celebrity

'It's about who you think it's about.' Why everyone's talking about Selena Gomez and Charlie Puth.

Charlie Puth’s words are coming back to haunt him. 

The 31-year-old singer is currently going viral for his short-lived friendship with Selena Gomez, and more specifically, their alleged fling.

While Gomez has only just buried the hatchet with Hailey Bieber, Puth inserted himself into the narrative this week, by posting and then quickly deleting a now-viral tweet. 

Watch a short clip of Charlie Puth explaining his song 'Attention'. Post continues after video. 


Video via Genius.

In the tweet, Puth wrote how his song 'Attention' is "about who you think it’s about".

Despite deleting it soon after, the tweet went viral in a matter of minutes.

In 2017, Puth wrote the song 'Attention' about an ex-flame who got into a relationship with him for external validation.

"You just want attention, you don't want my heart. Maybe you just hate the thought of me with someone new," the song lyrics read.

According to fans, observers and even perhaps Puth himself, the song is about Selena Gomez.

Gomez and Puth became friends after they recorded 'We Don’t Talk Anymore' in 2015. 

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Rumours began circulating about the pair after they performed the song together later that year and displayed undeniable chemistry on stage. 

Gomez clarified they were "just friends" but when Puth later performed the song on his own in 2016, he yelled, "F**k you Justin Bieber".

At the time, the Only Murders in the Building actor and Bieber were on a break.

Following his recent tweet, a 2017 interview with Genius has resurfaced, where Puth goes into more details about the song and the woman it's about.

"We would be talking in the hotel, she’d be like, 'You wanna sleep over?'" he recalled. 

"I’d be like, 'Yes, I’m gonna get it in!' And then nothing would happen — which is totally fine, but after like the fifth time of that happening, I knew what she was doing."

"I knew that she was trying to make me so embedded to her that I would never leave her, but I would never get what I wanted out of her," he said.

Puth also recalled how one night when they were in a hotel room, she cried to him about "how mistreated she was by her ex".

"She had me thinking I could be the guy who could fix her," he said. "Like, girls are crazy. They’re amazing and crazy at the time."

Selena Gomez and Charlie Puth. Image: Instagram @selenagomez.

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Only adding fuel to the fire, Puth also said in 2018 that he doesn't want to "kiss and tell" before explaining what happened with him and Gomez.

"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," Puth told Billboard.

“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."

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Listen to Cancelled, hosted by Clare and Jessie Stephens. Post continues after audio. 


While it appears Gomez and Puth no longer speak, Bieber and the 'Attention' singer have, recently discussing that time he yelled out, "Go f**k yourself, Justin Bieber" in 2016.

"It hurt my feelings," Bieber said over the phone in 2022.

"You can't be serious. That wasn't real," Puth responded. "That was like, a f**king thing that completely blown out of proportion."

When Bieber asked him to explain, he said, "Bro, I was being facetious. I was being completely sarcastic."

He added: "I also can't tell if you're joking right now."

@xonmyjetbiitchx 😂#justinbieber #charlieputh #4upageシ #bieberfever #fy #viral #4u #beliebers #justindrewbieber #fyp #virall #4upage #pisces #viralvideo #drewbieber ♬ love savage justin x still on my jet bisch - 🦋𝔟𝔦𝔢𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔠𝔦𝔬𝔲𝔰🦋

The video ended with Bieber saying that he doesn't "appreciate it," and then bursting out in laughter.

While we don’t know if the prank call was a rouse to stir up old drama, Puth clarified in 2017 that whatever premature beef they’d had, was squashed. 

"There might have been a lot of emotion that night, a lot of thoughts going through my head and maybe just, sort of, maybe I shouldn't have said that. It's not really fair to him," he said during an interview on Dan Wootton's Bizarre Life podcast.

"We've come across each other since then and he posted that he liked my song 'Attention' on his Instagram, so we are good."

Feature image: Getty.

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