For the new cover of GQ Hype digital issue is fronting by Charlie Puth where he talks on latest album’s his most vulnerable and honest one yet—thanks to his fans, some horny TikToks, gay clubs, and Elton John.
The Charlie Puth Guide to Oversharing
Within the first few minutes of sitting down for drinks with Charlie Puth at the Hotel Bel-Air, he has: complimented my cologne, claiming to have worn it for awhile himself; decided my nail polish and sunglasses must mean I’m the “epitome of cool”; and, after noting my Jazmine Sullivan shirt, declared his love for her acclaimed album Reality Show. And it all feels genuine. Today he’s wearing baggy denim jeans, a white tank top, and an unbuttoned mesh green shirt that he describes as exactly how his mom dressed in the ‘90s. “She’s the coolest person ever,” he beams, unbothered by coming off as saccharine. This is all in sync with his online persona, which, sure, involves the usual 2022-pop-star fare of asking fans to stream your song till you reach #1 on Billboard, and a healthy TikTok presence, but also above-average doses of healthy, hilariously-blatant horniness (we all know what he sounds like moaning now). Every interaction with Puth, whether it be online or in person, makes you believe that you two could be best friends. “I’m trying to be the anti-celebrity,” he says earnestly, and gratefully: an open dialogue with his fans is what steered him out of a career skid, in which he almost lost his grip on what Charlie Puth Music should be.
The first fan to tell him he’d lost his way was actually an idol. In December 2020, he was at the scene-y, paparazzi-flanked Craig’s in West Hollywood when owner Craig Susser popped over to ask Puth if he wanted to meet Elton John. “I say, ‘Hell yeah, I wanna meet Elton John,’” Puth recalls. John gave Puth a swift “Hello,” and jumped straight to the point: He was a fan of Puth’s second album, Voicenotes, but, he said, “I gotta be honest with you, these three songs you’ve put out—they sound nothing like the music that you put together so beautifully on your second album. I think you’re involving too many people in your music.”
“Loser” is reminiscent of the catchy 2000s pop songs you hear pulsating from WeHo these days with a chorus that rhymes “loser” with “lose her.” And like songs from that period, it even has a soaring bridge which most pop songs have all but abandoned in favor of two minute songs. But like the rest of Charlie, it also goes back to the 80s pop sensibility. But the album’s sound wasn’t Puth trying to rip off some of his favorite songs from that era. “It wasn’t exactly listening to a bunch of ’80s music and then wanting to make an ’80s alt rock, alt synth, whatever album.” The album’s sound was inspired by, if not a straight-up homage, to his mom—his pop-culture muse and the music she used to skate to at a new Jersey roller rink, like Madonna’s 1985 single “Into the Groove,” which inspired Puth’s “There’s A First Time For Everything.” “I wanted to [recapture] the feeling that it gave people in 1985 when they first heard that song,” he says. “I was just thinking of a bunch of scenarios where music could be played in the background.” Puth is absolutely at his most charming when discussing music, his favorite artists, and recalling random pop-culture trivia. His fans had him pegged. He’s not cool and he is a dork. Who else would excitedly talk about how his love of pop culture came from devouring Access Hollywood, Howard Stern, and The Naked Gun with his mom? Or using his perfect pitch to resemble everyday sounds on TikTok?
Puth says this as a member of the Barbz. Puth admitted recently that he was a “massive” Minaj fan on,and when Minaj responded, “Thank you Charlie, I love your voice,” Puth was in nirvana. “I don’t melt for many people, but I melted like chocolate in a hot car.”
“I’ve always loved Nicki,’ he continues. “I remember in the early days of Twitter, hearing that this new artist Nicki Minaj sold a million copies of her mixtape by herself and got signed to Cash Money. I was so enamored with the fact that you could do something on your own and then transfer all that success to a major label and then I heard”—he grins and sings the chorus of Minaj’s “Your Love”—“and I was like, who the fuck produced this? It had that foul ass 808 in it and Nicki was singing and rapping at the same time.”
“I am very horny,” “All the time.”
Charlie Puth
But he insists it’s really just about showing off the hard (and costly: “These gym sessions are expensive in LA!”) work that went into achieving his dream figure. He maintains that he doesn’t post them “to antagonize anybody.”
Listen CHARLIE on Apple Music
Read more gqhype.com
Photographs by Callum Walker Hutchinson @callumwalkerhutchinson
✍️: @irathethird
Styled by Brandon Tan @branduh
Grooming by Darcy Gilmore at The Wall Group using Balmain Hair Couture
Tailoring by Yelena Travkina
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