Charlie Puth has thanked Taylor Swift for shouting him out on her latest album ‘The Tortured Poets Department‘ and inspiring him to write a song.
READ MORE: Taylor Swift – ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ review: a rare misstep
The New Jersey popstar’s name can be heard on the album’s title track, in which Swift sings: “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.”
Now, Puth has responded to the shoutout, crediting Swift for inspiring him to write “one of the hardest songs” he’s ever written. Puth took to Instagram to give some backstory on his new single ‘Hero’, which is due to come out May 24th.
He wrote: “My new song ‘HERO’ is about when you see someone you love hurting themselves, ruining the things in their life that are good, but you just can’t save them. It’s one of the hardest songs I’ve ever had to write, but I wrote it in hopes that you’ve gone through something similar in your life, and that it can fill in the BLANK for you like it did for me.
“I’m very excited to share my next album with you, especially this song because it’s a great representation of what’s to come. I’ve never put out a song like this before – it’s very different for me, but I want to thank Taylor Swift for letting me know musically that I just couldn’t keep this on my hard drive any longer. Thank you to all of my fans – you’ll never know how much you mean to me…”
Puth seemingly responded to the namecheck before, writing: “I think someone out there was giving me a sign that I needed to release it. So… I declare ‘Hero’ will be out everywhere on May 24th as the first single of my new album. Thank you for your support… you know who you are.”
The Internet has since reacted to the name drop, with one user writing: “One user also wrote: “We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist is truly the last thing I thought I’d ever hear Taylor Swift sing in a Taylor Swift song.”
Puth recently released a single with Stray Kids called ‘Lose My Breath’, which is apparently a “warm-up” for an upcoming Korean album by Stray Kids, slated for release sometime this summer.
He has previously worked with other K-pop acts such as BTS’ Jungkook (‘Left and Right’ in 2022) and also gifted girl group BABYMONSTER the song ‘Like That’ for their recent debut mini-album.
In other news, Liverpool has announced it will become ‘Taylor Town’ for Taylor Swift UK tour ‘Eras’ shows.
The post Charlie Puth responds to Taylor Swift shout-out, thanking her for inspiring him to pen “one of the hardest songs” he’s ever written appeared first on NME.