Charles Otto Puth Jr. (/puːθ/; born December 2, 1991) is an American singer and songwriter. His initial exposure came through the viral success of his song covers uploaded to YouTube. Puth signed with the record label eleveneleven in 2011 after performing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, during which he contributed songwriting and production work for other artists.
Puth has done songwriting and production work with other artists throughout his career. In 2021, he co-wrote and produced the single "Stay" for Justin Bieber and the Kid Laroi, becoming his first non-performing production to peak the Billboard Hot 100.
Charles Otto Puth Jr. was born December 2, 1991, in Rumson, New Jersey,[4] to Debra, a music teacher[5][6] who also wrote commercials for HBO,[7] and Charles Otto Puth Sr., a builder and real estate agent.[5] He has two younger siblings, twins Stephen and Mikaela.[5] Their father is Catholic[8] of Italian, German and Hungarian descent and their mother is Jewish.[9]
As a two-year-old, Puth's right eyebrow was permanently scarred in a nearly fatal dog bite incident.[10] His mother introduced him to classical music and began teaching him the piano at age four.[11] He started studying jazz at age 10[11] and participated in a summer youth jazz ensemble at Count Basie Theatre's Cool School[6] in Red Bank, New Jersey, at 12.[12] Puth was once hired by The Count Basie Theatre to play in a Charlie Brown production.[6] In grade six, he went door to door selling a Christmas album called Have a Very Charlie Christmas that he had recorded and produced, making $600 in sales.[11][13]
In September 2009, Puth started his own YouTube channel, entitled Charlies Vlogs, posting comedy videos and acoustic covers.[19] During this time, he would make theme songs and jingles for other YouTubers.[20]
In 2010, Puth released the music video of his first song, "These Are My Sexy Shades".[21] In December 2010, he released his debut extended play, The Otto Tunes, an independent release.[22] In 2011, he won an online video competition sponsored by Perez Hilton, Can You Sing?, with a version of Adele's "Someone like You", which he performed with Emily Luther.[16] In the same year Ellen DeGeneres announced that she had signed Puth and Luther to her label, eleveneleven, after seeing their performance of "Someone like You".[23] Puth and Luther had performed the song on the show.[24] In December 2012 he released a promotional single, "Break Again", with additional vocals by Emily Luther.[25] The music video was released days later.[26] On January 25, 2012, Puth and Luther performed the song and Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.[27] Puth also performed at an event supporting DKMS Delete Blood Cancer, the world's largest bone marrow donor center, in October 2012.[28] Puth left eleveneleven in late 2012.[29]
On October 23, 2013, he released his second independent extended play, Ego, to streaming online.[30][31] Puth was credited with the production and writing of songs and jingles for fellow YouTube personalities. He wrote the theme song for Shane Dawson's Shane and Friendspodcast and skits, the intro jingle for the videos of the Vlogger family the SHAYTARDS, the original theme song for Charles Trippy's vlog Internet Killed Television, and a song for the tour and movie of YouTube group Our 2nd Life, as well as several singles for Our 2nd Life member Ricky Dillon. In 2014 he released the promotional single "L.U.V."[32] The music video was directed by Andrew Vallentine.[33] In the same year, he co-wrote the song "Celebrate" by Pitbull, included in his eighth studio album Globalization and featured in the 2014 Dreamworks Animation film Penguins of Madagascar.[34]
Puth starred as Meghan Trainor's love interest in the music video for her song "Dear Future Husband", released in March 2015. In the video, she meets Puth on an online dating service and he comes to Trainor's home with a carryout pizza, which succeeds in impressing her.[43] On May 1, 2015, Puth released a five-song extended play, Some Type of Love.[44] In June 2015, he released the promotional single "Nothing but Trouble" with Lil Wayne, from the soundtrack to the documentary 808: The Movie.[45] During 2015, Puth worked on several albums of other artists. He co-wrote and produced the "Broke" and "Pull Up" for Jason Derulo's album Everything Is 4,[46] co-wrote "Bombastic" with Bonnie McKee from the album of the same title,[47] and produced "Working Class Heroes (Work)" on CeeLo Green's album Heart Blanche.[48]
Pre-orders for Puth's debut studio album Nine Track Mind began on August 20, 2015, along with the second single "One Call Away". The song peaked at number 12 in the United States, 26 in the United Kingdom and 4 in Australia.[49] By June 2017 the song had sold 1,575,475 copies domestically.[50] Puth released a remix for the song, entitled "One Call Away (Coast to Coast Mix)", featuring American rapper Tyga, American singers Ty Dolla Sign and Brett Eldredge and Mexican singer Sofia Reyes.[51]
His debut album, Nine Track Mind, was released on January 29, 2016.[52] The album debuted at number three in the United Kingdom.[53] The album itself peaked at number 6 on the Billboard 200. It also received a score of 37 out of 100 on Metacritic, becoming the 15th worst-reviewed album on the site.[54] Puth embarked his debut live concert, Nine Track Mind Tour, in March 2016.[55]
In 2016, Puth was the first musician to sign a deal with Deutsch Music, a subsidiary of Deutsch Inc.[56]
On April 21, 2017, Puth released "Attention", the lead single from his second studio album Voicenotes.[57] The song peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming his highest-charting single on the chart as a solo artist as of April 2022.[58] The second single from Voicenotes, "How Long", was released on October 5, 2017, and peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.[59] Puth also collaborated with One Direction's Liam Payne on the single "Bedroom Floor", which he co-produced and provided background vocals for.[60] In 2018, he was featured on G-Eazy's single "Sober".[61] On January 4, 2018, Puth released the first promotional single from Voicenotes, "If You Leave Me Now" featuring Boyz II Men.[62] Puth also announced that he would be pushing the release date to May 11, 2018, from its original release date of January 19, 2018.[63]
On March 15, 2018, "Done for Me" was released as the third single from Voicenotes. The song features singer Kehlani. The song also peaked at No. 53 on the Billboard Hot 100. On March 25, 2018, Puth released the fourth single "Change" featuring James Taylor.[64] A day earlier, Puth sang the song at the March for Our Lives event in Los Angeles.[65] The album also features the songs "The Way I Am" the fifth single off the album.
Voicenotes was released on May 11, 2018, to generally positive reviews from critics;[66] it debuted and peaked at number four on the US Billboard 200 with 58,000 album-equivalent units, of which 39,000 were pure album sales.[67] Puth embarked on the Voicenotes Tour in 2018, with Hailee Steinfeld as a special guest.[68]
In August 2019, Puth released "I Warned Myself";[69] another single, "Mother", was released in September,[70] and a third, "Cheating on You", in October.[71] In early 2020, Puth announced that he had scrapped what he had written for his third studio album;[72][73] he remarked in 2022 that he "didn't really like any of the music" he released in 2019, and that he "felt like [he] was kind of pretending to be a cool guy".[74]
However, he still worked on music in 2020. He contributed keyboard to four tracks on the Ozzy Osbourne album Ordinary Man, released on February 21, 2020.[75] He featured on the Lennon Stella song "Summer Feelings" for the soundtrack of the Warner Bros. Pictures animated film Scoob! He released "Girlfriend" in June,[76] contributed "Free" to the soundtrack of the Disney+ film The One and Only Ivan the same month, and released "Hard on Yourself", featuring Blackbear, in August.[76] Finally, he featured on two remixes at the end of the year, first of the Jvke song "Upside Down" in October and then of the Sasha Alex Sloan song "Is It Just Me?" in November.
On July 9, 2021, the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber released the single "Stay", the lead single of Laroi's mixtape F*CK LOVE 3+: OVER YOU, which was co-written and co-produced by Puth. The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Laroi's first single, Bieber's eighth single, and Puth's first non-performing production to top the chart.
In September 2021, Puth released "After All" with Elton John as part of John's album The Lockdown Sessions.[77] The same month, he started documenting on TikTok a process of "combin[ing] a seemingly random bunch of thoughts and noises made with different objects into a pop song", which went viral on the platform;[78] this led to the release of "Light Switch" on January 20, 2022, as the first single from his third studio album, Charlie.[79] This was followed by "That's Hilarious" in April[80] and "Left and Right" featuring Jungkook in June.[81] On July 7, Puth revealed Charlie'scover art and its release date.[82] "Smells Like Me",[83] "I Don't Think That I Like Her",[84] and "Charlie Be Quiet!"[85] were all released in September. Charlie was released on October 7 along with a music video for its song "Loser".[86]
On October 21, 2022, Puth was featured alongside Shenseea on Calvin Harris's single "Obsessed" from Harris' 6th album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2.[87] On March 31, 2023, Puth released the single "That's Not How This Works", with music duo Dan + Shay.[88] On April 14, 2023, Puth released a remix of "That's Not How This Works" which added Sabrina Carpenter as a featured artist alongside Dan + Shay.[89] On June 15, 2023, Puth featured on "Angel Pt. 2" alongside South Korean singer Jimin and American singers Jvke and Muni Long, which was a continuation of "Angel Pt. 1" released for the Fast X (2023) soundtrack.[90]
On August 18, 2023, Puth released "Lipstick" as the lead single from his upcoming fourth studio album.[91] He also featured on Stray Kids' single "Lose My Breath", which was released on May 10, 2024.[92]
Puth was referenced by Taylor Swift in her 2024 song "The Tortured Poets Department", taken from the album of the same name, in which she sings: "We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist," attracting media attention.[93] Encouraged by this shoutout, Puth released the single "Hero" on May 24 of that year.[94] On November 8, 2024, he released a song titled "December 25th".[95]
Growing up, Puth was bullied at school. He said, "They would team up against me so bad and they would kick me in a place that wouldn't feel fantastic and I would need to throw up and they would then say I was pretending to throw up."[96] On On Air with Ryan Seacrest he said he had a nervous breakdown from "just being overworked—and I'm in my head a lot and that, in combination with jetlag and, you know, the self-realization that I am getting more famous and my privacy goes out the window pretty much every day—it's just not what I'm used to, and I don't think I'm ever going to be used to it, and my therapy is to just put melody to it and sing it."[97]
He said that Justin Bieber's "viral leap into superstardom as a result of YouTube" influenced him to attempt the same.[100]
In 2022, he began dating Brooke Sansone, an old family friend. On December 2, Puth made it official on his Instagram account.[101] On September 7, 2023, he confirmed the couple is engaged,[102] and they married in September 2024.[103]
^"Charlie Puth Whines and Shines on 'Voicenotes'". May 11, 2018. Pop R&B sensation Charlie Puth rose to fame via YouTube, and has adopted very much the persona that one would expect from such circumstances.
^Freeman, Allison (September 15, 2004). "Jazz Program Plays It Cool: At a Theater Named for Count Basie, Music Students Learn His Art Form". The Star-Ledger. Newark, New Jersey. Pianist Charlie Puth, 12, of Rumson, wants to be a professional musician. Charlie, who is working on recording his second CD, composes his own music. 'Jazz music is really cool and relaxing,' he said. 'I like doing all kinds of improvisation and stuff.'
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^Hwang, Hye-jin (February 22, 2017). [가온차트]'대세' 방탄소년단, 4분기 앨범상 수상 "아미 사랑해" [[Gaon Chart] "Popular" BTS won the 4th quarter album award, "ARMY, I love you"]. Newsen (in Korean). Archived from the original on November 5, 2022. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
^Park, Sang-hoo (November 26, 2022). '2022 MMA' 임영웅 5관왕 주인공 우뚝… BTS·아이브 4관왕[종합] ['2022 MMA' Lim Young-woong the main character with five wins... BTS, IVE won four awards [Summary]] (in Korean). JTBC. Archived from the original on November 27, 2022. Retrieved November 27, 2022 – via Naver.