A song by Lara Trump, one of the daughters-in-law of former President Donald Trump, has been met with derision on social media, with one critic calling it “bad autotuned karaoke.”
Lara Trump, a former television producer who is married to Eric Trump, dropped a cover of Tom Petty’s 1989 song “I Won’t Back Down” on September 29. Since its release, she has alleged that music streaming platforms have shadow-banned—or made the song nearly impossible to find—due to her family name.
In posts shared to X, formerly Twitter, Lara Trump and her husband expressed their frustration with the potential shadow ban as they called out Apple and posted screen recordings and screen grabs of the inability to find the song.
“Hey, Apple — where is my song??? Why doesn’t my song appear when you search ‘I Won’t Back Down’???” Lara Trump asked on the day of the track’s release.
Getty Images/Anna Moneymaker
“Apple appears to be viscously shadow banning [Lara’s] new song, which immediately upon release, was 31st on the iTunes charts. Lara’s name, when typed in full, is hardly viable and can only be found below “Fake News II.” The song itself is unsearchable,” Eric Trump wrote in a since-deleted X post on the same day.
During an appearance on Fox News, Lara Trump cast the net wider with her allegations, telling host Sean Hannity: “It’s really sad, because this is the kind of treatment that I think conservatives are used to. We’re used to being censored, we’re used to being shadow-banned.
“I already know my song was shadow-banned, so many people told me, on Apple Music, on Spotify, on Amazon Music. They wouldn’t put my song on the radio because it was too political.”
Newsweek has contacted Apple, Amazon, and Spotify via email for comment.
A clip of Lara Trump’s comments was shared on X, where attorney Ron Filipkowski shared a cutting response to her claims.
“HER. SONG. SUCKED,” Filipkowski wrote. “ZERO. SELF. AWARENESS. BAD. AUTOTUNED. KARAOKE.”
“I think she means to say that she is used to being entitled,” another X user chimed in.
“Just hearing her voice now, it grates on my nerves,” commented another. “Set to music and her attempt at ‘singing,’ I’d rather be water boarded.”
“I agree politics sucks but her song sucked worse….the southern twang ruined it for sure. Who does that?” wrote another detractor.
“I couldn’t believe how bad it was,” another said. “I was prepared to the horror that she might have a great voice and would be able to support the family on it as the Trumps go down, but it was embarrassingly awful. I should have known.”
While the song has been met with a wave of criticism on social media, some X users spoke out in Lara Trump’s defense.
One supporter said that the budding musician “is getting screwed just due to her name, she cut a song, popular and very good. But being a Trump she will be treated poorly by the same people taking her money.”
Sharing a YouTube link to the track, another opined that Lara Trump “does a pretty good rendition” of the song.
Reacting to claims of Lara Trump’s track facing stumbling blocks, another wrote: “How ‘petty!’ Dissident Liberals are such a******, they are so jealous of everyone! Grow up!”
In an interview with the Daily Mail last month, Lara Trump shared that her newfound music career took shape after she posted a few videos of herself playing the piano. She said she’s “not trying to be a professional singer,” but that she just wants to share her “love of music.”
However, this is not the first time a member of the Trump family has used the song “I Won’t Back Down” by Petty and received backlash.
In 2020, the family of the late American rock legend sent a cease and desist letter to Donald Trump’s campaign after it blasted the song “I Won’t Back Down” at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In a statement posted to Petty’s Twitter account shortly after the rally, the family wrote that the use of the song was “in no way authorized.”
“Both the late Tom Petty and his family firmly stand against racism and discrimination of any kind,” the statement read. “Tom Petty would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate. He liked to bring people together.”