Teenage Dirtbag” discovery
Stella Lefty’s Biggest Hit Credits… Noah Kahan’s Biggest Hit
There’s no doubt that Stella Lefty’s biggest hit is “Boston.” It was the breakout song that put the indie-country singer on the map, and led her to sign with a record label. However, many were quick to point out that it sounds exactly like Noah Kahan’s 2022 release “Stick Season.”
Lefty says she wasn’t thinking about Noah Kahan or “Stick Season” when she wrote “Boston,” and that her hit song sounding like Kahan’s hit was basically coincidental. This video compilation of all the TikToks she posted early in her career covering “Stick Season” doesn’t exactly match up with that sentiment:
Lefty and her team eventually added Noah Kahan on the song’s writing credits after he and his team pursued legal action. And it’s very understandable that they did so… the two tracks bear an undeniable resemblance to one another:
“Boston” – Stella Lefty
“Stick Season” – Noah Kahan
“Summer You Were Mine” Pulls Inspiration from The Chicks
This was the second song that Stella Lefty listeners (and haters) couldn’t help but notice that it sounded like another, already existing country song. With “Summer You Were Mine,” there’s a clear interpolation of “There’s Your Trouble” by The Chicks.
When the song was first released by Lefty, it originally didn’t credit the hit song from The Chicks. Her record label, Atlantic Records, eventually came out and said that streaming services somehow forgot to include the writing credits to songwriters Tia Sillers and Mark Selby, and that Stella’s song is, in fact, an interpolation of the 1998 song from The Chicks.
“Summer You Were Mine” – Stella Lefty
“There’s Your Trouble” – The Chicks
So we have two interpolations that are confirmed, with publishing credits given… but there’s three more Stella Lefty songs that also sound awfully similar to others.
Does “Why Wouldn’t We” Steal From Blake Shelton?
What’s the old saying? Once is an accident, two times is a coincidence and three times is a pattern? Here’s the third example of Stella Lefty releasing a song that immediately makes listeners think, “I feel like I’ve heard this one before.”
Since Stella Lefty is a “country” artist herself, fans quickly noticed that the chorus of “Why Wouldn’t We” sounded an awful lot like another country song from Blake Shelton. Listen to “Why Wouldn’t We” and “I’ll Name The Dogs” back to back, and it’s clear to see why fans are saying her song sounds like Shelton’s No. 1 hit.
“Why Wouldn’t We” – Stella Lefty
“I’ll Name The Dogs” – Blake Shelton
“Misery” Sounds Like a Song From The Greatest Showman
Here, we get to a fourth song that listeners have found connects to another well-known track. This one is a bit niche, since the song Stella seems to “find inspiration in” is actually from a musical called The Greatest Showman. Not all country fans are probably familiar with the project… but the Hugh Jackman-led film had one heck of a soundtrack.
Again, it’s the chorus of a Stella Lefty song that lines up with a chorus of a previously released track. This time, it’s Stella’s “Misery” that matches up almost perfectly with “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman, which is arguably the most blatant rip-off to date.
Take a listen below and see what you think:
“Misery” – Stella Lefty
“A Million Dreams” – The Greatest Showman
Another Cover-Turned-Interpolation With “Teenage Dirtbag”?
If the aforementioned saying goes, “Once is an accident, two times is a coincidence and three times is a pattern,” what the hell is a fourth and fifth time? On her fifth alleged interpolation on the album (so far), Stella crafts the verse of her song “Seven Eleven” incredibly close to Wheatus’ pop-punk standard, “Teenage Dirtbag.”
Like “Boston” and “Stick Season,” what makes the connection between these two even more egregious (beyond the fact that it’s the fifth time getting caught) is that she covered “Teenage Dirtbag” on TikTok back in August of 2025.
@stellaleftycovers teenage dirtbag 😛 #fyp #teenagedirtbag #cover ♬ original sound – Stella Lefty
You almost have to give her credit at this point; she’s pulling from everything ranging from country and folk to pop punk and musicals. Not that it’s any better or worse, but I’m nearly excited to see where the next copycat song pulls its inspiration from.
At the same time, Stella is a relatively young and a very inexperienced artist so it’s a bit natural to pull heavily from her influences. She also has the money to essentially hand over publishing rights for any copyright issues that might arise with the aforementioned artists. She also probably has the money to fight it so it remains to be seen how it will all shake out. As for now, it seems like she rather play nice until all the smoke blows over… but at this point, I’m not sure that it will…
“Seven Eleven”
“Teenage Dirtbag” – Wheatus
That’s all we’ve got for now, but judging how rapidly these first five copycats were discovered, I wouldn’t be surprised if listeners find a sixth song in the coming days.
