Goulding, feeling that the song was "missing something", eventually sent it to Diplo who sent his version back to her within a short amount of time.

[4] The music video for "Close to Me", directed by Diane Martel,[5] was filmed in Budapest, Hungary, and premiered on 14 November 2018.

[6] Goulding wiped her social media accounts and began promoting the track on 22 October 2018, first sharing a cartoon image of hers, Diplo and Swae Lee's arms locked in a triangle, displaying their tattoos against a cheetah print background, captioning it "CLOSE TO ME".

[1] She then later confirmed this would be the title, and along with posting an audio clip of the track,[7] announced the release date and time.

The remix appears as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of Goulding's fourth studio album Brightest Blue (2020).