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The Twigs countersue FKA Twigs in trademark dispute over stage name
The Twigs have countersued FKA Twigs, escalating a long-running trademark fight over the singer’s stage name.
Indie duo The Twigs have countersued FKA Twigs, alleging the singer has used her fame and money to try to “destroy” their trademark.
Laura Good and Linda Good filed their claims on Monday, May 11, after Barnett, whose full name is Tahliah Barnett, sued them earlier this year in an effort to have a judge rule that her stage name does not infringe on theirs. The LA-based sisters say the dispute stretches back more than a decade.
The two sides first went to court in 2014, when The Twigs sued Barnett over trademark use they said dated to 1996. That case ended after the band lost an initial injunction request and dropped the suit. The issue resurfaced in 2024, when The Twigs sent Barnett a cease-and-desist letter after she applied for her own trademark.
Barnett then sued the band, accusing them of trying to “weaponise” baseless claims in order to get money from her. According to Rolling Stone, court documents say Barnett offered the duo $15,000 so the two acts could “co-exist,” but The Twigs rejected the proposal and said they did not consent to it.
“The parties operate in entirely different commercial ecosystems,” Barnett’s lawsuit said, arguing that confusion between the acts is implausible. It pointed to FKA Twigs’ 3.2 million monthly Spotify listeners and more than 300 million YouTube views, while describing The Twigs as having “simply disappeared” with 705 Instagram followers and 25 monthly Spotify listeners.
The filing also said The Twigs had threatened to seek an injunction blocking Barnett from using her stage name and had demanded a seven-figure payout to settle any claims.
In their countersuit, Laura Good and Linda Good argue Barnett did not prevail in the 2014 case because she was then based mainly in the UK and focused more on acting and dancing than music. They also say she had not filed any trademarks at the time and used the FKA prefix to distinguish herself from the band.
The sisters claim that changed as Barnett’s music career grew, pointing to the release of Magdelene in 2019, her signing to Atlantic, her trademark filing and the arrival of the album EUSEXUA. They also allege she gradually began dropping “FKA” at live shows and public appearances around that period.
The countersuit says those actions were designed to “weaken, if not destroy” the band’s intellectual property rights. It states, via Billboard, that “Barnett intentionally used her celebrity and resulting power with the media to act in ways designed to increase the public’s association of Barnett and her musical services with ‘Twigs,’ while eroding and overwhelming counterclaim-plaintiffs’ goodwill … in those same musical channels of commerce.”
The Twigs are seeking an injunction that would stop Barnett from using the stage name, along with unspecified damages for trademark infringement and unfair competition.
Neither Barnett nor her representatives have commented publicly on the countersuit. NME has contacted a spokesperson for FKA Twigs for comment.
FKA Twigs released EUSEXUA last year. NME gave the album five stars, while “Room Of Fools” placed at Number 25 on the outlet’s list of the 50 best songs of 2025. She has since released the follow-up EUSEXUA Afterglow, which NME reviewed with four stars.
