Bobby Brown slams Britney Spears' 'My Prerogative' cover

Updated April 17, 2025, 3:05 p.m. | By Music Reporter

Ouch! The Grammy Award winner says Britney Spears "butchered" one of his most iconic songs.

Britney Spears and Bobby Brown — Britney Spears, Bobby Brown/ YouTube (Britney Spears, Club Shay Shay)

Bobby Brown didn't hesitate to share his thoughts on Britney Spears' cover of 'My Prerogative', and the feedback wasn't great.

During an appearance on Shannon Sharpe's 'Club Shay Shay' podcast, the 56-year-old revealed that the 1988 classic is his favourite song from his music catalogue.

Brown wrote the song after New Edition kicked him out of the group. He embarked on a solo career and released 'My Prerogative' as the second single from his album, 'Don't Be Cruel'.

"Everybody's talking all this stuff about me / Why don't they just let me live? / I don't need permission, make my own decisions / That's my prerogative / They say I'm crazy, I really don't care," he sings in the song.

Speaking to Sharpe, Brown says the song was his personal anthem.

"I wrote it for myself. I wrote it as an anthem and as a theme to my lifestyle and what I was all about. That's basically the reason I think I'm still here, 42 years later," he said.

Several musicians covered the song over the years. However, it seems Brown hated all of them, including Spears' 2004 version.

"I don’t think they really did justice to any of the samples that they have done to my songs. Like, Britney Spears butchered ‘My Prerogative'," he said.

Brown added that he cleared the sample because he thought she was going to kill it.

"I couldn't take it. I cleared it only because it was Britney Spears... But I felt it was a butchering."

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Bobby Brown reveals he felt Britney Spears butchered his song “My Prerogative” and says no artist who’s ever sampled his music has done it justice.

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Social media users did not agree with Brown. Many said Spears did a great job on the cover.

"Respect to Bobby, but that’s wild. 'My Prerogative' is iconic either way – Britney made it a whole new anthem. Sometimes the remix hits a different generation, and that’s part of the legacy," one person said on X.

Another user added: "Bobby Brown acting like Britney’s version isn’t the version most people know."

Some also took a swipe at Brown, saying he wouldn't still be relevant if it were not for his ex-wife, Whitney Houston.

"I, like the rest of the world, have not thought of Bobby Brown since Whitney’s passing. Britney became a superstar globally off of her own name, not her more talented and more famous spouse," another X user wrote.

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Britney Spears – 'My Prerogative'