Add British singer Jess Glynne to the long list of musicians who have taken offense at the use of their songs in one of Donald Trump’s campaign ads. The singer took to her Instagram Story on Wednesday morning (July 30) to express her disgust about a White House X post on Monday that appeared to make light of undocumented people being deported by ICE cued to her 2015 Billboard Hot 100 No. 86 hit “Hold My Hand.”
“This post honestly makes me sick,” Glynne wrote over a re-post of a screen shot from the ad in which the detainees’ faces are visible while the immigration officer’s heads are blurred out. “My music is about love, unity, and spreading positivity — never about division or hate,” she added along with two angry swearing emoji.
The cheery 19-second post from the official White House X feed reads, “when ICE books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation… Nothing beats it!,” along with a plane and music note emoji. The accompanying footage is cued to a 2022 ad campaign from British tour operator Jet2 featuring sunny narration from actress Zoë Lister-Jones and a snippet of Glynne’s upbeat pop song.
Actress Lister-Jones also responded in a now-expired Story post asking, “What can be done about the White House using Jet2’s sound and my voiceover to promote their nasty agenda?”
The chipper ad has resurfaced over the past two week as a viral TikTok sound used in a raft of videos depicting vacations gone wrong. But in the White House version, Lister’s voiceover enthusing “nothing beats a Jet2 holiday!” is used as the background to footage of men bound by their feet and hands in shackles being marched onto planes by officers from the U.S. Immigration and Customs service whose faces are blurred out.
The post ends with a screen grab of the CBP Home app — a mobile application developed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection that allows those people in the U.S. without documentation to voluntarily leave at no cost — followed by a video of smiling President Trump giving the thumbs up and pointing to the camera.
At press time spokespeople for Jet2 and the White House had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on Glynne’s post.
The White House ad comes just weeks after Trump signed off on his so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” authorizing $170 billion in spending on border and immigration enforcement at a time when illegal border crossings have crashed to their lowest levels since the 1960s. The cash infusion makes ICE the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.
The Jet2 ad is the latest in a line of White House digital clips making light of its immigration strategy, a roster that includes an ASMR video highlighting the sounds of clinking hand and ankle restraints being placed on detainees and a Studio Ghibli-like cartoon AI image seemingly mocking a woman crying after being taken into custody.
