As Taylor Swift once wrote, another day, another drama. While Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber have buried the axe (for now), Charlie Puth has decided to insert himself into the narrative, and it’s not making him look very good.
The whole mess started way back in 2015–2016, when Gomez and Puth collaborated on “We Don’t Talk Anymore. ” There were rumours at the time that the two of them were hooking up and/or dating, since Gomez and Justin Bieber were broken up and Justin was actually starting to see Hailey. Gomez denied that she and the “One Call Away” singer were ever more than just friends, but the next year Puth released his song “Attention,” about a girl seemingly stringing him along.
Speaking of stringing along, Puth played coy in the press afterward, trying to have it both ways: being a gentleman who wouldn’t gossip, but also…maybe shading Gomez in interviews. “I don’t kiss and tell, but the only way a song like [“We Don’t Talk Anymore”] can come across as real is if there’s something else going on behind the scenes,” he told Billboard in 2018. “And that’s what was happening [with Gomez]. Very short-lived, very small, but very impactful. And it really messed me up. I’m trying to put this the best way possible: It wasn’t like I was the only person on her mind. And I think I knew that going in—what I was getting myself into. ”
But okay, we all make mistakes, everyone grew up after that. Right? No. Kinda out of nowhere, on March 25, 2023, Puth decided to bring it all up again and tweeted, “Attention is about what you think it’s about. ” He quickly deleted it, but you can see a screenshot here.
This quickly sent fans back to the lyrics of “Attention,» which are honestly kind of run-of-the-mill “I’m annoyed at this manipulation” vibes, but also a video in which Puth speaks more explicitly about how…well, let’s just be explicit: Selena wouldn’t sleep with him, and he got frustrated.
Is the thing he “wanted out of her”…a real relationship? Or does he mean she wouldn’t put out? If so…kinda icky! Some unsolicited advice, Charles: Either adjust your expectations/timeline for the relationship or end it, but don’t play the victim because things aren’t moving as fast as you’d like. And definitely don’t tweet about it half a decade later! Twitter is not happy.
If you watch the whole video, it’s actually pretty funny how cringe he is, saying “Girls are crazy” and then explaining that he’s Not Like Other Guys because he doesn’t care about clothes.
Charlie Puth also says that he fell in love for the first time and then the girl manipulated him with her perfume so, man, I dunno, he might just be saying shit to say it. Like the whole thing about leaving a party because he heard too many car horns. Please just watch it.
