WWE Hall of Famer Brie Bella learned the hard way that grabbing a trending song for a quick social media post can come with real legal consequences.
On The Nikki & Brie Show, while talking with guest Skylar Grey about how artists feel about their music being used in social posts, Brie admitted she’s often self-conscious about using songs in her Reels since creators aren’t directly compensating artists for each use.
That admission led into a revelation that she’d actually been sued once over exactly that kind of clip, a roughly 10-second Reel featuring classical music.
So when I’m doing like a Reel or, and I’m picking out a song, I always feel bad that I’m using, like, artist’s music, ’cause it is not like I’m paying for it.”
“I did get in a lawsuit with someone. Yeah. It was for a ten-second Reel and it was classical music and she put a Bonita in it.
Complicating the story slightly, one of Brie’s wine bottles happened to be visible in the video, which raised questions about whether the music use was tied to product promotion. Brie clarified that wasn’t the case; she was simply holding a drink at the time and wasn’t using the clip to advertise anything.
What was, I wasn’t, like, it was interesting. I was drinking or I was holding a drink, but it was my wine bottle. Uh-huh. But I wasn’t promoting to go buy it. It just happened to be my wine bottle was in this ten-second Reel.
She explained that the lawsuit didn’t come from the artist directly. Instead, according to Brie, a company had purchased rights to the song and was systematically searching for people using it in order to pursue legal claims against them, something she believes has happened to numerous other creators, not just her. She didn’t disclose the settlement amount but said it wasn’t small.
So we got into a, there was a lawsuit, but it wasn’t actually the artist. What happened is this company bought, I guess they’re doing this to a lot of people, will go buy, like, small people’s songs. And what they do is they kinda look to see, like, who they can go then nail with the lawsuit.”
“Yeah. So I guess I’m not one, like, I’m not the only one who’s been going through this, but I had to pay a big amount of money.
The conversation turned into a broader discussion about the fairness of pursuing legal action over songs that are algorithmically pushed as trending and simply selected from a platform’s menu rather than actively searched for.
Both Brie and Skylar agreed that using a song in a post generally benefits the artist through added exposure, which made the lawsuit feel especially frustrating to Brie in hindsight.
