“Bad Karma” is the tenth track from Miley Cyrus' seventh studio album Plastic Hearts released in November 2020. The song features American rock legend Joan Jett, marking the first collaboration between the two artists.

In May 2019, during the 2019 New York Met Gala, fashion model Amber Valletta, who attended the event with Miley, posted a snippet of the track on her Instagram stories. In May 2020, a year later, the song’s demo was leaked online via file-sharing websites.

The song is heavily inspired by previous Joan Jett’s works, remarked by similarities like moans and living carefree and not caring about the consequences of choices at the present moment, neither of what people think about it.

[Mark] kept saying “this is the most Miley record of all time” and I thought “[if] there’s one person who could own this record more than me, it’s Joan Jett” because that’s who instilled that mentality into me.
– via Zane Lowe for Apple Music ‘Plastic Hearts’ 2020 Interview

Miley also added that previous works from the rock legend helped to inspire the song, specifically her two tracks “Cherry Bomb” and “Bad Reputation.”