Charlie Puth apologizes to Manila fans during his concert: ‘It’s never going to happen again!’

It looks like Charlie Puth wants to make up for lost time with his Pinoy fans.

During the Manila leg of his Whatever’s Clever world tour last October 14, the multi-awarded American singer and songwriter paused his performance to formally address the audience after singing two songs. This comes on the heels of his earlier post on TikTok days before flying to Manila where he expressed his disbelief that the Philippines was the only stop on his Asian tour that had not yet sold out. 

“Okay, so before we go on and play the rest of the show, I would like to apologize to the Philippines, Manila, all of you, for  taking ten years to come back here. I don’t know how that happened but it’s never going to happen again okay? It’s unacceptable. Ten years. You are all some of the first to show me so much love on my music. So we won’t come back in ten years, that’s f**ked up. We’re going to come back more frequently. We appreciate all of you for showing up on this Wednesday,” he shared with the crowd at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. 

Charlie, who is known for his hit songs, “We Don’t Talk Anymore,” “Attention,” “How Long,” “Left and Right,” “Marvin Gaye,” and “One Call Away,” among others, admitted he did not know how he would be received by Filipino fans after not making it back to the country since his Nine Track Mind Tour back in August 2016.

“Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. We hadn’t been back in such a long time so it really means the world to me. I wanted to just get that out of the way. It’s not going to happen again,” he added.

Before ending his short speech, Charlie shared how he has grown personally and professionally over the past decade and how he expressed it as an artist. “God, ten years. I have changed a lot as a person in ten years, I think. We all have. For artists, we write about different things we experience, the different things in life. We make movies and we make songs and we make poems about them. That’s what the artists do,” he explained. 

In an interview with ABS-CBN News earlier this year, Charlie was candid about being aware of the long gap in between his return to the Philippines, as well as how special his Filipino fans mean to him.

“I’m surprised no one’s mad at me. I mean, it’s been a long time. I feel like people are going to get mad at me. I was just working. I was making sure we could put together the best show we could possibly put on. I never want any show I do to be the same. Because I feel like people would get bored. So they can expect something very different but familiar at the same time. They’re not gonna watch it and be like I don’t understand it at all. So hopefully, they’ll appreciate it,” he said.

The talented artist also recalled how one of his hit songs was conceived while he was in Manila.

“My first time in the Philippines was in 2015, and I remember it was just such a beautiful and different place than wherever I’d ever been before. And the people are so friendly, and everybody knows how to sing for some reason. And everybody’s just so nice. I remember just looking forward to doing the show because the understanding around the world is that everyone in the Philippines is very nice. So I was really excited to experience that for the first time. Making ‘We Don’t Talk Anymore’ in the hotel room was a pretty great memory. Whatever hotel we were staying at, I just remember being immersed in the culture for the first time,” he recalled. 

Charlie’s latest album Whatever’s Clever! was released last March.