An ex-flight attendant turned author is suing superstar singer Taylor Swift over allegations the artist plagiarized her work in more than a dozen of her smash hit songs and other works, including The Man, and I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.
Kimberley Marasco has filed a lawsuit in a Flordia district court accusing Swift of copyright infringement, claiming the 35-year-old singer and several songwriters she has worked with of plucking phrases out of her books and using them without permission for financial gain.
As a flight attendant during 9/11, Marasco turned to writing books in 2025 and has called upon her experiences during this terrible time in several of her works. Some of which she claims Swift and her army of songwriters plagiarized.
For example, Marasco was inspired to write her poem ‘Beams of Light’ based on her experiences as a flight attendant during 9/11. According to a complaint filed late last month, Swift’s team “used the same unique expressions” in her poem for the song My Tears Ricochet.
In another claim of copyright infringement, Marasco claims Swift use the same unique expressions from another poem by her experiences as a flight attendant to create two songs: Hoax and Illicit Affairs.
Marasco also says Swift and her team “used the same words )albeit changing a few words here and there” to come up with a strikingly similar and powerful expression in her song The Man.”
“The verse that was copied became the epitome and chorus for the song: I’m so sick of running as fast as I can/ Wondering if i’d get there quicker if I was a man / And I’m so sick of them coming at me again / … Coud all be separated from my good idea and power moves / … And it’s all good if you’re bad.”
Marasco says she discovered that Swift was infringing her copyrighted material when a coworker alerted her to similarities between her books and Swift’s songs. She then watched the Eras Tour and found “substantial similarity” between her works and Swift’s songs.
The author initially tried to make a claim against Swift in a Florida small claims court last year, but the singer’s legal team had the case removed to federal court, where it was later dismissed because Marasco couldn’t serve Swift with papers.
Now, Marasco is going after Swift again, saying she will do her best to serve papers on Swift in a bid to have her day in court.
For the time being, at least, you’ll be unlikely to find Marasco’s works on bookshelves. According to her complaint, she has currently sold around 300 books, and while her title Fallen From Grace has “been showcased to more than twenty-five thousand bookstores and retail chains around the globe,” few stores have taken up the copies on a consignment basis.
