Unknown songwriter: My abusive boyfriend stole my lyrics – and sold them to some of pop’s biggest stars
POP STARS Eliza Doolittle and Sam Smith are being sued by an unknown songwriter who claims she wrote the lyrics they sang on chart hits.
Katie Farrah Sopher alleges that her songbook was stolen by her ‘violent’ ex-boyfriend Sean Sawyers, who sold her work on to music industry contacts.
In legal documents seen by The Mail on Sunday, Sopher is claiming more than £200,000 in damages over four songs.
Three of them are from the Surrey-based duo Disclosure: Latch, which reached No11 in the charts and featured Smith on vocals; the No2 hit White Noise; and You & Me, which featured Doolittle.
Sopher, from East London, is also seeking damages from dance duo AlunaGeorge, both for their contribution to White Noise and because she claims she wrote the lyrics to their top 20 success Attracting Flies.
In her testimony Sopher said the lyrics of all four songs sprang from the suffering she endured during a toxic fiveyear relationship, including references to domestic violence leaving her ‘black and blue’ in 2013’s White Noise.
The statement alleges Sawyers ‘attempted to control [Sopher], was jealous and possessive and… believed she was cheating on him, which made him violent and reluctant to allow [her] to speak to other men.’
Sawyers denies all the allegations against him.
Sopher claims she wrote the lyrics in a songbook which went missing shortly after she split from Sawyers in 2009.
She subsequently discovered they had been set to music and had become major hits.
But in a defence filed with the High Court, Sawyers strongly rejected Sopher’s claims.
He states: ‘I am denying all the allegations… There is zero truth to the claims made against me. I never saw the book the claimant mentions… [so] I could not have committed the alleged damages/theft, copyright infringement.’
Sawyers declined to comment further last night, while Sopher and all the musicians involved did not respond to requests for comment.