Sometimes having a song written about you is flattering, but that’s not always the case.
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It could be that a tense breakup inspired the track in question, or that the person literally didn’t know the guy who penned a romantic song about her.
Whatever the reason, three people have made it clear that they’re less than pleased to be linked to the infamous tracks.
Britney Spears (“Cry Me A River” by Justin Timberlake)
After Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake went through a messy split in the early aughts, both opted to channel their feelings into song.
While Spears’ “Everytime” was noteworthy, it was Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River” that really made waves. In the song, Timberlake bemoaned a cheating ex. He doubled down on the allegation in the music video, casting a woman who looked remarkably similar to Spears.
In her 2023 memoir, The Woman In Me, Spears admitted to one time cheating on Timberlake. However, she called out the singer for the track and claimed that he was unfaithful multiple times over the course of their relationship.
“In the news media, I was described as a harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy,” Spears wrote. “The truth: I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.”
“May I just say that on his explosive album and in all the press that surrounded it, Justin neglected to mention the several times he’d cheated on me?” she continued. “There’s always more leeway in Hollywood for men than for women. And I see how men are encouraged to talk trash about women in order to become famous and powerful. But I was shattered.”
Making it even worse, Spears claimed, was that she felt the world was against her.
“I felt there was no way at the time to tell my side of the story,” she wrote. “I couldn’t explain, because I knew no one would take my side once Justin had convinced the world of his version.”
Spears added, “I don’t think Justin realized the power he had in shaming me. I don’t think he understands to this day.”
Delilah DiCrescenzo (“Hey There Delilah” by The Plain White T’s)
Unlike the other songs on this list, the Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah” isn’t a breakup tune. Rather, it’s a love song about being willing to travel distances to be with the one you love. The subject, however, wasn’t as enamored with it as millennials everywhere were.
Delilah DiCrescenzo is the song’s namesake, though she and Tom Higgenson, who penned the tune, never actually dated.
“I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen,” Higgenson told Columbia College Today of DiCrescenzo, who had a boyfriend at the time that she met the singer. “I told her, ‘I have a song about you already.’ Obviously, there was no song. But I thought it was smooth.”
Two years later, though, he did write the song.
“When I’m at the gym, it’s playing; when I’m at the pool, it’s playing,” DiCrescenzo told USA Today, per the outlet. “Part of me wants to scream at the top of my lungs that it’s about me. Another part of me wants to cower and say it’s not.”
While DiCrescenzo said the 2005 song was “so beautifully written,” she spoke out against the “pressure to live up to this ideal” following its release.
“I didn’t know how to be polite, but you know, ditch him,” she said.
Despite her misgivings about the tune, DiCrescenzo attended the GRAMMYs with Higgenson—as friends only—after the track was nominated.
John Mayer (“Dear John” by Taylor Swift)
While Taylor Swift can point to a Dear John letter as the inspiration for the title of her 2010 song, Swifties know that it’s actually about her ex, John Mayer.
The “Daughters” singer knows the biting track is about him, too. He told Rolling Stone that he was “really humiliated” by the song, which includes lyrics such as “Dear John, I see it all now, it was wrong / Don’t you think nineteen’s too young / To be played by your dark, twisted games when I loved you so?”
“It made me feel terrible because I didn’t deserve it,” he said. “I’m pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do.”
Mayer claimed that he didn’t know how Swift felt about him until he heard the song, which came out when he was facing backlash for several controversial interviews.
“I was really caught off guard,” he said. “It really humiliated me at a time when I’d already been dressed down. I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you’ve ever been, someone kicked you even lower?”
Mayer also dissed the song as bad technically, stating, “I think it’s kind of cheap songwriting.”
“I know she’s the biggest thing in the world, and I’m not trying to sink anybody’s ship, but I think it’s abusing your talent to rub your hands together and go, ‘Wait till he gets a load of this!’” he said. “That’s bulls**t.”
Photo by Brian Rasic/Getty Images
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