Iggy Azalea slams “criminals” at Universal Music Group, says she’s owed millions of dollars “in the 8 figure range”

Iggy Azalea has slammed “criminals” at Universal Music Group (UMG), and has claimed she is owed millions of dollars.

The ‘Fancy’ artist, real name Amethyst Amelia Kelly, claims that the company owes her “millions of dollars in back pay,” sharing that they recently offered her an $18,000 settlement instead of the amount “in the 8 figure range” that she claims she is owed.

“I’m told this is a normal response from their lawyers and after appearing in court they end up paying millions as they’re supposed to,” the rapper and singer wrote in a post shared to X/Twitter yesterday (March 15).

“Thankfully I’m well off and can and will pursue this issue until they pay me what they owe.”

The ‘Black Widow’ musician became more incensed in follow-up post, writing: “Universal music mark my words you ugly bitch – You will pay me what’s owed.”

NME has reached out to Universal Music Group for comment.

Azalea, who in 2013 signed with UMG’s Island Def Jam and announced her departure in 2018, alleges the company never paid her royalties “for anything outside of” the United States.

She went on to claim that UMG take advantage of other artists who, unlike her, cannot afford to engage in legal battles to fight to be paid in full.

“I’d like to publicly say that I think universal music are criminals who actively take advantage of ALL of their artists in perpetuity for their own gain,” she wrote. “They are the scummiest company and they do this to SO MANY artists who unfortunately can’t afford to fight for what they’re owed thus they get away with this behavior.

“Universal music really needs to do better in their treatment of the artists who quite literally earn them millions via intellectual property they had zero part in creating. Yuck.

According to Azalea, her dispute with the company has been happening “privately” for more than two years.

Elsewhere, last year Azalea appeared to announce her retirement from music in a message to fans, telling them she felt “more passionately about design and creative direction than I do about song writing.”

That announcement came after Azalea had previously announced her return to music in August of 2022, despite claiming in the summer of 2021 that she would be taking “a few years” off. “If I can’t have peace, neither can you,” she tweeted. “I’m coming back. Cry about it.”

This was followed in November of 2022 by Azalea confirming that she was “aiming to drop a project” at some point in 2023 – while simultaneously announcing that she had sold her back catalogue for a reportedly eight-figure sum.

More recently, Drake settled his payola dispute against iHeartMedia for promoting Kendrick Lamar‘s ‘Not Like Us’, after he filed a legal dispute against UMG and iHeartMedia over allegations that the latter had received “covert payments” from UMG to play Lamar’s track in an effort to inflate its numbers.

A rep for iHeartMedia told Rolling Stone: “In exchange for documents that showed iHeart did nothing wrong, Drake agreed to drop his petition. No payments were made – by either one of us.” Meanwhile, Drake’s team said: “We are pleased that the parties were able to reach a settlement satisfactory to both sides and have no further comment on this matter.”