Mariah Carey gets sued for the second time by Andy Stone over her evergreen holiday hit, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” The first case was filed and dismissed in 2022 by the same guy. However, this new case is more detailed and cites an implausibility of Carey’s story of how the music was created.

Andy Stone Sues Mariah Carey for the Second Time

This will not be the first time Andy Stone will come forward with claims of copyright infringement over “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” Stone first sued Mariah Carey, Walter Afanasieff, and Sony Music Entertainment in June 2022. However, he filed to dismiss the case in November of the same year.

Formerly, Stone was known as Vince Vance, and he had a group called The Valiants. In 1989, Stone and his group dropped a song with the same title, reaching the No. 52 spot in the 1994 US Country Singles chart. Later on, Carey’s song was released in 1994 after Stone’s 1989 hit received massive radio play in 1993.

Stone’s new lawsuit with Troy Powers, filed on November 1, 2023, claimed that Carey’s account of how she wrote the song differs from Walter Afanasieff, the co-writer. Also, Mariah’s song was released a year after theirs, with the same title.

The lawsuit further posits that the blend of chord progressions in Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is over 50% clone of Andy Stone’s original work. This doesn’t leave out chord expressions and lyric structure.

Discrepancies in Carey and Walter Afansieff’s Story

The Guardian reached out to Mariah Carey’s management after she got sued, but no response was received. She co-wrote the song with Walter Afansieff, and their account of creating it differed, giving Stone another edge.

Carey, in 2021, claimed she wrote the song very early in her career on a little DX7 or Casio keyboard in her little room. The singer said she spontaneously wrote down everything that made her feel festive and reminded her of Christmas in her little home.

But in an interview in 2022, Walter Afansieff invalidated her story, referring to it as a tall tale. He described the music creation process as a game of ping pong. According to him:

“I’d hit the ball to her, she hits it back to me … I started playing a boogie-woogie, kind of a rock.”

Then Afanasieff disclosed that Carey would chime in and start singing, ‘I don’t want a lot for Christmas’. He also revealed how she would call him within the week to ask for his contributions until her lyrics were completed and coordinated.

Andy Stone cited this discrepancy in Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff’s story. He highlighted that Carey’s co-writer didn’t even believe her story.