Singer-songwriter Olly Murs has enjoyed eight top 10 singles, and the former X Factor contestant last week released his seventh album.

Despite Murs’ clean-cut reputation, controversy surrounds his new single.

Olly Murs?

One of those daytime radio guys who has apparently sold millions of records despite no-one being able to name any of them. He specialises in the kind of relentlessly focus-grouped banality that spends so much time trying to be inoffensive that it ends up being offensive. 

With his latest single, however, he appears to have caused genuine offence. 

How so?

Perhaps inspired by the poetry of Leonard Cohen’s greatest work or Kendrick Lamar’s dazzling wordplay, Murs has released a song entitled ‘I Hate You When You’re Drunk’. 

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Mercury Prize nominee Self Esteem shared the lyrics disapprovingly on Twitter, while broadcaster Shaun Keaveny tweeted: “Olly Murs is quite the sad, controlling boyfriend according to the lyrics of his new song, ‘I Hate You When You’re Drunk’. I look forward to her reply song ‘I Hate You When You Sing’.”

Keaveny added: “Imagine putting a track like that out into the world, being proud of the sentiment? It’s totally mad!”

Murs was in damage control mode on Tuesday, telling BBC Breakfast: “It’s obviously upsetting to think that people took it that way, because it was not that intention.”

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How bad is it?

Murs has her bang to rights. In a series of scathing lyrical putdowns worthy of 2Pac’s ‘Hit ‘Em Up’ or ‘You’re So Vain’ by Carly Simon, the 38-year-old points out that this modern day Jezebel likes drinking champagne and taking photos with her friends. 

‘Oh you’re slurrin’ all your words, there’s makeup on my shirt’, begins the prosecution’s case, before the defendant finds herself accused of ‘dancin’ on the tables’ and looking ‘like a mess’ while ‘singin’ Whitney’. ‘Woah-h, oh-oh’, he adds.

For all we know, Murs might actually find that behaviour endearing. Does he ever explain how her intoxication makes him feel?

Some of the greatest lyrics are open to interpretation. What did Billie Joe McAllister and his girlfriend throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge? 

Murs sings ‘Oh, I hate you, hate you, I hate you, hate you when you’re drunk’. 

Aside from his musical genius, what else is Murs known for?

Being fouled by Jose Mourinho at Soccer Aid 2014, and tweeting disputed claims about gunshots while in the Oxford Street branch of Selfridges in 2017. 

You’ll need to elaborate on that second one.

He tweeted: “F*** everyone get out of @Selfridges now gun shots!! I’m inside”, following up eight minutes later with: “Evacuating store now!!! F*** heart is pounding.”

A British Transport Police spokesman said “officers did not find any evidence of gunfire” and claimed Murs’ tweets “caused a significant level of panic, which resulted in numerous calls from members of the public reporting gunfire.”

Reflecting on the incident five months later, Murs told the Sun: “Something happened that day. Whether it was covered up, I don’t know.”

“It’s all a bit murky”, he added.

And what does that have to do with the song where he moans about someone getting drunk?

If anyone should know about ill-advised reporting of shots being taken…

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