Breakup Songs You Probably Didn't Realize Were About Other Celebrities

André 3000 of OutKast dated Erykah Badu in the late '90s. The couple had a child together, but split up in 1999. André 3000 wrote "Ms. Jackson" as a way to express his feelings about how it ended, and Badu appreciated the sentiment. "When I heard André’s verse, I felt very good because his verse was really, really inspiring," she said.

The pair have developed a strong friendship as co-parents, with André 3000 saying, "She’s like a cool sister more than anything." As for her mother, Badu said she got really into the song. "She bought herself a Ms. Jackson license plate. She had the mug, she had the ink pen, she had the headband, everything. That’s who loved it."

When Katy Perry first released "Wide Awake" in 2012, the media immediately took it as a response to the end of her marriage to Russell Brand. The song includes plenty of telling lyrics, such as: 

I wish I knew then

What I know now

Wouldn't dive in

Wouldn't bow down 

However, the song eventually turns to an affirming message about the peace you feel after realizing things are over, with Perry singing:

I am born again

Out of the lion's den

I don't have to pretend 

For his part, Brand has no problem with Perry writing about their relationship. "She's a good person, I've got nothing but love for her," he said. "It's a nice song."

One of the most speculated-about songs of all time is Carly Simon's "You're So Vain." With the timeless line, "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you," the song spent decades begging listeners to guess who Simon was referring to.

Simon has been protective of the song's inspiration, but in 2015, she revealed that the song isn't about just one person, but a few different men. She also confirmed that the second verse is about Warren Beatty, including the lines:

You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive

Well you said that we made such a pretty pair

And that you would never leave

Not surprisingly, one huge fan of the song is Taylor Swift. "When I heard 'You're So Vain,' I just thought that is the best song that has ever been written," Swift said in 2013. "That is the most direct way anyone has ever addressed a breakup. It's amazing."

Before her American breakthrough, Alanis Morissette was a Canadian teen pop star. During that period in the early '90s, Morissette briefly dated Dave Coulier from Full House. In 1995, Morissette became an alternative superstar with her album Jagged Little Pill and its lead single, "You Oughta Know." The world wanted to know who the song was about, but Morissette has kept quiet over the years.

Fans have long speculated that it's about Coulier, but it wasn't until a 2014 interview with BuzzFeed that Coulier shared what he knew. He actually asked Morissette about the song around the time it was released. "She said, 'Well, you know it could be a bunch of people. But you can say whatever you want,'" Coulier explained. He does think one line in particular is about him. "The one that got me was, 'I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner.' That was because we had already broken up and she had called... and I said, 'Hey, I'm right in the middle of dinner, can I just call you right back?'"

While Miley Cyrus did not write "Wrecking Ball" herself, it's very likely that she had ex-fiancé Liam Hemsworth in mind when recording the hit. At least that was heavily implied by an intro to the song she gave at a 2014 concert in London. Before the performance, she told the audience, "I'm gonna tell those motherf*ckers that broke my heart, particularly one, to suck my fat d*ck and to enjoy hearing this song for the rest of your life."

She also told Ellen DeGeneres that the entire Bangerz album is about Hemsworth, saying, "I think... with starting with 'Adore You' and ending with 'Someone Else'... I think I knew more intuitively where my life was going then I actually thought I did at the time."

The video for JT's "Cry Me a River" heavily implies that the song is about his ex, Britney Spears. In 2012, rapper/producer Timbaland confirmed the speculation on an episode of E!'s True Hollywood Story. In the episode, Timbaland said that Timberlake "went to a concert and saw Britney, and Britney talked about him in the show and he was pissed." Timbaland further explained, "I was like, ‘Man, don’t worry about it’ and he's like, ‘I can’t believe she did that to me’ and he was like, 'You were my sun, you were my earth.'" And from there, a hit was born.