It's true that breakups suck.
And songwriters fill their lyrics with references to their relationships, not usually outright
saying who they're singing about.
So who wrote about whom? Keep watching to find out what shady songs musicians wrote
about their exes.
The Chicks were on top of the world in the early 2000s until a political scandal, one
where they opposed the war in Iraq, and it derailed their careers.
A few years after the backlash, they had a relatively successful comeback single with
"Not Ready to Make Nice."
But after that, it would be fourteen long years, a divorce, and a name change before
The Chicks released music again.
Natalie Maines went through a public breakup with her husband, Heroes star Adrian Pasdar,
and the dissolution of their marriage formed the perfect basis for a barnstormer of a breakup
album, Gaslighter.
Fearing what Maines would say about him in song, Pasdar went to court to block the release
of the album.
The Blast reviewed Pasdar's court filings, which revealed that he was worried the new
music would violate the confidentiality clauses in their prenup.
And this came as a surprise to Maines.
Pasdar had previously argued that he was under no financial obligation in the divorce because
he said there was no prenup.
But fans got to hear Gaslighter and the title track turned out to be one of the shadiest
songs in recent memory, with Maines singing:
"Gaslighter / big timer / Repeating all of the mistakes of your father."
Taylor Swift could fill a list like this all on her own, but her ultimate shady song about
an ex has to be her ten-minute epic, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version)."
As Swifties know, the song is about her fiery, three-month relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal.
They dated from October 2010 through January 2011, going on much-photographed walks and
giggling over brunch together, but the relationship unfortunately didn't last.
It did, however, give Swift plenty of material for her smash hit album Red.
"The way that this song was written, I was, I was, going through a bit of a sad time."
The re-recorded, expanded song came out in 2021, more than a decade after their breakup.
Alongside a ten-minute short film re-enacting of the relationship, the song itself featured
new details for fans to pore over.
Choice lyrics include:
"I'll get older, but your lovers stay my age."
Gyllenhaal addressed the backlash to his career sparked by the song in an interview with Esquire,
saying that the song's release led him to turn off his Instagram comments to avoid the
wrath of Taylor Swift's fans.
While he admitted he hasn't listened to the album, he expressed a wish that some of the
cyberbullying would have been headed off by the singer.
He said:
"At some point.
I think it's important when supporters get unruly that we feel a responsibility to have
them be civil and not allow for cyberbullying in one's name."
Abigail Breslin is primarily an actor, and an Oscar-nominated one at that.
The Little Miss Sunshine star received a nod when she was merely ten years old.
Years later, she briefly dated Michael Clifford, the Australian lead guitarist of pop-punk
band 5 Seconds of Summer.
Shortly after their relationship fizzled out, Breslin jumped into music with the release
of "You Suck," a vicious track about all the things wrong with a former lover.
She sang over an infectious guitar track:
"I'm laughing cause I lied, you know."
When the song was released, fans of 5 Seconds of Summer weren't happy.
According to Genius, fans got the hashtag, #AbigailYouTried, trending on Twitter, and
Clifford tweeted a string of reactions in agreement.
He finally addressed the song a year later on Australian radio, protesting:
"Literally we went to dinner one time and she, I can't, I can't."
"No, it's alright you don't have to."
"No, it's ok."
Breslin later denied that she'd ever said the song was about him.
She told HuffPost Live:
"I learned that boy bands have a very, very strong avid following [...] it got a little
bit intense, some death threats."
Back at the height of the late 90s/early 00s teen-pop wave, Justin Timberlake and Britney
Spears were the it couple.
The pop superstars turned heads whenever they showed up on a red carpet.
Who can forget their matching denim looks at the 2001 American Music Awards?
The N*SYNC breakout and the "...Baby One More Time" star were the envy of young people everywhere
until they broke up abruptly in early 2002.
Timberlake immediately went on the offense, telling People:
"You get to a point where you're crying yourself to sleep at night."
Timberlake was also first out the gate to respond to the split in song with his hit
single "Cry Me a River."
The music video features a Spears lookalike, which in combination with the song's lyrics
heavily implied that Timberlake had been cheated on.
Timberlake croons:
"You must have me confused with some other guy / The bridges were burned / Now it's your
turn to cry / Cry me a river."
Spears referenced the controversy almost two decades later on Instagram with a good-natured
caption.
She posed in a similar pageboy cap to the "Cry Me a River" stand-in, writing:
"wait I look like that girl in the Justin Timberlake video with that hat in Cry Me A
River !!! Oh s—t that's ME !!! I'm Britney Spears ??? I guess I forget that sometimes."
The shadiest thing about Ariana Grande's post-Pete Davidson breakup song is that it isn't shady
at all.
The two went their separate ways after a whirlwind romance that saw them meet, fall in love,
get engaged, and have a falling-out all within the span of a few months in 2018.
A source told People that:
"It was way too much too soon."
Soon after their split, Davidson referenced the breakup on SNL, jokingly proposing to
musical guest Maggie Rogers mere weeks after ending things with Grande.
"Hey Maggie, I'm Pete."
"Hey Pete."
"Wanna get married?"
"No."
Days after Davidson made that first public comment, Grande dropped her new single, "thank
u, next," that very night.
Fans assumed the song would be about her recent ex, but the song is complimentary of all of
her former flames, including Davidson.
Grande sings:
"Even almost got married / And for Pete, I'm so thankful."
Where fans expected shade, the song instead suggests that the popstar is the bigger person,
leaving her exes no opportunity but to mature with her.
When Katy Perry first hit the scene, she was considered more pop-punk than pop.
She was even part of the 2008 lineup of Warped Tour, traveling the country alongside bands
like Gym Class Heroes, which was fronted by Travie McCoy, Perry's boyfriend at the time.
The relationship was apparently serious enough that McCoy bought Perry a promise ring and
confessed to People that he was "so scared to give it to her."
According to People, the two broke up the following year.
McCoy posted song lyrics on his blog about the breakup in 2009, quoting from Main Source's
hit, "Looking at the Front Door."
He wrote, "We fight every night, now that's not kosher" and wishes they had remained closer.
So, Perry wrote her own song.
"Circle the Drain," from her album, Teenage Dream, is a kiss-off song about McCoy and
addiction.
She sings, shading him for falling asleep during foreplay:
"Wanna be your lover, not your f—in' mother."
McCoy clapped back to MTV about the song, throwing his own shade in return.
He said:
"I heard she put out a song that's about me, or about some old habits.
I look at it like this: I'm just stoked that she finally has a song with some substance
on her record.
Good job."
Pink met her husband Carey Hart all the way back in 2001 at the X Games, where the motocross
racer was competing.
They married in 2006, but by early 2008, Pink announced on her website that they had split
up.
She claimed:
"The most important thing for you all to know is that Carey and I love each other so so
much.
This breakup is not about cheating, anger, or fighting."
Gearing up for the release of her album Funhouse later that year, Pink unveiled the first single,
"So What," a carefree anthem that spoke to how little she was bothered by her impending
divorce from her tatted beau.
The song begins before the singer insists that she doesn't need him anyway, singing:
"I guess I just lost my husband / I don't know where he went."
She later described the song to The Guardian as a "vomiting of truths."
But it seems the song might have just been some shady posturing.
Pink later told Redbook that she won Hart back by presenting him with a scrapbook of
every card he'd ever given her.
The two successfully reconciled by the time the song's music video was released.
Hart even plays himself in the video, lampooning their fighting.
They have been together ever since.
Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were, at one point, the 2010s' answer to Britney Spears
and Justin Timberlake.
Two mega-famous teen stars had found one another and fallen in love amid the craziness of Hollywood.
They broke up and got back together a number of times over the years and fans always hoped
they'd be able to work things out.
During one of their breaks, Bieber released Purpose, an album filled with tracks widely-interpreted
to be about Gomez.
The shadiest of the lot is "Love Yourself," which sounds from its title like it should
be an inspiring self-love anthem.
Instead, has lines like:
"My mama don't like you, and she likes everyone."
Bieber told Access Hollywood that Gomez:
"Is someone I love dearly, dude.
I'm never going to stop loving her.
I'm never going to stop checking in on her."
According to Elle, they were back on several months after the release of the album.
E! News reported that Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez had officially called it quits for the
last time in 2018.
Though Bieber was the first to define a breakup narrative with his album Purpose, Gomez took
her time crafting her own sonic response.
Two years later, Gomez proved she'd grown from the way she'd been treated, writing one
of the shadiest things you can say to an ex.
On her single "Lose You to Love Me," from her album, Rare, she showed what needed to
happen to follow his advice.
She sings:
"We'd always go into it blindly / I needed to lose you to find me [...] I needed to hate
you to love me."
Gomez confirmed it was about her ex-love in an interview with Ryan Seacrest.
Fans had picked up on the song's lyrics about moving on quickly because by the time the
song was out, Bieber had already quickly married model Hailey Baldwin.
Gomez said of her song:
"It's something that I feel like girls need to hear and it's something I'm willing to
share with people."
Miley Cyrus and Nick Jonas were yet another couple of famous teens who fell in love, though
they hid their relationship from fans until years after they broke up.
Cyrus revealed to Seventeen:
"For two years he was basically my 24/7.
But it was really hard to keep it from people."
She wrote her hit "7 Things" about Jonas, though she didn't admit the inspiration until
years later.
The song is a rundown of all the things she hates about her ex love, including such deal-breakers
as:
"You're vain, your games, you're insecure."
But the song shifts into a list of all of the things she loves, too.
And that's fitting, because the two have remained great friends over the years.
Celebrating the song's anniversary on Instagram, Cyrus tagged Jonas and shared a quote from
her memoir reminding fans of her mindset when she wrote the jam.
She reflected:
"I was angry when I wrote '7 Things.
I wanted to punish him, to get back at him for hurting me."
Jonas said that Cyrus never told him directly that the song is about him, but due to Miley's
choice of jewelry in the music video, he's been able to put the pieces together.
Jonas revealed in an interview on BBC Radio 1:
"She's wearing a dog tag in this [music video] that I gave her when I was 14 or something.
I was actually kind of flattered, to be honest."
Alanis Morissette's iconic album Jagged Little Pill is the quintessential breakup album.
Dig called it "the breakup album to end all breakup albums."
The lyrics on the album are so full of vivid imagery and emotions that it's the basis for
a hit Broadway musical written by Diablo Cody.
And one particular ex-boyfriend definitely recognized himself in Morissette's lyrics.
Full House star Dave Coulier revealed in 2013 that he suspects "You Oughta Know" is about
him.
The song features lines about an ex's new woman, finding the singer wondering things
like "Is she perverted like me?"
The first verse ends with the ultimate diss, especially if you want your ex to remember
how fun and exciting your relationship used to be, with:
"I'm sure she'd make a really excellent mother."
Coulier specifically copped to seeing himself in the second verse, where Morissette sings:
"I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner / It was a slap in the face how quickly I
was replaced."
Coulier told HuffPost Live:
"We had already broken up [...] She called and I said, 'Hey, you know, I'm right in the
middle of dinner.
Can I just call you right back?'
When I heard the line, it was like, 'uh-oh.'"
"And it just kind of spun it's own life, it wasn't because I nurtured it long and said
I want to be this jerk in this hit song."
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