Songfacts®:

• The song is about a guy who gets caught cheating on his girl but denies it even though he is clearly guilty. It was inspired by a comedy routine Eddie Murphy performed in his movie Raw. Murphy said that no matter what your girl accuses you of, never admit to anything, just say, "It wasn't me," and don't offer details.
• Shaggy became Mr. Boombastic when he learned that in England, "shag" means sex (his real name is Orville Burrell; "Shaggy" comes from the Scooby-Doo character). This persona was comically big-headed and a bit of a male chauvinist, which made for some very entertaining songs, but it wasn't him. None of what happens in "It Wasn't Me" came from his own experience; they're just a bunch of hypothetical situations he made up.
• The song features Rikrok, whose real name is Ricardo Ducent, singing most of the lyrics. Shaggy sings the refrain "It Wasn't Me." Shaggy helped out Rikrok by working with him on his first solo album.
• Playful songs like this one were big in 2001 - up until September 11. That summer, the Missy Elliott reworking of "Lady Marmalade" was a huge hit, as was Destiny's Child's "Bootylicious."
• "It Wasn't Me" was a spectacular return for Shaggy, who was dropped by his label after disappointing sales of his 1997 album Midnite Lover. In America, it went to #1 for two weeks and propelled his Hot Shot album to sales of over 6 million. In the UK, it was not only a #1 hit but also the best-selling single of 2001. His next single, "Angel," also topped the charts in both territories.
• This wasn't supposed to be a single, but it got some heat in Hawaii when a disc jockey on the Honolulu radio station KIKI downloaded it from the internet and played it on the air. This convinced Shaggy's record company, MCA, to issue it.
  
  The first single from the album was "Dance And Shout," which seemed like a solid bet because it was produced by the reliable hitmakers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, but it flopped hard, reaching just #104 in America in August 2000. The album, and Shaggy's career, seemed left for dead, but "It Wasn't Me" revived him in a big way, hitting #1 in February 2001, six months after "Dance And Shout" bombed.
• The track is built on a sample of the 1975 song "Smile Happy" from the band War.
• In the video, Rikrok gets caught cheating and comes running to Shaggy's mansion, where Shaggy schools him on the art of being a true player. To show how he got caught, Rikrok shows Shaggy a video of his misdeeds on his flipphone, which in 2001 could only be done through the magic of editing.
• Shaggy and Sting did a bit with host James Corden at the Grammy Awards in 2018 where they performed in the New York subway but were met by a hostile audience. "Whose idea was this anyway," Corden asked. Shaggy's response: "It wasn't me."
• This was used in a 2021 Super Bowl commercial where Mila Kunis gets caught eating her husband, Ashton Kutcher's, Cheetos. When he confronts, Shaggy shows up to advise: "Just tell him it wasn't you." She does that, creating her own version of the song:
  
  But I caught you at the counter
  It wasn't me
  
  Saw you snacking on the sofa
  It wasn't me
  
  You even had them in the shower
  It wasn't me
  
  Shaggy then explains that it's his own fault:
  
  You the one that granted access to your snacks
  Don't act surprised that she sneak behind your back
  You got to keep tabs before she empty that bag
  Let's review the situation: orange fingers, red flag
  
  He councils Austin to keep his own stash, then when Mila tells him one more time, "It wasn't me," and Austin lets it go, Shaggy says, "That's the first time that's ever worked."
  
  Two things were learned from the ad:
  1) Shaggy doesn't age.
  2) Ashton Kutcher is a truly terrible singer.
• Speaking to People in a 2023 interview, Shaggy said this song has given him a misleading image as a "player." The intention behind the song was quite the opposite.
  
  "People didn't listen to the record to the end," Shaggy clarified. He pointed out that there is a crucial part in the song where a conversation takes place between two individuals. In this dialogue, Shaggy's character initially offers misguided advice, urging his friend to deny the cheating allegations by saying, "It wasn't me."
  
  But Shaggy stressed that the overlooked second half of the conversation holds the key to understanding the song's true meaning. "At the end, the guy says, 'I'm going to tell her that I'm sorry for the pain that I've caused. I've been listening to your reasoning, it makes no sense at all... You might think that you're a player, but you're completely lost,'" he explained. "Nobody hears that part! That's what the song says."
• Puerto Rican rapper Anuel AA sampled "It Wasn't Me" on his 2019 single "China," featuring Colombian artists Karol G and J. Balvin, along with fellow Puerto Rican singers Daddy Yankee and Ozuna.