Charlie Puth took to Instagram to thank Taylor Swift for inspiring him to release his new song, “HERO” in a Tuesday, May 21, post. “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.” the 32-year-old “We Don’t Talk Anymore” artist captioned the post along with an image of him lounging outside surrounded by flowers.
With this being his first single of 2024, “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,” Charlie continued. “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,” Charlie wrote.
The New Jersey native was motivated to release “HERO” after hearing Taylor mention him on her track “The Tortured Poets Department” from her recently dropped album, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. In the song, she sings, “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate/ We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.”
Since The Tortured Poets Department album dropped in April, Charlie began to hint at music being on its way. “These last couple weeks have been really crazy for obvious reasons, but I wanted to share something with you,” he shared in a TikTok video on May 3. “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 [Taylor] out there was giving me a sign that I needed to release it.”
“Besides teasing the release of “Hero,” Charlie also promised that a new album was on the way. “So… I Declare ‘Hero’ will be out everywhere on May 24 as the first single of my new album,” he shared via social media. “Thank you for your support … you know who you are.”
A post followed a few days after, where Charlie shared the behind-the-scenes on social media of the process in creating “HERO” from playing the key instruments to recording vocals.
The singer gave a preview of the song on May 12 via an Instagram post where fans have referenced the “You Belong With Me” artist in his comments, declaring Charlie “should be a bigger artist.”
– by Jessica Acosta