Olivia Rodrigo's 'stolen' Christmas song just got cleared by the one person who could sue
The rip-off accusations hit within hours of release. What the accusers didn't know: Rodrigo had emailed the "victim" months ago — and he's a fan.
"Take Me Home (4 Christmas)," Olivia Rodrigo's first Christmas single, came out on November 5, and the comparisons to The Waitresses' 1981 classic "Christmas Wrapping" started immediately. The new-wave bounce, the talk-sung verses, the whole Waitresses silhouette — fans heard it, and the word "rip-off" was in circulation by the end of the day.
The case collapsed the next morning, when the one man on earth with standing to complain posted his side. Chris Butler, who wrote "Christmas Wrapping," revealed that Rodrigo had contacted him long before release:
"About two months ago, I received a weird email from someone claiming to be Olivia Rodrigo. It was filled (with) Waitresses gush, and just had to be fake."
— Chris Butler, on Facebook
It wasn't fake. Butler looked her up, became a fan, told her he "would be honoured" to hear the song — and his verdict on the finished track is the opposite of a legal threat: "Her song was/is great. It's going to be a smash," predicting it could take "that elusive Christmas number one." No credit was needed, because the song neither samples nor interpolates his — the resemblance is homage, cleared with its target in advance.
The Deja Vu mirror
The reason this non-scandal matters is the scandal it rhymes with. In 2021, similarity complaints about Sour ended very differently: Rodrigo retroactively added Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and Annie Clark to the credits of "Deja Vu" over its echoes of "Cruel Summer," handing over songwriting royalties on one of her biggest hits. That episode trained a whole fandom to treat every Rodrigo release as a potential crime scene.
In 2021, the similarity complaints ended with three new names on Deja Vu's credits. In 2026, they ended with the original writer predicting her a Christmas number one.
Which is exactly where r/Fauxmoi placed the blame for this week's pile-on:
"this is from hardcore swifties mad about Deja Vu and the negative perception of swift that they always try to prove all of OR's songs are rip offs of others"
This time the formula misfired, because Rodrigo had already done the thing the Deja Vu affair taught her: go to the songwriter first. A 77-year-old new wave veteran publicly gushing about her — "He went to bat for her!", as another commenter put it — is a better character witness than any statement a label could draft. The accusation needed a victim, and the victim turned out to be in her corner.
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Round three of Swift-fandom versus Rodrigo now has a scoreboard: one song that ended in surrendered credits, one that ended in an endorsement. If the next Rodrigo single sounds like anyone, assume she has the writer's number.
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