Lara Trump Accuses Apple of Shadow Banning Her New Song

Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law to former President Donald Trump, accused Apple Music of shadow banning her new song, "I Won't Back Down" in the wake of its release on Friday.

Lara, a former television producer who is married to Eric Trump, dropped a cover of Tom Petty's 1989 song "I Won't Back Down" on Friday. Since its release, she has claimed however that Apple Music has shadow banned or has made the song nearly impossible to find, alleging that it is due to her family name.

In posts shared to X, formerly Twitter, Lara Trump and her husband shared their frustration to the potential shadow ban as they called out Apple and posted screen recordings and screen grabs of the inability to find the song.

"Hey, Apple — where is my song??? Why doesn't my song appear when you search 'I Won't Back Down'???," Lara Trump asked in a post on Friday morning.

"Apple appears to be viscously shadow banning LaraLeaTrump new song, which immediately upon release, was 31st on the ITunes charts. Lara's name, when typed in full, is hardly viable and can only be found below "Fake News II." The song itself is unsearchable," Eric Trump wrote in an X post on Friday.

According to the Apple Music app, when you search for just the song title, "I Won't Back Down" Lara Trump's rendition of the song does not come up in the results. However, the track is seen under her name only when you type in the track name and Lara Trump's full name on the app.

Newsweek has reached out to Apple via email for comment.

The release of the song comes after the former president's daughter-in-law announced that she was releasing a cover of it via her Instagram earlier this month.

In an interview with the Daily Mail on Friday, Lara Trump shared that her newfound music career came after she posted a few videos of herself playing the piano as she insisted that she's "not trying to be a professional singer, but that she just wants to share her love of music."

However, this is not the first time a member of the Trump family has used the song "I Won't Back Down" by Petty and received backlash.

In 2020, the family of the late American rock legend had sent a cease and desist letter to Donald Trump's campaign after it blasted the song "I Won't Back Down" at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In a statement posted to Petty's Twitter account shortly after the rally, the family wrote that the use of the song was "in no way authorized."

"Both the late Tom Petty and his family firmly stand against racism and discrimination of any kind," the statement read. "Tom Petty would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate. He liked to bring people together."

Meanwhile, some took to social media to speculate on why the song does not appear to be shown on Apple Music, seemingly pointing towards the cease and desist.

"Did you get permission from the writers to record your "performance" of it? Perhaps Apple is concerned about being sued," X user Gerry Payne wrote.

"Um. You owe the Petty Family an apology. And better hope you're not sued. Utterly classless & despicable," user Orwell's Ghost wrote.

While others accused Apple for taking sides. "Apple picking sides," The Maineiac wrote in response to Lara Trump's post.

X user Boonmee added: "Apple is corrupt to their rotten core."