The legal drama surrounding ‘Dancing With a Stranger’ is officially heading for a courtroom showdown.

Sam Smith and Normani must face a jury over allegations that their 2019 smash copied an earlier song bearing the same title.

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Per Billboard, a federal judge has rejected the latest effort to end the copyright case before trial.

Sound and Color LLC, which represents songwriters Jordan Vincent and Christopher Miranda, first filed suit in 2022 claiming Smith and Normani’s hit lifted key elements from their 2015 track ‘Dancing With a Stranger’.

The Pop pair have consistently denied copying the song, with their attorneys previously slamming the allegations and arguing that the supposed similarities involve commonplace musical elements.

The case was initially dismissed in 2023, only for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to revive it in 2025. The appeals court found that a reasonable jury could determine that the hooks shared a substantially similar combination of musical elements.

Smith and Normani made another push for summary judgment this summer, arguing that there was no evidence they had ever heard the earlier recording.

Now, the competing claims and expert testimony will be left for a jury to untangle.

Quite the legal journey for a song that became a top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit and one of the biggest releases of 2019.

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