Songfacts®:

• "Mutual Friend" chronicles the peace-making attempt of a close associate of both Jessie Reyez and her former lover. The friend passes on a message from the singer's ex that he's sorry for his actions that caused their breakup and would like to talk. Reyez rejects their appeasing efforts, admitting her heartbreak has transformed into hate and she wouldn't even shed a tear if he died.
• Reyez wrote the song with producer Rykeyz in approximately 20 minutes at the end of a session. She took inspiration from an actual conversation that took place the day before.
  
  "It's literal," the Canadian singer-songwriter told Genius. "Everything in the song is the story of what happened that day."
• Memphis, Tennessee producer Ryan "Rykeyz" Williamson attended Berklee College of Music and got his start when Ne-Yo signed him to his production company, Compound Entertainment. His other credits include Demi Lovato and Sam Fischer's "What Other People Say" and Ingrid Andress and Sam Hunt's "Wishful Drinking."
• Reyez based her debut EP Kiddo on such true life experiences as being propositioned and threatened by a producer and moving on from a cheating boyfriend. So it shouldn't have surprised the mutual friend that Reyez turned their conversation into a tune. Asked by Billboard how the friend reacted when they heard it, she replied: "They were like, 'F–k, Jessie, come on.' I've done it before, where I've written songs an hour after a fight: got out the car, slammed the door, went to the studio. Kiddo was made that way. So it wasn't really new to me, but I guess it was new for them to have a song that came from a convo that happened literally within the day. So they were just like, 'How? When?' It was funny - for me."
• Reyez debuted the brutal song on the August 11, 2022 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. She released it as the second single from Yessie a few hours later.
• Speaking to Genius in 2025, Reyez said she's now moved on from her anger towards her ex. "I see the human in me that was very bruised and very hurt, but I'm happy to say I don't feel the same anymore," she said. "Shoutout to growth."
  
  "The person in question, I was able to make peace, which if you asked me then, I would have thought was completely impossible," Reyez continued. "It doesn't hurt anymore, which is nice, because so many records would hurt for so long."