Songfacts®:

• When Ella Henderson treated herself to a Caribbean holiday in January 2017, a paparazzo secretly photographed her on the beach. The pictures, showing the singer embracing her curves in a black bikini, landed in the British tabloids. Sadly, because the photos showed Henderson doesn't have a model's figure and perfect skin, the online trolls gave her massive grief. On returning home, she hid in her flat and wrote "Ugly" as a form of therapy.
• The message of "Ugly" is being the individual you are makes you unique, and that's sufficient; we're not meant to look perfect. "This song means so much to me and is a song I know I need from time to time when I can be my own worst enemy," Henderson told The Sun. "It's all about embracing the skin you're in and knowing that being yourself is enough."
• Henderson originally wrote the song for her second album with Syco, which ended up getting scrapped. Since being trolled online, the singer has been on a huge journey of building self-worth, so after signing a deal with Major Tom's / Asylum Records and Warner Music, Henderson wanted to include it on her first record with her new label. "I just think it stands for everything I believe in and everything that, as a role model, in my role with a platform now, I want to say something that inspires and empowers the younger generation coming through, she told Apple Music. "And I feel like this song is that song on the album and also it's me on a daily basis."
• Henderson's favorite lyric on the song talks about being true to ourselves.
  
  It's time to have the time of our lives
  And say something real
  
  "I think that just really resonates with this day and age," she told Apple Music. "I think we stress so much over things we see on social media and we compare ourselves to things and filter everything. And we just end up feeling like we've got to become something that we're just not."
• Henderson wrote the song with:
  
  American singer-songwriter Sasha Sloan (Louis Tomlinson's "Just Hold On," Camila Cabello's Never Be the Same").
  
  London electro musician Two Inch Punch (Sam Smith's "Safe With Me" and "Money On My Mind").
  
  English duo Mac & Phil. They produced or co-produced eight of the tracks on Emeli Sandé's 2016 Long Live The Angels album.
• Henderson recorded "Ugly" in London's Metropolis Studios with Mac & Phil. Two Inch Punch contributed additional production. Because it is older than the other songs on Everything I Didn't Say, the production differs from the other tracks.