Tragic Details About Charlie Puth

"We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist," Taylor Swift wrote in the title track of her 2024 double album "The Tortured Poets Department." But the Berklee College of Music graduate, who first found fame on YouTube before scoring massive hits with Meghan Trainor, Wiz Khalifa, and Selena Gomez, has had more to worry about than being underrated by the record-buying public.

Indeed, Puth may be the picture of contentment now having become a husband to Brooke Sansone, expectant parent, and Super Bowl performer. But over the years, the New Jersey native has had to deal with everything from medical woes and mental health issues to devastating break-ups and deaths of several close friends. As he gears up to release his fourth studio effort, "Whatever's Clever!," and perform the national anthem at the football world's biggest event, here's a look at 14 times the musical prodigy's life took a turn for the tragic.

Every pop star needs something to differentiate themselves from the pack. One of Charlie Puth's most distinctive features is the strip of hair missing from his right eyebrow. In fact, some of the singer's more dedicated fans have even tried to replicate the look by picking up the clippers. But turns out it's far from a stylistic choice.

Indeed, Puth was left permanently scarred at the age of 2 when he was bitten by a large dog. The incident, which happened when the youngster was playing outside with a friend, resulted in several face lacerations, including the famous eyebrow cut. His mom, Debra Puth, has stated the "Marvin Gaye" singer was lucky to have escaped the attack with his life intact.

As an adult, Puth has been able to joke more about the scar. "I'm not in a gang, this is not how many people I've killed," he once posted on X (via Christianity Daily) to a question about his facial hair, imploring fans to "spread the word."

Charlie Puth was something of a precocious talent. He started learning his instrument of choice, the piano, when he was 4 years old, and by age 10, he was performing in a jazz ensemble at Count Basie Theatre's Cool School in Red Bank, New Jersey. In fact, he made his first album, a festive collection titled "Have a Very Charlie Christmas," when he was in still in sixth grade! Sadly, many of his peers used his skills as a stick against him.

Indeed, speaking to The Independent in 2016, Puth revealed he was constantly bullied at school. "It was mostly verbal, like name-calling and such, the verbal stuff was massive amounts of discouragement like, 'How could you remotely think you could make it in this industry?'" Although the "Light Switch" singer paid little attention to their words, he couldn't ignore his tormentors when they got physical.

"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," Puth explained before adding that many of these bullies have since tried to become his friend. "I am pretty civil with everybody because I hate bad energy but it makes me so uncomfortable. So I just say, 'it's nice to see you, OK I'm going to leave now.'"

Like much of today's pop generation, Charlie Puth isn't afraid to talk about mental health. The singer has repeatedly discussed his own battles in song and in the press, most notably in a candid 2018 interview with The New York Times where he revealed he suffered from severe anxiety long before finding fame.

Puth went on to admit his early chart-topping success only added to his problems, particularly for how it left him feeling isolated. "I don't really do well when I'm alone a lot because I'm alone with my thoughts which is not good," he said. "It gets very freaky. The big misconception is when you get more famous you have more friends. I find that I'm alone more than ever now."

And those who knew the "Attention" hitmaker before he hit the top were able to recognize how he struggled with the limelight. Kara DioGuardi, who at the Berklee College of Music helped to teach Puth the art of songwriting, told the same publication, "He was put into a very difficult position 'cause the song ["See You Again"] was bigger than he was. I don't think he was prepared for that."

TV host Christine Lampard no doubt got more than she got bargained for when she welcomed Charlie Puth onto the set of the British morning show "Lorraine" in 2019. The "One Call Away" singer revealed that while touring for his second studio album, "Voicenotes," he nearly died not just once but twice!

"I used to get sick a lot on tour," Puth told Lampard on the show without going into too much detail. "It was really tough. I kept getting sick. I was sick for like a year with a cold and I just wasn't really taking care of myself."

However, these worrying incidents didn't stop the Grammy Award nominee from hitting the road. "Now, I know how to tour," he said at the time. "I figured it out. It took four years, but ... the fans make it all worth it."

Of course, certain Charlie Puth fans who had tickets for his 2016 "We Don't Talk" tour may not have been so surprised by the near-death revelations. The "Done for Me" singer was forced to call off the tour's final leg after a sustained period of illness.

"This is the last thing I want because I love being on the road performing and meeting every one of you," Puth explained in a heartfelt Instagram post (via The Independent) about the canceled shows. "I have been extremely sick pushing through these dates and haven't taken the time my body needs to recover. Resting and taking time off the road is the only way I can get better and start performing for you again."

Puth, who signed off by promising fans he'd make it up to them, had first sparked concerns two weeks earlier with an Instagram snap taken during a hospital recovery simply captioned, "d*mn" (via Teen Vogue). He later explained he'd been suffering from the flu.

You wouldn't necessarily expect a song titled "That's Hilarious" to focus on a devastating personal setback. But while promoting the single in 2022, Charlie Puth revealed it was inspired by the "worst breakup of my life." And he was still so affected by the head-turning revelation about his love life three years on he couldn't help but get emotional.

"I'm really excited for the song to come out, but every time I hear it, I'm kind of brought back to a time that was really, really, really challenging in my life," Puth explained in a soul-baring TikTok. "It just rears its ugly head every time — sorry — every time that I hear it," he added while struggling to contain his emotions.

The star might not have named the person at the center of his heartache. But considering he announced he was dating fellow singer Charlotte Lawrence in an Instagram post on Valentine's Day the year in question, and then split from her seven months on, it didn't take too much sleuthing to work out.

The music world was left reeling in 2018 when Mac Miller was found dead from an accidental drug overdose at his Los Angeles area home at the age of 26. And having spent a considerable amount of time with the rapper before the tragedy, Charlie Puth was particularly distraught.

In fact, the "Beat Yourself Up" singer had been desperately trying to get Miller, who'd battled substance abuse issues throughout much of his short life, on the wagon. "I always thought I'd be the one to help him get clean and to lead him onto the path of a good, clean, sober life," Puth told E! News. "We talked almost every day and I don't get a lot of friends who come into my life who I hit it off with so quickly."

The New Jersey native also revealed he's adopted his usual coping mechanism when it comes to loss. "Every time someone close to me passes away I always text their phone and — I don't know why I do this often," Puth said, going on to add he'd sent Miller a message telling him he loved him. "I knew he wasn't going to write back but I just felt like I had to do it anyway." Here's a look at several other things we learned about Miller after his death. 

In 2018, Charlie Puth scored another solo Hot 100 hit with "The Way I Am," a piece of pop that sounded upbeat but was thematically dark. Indeed, pay close attention to its lyrics ("Feelin' like I really don't deserve this/Life ain't nothing like it was before") and you may recognize it's an autobiographical account of a nervous breakdown.

"It's the first song I've put my whole personality into," Puth explained during a guest appearance on "On Air with Ryan Seacrest" about the track he got emotional writing about. "Having nervous breakdowns aren't really fun and the first time I had one ... I just knew that I had to come back, get settled and write about it because I feel like a lot of people can relate to it. It was scary that more people were going to know that about my personality ... It's scary knowing that people are going to know more about me."

Puth, who worked with Jacob Kasher Hindlin on the song, went on to explain his breakdown occurred due to a blend of jetlag, overwork, and lack of privacy. "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," he said.

Charlie Puth's debut album "Nine Track Mind" reached the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic and boasted hits "Marvin Gaye," "One Call Away," and "We Don't Talk Anymore." But the artist himself isn't particularly proud of it. In fact, he largely agrees with the press who slammed the record as one of the duds of the year.

"It was such bland music," Puth admitted to USA Today in 2018 while promoting its follow-up "Voicenotes," acknowledging the immediate worldwide success of the "Furious 7" soundtrack number "See You Again" caught him and his label by surprise. "I had to figure out my artist career in front of millions of people while we had the biggest song in the past decade. Everyone was like, 'Oh, he's going to be a piano-player artist' and I was like, 'I don't even know who I'm going to be, so I'm just going to try a lot of different-sounding music.'"

And Puth was in equally self-flagellating mode when he spoke to Rolling Stone in 2022 on the same subject: "I certainly don't make music for critics, but I was agreeing with them when they curbed my first album and they were like, 'This is the worst music ever.' I wish I had time to make a better album."

Charlie Puth scored his first No. 1 song with the Wiz Khalifa collaboration "See You Again," for the "Furious 7" soundtrack. The song also doubled as a eulogy to Paul Walker, the franchise star who'd died in a car crash during its filming. But you might not know the singer was inspired by a similar tragedy closer to home.

"I was thinking of my friend who had passed away in a very similar way [to Paul Walker]," Puth explained to Entertainment Weekly in 2015. "But it worked so well with everything going on with Paul." Although Puth had written the chorus, the Grammy Award nominee wasn't the first choice to perform it. Chris Brown, Jason Derulo, Adele, and the oft-controversial Sam Smith were just a few of the more established names initially put forward for the honor. But in the end, filmmakers believed Puth's voice worked in the song's favor.

"I'm really honored that the 'Furious' franchise thought that I captured it the best," Puth added about the track that topped the Hot 100 for 12 weeks and picked up three Grammy Award nods. The official video posted in 2015 by Khalifa has been streamed on YouTube nearly seven billion times. "I think I broke down and cried when they told me, because I was going to honor my friend, I was going to honor Paul, and anyone who's ever lost anybody." Here's a look at several other things we learned about Paul Walker after his death. 

Chart-toppers BTS are renowned for their fervent fan base. And Charlie Puth discovered just how fervent fans can be in 2020 when he found himself bombarded with unflattering messages accusing him of jumping on the K-pop bandwagon.

The New Jersey native felt compelled to respond directly to the BTS army after they'd flooded his TikTok account with comments such as "Remember when you used for Jungkook for clout?" (via Variety), which apparently was a reference to "Left and Right," Puth's duet with the boy band member. "I don't usually pay any mind to things like this, but something has to be said," the object of their ire tweeted. "This dangerous, toxic, internet screaming match between 'fandoms' has to stop."

Puth, who claimed to have no idea what had caused this fan attack, went on to add that although he personally doesn't take offense at such abuse, he does believe it's setting a bad example. "What I do know is that 10 years ago, language like this directed towards me would've affected me deeply in a very negative way. And I'm thinking about all the other younger kids on twitter seeing stuff like this on a daily basis."

Remember when Charlie Puth sported a fake lip ring? Or when he dramatically turned his famous brunette locks bleached blond? Well, the singer now admits these were simply visual signs of how he was struggling to find himself.

While promoting his fourth studio effort, "Whatever's Clever!," Puth acknowledged in a Rolling Stone interview he would often change his appearance and even his voice to fit in: "I would go to a radio show and tell myself, 'You're gonna put on a cool-guy accent because you have a big song out right now.' It was just so much inauthenticity ... I thought I had to be a certain way to be popular."

Puth, who described this particular era as "very cringe," claims he was often influenced and pressured by his record label to create an entirely different persona. He said he was "saying things in interviews that weren't true, because I was told by higher-ups that I'm a white guy with brown hair. Literally, they said I need some excitement around my project."

It wasn't just his image and his sound that Charlie Puth felt pressured to change during the early stages of his career. The "Cheating on You" singer also believed he needed a messy personal life to achieve greatness.

"I thought to myself as a young kid that I had to be in constant turmoil in order to write great music. Couldn't be furthest from the truth," Puth admitted to E! News in 2026. "It's when I was most comfortable and happy is when I wrote my best music. I don't know where this came from. I don't know if that was people giving me bad advice. I think that was my own doing."

Puth now appears to be much more settled away from the music industry, having wed Brooke Sansone in 2024 and the pair announcing a year later they were expecting their first child. "It just took me a while to grow up," the star added. "I've always wanted that life. I knew very early on that it was Brooke, as well. Again, frontal lobe not developed."

In 2016, Charlie Puth achieved his second U.S. Top 10 hit with "We Don't Talk Anymore," a collaboration with the oft-tragic Selena Gomez. Two years later, the singer appeared to confirm that his relationship with the Disney Channel graduate may have been more than just professional.

"I don't kiss and tell, but the only way a song like that 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." Indeed, Puth revealed he was "messed up" by their brief time together and got tongues wagging further by claiming another party — rumored to be Justin Bieber — was responsible. 

Still, Puth isn't likely to strike the tune from his setlists any time soon. "You gather up a bunch of emotion with the life shovel, throw it in the life bucket, mix it up. And she evoked such good emotion on that song, it was a pleasure working with her. That's why I'm always happy to sing it, even though it came from a dark point in my life."