To reveal the underlying mechanism of doxorubicin induced hepatotoxicity, an NMR-based metabolomic approach combined with multivariate statistical analysis was used to observe its metabolic alternations of rat liver. Sixteen differential metabolites between model rats and normal rats were characterized as potential pathological biomarkers related to doxorubicin induced hepatotoxicity. Six pathways, including phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan biosynthesis, valine, leucine and isoleucine biosynthesis, phenylalanine metabolism, glycine, serine and threonine metabolism, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, and tyrosine metabolism were regarded as the targeted metabolic pathways according to Metabolic Pathway Analysis (MetPA). The results suggested that the metabolic perturbations in rats with doxorubicin induced hepatotoxicity were mainly involved in amino acid metabolism, lipid pathways, purine metabolism, energy metabolism, dysfunction of biotransformation and oxidative stress. The investigation revealed the effects of doxorubicin on liver in a holistic metabolic way, which laid a foundation for further studies on its toxicity mechanism.