Skylar Grey is making a splash on the music scene, popping up on Diddy-Dirty Money’s “Coming Home,” Dr. Dre’s “I Need a Doctor,” and Lupe Fiasco’s latest “Words I Never Said.” But one of the biggest hits of last year, Eminem and Rihanna’s “Love the Way You Lie,” was originally hers. The elusive singer, who penned the Grammy-nominated hit for the duo, has released the demo version of the Alex Da Kid-produced track, putting Skylar in the spotlight as she takes on the song’s main vocal duties.
“I’m not primarily a songwriter for other people, I really am an artist,” she told PopEater. “I wrote the demo initially for myself because I thought, ‘Oh, I have this big song, and now I have a little bit of a launching pad to put out my own stuff.’ As soon as Rihanna and her team heard my demo, they were like, ‘Oh we want it for Rihanna’s album,’ so I had to make the decision if I was going to let them have it or not. But I did and so it was on Rihanna’s album, too. I still felt like it would be cool to let people hear my version of it, too.”
Check out the original version of the chart-topping hit below.