Robbie Williams has published a lengthy response to those who’ve claimed that Olivia Rodrigo’s new Christmas track sounds similar to his 2012 hit “Candy” – with the British musician saying he “couldn’t care less”.

His remarks come after 23-year-old Rodrigo released her festive single “take me home (4 christmas)” – which drew inspiration from The Waitresses’ 1981 hit “Christmas Wrapping” for its bright, poppy sound.

However, when the song was released last week, many fans noticed that the melody and beat sounded similar to a completely different track: Robbie Williams’ chart-topping hit “Candy”.

Now, Williams has addressed the claims, saying that while Rodrigo “may have accidentally stumbled across a musical echo of mine” in the song, “we all stand on the shoulders of people who came before us”.

Taking to Instagram, Williams said: “There’s something about the music industry that’s been bothering me for a while. People coming after people because they’ve spotted a similarity between two songs.

“Some of it I completely understand. Some of it is absolutely justified. Most of it, I think, is complete bollocks.”

He added that there are “only so many notes” and chords and that “we’re all going to bump into each other eventually”, before going on to speak about Rodrigo.

“I love Olivia Rodrigo. I’ve loved her since Brutal. What a f***ing record. I wish I’d made it,” he continued, before saying that he “couldn’t care less” that their songs sound similar.

“I don’t know whether there’s technically a publishing issue, a copyright issue, or no issue whatsoever. And I don’t want to know. I’m not going after her. Because I think at some point, some f***ing sanity has to prevail,” he said.

Williams said that while “artists deserve to be protected” from music theft, “there’s a different between protecting your work and treating every vaguely familiar sequence of notes as a winning lottery ticket”.

“Some of this stuff has become ambulance chasing. And I think it’s disgusting. We all stand on the shoulders of people who came before us. Sometimes consciously. Sometimes without even knowing it. That’s how music works. If we keep punishing people for accidentally arriving somewhere somebody else has already been, eventually we’re going to frighten the creativity out of everyone.”

He signed off the post by telling Rodrigo that he thinks she’s “f***ing brilliant”.

Legal cases of plagiarism claims in the music industry have become more frequent in recent years. In July, K-pop group BTS denied allegations that their single “Swim” copied an unreleased song by three US songwriters after a copyright lawsuit was filed in California, while last month, Bill Withers’ team accused Olivia Dean of copying “Just The Two of Us” when writing her song “I’ve Seen It”.

In 2023, Ed Sheeran won in US court after being accused of plagiarising Marvin Gaye’s song “Let’s Get It On” when creating his own track “Thinking Out Loud”. After a two-week trial, the court found that he had “independently created” his track and did not infringe on the copyright of Gaye’s song.

As for Rodrigo, she was accused of plagiarism by Courtney Love in 2021, with the singer claiming that Rodrigo copied Hole’s 1994 album cover with promo art for her Sour Prom Concert.

While Love said it was “rude of her” not to ask for permission, she did not pursue legal action.

Rodrigo’s “take me home (4 christmas)” is currently climbing up the music charts, with many tipping it to be this year’s Christmas number one.