Miley Cyrus and her co-writers - Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack - of the 2023 hit song "Flowers" are being sued by Tempo Music Investments over similarities between Cyrus' song and Bruno Mars' 2013 single "When I Was Your Man", from his second album, Unorthodox Jukebox.

In the new lawsuit, filed on Monday in Los Angeles Federal Court, the music rights-acquiring fund claimed that "Flowers" includes unauthorized "exploitation" of the Mars track.

Although Mars is not named as a plaintiff, Tempo Music said it owns a portion of "When I Was Your Man", purchased from Philip Lawrence, one of the co-writers of the song along with Mars, Ari Levin, and Andrew Wyatt.

According to the lawsuit obtained by Rolling Stone:

“Any fan of Bruno Mars’ When I Was Your Man knows that Miley Cyrus’s Flowers did not achieve all of that success on its own. Flowers duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements of When I Was Your Man, including the melodic pitch design and sequence of the verse, the connecting bass line, certain bars of the chorus, certain theatrical music elements, lyric elements, and specific chord progressions.”

"Flowers", was a huge success for Cyrus, winning her two GRAMMY awards - "Record Of The Year" and "Best Pop Solo Performance" - and staying eight weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song sparked conversation among fans due to its lyrical similarities to "When I Was Your Man", which many saw as a reference or homage to Mars' song.

The lawsuit, however, states:

“It is undeniable based on the combination and number of similarities between the two recordings that Flowers would not exist without When I Was Your Man. With Flowers, Cyrus, Hein and Pollack have created a derivative work of When I Was Your Man without authorisation.”

The suit also accuses Sony Music Publishing, Apple, Target, Walmart and other companies for distributing the song. According to various newsletters, Tempo Music is trying to prohibit Cyrus and the other defendants from reproducing, distributing, or publicly performing “Flowers”, as well as seeking damages in an unspecified amount until trial.

This isn’t Cyrus's first time being subject of alleged copyright infringement, as in 2018 she was sued by Jamaican songwriter Michael May (aka Flourgon) over her 2013 song “We Can’t Stop”, which the artist claimed replicated one of his reggae hits “We Run Things”. Cyrus and her team agreed on a settlement that would be filed “pending payment of the settlement proceeds.”