Was This AI Artist Based on Victoria Monét? The Actual Singer Seems…

Victoria Monét is opening up about the AI controversy she’s been embroiled in recently. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, the singer speaks candidly about Xania Monét, the rapidly rising artificial pop star whose look, name, and sound have drawn comparisons to her own. The resemblance, she says, feels a little too close for comfort.

Monét stops short of claiming the creators trained the AI on her work. But something isn’t sitting right.

“It’s hard to comprehend that, within a prompt, my name was not used for this artist to capitalize on,” she told the outlet. “I don’t support that. I don’t think that’s fair. When that name starts to ring bells in a certain way, it can easily be mixed up with my brand. It’s not ideal.”

And the concern gets existential.

“It definitely puts creators in a dangerous spot because our time is more finite,” she said. “We have to rest at night. So, the eight hours, nine hours that we’re resting, an AI artist could potentially still be running, studying, and creating songs like a machine. How would any human ever compete with that?"

@xania_monet
So crazy how it takes a funeral to bring our families together. Things so different now.. family just feel like people we used to know. #fyp #explore #foryou #xaniamonet
♬ original sound - xania_monet

Xania Monét herself has already made history as the first AI-created act to land on a U.S. radio airplay chart. The virality has drawn both fandom and fierce criticism. Kehlani publicly denounced the “artist." On The Joe Budden Podcast, the hosts were split, with some arguing that “good music is good music” and others saying they couldn’t support a sound that wasn’t human-made.

Meanwhile, the creator behind the AI artist, Telisha “Nikki” Jones, defended her work on CBS Mornings.

“Xania is an extension of me, so I look at her as a real person,” she explained. “I just feel like AI…it’s the new era that we’re in. And I look at it as a tool, as an instrument, and utilize it.”

This tension isn’t happening in a vacuum. People like Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, and Kacey Musgraves signed an open letter calling for guardrails against AI models that imitate artists’ voices, likenesses, and creative identity.

It seems like AI isn’t going away. But as Xania Monét and others like her rise to prominence, Victoria Monét weighing in on this brings up bigger questions: If the face, name, and voice of an artist can be replicated, does the music still feel human? And if you knew the song wasn’t made by a person at all, would you still hit play?

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