In an interview with I-D Vice, Troye confirmed that “Animal” would be on his forthcoming second studio album, Bloom and described it as a “five-minute, 80s stadium love song.” It was released as the fifth single from the album, preceded by “My My My!,” “The Good Side,” “Bloom,” and “Dance to This.”

Sivan said in the interview:

The perfect pop song is 3:30, but I wanted to break out of that. So we started on piano and had this lyric “I want you all to myself/ Don’t leave none for nobody else / I am an animal with you” and worked our way outwards, slowly but surely adding little pieces to turn it into this epic profession of love.