Zara Larsson has criticised the White House for using her song Midnight Sun in a TikTok video showing US immigration enforcement operations and promoting deportations. The Swedish pop star described the video as “dehumanising” and objected to the association of her music with the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
The video posted on the White House’s official TikTok account showed clips of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and other US law enforcement officers handcuffing and taking people away.
Its caption read “never ending deportations”, a reference to the lyric “never-ending midnight sun” in Larsson’s song. Midnight Sun initially played as the soundtrack to the video, but the song was later removed while the post itself remained online, according to BBC News.
Zara Larsson responds to the White House video
Larsson reacted in a three-minute video on her own TikTok account, where she criticised the way the people shown in the footage were portrayed.
“Those people in that video, they are real people.”
The Swedish singer said that most undocumented migrants were ordinary people with jobs who were trying to build a better future. She also described the White House video as “dehumanising”, according to Danish broadcaster DR.
Larsson argued that her own circumstances were largely the result of having been born in Sweden and having access to education and opportunities that others may not have had.
Her criticism also focused on what she saw as a contradiction between the message of Midnight Sun and the images chosen by the White House. The song draws heavily on the Scandinavian summer and the experience of the midnight sun, the natural phenomenon in which the sun remains visible at night in areas north of the Arctic Circle.
It is not the first dispute over Larsson’s music
The latest dispute is not the first time the Trump administration has used one of Larsson’s songs on social media.
Earlier in 2026, the White House published another video showing US President Donald Trump dancing to Larsson’s 2015 hit Lush Life. Larsson responded at the time with an Instagram story expressing support for immigrants and several other groups while strongly criticising ICE.
Other international pop stars have also objected to the Trump administration using their music. Sabrina Carpenter previously asked the White House not to use her songs in videos connected to immigration enforcement, while Ariana Grande has also criticised the administration’s use of her music.
The dispute involving Larsson adds a Swedish artist to a broader series of confrontations between musicians and the White House over how popular songs are used in political and government social media content. In this case, the controversy has also attracted attention in the Nordic countries because Larsson is one of Sweden’s most internationally recognised contemporary pop artists.
