The Weeknd Accused of Ripping Off Unreleased Majical Cloudz Video

Photo via Mitch Moore’s Instagram

Last month, the Weeknd shared a Grant Singer-directed video for “Can’t Feel My Face”, which featured Abel Tesfaye performing the song in a club before being set on fire. According to Mitch Moore, that video bears an “uncanny” resemblance to a promo he filmed last year for Majical Cloudz, Hypetrak reports. 

Moore says the video was widely shared among peers for feedback, before being scrapped due to creative differences with the band. Read Moore’s Instagram post, featuring dual-footage of the videos, below.

So about a year ago, I directed a video for Majical Cloudz. Because of creative differences, it never came out. But the production was large, and many feedback emails were sent out with private uploads of the edit. It’s come to my attention that some body at the helm of a certain mega popular video must have seen one or more of these unreleased edits. The resemblance is too uncanny. My mind is a mansion of creativity, so this petty theft is nbd to me. BUT I’M STILL CALLING THE POLICE!!

A video posted by Mitch Moore (@mitch____moore) onAug 24, 2015 at 12:23pm PDT

Update (8/25, 1:35 p.m.): On Twitter, Majical Cloudz’s Devon Welsh explicitly distanced the band from Moore’s accusations. “For Any Concerned Journalists: I have made no accusations to anyone whatsoever, the director of an aborted project is dragging me into this,” he wrote.

for the record I didn’t accuse The Weeknd of stealing our video lol, this is laughable. Our original video idea was very generic

— ㎡ΛJ¡¢∀⌠ ₡Ł✪υδΖ (@majicalcloudz) August 25, 2015

The person who made that foolish claim was a video director we briefly worked on something with before going our separate ways

— ㎡ΛJ¡¢∀⌠ ₡Ł✪υδΖ (@majicalcloudz) August 25, 2015

for the record I wouldn’t even care at all if there was any resemblance, but there isn’t and our idea was unoriginal anyway

— ㎡ΛJ¡¢∀⌠ ₡Ł✪υδΖ (@majicalcloudz) August 25, 2015

A video director we didn’t particularly enjoy working with for a brief period in 2013 doesn’t speak for the band! haha

— ㎡ΛJ¡¢∀⌠ ₡Ł✪υδΖ (@majicalcloudz) August 25, 2015

omg there’s a scandalous article about this up on pitchfork, and I haven’t even seen the Weeknd’s video… shaking my head

— ㎡ΛJ¡¢∀⌠ ₡Ł✪υδΖ (@majicalcloudz) August 25, 2015

For Any Concerned Journalists: I have made no accusations to anyone whatsoever, the director of an aborted project is dragging me into this

— ㎡ΛJ¡¢∀⌠ ₡Ł✪υδΖ (@majicalcloudz) August 25, 2015

Here’s the “Can’t Feel My Face” video:

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