Photo Credit: Mary J. Blige for WLBS / CC by 3.0
Suno has pulled an ad featuring Mary J. Blige in which she seemingly endorsed the platform after it was revealed the deal was made without her authorization.
After R&B icon Mary J. Blige received a deluge of hateful comments online over a Suno ad in which she appeared to endorse the AI music platform, the company pulled the ad—but not because of the backlash. It turns out, the deal was never authorized.
Late last month, Suno released a video ad featuring the legendary singer, in which she is seemingly collaborating and positively responding to an AI-generated song that sounds much like her own work. However, she never approved the ad, and the individual who made the deal with Suno did not have the authority to do so.
“Ms. Blige is an icon who we all deeply admire,” wrote a Suno spokesperson in a statement to Variety. “(S)he hasn’t stopped innovating. That’s why we wanted to work with her.”
“We entered into a business deal with someone who presented themselves as Ms. Blige’s official representative. As soon as we learned this was not the case and that Ms. Blige was uncomfortable, we terminated the advertising campaign.”
While the ad features Blige seemingly saying that the process behind building the track heard in the video is “amazing” and “dope,” the ad is edited in such a way that it’s unclear what she is actually responding to.
The timing for Suno couldn’t be worse as it faces even more bad publicity. The company is the subject of numerous lawsuits, many of which are from various arms of the music industry. Despite the fact that Suno has secured licensing deals with two label majors (Warner and the new iteration of BMG), the company is still involved in lawsuits filed by Universal and Sony over the allegedly unauthorized use of their copyrighted works.
Suno is also facing lawsuits from artists and authors, the most recent one being a proposed class action led by country singer Jason Isbell. His filing, like many others, claims that the company enables users to produce tracks based on artists’ identities without their consent.
Mary J. Blige inks a multimillion dollar deal with Suno to promote using AI in music. pic.twitter.com/2SRNBKHlWE
— EM (@EXECUTIVEXMEDIA) August 31, 2026