Charlie Puth Jokes Taylor Swift Made Him Drop New Music After TTPD

Charlie Puth gave Taylor Swift a shout-out while talking about his latest musical venture.

“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 @taylorswift for letting me know musically that I just couldn’t keep this on my hard drive any longer,” Puth wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, May 21, while promoting his upcoming single “Hero,” which is due out Friday, May 24.

Swift, 34, name-dropped Puth on the title track of her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, which she released last month.

“You smoked, then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist,” Swift sings.

Puth previously nodded to his TTPD mention while announcing “Hero” earlier this month.

“These last couple weeks have been really crazy for obvious reasons, but I wanted to share something with you,” he wrote in a May 3 TikTok video. “Sometimes I get a little nervous being overly honest in my music which is why this was sitting on my hard drive for a while, but I think someone out there was giving me a sign that I needed to release it.”

The “Marvin Gaye” singer then playfully repurposed Swift’s lyrics, writing, “So … I Declare ‘Hero’ will be out everywhere May 24th as the first single of my new album. Thank you for your support … you know who you are.”

Puth said on Tuesday that the forthcoming single is about “when you see someone you love hurting themselves” and “ruining the things in their life that are good, but you just can’t save them.” He noted that the tune is “one of the hardest songs I’ve ever had to write.”

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Years before his “Tortured Poets Department” shout-out, Puth was publicly praised by Matty Healy, whom Swifties have theorized inspired the song. (Healy, 35, had a whirlwind romance with Swift in the spring of 2023 after her split from Joe Alwyn.)

“That Charlie Puth and Boyz II Men track is harrrrrd,” Healy wrote via X in May 2018, according to a resurfaced screenshot. He was referring to “If You Leave Me Now” from Puth’s second album, Voicenotes.

Puth retweeted the post at the time, writing, “Thank u Matty!”

Puth isn’t the only person whom Swift mentions by name in the song. In the chorus, she references poet Dylan Thomas and singer Patti Smith.

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“I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots,” Swift sings.

Although Thomas died at age 39 in 1953, Smith, 77, reacted to the song via Instagram last month.

“This is saying I was moved to be mentioned in the company of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas,” the Just Kids author wrote alongside a photo of herself reading Thomas’ Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. “Thank you, Taylor.”

Elsewhere in the title track, Swift mentions “Lucy” and “Jack,” whom fans have speculated are none other than Boygenius’ Lucy Dacus and Swift’s friend and frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff.