It won’t end.
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 67 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 and recently receiving a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the term “nepo baby” and “industry plant” have began being hurled towards her.
In case that wasn’t enough, last week, “Boston” remained at #1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart for its second week, marking her first-ever multi-week chart-topper on the format. In turn, it allowed her to become the first solo-billed woman with a debut single that has spent multiple weeks atop Country Airplay in over two decades — the last being Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” (5 weeks) in 2004.
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 so far they are direct interpolations of other hits, where the publishing credit has been given, leading many to dub her “Stella Thefty.” It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that Saturday Night Live ran an unaired skit (which was uploaded on social media) calling out her habit of “accidentally” interpolating major songs.
Over the past few months, an incredible five 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 three track also take direct inspiration from other tracks.
These additional three are the likes of Stella’s “Why Wouldn’t We” having a melody in the chorus that’s incredibly similar to Blake Shelton’s 2017 #1 hit, “I’ll Name the Dogs,” “Misery” containing the EXACT same melody as “A Million Dreams” from the musical, The Greatest Showman and most recently “Seven Eleven” having an incredibly similar verse as Wheatus’ 2000 pop-punk classic, “Teenage Dirtbag.”
Though it’s been a few weeks since the “Seven Eleven” x “Teenage Dirtbag” discovery, a sixth different song from the Chicago native is now being accused of ripping off a previous hit — this time by the artists themselves.
Back on October 1st, the Chicago native debuted a brand new, unreleased song at the legendary Bluebird Cafe in Nashville titled “Badly.” On the surface, it sounds like your standard, run-of-the-mill folk-pop outing from the 24-year-old artist.
@audreyraegibbs #stellalefty #stella #nashville #country #boston @Stella Lefty @stellaleftyhq ♬ original sound – audreyraegibbs
Shortly after the video of the performance was posted by an attendee in the crowd, however, fellow country-pop artist Shaylen and rising pop star, TAELA, took to TikTok to directly call out Stella for copying their 2024 single, “WATCH THIS.”
In the now-viral video, which has garnered 652,000 views, 56,400 likes and over 3,800 shares, they begin with the caption, “stella lefty girl…” From there, they show a section of “Badly’s” chorus in direct comparison to “WATCH THIS,” and, once again, Stella’s melody sounds eerily similar to Shaylen and TAELA’s.
@imtaelahold up♬ original sound – SHAYLEN
In the caption of her Instagram reel containing the same video, TAELA would clarify that she’s not trying to attack Lefty personally. Instead, she would explain, as many have throughout her rise to fame, that the comparison between “Badly” and “WATCH THIS” goes beyond similar chords, instead sharing the same melody and cadence.
“By the way, we are not in any way shape or form trying to tear down another artist.
We’ve both been out here grinding in Nashville for years, independently creating and funding our own music without some massive machine behind us. so when something like this happens, especially when we’ve been tagged in it and sent it over and over again, i think we’re allowed to acknowledge it.
And we’re not talking about two songs having similar chord progressions or existing in the same genre. we’re talking about the vocal melody, phrasing and cadence being essentially identical. at some point that stops feeling like coincidence.
The entire principle of creating music is giving credit where credit is due. we will not tear another woman down but we will stand up for something we created.”
What makes this specific case of Lefty getting accused of ripping off a song so notable is the fact that this marks the first time she has been directly confronted by a fellow artist. Before this, it was all fans and critics who were the driving force behind discovering similarities or “ripoffs.”
As of now, Lefty has not responded to Shaylen and TAELA’s accusations.