Lady Gaga became a first-time Oscar nominee (and possible EGOT contender) last week for co-writing the song "Til It Happens to You," from the documentary "The Hunting Ground." But according to another singer-songwriter, Gaga doesn't deserve the nomination.

Linda Perry, the former lead singer of '90s band 4 Non Blondes, took to Twitter early Monday morning to allege that the tune, co-written by multi-time Oscar nominee Diane Warren, was in fact wholly written by Warren, who then gave Gaga co-writing credit in an effort to get the song more attention. Perry said that she heard Warren's original demo of the tune, and it only featured one line that was different from the final, Gaga-performed product -- a difference so minor that she doubts Gaga had much to do with writing the song at all.


It's unclear why Perry felt the need to publicly call out Gaga and Warren (she wrote on Twitter that she knew who was originally supposed to sing the song before it was offered to Gaga, though she didn't name any names), but one possible explanation could be sour grapes: Perry had submitted a song she wrote for the movie "Freeheld," called "Hands of Love," for Oscar consideration, and the tune did not receive a nomination. She tweeted about her disappointment last week, and thanked singer Miley Cyrus for her performance of the song. Oddly, Perry also tweeted a special shout-out to both Warren and Gaga on their nomination, even retweeting an excited post from Warren.

Warren struck back at Perry's allegations on Monday with her own tweets, denying the artist's claims (though she didn't mention Perry specifically).

"The song is the result of a special collaboration between myself and Lady Gaga. As Lady Gaga and I have [consistently] said," Warren wrote.

Warren and Gaga gave a joint interview to The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month, explaining how the song came about. Here's how they described their songwriting process at the time:

Warren, who writes songs but never sings them publicly, nevertheless gave Gaga a little vocal tease of her ideas. "It was just beautiful," gushes Gaga, who says she cried upon hearing it. "Then we met and I started to play it and sing it and I would say, 'Diane, what do you think of this?' " She continues, "She took what she already had, and then she gave it to me and she said, 'Make it yours.' " One of Gaga's major contributions, according to both women, was taking a song that was somber throughout and making it increasingly triumphant and defiant as it progressed. Warren was thrilled — "She had this whole vision for it," she marvels now. And, in Gaga's words, "It became two women together, standing strong."

Gaga has yet to comment on Perry's claims, though her Little Monsters have already given Perry an earful on Twitter. The Oscars will be handed out on February 28 on ABC.

[via: Linda Perry, Diane Warren, The Hollywood Reporter]

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