Charlie Puth Thought Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ Shout-Out Was AI

Artistes

“We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist,” Swift sings on the album’s title track.

Charlie Puth poses at the red carpet before the 10th Annual Breakthrough Prize Awards and Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on April 13, 2024 in Los Angeles.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images

Charlie Puth was convinced his shout-out on Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was the result of an artificial intelligence hoax.

Swift’s Billboard 200-topping Tortured Poets featured the lyric, “We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist,” on its title track. The “Attention” singer sat down with SiriusXM this week, where he admitted that his first reaction after hearing the line was disbelief.

“It’s quite the compliment, by the way. I thought it was AI, because AI just seems to be everywhere,” he recalled, before adding, “Then, I heard a clip of it, and thought that’s way to smart for AI, that’s way too clever — the way that it rhymed.”