Now Is a Great Time to Celebrate the Charlie Puth “Hungies” Saga
Charlie Puth: I enjoy his mournful and angelic singing on that one Fast & Furious Wiz Khalifa song. Otherwise, I couldn’t tell you much else, other than that the singer-songwriter once contributed a crucially-important two-word phrase to the modern vernacular: “I’m hungies.”
Today, Puth is back in the news, after being namechecked on the title track of Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department:
"You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate
We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist
I scratch your head you fall asleep
Like a tattooed golden retriever"
Interesting—and, one might say, laced with an undercurrent and subtext that also indicates, “I’m hungies.”
Let’s take a moment to revisit the heady days of 2018, when Puth was profiled for the cover of Billboard. In one paragraph, sandwiched innocuously between Jennifer Lopez and charred broccolini, the pop star—then 26—used a very particular expression when declaring that he wanted a meal.
“Puth’s gaze darts toward the entrance of the Hotel Bel-Air, where we—and, apparently, Lopez and Alex Rodriguez—have come for lunch. ‘I love J.Lo, but I don’t give a shit.’ Puth’s driver, an elderly man named Bela, whisked us here after Puth declared ‘I’m hungies!’ Now, Puth zeroes in on his meal: two plates of hamachi sashimi, black truffle-dusted roast chicken and some charred broccolini he dutifully munches to satisfy Pasternak, his trainer.”
This might have otherwise gone unnoticed back then were it not for some aggregation wizardry by Stereogum, who singled out the quote and enshrined it in profile-writing history.
“I’m hungies” was a silly and charming throwaway line—that also turned out to basically be a Manchurian Candidate trigger phrase. Whereas I had otherwise spent zero time contemplating Charlie Puth, “I’m hungies” now popped into my head, unbidden, whenever I felt the vaguest rumblings of needing nourishment.
I was not alone. In a 2019 BuzzFeed video, Puth, burdened by the same hungies curse he had unleashed on the public, tried to deny he’d even said it. “I’ve never said that. I’ve had multiple people come up to me and say, ‘Charlie, I’m a huge fan. Hungies!’” he claimed. “I said I was really hungry. The lady must have misheard me. I don’t even know if ‘hungies’ is a word.” (It is now, Charlie.)
Five years after the original hungies allegations broke, Puth broke his silence again, this time with Interview magazine—and admitted what we knew was true all along.
“I’m sure I said it in my subconscious and I just blurted it out. 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.”
Rebecca Milzoff, the executive magazine editor at Billboard, wrote the original story that introduced “hungies” into the world back in 2018.
“It’s incredibly strange and funny and still weird to me that this became a thing, because it was honestly just a little moment. He just made this comment, in passing,” Milzoff recalls. “To me, a big reason to do the story was I was a huge Charlie Puth fan and I believed very strongly in his talent as a songwriter and someone to watch. I obviously wanted to show every facet of Charlie Puth, the human being. I thought he was very relatable and that was a little fun, relatable detail. I was very surprised that it took off the way it did and I was even more surprised that for a long time, he seemed to act as if he didn’t say it and as if I made it up. Which would literally be the stupidest thing possible.”
Milzoff appreciates the sentiment within the Swift lyrics. “I, too, agree that he deserves more respect as an artist,” she adds. “So I find it especially funny.”
Nick Catucci, who edited the story for Billboard at the time, is the current site director for GQ. (The hungies is coming from inside the house.) “Reading 'hungies' for the first time was one of those moments that every editor lives for, that electric jolt you get when you see the future materializing before you, auguring a shift in perception around some person or institution: Charlie Puth says 'I'm hungies' when he's ready for lunch,” Catucci recalls. “Still, we didn't entirely know what we had. We found it hilarious but could not have anticipated that it would become not just a meme, but a lasting meme—an artifact of the online monoculture.”
Mr. Puth, thank you for your service. Now that that’s been settled, the world longs to know: what is Travis Kelce’s version of “hungies”?
