Truth Hurts (song)

Lore & Background

The song was written by Lizzo alongside Jesse Saint John and producers Steven "Tele" Cheung and Ricky Reed. Musically, it is a trap, hip hop, and pop song built around a "glittering" piano loop. Lyrically, it addresses romantic problems, with lines such as "You coulda had a bad bitch, non-committal / Help you with your career, just a little" and "You're 'posed to hold me down / But you're holding me back / And that's the sound of me not calling you back." During a 2019 concert in Detroit, Lizzo stated that the person she wrote the song about is from Detroit.

Upon its original release in 2017, the song did not chart. It became a sleeper hit two years later, debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 50 in May 2019 and eventually reaching number one in September 2019. It spent seven non-consecutive weeks at number one, tying Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" for the longest-leading rap song by a female artist on the chart. The song also topped the Mainstream Top 40 and Rhythmic charts, and reached number one on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, where it spent nine weeks, the most ever for a rap song by a female artist since that chart's inception in 2003.

Reader's Guide

"Truth Hurts" is significant for its unprecedented commercial trajectory as a sleeper hit, becoming a viral phenomenon two years after its initial release. It marked Lizzo's first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 and established her as a major pop and hip-hop force. The song's success helped it earn three Grammy nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year, winning Best Pop Solo Performance. It was certified diamond by the RIAA and has over one billion streams on Spotify. Rolling Stone ranked it the 24th best song of the decade, and Billboard included it among the 100 songs that defined the decade. In 2021, it was added to Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song's legacy also includes its cultural impact as a self-empowerment anthem, with a music video depicting Lizzo marrying herself, and its use in media, including a notable edit by a Green Bay radio station that removed a lyric referencing the Minnesota Vikings due to the Packers–Vikings rivalry.

Did You Know?

• The song was originally released in 2017 but became a sleeper hit in 2019 after going viral on TikTok and being used in the Netflix movie Someone Great.
• The music video shows Lizzo playing a bride who marries herself.
• A Green Bay radio station edited out the lyric referencing the Minnesota Vikings due to the Packers' rivalry with them.