Billboard Calls 6ix9ine’s Cheating Claims False in New Report

Billboard has issued their own response to accusations 6ix9ine made yesterday claiming that the media brand and Nielsen Music cheated him out of a No. 1 placement on the Hot 100 this week.

On Monday (May 18), Billboard addressed the 24-year-old rapper's cheating allegations by explaining how this week's chart numbers were calculated. The recently published article details what Tekashi claims are discrepancies with his streaming and airplay calculations.

"Overall, 'Stuck With U' drew 28.1 million U.S. streams, 26.3 million in radio airplay audience and 108,000 sold in the tracking week," the article reads. "'Gooba' had 55.3 million U.S. streams, 172,000 in radio airplay audience and 24,000 sold."

The report goes on to debunk 6ix9ine's claim that Billboard and Nielsen Music allowed Ariana Grande's team to purchase a significant portion of the song's sales with "six credit cards."

"Billboard and Nielsen Music/MRC Data conducts audits on all sales reported with access to purchase-level detail, and works with data partners to recognize excessive bulk purchases and remove those units from the final sales total," the article continues. "All titles this week, as in every week, were put under the same scrutiny."

There is also further explanation of the difference between global and domestic streams. While 6ix9ine did receive record-breaking YouTube views for the music video for "Gooba," the 180 million views the rhymer boasted about on social media were not all domestic, according to the website. An audit conducted by the publication filtered out the global streams that do not apply to their domestic chart, lessening his numbers significantly.

Billboard  wasn't the only one to defend themselves against Tekashi and his accusations on Monday. Yesterday, after receiving the No. 3 on the Hot 100, 6ix9ine made public statements on Instagram insinuating that Billboard and Ariana Grande had conspired together to make Justin Bieber's "Stuck With U" the No. 1 track on the chart. His statements later attracted comments from Grande, Bieber and their manager Scooter Braun, who all insisted that they ethically earned the top spot on the Hot 100.

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