Missy Elliott is debunking a longtime misconception about singer Tweet’s 2002 hit single “Oops (Oh My).”
With lyrics like “Oops, there goes my skirt dropping to my feet, oh my” and “Oooh, some kind of touch caressing my face, oh my,” it’s not hard to imagine why listeners would’ve thought that “Oops” was about self-pleasure.
However, after a user on Twitter shared a clip of the music video for the song and captioned the post, “Tweet said Masturbation but make it a Bop,” Missy Elliott decided to clarify things once and for all.
The Virginia native reposted the tweet and wrote, “#Funfact this song was never bout Masturbation.” She added, “It was always about her appreciating her Dark Skin (Self Love)when she looked in the mirror it was the listeners that thought it was about sex & just ran with it… & we just let the consumers mind create what they wanted.”
Despite the explanation, fans weren’t convinced, including one user who jokingly responded to the female emcee, saying, “Ms. Elliott? MISSY!! Cut out all this fibbin. You know good’n hell well…” They added, “So, now ‘One Minute Man’ was about a dude running a foot race??” Missy replied back to the fan, saying, “Lol! Nah that song meant what it said.”
Another person tried to assist Missy and shared a clip of Tweet’s episode on the BET digital series “Finding,” in which she explained how the song came about. In the nearly two-minute clip, Tweet explained that Missy played the beat for her, and she automatically started singing lyrics from a song she wrote for another project. “Oops is about self-love,” the songstress explained. “I remember watching ‘Oprah,’ and there was a doctor on there that said, ‘everybody in life should get naked and look at themselves in the mirror and love everything they see about themselves not wanting to change a thing.'” The 49-year-old revealed she kept that thought stored away, and it was that clip that inspired her to write the song.
The video then panned to a vintage interview, where DJ Clue specifically asked her if the song was about something sexual, to which the songstress replied, “No, I’m positive.” She added, “It’s about self-love and appreciation; you know I was real insecure about myself for a while.”
Tweet said she was taught in the music industry that sex sells and figured it was a creative way to say “love yourself.” She added, “If people think it’s about that, whatever interpretation you want. That just means you listened.”
