Ariana Grande lashed out at the White House after a White House TikTok used her 2024 song “Bye” in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement video showing arrests. Her comment was later deleted, and a White House spokeswoman responded by arguing the violence lies
On a White House TikTok page that went silent by Friday, Ariana Grande’s anger didn’t. It arrived in the comments, raw and blunt, after the account posted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement propaganda video that used her 2024 song “Bye.”
The clip featured the chorus where Grande sings “Bye-bye, boy, bye” while footage rolled of ICE arrests. Grande—who has been publicly critical of President Donald Trump and his immigration crackdown—left a message telling the White House not to use her music for what she called “barbaric. inhumane. heinous nonsense.” She wrote: “please do not ever use my music in relation to this barbaric. inhumane. heinous nonsense. fuck ICE.” TMZ later published a screenshot of her comment after it was removed.
By Friday, the White House TikTok was completely silent on the platform, and it wasn’t clear what happened to Grande’s post—why it was deleted, who deleted it, or why the “Bye” song no longer played in the video on the platform. HuffPost said it reached out to Grande for comment.
What did arrive was a response from the White House side. In a statement. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson pushed back hard on Grande’s framing. saying: “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.”.
Grande’s feud with the Trump administration has been public for months. In September. she posted a heated question to Trump supporters on her Instagram Story. saying in part: “it’s been 250 days. ” and adding: “now that immigrants have been violently torn from their families and communities have been destroyed. now that trans people have been blamed for virtually everything and live in fear. now that free speech is on the brink of collapse for us all ― has your life gotten better?”.
After her White House comment disappeared. Grande moved on to work that aligns with her broader criticism of the administration’s approach. On Friday, she launched The Brighter Days Ahead Foundation, a new effort that supports several vulnerable communities. Among the grantees is the Defending Our Neighbors Fund. which raises money for organizations that provide legal representation and bond assistance to immigrants facing detention and deportation.
The sequence—Grande’s music pulled into a White House immigration message. her immediate backlash. the deletion that left fans and critics searching for the missing context—keeps attention locked on the same question: whether government messaging should use celebrities’ work at all. and what it means when a disagreement about policy becomes personal in the spotlight.
Ariana Grande White House TikTok ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement Trump administration Abigail Jackson immigration crackdown The Brighter Days Ahead Foundation Defending Our Neighbors Fund