Songfacts®:

• "Unethical" is Faouzia's dark pop ballad about losing her identity in a toxic relationship. She sings from the point where a romance turns destructive, questioning the morals of a partner who repeatedly hurts her while expecting her to stay. The title stems from her calling out that behavior in the chorus.
• The track grew out of a period when Faouzia felt she was sacrificing her identity to satisfy the other person's expectations. "I felt like I had completely stripped away my essence to fit into what other people wanted from me," she told BASIC magazine. "I reached a point where I knew that I needed to be let go to be able to let go of the situation; otherwise, I would have lost myself completely."
• Breakin' all my bones, tryna hold you close
  Cut my heart right out my body?
  Tearing off my skin just to let you in
  Isn't it a bit unethical?
  
  Most of the lyrics and melody were already written when the core line hit her. "I knew it when I wrote the lyric 'unethical,'" Faouzia recalled to BASIC Magazine. "I knew there was something very special to the song."
  
  "I thought that 'isn't it a bit unethical' was a little bit of a funny, ironic question in the middle of a very dark and serious chorus, but it's a way to engage the other person," Faouzia added to Zach Sang. "You're explaining to them what they're doing, and you're posing the question."
• Faouzia hasn't named who or what specific event inspired "Unethical," and is guarded about the song's true subject. "When I wrote that song, I was as honest as I could be," she told Buzzfeed. "I decided to have no filter, and I was thinking, 'I'm just gonna lay it all out on the table. Whether people like it or not, this is me.'"
  
  She said once a song is finished, its meaning stops belonging solely to her: "When a song is written, it's written about something, but then the second it leaves your hands, you don't know how people will interpret it. Reading everyone's stories and seeing how it's been healing for them, too, has been beautiful."
  
  That reticence has left fans and entertainment outlets to fill in the blanks themselves, with several unverified reports claiming it was inspired by a former partner who pressured her to abandon music for marriage, a claim Faouzia has not confirmed.
• The song's music video, directed by Andrew Hebert, turns the relationship turmoil into a dark wedding story. Faouzia appears in bridal wear that grows increasingly ominous, using a blood-stained white dress to twist traditional romantic tropes, similar to how Taylor Swift crashed a pristine wedding in red for her "I Bet You Think About Me" video.
  
  Faouzia brought that same visual to the stage, performing "Unethical" on her Film Noir Tour while wearing a white lace wedding gown and veil. The outfit represented the version of herself she refused to give up for someone else.
• "Unethical" exploded on social media and streaming platforms during the summer of 2026, eventually topping one million daily Spotify streams, a career first for Faouzia. That momentum propelled the song onto the charts in September 2026, earning Faouzia her first career entries on both the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart.