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Last week, Kanye West was forced to flee as shots were fired on set. Also, everywhere near his primary residence is on fire.

Now, he’s facing accuastions from Lorde that he totally ripped off her stage designs for his shows.

And she has the photo comparisons to back up her claim.

Kanye West and Lorde
(Getty Images)

Kanye West and Kid Cudi’s "Kids See Ghosts" Tour has attracted the wrong kind of attention.

Lorde, the absolute legend who won a Grammy before graduating high school, took to her Instagram Stories.

There, she shared a series of images noting what she found to be a suspicious similarity between her tour’s stage design and Kanye’s.

The suspended box design, creating a second floor to the stage without taking up any stage space, is pretty difficult to miss.

Did Kanye really steal the work?

Lorde suggests so with a few words.

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"I’m proud of the work I do," Lorde wrote in reflection.

"And it’s flattering when other artists feel inspired by it," she continued.

Lorde clarified about that flattered feeling: "to the extent that they choose to try it on themselves."

"But don’t steal," she insists.

"Not from women or anyone else," Lorde writes. "Not in 2018 or ever."

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Es Devlin is a designer who has worked closely with Lorde.

"It’s hard to come up with stuff that feels new," Lorde shared in 2017.

"And with the tank it felt weird and interesting and quite specific to me," Lorde shared.

She spoke of her collaboration with Devlin: "The two of us just built it from the ground up, bouncing ideas back and forth."

Devlin has also very notably worked with Kanye for many, many years.

In an apparent response to Lorde’s post, Devlin made a post on Instagram showing a similar "box" in the opera, Carmen, by Georges Bizet.

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Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that someone has noticed that Kanye’s stage design seems similar to another.

Last time, it was this image (above) of hanging lights.

Kim Kardashian herself took aim at Saint Laurent, suggesting that Kanye’s set design had been ripped off.

(One could argue that no one gets to lay claim to the concept of hanging lights, but it really doesn’t matter)

That makes defending Kanye against Lorde a little complicated.

That is, assuming that Ye has any defenders left who aren’t in his bed or on his payroll.

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Some could cynically suggest that Lorde is being opportunistic.

Lorde is famously friends with Taylor Swift.

Even more famously, Taylor and Kanye have a serious beef.

In 2016, Kim orchestrated Taylor’s temporary downfall. Now, however, Taylor is back.

Meanwhile, Kanye chose 2018 as the year to purge himself of any lingering goodwill that the public may have for him.

Is Lorde just kicking Kanye while he’s down by attacking his art?

Kanye with Passion
(Getty)

So, did Lorde jump the gun by indirectly accusing Kanye of ripping off her work?

Did Kanye and Lorde just come up with similar ideas?

(Great trains run along the same tracks, if Kanye is still considered to be "great")

Or did Es Devlin rip off a design from an opera and then pass it off to both artists?

We would suggest that it’s more likely (and also kinder) to suggest that no one is stealing from anyone.

Stages only have so many possible designs, folks.

That said, we can understand why Lorde might be sensitive on the topic.

There is a widespread phenomenon, from business meetings to the art world, of men duplicating a woman’s ideas and receiving credit for it.

It’s good to be on guard for that — even if you might, occassionally, be mistaken.