White House hit back at Ariana Grande after she called out Trump administration’s for using her song Bye in a social media post that promotes US immigration arrests, labeling the video as “barbaric”.
On Tuesday, the White House shared a TikTok video that showcased US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents apprehending and handcuffing people.
The video featured Grande’s song Bye as its background music and included the caption: “Bye-bye. President Trump has delivered the most secure border in history,” The UK Independent reported.
On Thursday, Grande reacted in the comments section of the post, stating, “Please do not ever use my music in relation to this barbaric, inhumane, heinous nonsense. F*** ICE,” as reported by Variety.
By Friday morning, her comment was no longer visible on the post. Grande’s representatives confirmed to Variety that she had indeed made the comment, but it was “for some reason not publicly visible.”
A source close to Grande informed Reuters that her team was looking into ways to have the song removed from the video.
The audio track in the video seems to have been either removed or muted since that time.
As of this writing, the video remains on TikTok, but it now shows the message: “This sound isn’t available,” as per The UK Independent.
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White House reacts
Following Grande’s remarks, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson stated: “We’ll say this one last time: what’s actually barbaric, inhumane, and heinous are the criminal illegal aliens who have injured and murdered innocent American citizens.”
The response seems to allude to Grande’s song “One Last Time” from her 2014 album My Everything.
Since his return to office in January 2025, Trump has intensified ICE enforcement operations in major cities across the United States, while advocating for policies designed to expedite deportations and enhance border detentions.
This crackdown has sparked widespread protests, with anti-ICE demonstrations breaking out in Los Angeles following raids in June 2025, and subsequently spreading to cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco, where demonstrators have accused the administration of criminalizing migrants and employing militarized enforcement tactics.
Last year, Grande posted on Instagram addressing Trump voters, questioning whether their lives had improved after migrants were “violently torn from their families and communities.”
