Charlie Puth, up until a few years ago, was an unknown entity in the world of pop music. While Justin Bieber had shot to worldwide fame and Taylor Swift had already released her second album, Charlie Puth was still getting his pieces together to get a scholarship to Berklee School of Music. But since his record label signing with Ellen DeGeneres, the New Jersey-born pop star has steadily grown in stature, finally having announced his arrival to the world with Wiz Khalifa’s single “See You Again”.
So today, we bring you ten quirky facts about Charlie Puth that you may not know. By the end of this article, we are sure you will be well-informed and able to indulge in a little fun Charlie Puth trivia with your friends.
- Charlie’s father Charles Puth is of Hungarian and German descent while his mother Debra is Ashkenazi Jewish, an ethnic division within Judaism which constitutes about 75 percent of the world’s Jews.
- Charlie Puth attended Berklee School of Music on a full scholarship, arguably the best music conservatory in all of the United States. As of 2015, 99 Berklee alumni have amassed a total of 229 Grammy Awards between them. Now, isn’t that impressive?
- Charlie Puth’s close friend and fellow Berklee classmate once predicted that Charlie would reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. According to NJ.com, his soothsayer friend prophesied in 2012 that Charlie was set to reach number one within a short span of time. A fluke, perhaps, but what an accurate one at that!
- Charlie Puth, very much like Justin Bieber, was a YouTube discovery. On September 9, 2009, Charlie started his YouTube channel CharlieVlogs and uploaded his first video in December of that year.
- Charlie Puth considers Brian Wilson, the multi-tasking genius of The Beach Boys, as his biggest inspiration.
Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys (Source: Facebook)
- Charlie Puth has often been considered The Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson’s celebrity doppelganger. When quizzed about this by The Daily Beast, Charlie conceded that he has often been told so by fans.
“I’ve been hearing that since 2011. I’m very flattered. He’s a cool dude. Is that what a doppelganger is? I’m still trying to figure out what that word means. Someone who looks like someone. I thought it was like some German cuisine or something. I’ll have a doppelganger with a side of wiener schnitzel.”
- Charlie Puth is an artist who pens his own songs and is a great fan of J. D. Salinger’s novels. One of his early YouTube hits, “Haters Follow Me Like Twitter,” contains a humorous reference to Salinger’s classic, Catcher in the Rye.
“I’m a catcher in the rye with no record deal / Call me a spoiled brat—Holden Caulfield.”
- Charlie Puth never attended parties while in high school. He is a self-confessed introvert who preferred paying attention to music during the time his friends were busy getting themselves dates.
- When Ellen DeGeneres called Charlie Puth for the first time after hearing him sing the cover of Adele’s “Someone Like You” on YouTube, Charlie hung up the phone. He thought somebody was hoaxing him. Speaking to Asbury Park Press, he said,
“They were calling my elementary school, they had a whole team of people who scoured around trying to find information on me and she called me and said, ‘Hey, it’s Ellen’ and I hung up. ‘No, it’s really Ellen’ and I hung up again and then she called back again, ‘No, it’s really Ellen and the whole team and please do not hang up.'”
- Charlie Puth is not the first musician from New Jersey to have made it big. The Jonas Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen all hail from Puth’s native state.
Do you know of any facts about Charlie Puth we have missed out? Please comment below with your suggestions.
[Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]