Thought U, Were (song)

For other articles with the same name, see Thought U, Were.

## ***Thought U, Were***Single by BJAYE

"**Thought U, Were**" (stylized in all lowercase) is the lead single and eleventh track from BJAYE's third studio album of the same name. It is also the eleventh track of the album. It was released through Republic Records on October 6, 2028. The song has over 2 billion streams on Spotify.

Commercially, the song debuted atop of the US *Billboard* Hot 100, being BJAYE' s highest peak in the country for 2028, as well as his seventh #1 there. This makes him the first artist to have the most singles debut at the top of the chart in under one year. The song spent a total of 14 non-consecutive weeks on top of the chart. It also reached #1 in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

In the lyrics in the song, BJAYE mentions and says how his ex did him dirty and he feels like he will never be the same and says on how he feels like love isn't kind of worth it but he's says that he hopes in the future it will work out.

The accompanying music video for the song premiered on November 3, 2028, with over 3.5m people waiting and hit over 60 million views in its first 24 hours on YouTube, becoming the fourth video with most views in its first day on the platform.

A live version of the song is featured on *From Yours, To Whom (DWT Live)*, which was released on December 28, 2029.

## Background

According to BJAYE's Manager, BJAYE started working on the song on August 19, 2028. BJAYE did confirm that the a "song" which was confirmed at The VMA's, and said "a surprise single could drop any day or time but you'll have to find out soon". BJAYE teased lyrics from the song on October 4, 2028 through tweets after a clip of *his ex* was seen showing BJAYE's ex misinterpreting about their broken relationship and said a lot of false stuff to gain more attention, and paint "BJAYE" as the "cause" of the failed relationship. The song title was revealed that day after he tweeted "Thought U, Were" which was later deleted. BJAYE felt like to make the pain go away it's to express it in music and said "i hope the best for him but at the same time it's his fault for not being honest and having to cause broken things into the relationship, and i feel like i'm kind of being mature but not at the same time because i'm not like i'm not trying to be violent towards him for attention, like just bc i have things that are important such as my music career, i literally prioritize my time out of my date just for him, i have feelings and i want the perfect relationship that i've been dreaming for a very long time, and i feel like this is an anthem for anybody, who's going thru and problems and to let u know that we're all in this together.

On October 6, BJAYE almost confirmed that the song will be the title track and lead single from the album. It was also reported by *TMZ* that the song would be released the next day, however, neither BJAYE nor his team confirmed it until that night. Later that night the song was available on many digital platforms with no prior official announcement, being a surprise release.

A lyric video for the song was released on October 7, 2028. The song has now been certified 8x platinum selling over 8,000,000 units in the United States & selling over 13.5m units (13,500,000 units) worldwide.

## Commercial performance

Following the worldwide release of "Thought U, Were", the song debuted at No. 1 on the iTunes Worldwide Song Chart and reached No. 1 on US Apple Music, becoming the first pop song to do so in 2028. It debuted at No. 1 on the global Spotify chart with 50.9 million streams. It debuted at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart with first-week sales of 102,000 units including 23.7 million streams, becoming BJAYE's first solo single to achieve this. It also debuted at the top on the Official Irish Chart.

This song had broke many records including fastest song to reach to 100 million streams (122, 438,690) in 3 days, surpassing his own “Dreamin” , which did 124m streams in 5

The song broke his previous record for most streamed song in a single surpassing “Dang Minds”, which projected 30.8m streams in its first day, Thought U, Were projected 50m streams in it’s first day, and broke record for the most streamed song in it’s first week with 202m (202,493,969) streams. It became the fastest song to reach 100 million streams in 3 days (122.4m) & 200 million streams in 7 days until it was surpassed by Breakup Dreams. Once the Music Video was released the album broke its biggest streaming day with 65.8m (65,857,976) streams and garned over 195m more streams the week following the video was released

The song also spent 11 weeks at number one on the Spotify Charts with 67.2m streams,

Following its release date, on October 7, 2028, the song broke the record for the most streams received by a song in a single day by a black person on Spotify, with 50.9 (50,967,459) million streams.

On the week ending March 10, 2029, the song dropped at number 3 on the US *Billboard* Hot 100. With "Breakup Dreams", and “Your Best Friend Is My Man Now”, occupying number 1, number 2 and number 3, respectively, BJAYE became the second black artist to occupy solo songs on the top 3 & third on the chart since Ariana Grande in 2019 & Taylor Swift in 2023. He was the first black artist to occupy the entire top ten. However, BJAYE is the third and second black artist to occupy the top 3 spots on the Billboard Hot 100.

## Live performances

BJAYE gave the first televised performance of the song live along with his single "Dreamin" on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on October 6, 2028. The song was also performed at the 2028 American Music Awards. This was also a regular part of the set list and always ended each night of BJAYE's Dreamin World Tour.

BJAYE performed "Thought U, Were" in a medley at the 72nd Grammy Awards in 2030, among two of his other songs: an interlude towards Breakup Dreams and "Breakup Dreams".