Songfacts®:

• "Bittersweet" is a breakup ballad that's part confession, part victory lap. It's Madison Beer at her most reflective, navigating the emotional wreckage of the end of a relationship while trying to convince herself she's fine... mostly fine.
• Beer said "Bittersweet" is about "knowing something is for the best, but still having a hard time accepting it and being sad, but also okay, but also not okay at moments and just that riding the wave of those emotions that happen usually after a breakup."
  
  There's a faint echo of "Selfish," Beer's 2020 tale of romantic disentanglement that calls out emotional manipulation head-on. But where "Selfish" smolders with pain, "Bittersweet" feels like the sunrise after a long night. The ache is still there, but now she can breathe again.
• Beer hasn't said who "Bittersweet" is about. In interviews, she's framed it as a universal breakup song, less about naming names and more about processing emotion. Sure, fans have noted her connection to Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, but there's no proof this one's about him. Like "Make You Mine" before it, "Bittersweet" pulls from emotion, not gossip.
• "Bittersweet" was the last song written for Beer's third album, Locket. Beer thought she was done recording when something in her personal life pushed her back into the studio. She messaged longtime collaborator Tim "One Love" Sommers, who was working with writers Madi Yanofsky and Jon Robert Hall at the time. Madison isn't the kind of person who likes to write with a bunch of people she doesn't really know, especially when she was going through such an emotional experience, but in this instance she relented. She told them: "Okay, this feels like a crazy song to try to write with people I just met, but like I'm dying to write this song, so let's go."
  
  The four quickly got to work, and before long, "Bittersweet" was born.
• The music video, co-directed by Beer and Iris Kim, stars Sean Kaufman from The Summer I Turned Pretty and traces a transformation from heartbreak to newfound freedom.
  
  She filmed it in her real bedroom. Seeing Beer lying in her own bed surrounded by personal objects makes the video feel very real.
• Beer keeps a journal she calls her "emotional trash can." Many of her lyrics, including lines from "Bittersweet," were lifted almost word-for-word from entries written at low points. She described rereading old pages as "painful but freeing," telling Audacy, "It's like meeting your past self and telling her she made it."