That Poppy and Mars Argo controversy explained: Stalking, image-lifting and a lot of hair bleach

That Poppy and Grimes announced their collaboration over social media, and some fans are happy — but others are pissed that Grimes would work with Poppy, and it all ties back to the #MeToo movement, Poppy's origin story, and Mars Argo, real name Brittany Sheets.

Mars Argo is suing Poppy, real name Moriah Pereira, for copyright infringement, common law right of publicity, violating one of California's business laws.

And tagged onto the lawsuit is Brittany's ex, professionally known as Titanic Sinclair. Argo is suing Sinclair, real name Corey Mixter, for all of the counts she's taking Poppy to court on — with the addition of domestic violence, because she and Sinclair were a couple for five years, and artistic collaborators for the duration of the relationship.

And she alleges, after the relationship ended, Mixter stalked and harassed her, then copy-pasted her image onto Poppy.

Whoa. Slow down. What's Mars Argo?

Mars Argo was a musical collaboration between Brittany Sheets and Titanic Sinclair, but Mars Argo remains Sheets's stage name. I know, kind of confusing. As a musical duo, Argo and Sinclair were successful — some of their music videos have racked up millions of views, like the one above.

Sinclair claims that he "invented" Argo. The two severed ties when they ended their relationship in 2014, and Sinclair began working with Moriah Pereira, soon to be That Poppy, shortly after.

Okay, and who is Poppy…?

Poppy is… hard to explain. She's a musician, but she's also kind of a meme, and she talks and looks a lot like a computer animation. You've probably seen a video of her on your Instagram Discover page. Her signatures include her high-pitched, monotone voice and her ultra-pale appearance.

She released her first studio album, Poppy.Computer, in October 2017 — with Sinclair as her manager, producer and director.

And what are the claims Mars made about Poppy?

Basically, Argo claims that Poppy and Sinclair worked together to lift Mars's image and transplant it onto Poppy. Plenty of Twitter detectives have spotted the similarities between the two acts, and Argo noticed some of her own.

She cites Poppy's bleach-blonde hair (Pereira was formerly a brunette), copied her high-pitched affect, and even wore her clothes in videos and on Instagram.

Got it. So how does #MeToo factor in?

On April 17, Argo released a statement explaining her absence from the entertainment world, and used the #MeToo hashtag to describe her experience with Sinclair. She later elaborated in an interview with the Daily Mail, detailing the years of abuse she faced at the hands of her ex-partner.

"Corey made my life a living nightmare, he manipulated and controlled me and made me feel worthless," Argo said. "He threatened me and stalked me, monitored me on social media, broke into my home and punched me in the face, I was terrified of him and still am."

She alleged Sinclair leached money off of her, stalked her, broke into her residence multiple times, physically abused her and even threatened to commit suicide after their relationship ended.

Poppy responded to Mars's lawsuit in an open letter on Twitter

Poppy categorically denied any charges of copying leveled against her and of abuse leveled against Titanic. Not only that, she said she and Titanic been blindsided by the TMZ report about the lawsuit, but that Argo was "collaborating and maintaining an ongoing relationship with" a man who abused Poppy when she was "young and vulnerable."

Mars has yet to respond to Poppy's response.

What's gonna happen next?

It remains to be seen what'll come of Mars's lawsuit, but one thing is for sure — the fact that she spoke up about the mistreatment she experienced at the hands of Sinclair has made a serious impact online, and more people know about the Mars Argo/Poppy saga than ever before.

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