Beyoncé is being sued over an allegedly unauthorized sample on her smash 2022 hit Alien Superstar.
The hitmaker, 44, is being taken to court by a company called Hirose Enterprise and a producer named Shuji Hirose, for alleged copyright infringement, according to TMZ.
Hirose claims to own the rights to a song titled Moonraker by a musician named John Holiday.
The company alleges that Beyoncé sampled a ‘spoken-word introduction’ for Alien Superstar, featured on her 2022 album Renaissance.
The lawsuit claims Beyoncé and her team failed to license the sample before releasing the album.
Although Beyoncé secured a license weeks later from the performer, Holiday, Hirose claims that Holiday had transferred rights to the song decades earlier.
Hirose claims that despite being notified of the infringement, Beyonce’s company has continued to sell the record.
Hirose is seeking an injunction to halt further monetization of the work, along with unspecified damages.
Renaissance, Beyonce’s seventh studio album, was released in 2022. The dance-heavy album features 16 tracks, including Alien Superstar.
The singer later concluded her historic Renaissance World Tour in October 2023 with a final performance at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
While it temporarily held the crown as the highest-grossing tour by a female artist in history, the record was later shattered by Taylor Swift’s mammoth Eras Tour, which raked in over $2 billion.
Last August, the songstress achieved a major career milestone when she got one step closer to EGOT status.
Beyonce has garnered a total of 35 Grammys thus far, and recently scored her first Emmy win for Netflix’s Beyoncé Bowl special which aired Christmas Day last year.
The songstress concluded her Cowboy Carter Tour in July. Concerts officially kicked off in April in support of her eighth studio album of the same name.
Last December, Beyonce officially reached billionaire status, cementing her place as one of the most powerful figures in modern music and joining an extraordinarily small group of artists to cross the coveted ten-figure threshold.
According to Forbes, the superstar is now one of just five musicians to achieve billionaire status, alongside her husband Jay-Z, who has an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion to $2.6 billion, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and Rihanna.
The milestone came after a period of extraordinary reinvention for Beyonce, whose career continues to evolve more than two decades after she first rose to fame.
While her 2023 Renaissance World Tour was already considered a career high, the following year saw her take an unexpected creative turn.
In 2024, Beyonce released Cowboy Carter, her first country album that opened new commercial doors, including a high-profile NFL Christmas Day halftime performance and what would go on to become the world’s highest-grossing concert tour of 2025.
The combined impact of those ventures ultimately pushed her net worth into billionaire territory.