Taylor Swift appears to be Charlie Puth’s ‘Hero’ in just-dropped track

By Dan Heching, CNN

(CNN) — Charlie Puth is giving thanks to a “hero” in his life, and it’s pretty easy to deduce the person in question is none other than Taylor Swift.

The “One Call Away” singer dropped a new single titled “Hero” on Friday, which appears to be in response to Swift’s lyrical callout of him last month in the title track of her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”

In that song, Swift sang in the second verse, “You smoked, then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.”

On Friday night, Puth posted about his new song – which would be akin to the opposite of a diss track – on Instagram, in a video clip showing him lip-synching to the track.

In text pasted over the video, Puth acknowledged that “the last couple of weeks have been really crazy for obvious reasons,” but that now he had something to share with his fans and followers.

He then wrote the new song is “about my friend called ‘Hero,’” and that sometimes he gets “a little nervous being overly honest in my music which is why this was sitting on my hard drive for awhile.”

“But I think someone out there was giving me a sign that I needed to release it,” Puth continued.

“So… I Declare that ‘Hero’ will be out everywhere on May 24th as the first single of my new album,” he added, a lyrical nod to Swift’s declaration on “Poets.”

He wrote in the caption, “Thank you…you know who you are.”

Puth is well-documented in his musical appreciation of Swift.

Not only has he been known to cover her songs while in concert, but in 2022 a video of him praising her musical talents made the rounds.

“Sidebar, this has nothing to do with anything – Taylor Swift is the queen of these types of chords,” he told attendees at his New York City concert at the time, as he played her song “Teardrops On My Guitar.”

CNN’s Lisa Respers France contributed to this report.

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