It’s terrible what Megan Thee Stallion is going through. Last weekend, the Houston rapper shared snippets from a text conversation on her Instagram story, revealing that she had split from her boyfriend and basketball star Klay Thompson after he had cheated on her. Two days later, she was spotted tearing up on-stage during the curtain call for Moulin Rouge! The Musical (in which she is starring) and, today, announced that she has pulled out of the Broadway show’s remaining dates. Anyone who’s dealt with infidelity knows the cycles of self-blame, resentment and despair that follow the discovery of a cheating partner. We’ll say it again: it’s terrible what Megan Thee Stallion is going through.

But. 

History also tells us that, when a musician is cheated on, it’s usually followed by some pretty fire music. Perhaps the most striking example of this in recent memory is Lily Allen’s 2025 album West End Girl, which mined the alleged infidelity of her ex-husband and Stranger Things actor David Harbour for a full album’s worth of material, resulting in a spectacularly successful comeback for the singer. 

So, while we wait for Megan to pen her own diss track against Klay Thompson, below, we break down the ten best cheating songs of all time.  

BEYONCÉ – “SORRY”

Arriving as the second single from Beyonce’s confessional visual album Lemonade, “Sorry” sparked an entire man-hunt when it dropped in early 2016. Seemingly referring to a infidelity by Beyonce’s still-husband Jay-Z, and shocking the world with its airing of dirty laundry about a couple previously considered to be infallible, Beyonce closed the song with a hint as to who one of Jay-Z’s alleged mistresses might be: “He better call Becky with the good hair”, Queen B repeats twice as the track’s electro-hip-hop beat fades out. 

Immediately, rumours swirled as to who Becky might be, with fingers pointing at Rita Ora and American fashion designer Rachel Roy, who cryptically posted “Good hair don’t care” on her Instagram after the project dropped, before deleting the post and making her account private. It was a full-on spectacle to behold, with everyone from CNN to online fan pages covering the drama, but, in hindsight, it appears less salacious. In terms of net worth, Beyonce and Jay-Z are one of if not the biggest couples in show-biz. Do you really think they would air their dirty laundry without carefully calculating the risks? 

RIHANNA – “UNFAITHFUL” 

If you didn’t have this song displayed on your MSN Messenger ‘now playing’ section, were you really there? Released all the way back in 2006, when Rihanna was still just a rising star, “Unfaithful” was an early anthem for the online generation. 

It’s also one of the best songs in the cheating music canon to be written from the perspective of the cheater themselves. Written by RnB star Ne-Yo, the track depicts the Bajan star in a brutal love triangle, lying to her partner that she’s just “hanging with the girls” when she’s actually seeing another man. In a line that has since been certified platinum in karaoke booths around the world, Rihanna likens the infidelity to homicide, singing in the chorus: “I don’t wanna hurt him anymore / I don’t wanna take away his life / I don’t wanna be a murderer”.

LILY ALLEN – “PUSSY PALACE”

In terms of cheating music, Lily Allen might just be the reigning champ. When she found out that her ex-husband David Harbour was (allegedly) a serial cheater, she didn’t just write a song about it, she made a whole album about the experience. At the core of the project is standout track “Pussy Palace”, which replays the drama with the salaciousness of a soap opera – detailing everything from Allen’s reluctance to sleep in the same bed as Harbour, to the exact brand of condoms he used in the act: “Hundreds of Trojans, you’re so fucking broken.” Ouch.

The cherry on top, however, was the fact that Allen’s West End Girl album also marked one of the most spectacular popstar comebacks in recent memory, becoming her highest-charting album in over a decade. 

USHER – “CONFESSIONS PART II”  

If there was a prize for the unintentionally funniest cheating song, Usher’s “Confessions Part II” would win in a second. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do” and “I hope you accept the fact that I’m man enough to tell you this,” the singer wallows throughout the song, while gradually stripping on top of a piano. His crime: he got his side chick pregnant. And the worst part? Usher is such a serial cheater that this is Part 2 of his confession!!! Cry me a river (to reference another great cheating song that didn’t make the list). 

MARVIN GAYE – “I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE”

Relationship trouble has been a constant theme throughout Motown legend Marvin Gaye’s entire career (he wrote a whole concept album about his bitter divorce from his first wife in 1978). But Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” is perhaps the most widely-known cheating song of all time, not only consistently ranking as one of the best songs of all time, but also popularising the titular phrase.

Unlike the other tracks on the list, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was neither written by or for Gaye – it was a cover of Barret Strong’s 1966 Motown original, and initially written by leading Motown songwriter Norman Whitman. But, knowing the multiple toxic relationships Gaye had been through over the years, we’ll give it a pass. 

ROBYN – “CALL YOUR GIRLFRIEND” 

New perspective unlocked: the side chick. Landing on Robyn’s standout 2010 electropop album Body Talk, “Call Your Girlfriend” depicts the Swedish singer instructing her partner to break up with his girlfriend so that they can be together instead. “Call your girlfriend / It's time you had the talk / Give your reasons / Say it's not her fault / But you just met somebody new,” Robyn sings in the track’s chorus. 

It might sound harsh, but it’s honestly not the worst advice. Throughout “Call Your Girlfriend”’s verses, Robyn coaches her unfaithful partner through the break-up, instructing him, “Don’t you tell her how I give you something / That you never even knew you missed.” Sometimes you just need to soften the blow – there’s some things that people don’t need to know. 

AMY WINEHOUSE – “YOU KNOW I’M NO GOOD” 

Amy Winehouse’s appeal never centred on whether she was in the right. Rather, it was precisely Winehouse’s ability to communicate her unsightly emotions so compellingly and viscerally that continues to make her one of the most singular artists in living memory. “You Know I’m No Good” is a chief example, casting Winehouse wallowing in self-loathing as she looks back on drug-fuelled nights cheating on her ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil. “I cheated myself, like I knew I would,” she sings in the chorus. But the worst part is, upon discovering her indefility through a tell-tale carpet burn, the man she's in love with simply shrugs.

CHARLI XCX – “FEBRUARY 2017 FEAT. CLAIRO AND YAEJI”

Charli xcx has actually released a ton of music about infidelity (here’s a whole playlist of them), but 2019 single “February 2017” is the most transparent of all. Its title is a literal reference to the day that Charli is alleged to have cheated on her then-partner Huck Kwong: the Grammy Awards in February, 2017 – later alluded to in the track’s lyrics. 

KANYE WEST – “BLAME GAME FEAT. JOHN LEGEND” 

It might be hard to sympathise with Kanye nowadays, but, once upon a time, he had a knack for truly emotional and relatable songwriting. Back-to-back albums 808s & Heartbreak (2008) and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) are prime examples, arriving at the height of his genre-blending madness and influencing every single hip-hop record that came after them. “Blame Game” arrives on the latter project, weaving across its eight minutes’ runtime a vivid portrayal of a toxic relationship in which both lovers are unfaithful to each other. While there are glimpses of Kanye’s later callous perversion in the final minutes of the track (“Who the fuck got your pussy all reupholstered? Yeezy reupholstered my pussy”), most of the lyrics are actually pretty candid. 

An alternative reading of the track suggests that Kanye is rapping about his toxic relationship with fame (“You weren’t perfect, but you made life worth it / Stick around, some real feelings might surface”) but, judging from Kanye’s other lyrics from this era, there’s definitely a sprinkling of truth to his depictions of infidelity.

EMINEM – “LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE FEAT. RIHANNA” 

There are few appropriate times to listen to Eminem’s Recovery album in 2026, and being cheated on is top of the list. The album might have some lyrical stinkers (Exhibit A: “Girl you have a hot butt like a lit cigarette (lit cigarette)”), but you can’t deny that Eminem’s grating rap voice and explosive rhyme schemes captures angst like no one else. One of many songs that depict the notoriously turbulent relationship between Eminem and ex-wife Kim, “Love the Way You Lie” leans into the maelstrom of emotions that accompany a toxic relationship, including, but not exclusive to, cheating: “But when it's bad, it’s awful, I feel so ashamed / I snapped, ‘Who’s that dude?’, I don’t even know his name.” Listen to this when you want to wallow.