Charlie Puth credits pal Taylor Swift for inspiring him to release new music.

On Tuesday, Puth, 32, took to Instagram to announce his song, “HERO,” releasing Friday, and his upcoming album. He thanked Swift, 34, for giving him the motivation he needed to drop his first song of 2024.

“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,” he wrote. “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. 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,” he continued. “HERO is yours on May 24th and this is the single artwork. Thank you to all of my fans- you’ll never know how much you mean to me…”

In April, Swift name-dropped Puth on the title track of her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department.

While singing about a series of detailed exchanges with a lover, Swift declares in the second verse, “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.”

Fans were quick to flood Puth’s social accounts with comments about the shout-out. But it wasn’t until Swift celebrated the record-breaking success of TTPD on Instagram that Puth finally (and subtly) reacted to the honorable mention by sharing Swift’s post on his respective Instagram Story.
Charlie Puth reacts to Taylor Swift name dropping him on ‘The Tortured Poets Department.’ – Charlie Puth/Instagram
A month after Swift’s name-drop, Puth announced that a new song was on the way.

On May 3, the “Marvin Gaye” singer shared videos to his TikTok and Instagram revealing news about his upcoming release, “Hero.”

“These last couple weeks have been really crazy for obvious reasons, but I wanted to share something with you,” he wrote in his video. “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 out there was giving me a sign that I needed to release it.”

Puth then playfully repurposed Swift’s lyrics, writing, “So … I Declare ‘Hero’ will be out everywhere May 24th as the first single of my new album. Thank you for your support … you know who you are.”

Swifties immediately knew who he was talking about.