Here’s a full rundown of Tulisa’s wild song scandal with will.i.am and Britney

Tulisa is the talk of the internet after appearing on I’m A Celeb, and all her old scandals are being resurfaced. From her leaked sex tape to drug arrest, the N-Dubz singer has had quite a lot of controversies over the years.

Another one that you probably forgot about until now is that major drama with will.i.am and Britney Spears. She underwent a five-year legal battle with the Black Eyed Peas frontman after he used her song without permission.

Remember the huge track Scream and Shout? Well, Tulisa actually wrote that and was going to release it on her debut solo album The Female Boss under a different name.

She was all set to release it in 2012 with the title I Don’t Give a F**k, but will.i.am called her and begged her to give it to him. Tulisa refused, but later found out he had taken the song anyway – and it still had her vocals on it.

“I was just casually sitting at home and there it was on the telly! Britney’s just singing, I’m like is that my voice on the record that she’s singing over? You know when you hear this, ‘in the club all eyes on us, all eyes on us’, you can hear it,” she told Fearne Cotton on her podcast.

“My vocals are on the record, so she’s singing on top of me. That’s why she’s got the British accent. I was just like ‘What the hell is this?'”

Tulisa then found out that her songwriting credit had been removed and the lyrics were attributed to will.i.am, Jef Martens and Jean Baptiste instead.

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The singer won the legal battle in 2018 and was officially credited as a writer on the song. Will.i.am admitted that she wrote it but claimed the producers “didn’t want her to have it”.

Tulisa was also awarded 10% of the total worldwide publishing rights and income for the record, so she still makes money from it today.

“Actually now I don’t complain about it because royalties are good. Will was initially right when he was saying to me, ‘this would be huge for you, you can make so much money out of it… it can be number one… someone like Britney can do that’,” she said.

If you listen to the song carefully, you can still hear Tulisa’s voice!

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Featured image by: Tulisa Contostavlos/Instagram and will.i.am/YouTube