Charlie Puth claims he was ghosted by Ellen DeGeneres’s record label.
The “See You Again” singer, 30, spoke out on the latest episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, in which he discussed being signed to the eleveneleven record label in 2011.
“Not putting any blame on one person, but from a collective … all the people that were in that room, they just disappeared,” Puth told Rolling Stone. “I didn’t hear from anybody.”
But the pop star didn’t have anything negative to say about DeGeneres herself. In his interview, Puth addressed widespread claims that the talk show host is difficult to work for.
“People describe Ellen as rude,” he said. “I’ve never experienced that. Maybe she likes me.”
He also shared that he now doesn’t mind that his early work with the label wasn’t ever released, noting that he was quite inexperienced at that juncture in his career.
“I don’t know how good they are,” he admitted.
Puth isn’t the only artist to open up about working with eleveneleven. Greyson Chance, who rose to stardom after his YouTube-posted performance of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” went viral in April 2010, also spoke out about his experience working with DeGeneres. Last month, he told Rolling Stone he had “never met someone more manipulative, more self-centered and more blatantly opportunistic than her,” Yahoo Entertainment previously reported. Chance also claimed DeGeneres “became domineering and way too controlling” when it came to matters including his wardrobe.
“She would come in and look at a rack, yell at stylists, berate people in front of me and say, ‘This is what you’re wearing on the show,'” Chance said. “She was just degrading to people.”
In regards to Chance’s statements, Puth was quick to clarify that he didn’t witness the same personality clashes. However, he does agree there was poor management within the organization, which left him looking for guidance.
“We both have different experiences, me versus Greyson. But I do agree with him that no one was present, certainly, after the creation of my first demo EP,” shared Puth, who is back with a new album, Charlie, and a renewed sense of confidence.
“I realized that I’m capable of a lot of things, and making an album is one of them — and I’m gonna do this myself,” he said. “I hope people listen to this album and realize how special they are, because I realized how special I was.”
