Songfacts®:

• "Hate Me" is a hip-hop-flavored banger on which Ellie Goulding sings about a former boyfriend who is not over her.
  
  Hate me, hate me, still tryna replace me
  Chase me, chase me, tell me how you hate me
  Erase me, 'rase me, wish you never dated me
  Lies, tell me lies, baby, tell me how you hate me
  
  Goulding thinks her ex is confused about his feelings towards her; he detests the songstress, but is still longing for her. As she croons in the pre-chorus, "It's a thin line between all this love and hate."
• Juice WRLD joins Goulding on the song. His verse gives the guy's point of view as he accuses his ex-girlfriend of "playing mind games," giving him "migraines" and "damaging his brain."
• The song was Juice WLRD's third collaboration with a pop artist in 2019, following tracks with Halsey ("Without Me remix") and BTS ("All Night").
• "Hate Me" features production by The Monsters & Strangerz production team and with Los Angeles songwriter Jason Evigan. Their previous collaborations include Demi Lovato's "Never Been Hurt", Selena Gomez's "Forget Forever", Pitbull's "Fun" and Maroon 5's "It Was Always You."
• Goulding told Beats 1 that this anti-love anthem was inspired by how humans often screw up and do crazy things to other people. "I realized that I can always try and wear these rose-tinted glasses when it comes to my own past relationships or my friends' relationships, but actually when it comes down to it, some things are just really messed up," she said. "Sometimes I think you need to hear that. You need to hear it... to sort of validate your own situation, and it happens a lot. I played it to Juice Wrld - he loved it and wanted to be involved."