Rob Echeverria (guitarist of New York hardcore band Rest in Pieces) replaced Peter Mengede on guitar.

After recording and touring in support of the album, Echeverria left Helmet in 1995 to join Biohazard; however, his departure was more amicable than Mengede's.

Prior to Betty's release in June 1994, the album's biggest hit, "Milquetoast", appeared in alternate form on The Crow soundtrack as "Milktoast".

[5] Usually regarded as Helmet's experimental album, it features a broader approach with forays into jazz and blues.

[11] At a Connecticut concert with Girls Against Boys and Caspar Brötzmann Massaker, the latter group received a negative reception from Helmet's audience for opening the show with three 10-minute noisescapes.

"[27] Lorraine Ali of the Los Angeles Times claimed in her June 1994 review that "sludgy fuzz guitar now engulfs the precision thrashing of Helmet, a New York metal quartet that plays tight, sharp grooves with a maniacal and sometimes experimental urban edge.

"[17] In his retrospective review, AllMusic's John Franck gave it three out of five stars, writing "label pressure notwithstanding, the album had a lot more riding on it than even perhaps Hamilton was willing to admit [...] Betty appears to be an almost too well thought out affair, and, ultimately, its songs miss out on some of the discreet melodic accents which had served to underpin even the most bludgeoning noise-fests on Meantime.

They reflect, "right off the bat, with its pleasantly eerie cover of a filtered photo of a woman kneeling on a lawn in what appears to be '50s suburbia, the third album by New York City alt-metal quartet Helmet announced a departure from the spartan rigidity and single-mindedness the band made famous with their 1992 sophomore effort, Meantime", further adding that, "when Helmet followed-up Betty with the decidedly more direct and stripped-down Aftertaste in 1997, Hamilton almost seemed to apologize for deigning to deviate from his usual formula.

The track listing was chosen by Page Hamilton, and for unknown reasons omitted "Biscuits for Smut", which was released as a single and had a music video.

Covers of "I Know" by Fashion Week and "Milquetoast" by Brief Lives appeared as part of the 2016 Helmet tribute album Meantime (Redux).

A limited edition CD was released with a blue jewel case and five extra live tracks recorded July 30, 1994, in Los Angeles.