We did it, folks. After a nearly five-year battle that completely overshadowed the lead single potential of Charlie Puth’s 2018 song “Empty Cups,” the pitch-perfect thirst trapper has finally admitted to telling his driver those two blessed words: “I’m hungies.”
Don’t know what I’m talking about? Bless you, my child, I wish I had your life. But for the internet-pilled among us here’s the biggest news of the day: He admits it! According to a now infamous 2018 Billboard profile, and a viral Stereogum tweet about it, Puth allegedly told his driver Bela “I’m hungies.” The completely ridiculous but entirely inconsequential phrase probably would have faded into oblivion but I don’t know, it was a slow news day. Thus, a star was born.
The expression has followed Puth since the release of his 2018 album Voicenotes. And in 2019, Puth kept the internet lore going by addressing it in a Buzzfeed Celeb video. “Now this is very interesting,” he said, laughing over the headline. “I’ve never said that and I’ve had multiple people come up to me and be like, ‘Charlie, I’m a huge fan! Hungies!’ I remember I was going to get food and I said I was really hungry. The lady must have misheard me. I don’t know why. I don’t even know if hungies is a word,” he said with a laugh. “Why would I say that?”
Yes Mr. Puth, why indeed? More importantly, why would a reporter, who probably had the entire interview recorded, make that up?
But in a recent conversation with Interview magazine, Puth told writer Hilton Dresden while he doesn’t remember verbally saying his now infamous quote, he does admit he probably said it and just forgot. “I’m sure I said it in my subconscious and I just blurted it out,” he said. “I think I was probably half-asleep. I remember seeing it and thinking, ‘Oh God, that does sound like some stupid crap I would say.’ I don’t remember saying it, but it sounds like something I would say.”
Puth said the phrase was meant to be a kind of baby talk, like one “you’d say to a dog,” an excuse that starts to disintegrate when you remember he was addressing his fully grown driver. But he adds that hunger was probably more to blame than anything else.
“When I meet a dog, I kind of allude to a baby tone like, ‘Oh my God, you’re such a cute little baby dog.” But maybe I just didn’t eat that day and I was on the way to lunch. ‘I’m so hungies,’” he said. “I’m not denying it.”
While Puth’s statement probably means “I’m hungies” will continue to follow the pop star, he has gone on to make far more interesting headlines — and music. Last year, he told told Rolling Stone Music Now podcast that he agreed with the criticism over his 2016 album Nine Track Mind.
“I wish I had time to make a better album. We had ‘See You Again,’ the biggest song since ‘Lose Yourself.’ And I was never supposed to sing that record,” he said. “I wrote it specifically for another artist to sing, and then I suddenly had to figure out how to be an artist in front of millions of people. I was corny. I was 24 years old. I was figuring out, like, how to sing in front of a live audience. I had never done any of this stuff before, because I thought I was just gonna be behind the scenes. So forgive me if I made some missteps, but I had millions of eyes on me.”
It’s a sentiment echoed in the new interview, where he added that his growth as an artist has inspired his music since then. In May, Puth began his Charlie Live Experience tour — his first full North American tour since 2018. And regarding the longevity of “hungies,” he told Interview: “I never expected it to reach so many people, but I’m glad that people know me for more than just that.”