Julia Michaels Explains Her 'Issues' With Ex-Boyfriend, Talks Transition From Songwriter to Singer

Julia Michaels is the brains behind some of the biggest pop songs from the last few years. From Justin Bieber's "Sorry" to Selena Gomez's "Hand to Myself," it's no wonder that Michaels would take the inevitable plunge into a solo career.

In Billboard's series "How It Went Down," the songwriter turned singer breaks down the story from her hit single, "Issues."

"Issues" is about a fight that Michaels had with her boyfriend, a music producer who was actually working in the neighboring studio when she wrote the track. "He got mad at me over something really, really stupid," Michaels recalls. "So I wrote 'Issues' in about an hour."

The song was co-written by Michaels' frequent collaborator Justin Tranter along with Benny Blanco and Stargate. According to Michaels, once she started thinking about the fight between her boyfriend, "Issues" came "flew out" pretty easily. 

"It was the first time I had written a song that felt so personal to me because of the way it had come about," she explains. "It was the first time I kept a song for myself and I had never done that before in my life. That was kind of the transition for me from songwriter to artist."

Learn more about Michaels and her "Issues" in the video above.

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