Charlie Puth tweeted “wow” earlier this week when “See You Again” was named YouTube’s most-watched video — a video some people didn’t want to see him in.
“I don’t know if a lot of people know this,” the singer told Billboard. “I wasn’t supposed to be on the song.”
Puth co-wrote the track with DJ Frank E and Wiz Khalifa but was too much of an unknown at the time to actually sing on it. The song was set to be used at the end of Furious 7 as a tribute to the late Paul Walker.
“I was a brand new artist, I wasn't cool enough … I wasn’t big enough,” he recalled.
“I'll never forget I ended up calling them from around this big conference table on the phone, and they were explaining the reasons why it was going to be sung by this artist and blah, blah blah, I'm not going to name any names, but... I said, 'That's great. Your movie comes out in a week and I'm not gonna give you the song.’
“And I hung up the phone and when I said that miraculously I was in the music video.”
Puth said it’s all good now.
“I don't hold any grudges," he said. "I'm actually really good friends with everybody who didn't necessarily believe in me at first, I've worked on projects with them since then … but, you know, I had to prove myself.”