Love It When You Hate Me
by Avril Lavigne (featuring Blackbear)

Album: Love Sux (2022)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Love It When You Hate Me" finds Avril Lavigne ignoring all the warning signs and entering into an unhealthy romantic relationship.
  • Lavigne recorded "Love It When You Hate Me" for Love Sux, which centers on the ups and downs of relationships. "It was fun to think about the dynamic between two people in a relationship, and the things that are challenges – the stuff that's fun, what happens when you fall in love, what it's like when you fall out of love," the pop-punk princess told Billboard. "Even 'Love It When You Hate Me' – there's a bunch of red flags that you see with a person, but there's mad chemistry, so you decide to dive in anyway and just go for it."
  • American singer-songwriter Blackbear contributes a guest verse. He too finds himself in a toxic relationship, which he doesn't want to leave.
  • Lavigne wrote the song with John Feldmann (5 Seconds of Summer, All Time Low) and Machine Gun Kelly's writing partner Mod Sun.
  • "Love It When You Hate Me" was the last track Lavigne and her collaborators penned for Love Sux. As soon as they finished it, she sent it to Blackbear. Lavigne asked him if he would sing on it, and Blackbear agreed, doing his vocals the very next day.
  • Feldmann and Mod Sun also co-produced the song along with Travis Barker. Lavigne signed with the blink-182 drummer's Elektra Music Group imprint DTA Records for Love Sux.
  • The video finds Lavigne getting thrown into jail for the crime of "falling in love too many times." She performs inside of a prison cell along with Blackbear, Barker, and some dancing female inmates.

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