In an interview with Glamour.com released on September 3, 2013, Natalia stated:

I wrote “Controversy” and the whole feeling of it was: Don’t you fucking judge me. Don’t you dare police people; Don’t you dare judge us. It doesn’t make any sense. When I was really young, my parents and I lived in this really nice house, and we had all this cash money, and I went to a private school and wore a little uniform. Then, my dad got arrested and it was the whole thing of him going to trial and then prison. Then, the people I was a part of othered me in that way, like “Oh, her dad’s a criminal, he’s this, he’s that, they’ve got no money anymore”. I was told I couldn’t work anywhere because I left school and didn’t have a complete education. And then I’d flick on the TV and come across Jerry Springer, Girl, Interrupted or Cops. To me, it was like, hang on a second: If this is what we all see every day, me included, and this is my normal—then why when I step out into the planet is it terrible and wrong, when we’re all clapping and laughing and calling each other about it when it’s entertainment? But then when it’s translated into someone else’s reality that you know, it’s wrong. I put “Controversy” out first because it’s a verbal collage of things we see on a daily basis that we turn a blind eye to, especially in the Internet age, where you can literally see anything and everything instantly. This is where the world is now: We all laugh and joke when it’s someone else’s suffering.