Charlie Puth Reveals He Had To Fight To Be In The 'See You Again' Video
July 17, 2017
Charlie Puth achieved a major career milestone last week when his Wiz Khalifa-assisted music video for "See You Again," the lead single off the Furious 7 soundtrack, became the most-watched music video in YouTube history with 2.9 billion views.
And yet, the clip, which featured some final footage of the late Paul Walker, almost didn't include the 25-year-old pop star, as per his new interview with Billboard.
"I don't know if a lot of people know this, I wasn't supposed to be in the video," the singer/songwriter told Billboard in a new report. "I wasn't supposed to be on the song; I was only supposed to be a writer on the song. I was a brand new artist, I wasn't cool enough to be part of the franchise yet, I wasn't big enough, but I proved everybody who was close-minded wrong. Everyone on my record label stuck beside me and my management.
Puth ended up fighting for the song with a bold move during a phone conference with executives. "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," he recalled. "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."
Even though he didn't reveal the mystery performer behind the industry big-wig's pitched version of "See You Again," Mike Knobloch, the president of film music and publishing at Universal Pictures, said that keeping Puth on the track was ultimately the right decision. "It was important to get it right and to make sure from all angles that it went out in the most high integrity way possible, which in hindsight that's exactly what we did," he said. "And after that exploration, we can look back and say that it went exactly the way that it should have."
Photo: Getty Images