How to Get Over a Bad Breakup? Get the Internet On Your Side
Everyone loves a good breakup song. It’s why when Jillian Lavin, who also performs under her stage name Spritely, had her heart abruptly broken by her boyfriend of over three years, she decided to post a jokey song about it on TikTok in the hopes that it would bring some catharsis. In the 10 days since Lavin first posted the song on TikTok, it’s gone from a feral cry of anger into a genuine viral moment complete with millions of views and people in Lavin’s corner. Unfortunately for the singer, she’s still pissed.
“I was just in my car crying hysterically last night,” she tells Rolling Stone. “I’m so in the thick of it I don’t feel equipped to properly use this opportunity that I’ve been given, because I’m still falling apart.
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First posted on Oct. 14, Lavin’s video introduces viewers to her ex-boyfriend with a simple hook. “Imagine, you live in L.A. with your boyfriend and everything’s going amazing / Till he says ‘Babe I wanna move back to Texas to be closer to my dad.” The 29-year-old never shows any identifying photos of the boyfriend, using an alien emoji to cover his face, but describes in detail how she agreed to move to Texas with him, which involved leaving behind her community, her improv troupe, her career, and spending thousands out of her savings to relocate their life together.
“In hindsight, I wish I had pushed back more, but we did a lot of work and had a lot of communication about our relationship because I really was giving up like half my music career,” Lavin says. “We had to do a lot of talking about, ‘Do we want a future together? What would that future look like? Are we planning our lives together long term? Okay this is what it’s gonna look like.’” But when Lavin moved to Texas and began building their new life, she says, her ex returned from a family vacation with a letter, sat down on their couch (which had just arrived), and told her they were incompatible and needed to break up. Lavin cried and packed and cried before driving to Florida to move in with her mom — eventually spending 30 minutes in her mourning process to post the video on TikTok.
Lavin’s video has been viewed over 2 million times on TikTok alone, which doesn’t include its virality on sites Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) — with thousands of comments either commiserating with her experience or straight-up blaming her for missing apparent cues. Some have even taken to dissecting the song down to specific lyrics, like her quick mention of having to quit her improv troupe. “[Improv] was really new, but it was a rare and beautiful thing that felt like pure self-development with no goals involved. I haven’t had an extracurricular since high school that was just for me. I made friends doing a hobby as an adult in a city. That’s such a beautiful thing,” Lavin says. “My ex did buy me the first class so props to him for that, but still fuck him.”
But while the musician says she wasn’t even remotely expecting the response, she’s been so grateful for people who have sent her messages or supported her online.
“The past two months have been just a fucking mess and whirlwind of all the emotions because I’m just feeling every feeling at once,” she explains. “But I’m shocked by the amount of comments I’ve gotten of people who have experienced the same thing. I’m feeling a lot of community. I’m normally not someone who cries a lot or is hysterical, but I’m trying to be genuine about it, because [breakups] are ugly and not fun. So I’m just trying to be honest.”
Finally getting a big break and having it tied to a time she wishes she could forget has been bittersweet. As an artist, Lavin says she’s long used her pop-punk, emo, and indie-pop influences to make music about life events. She points to her long drive to Florida, and only being able to listen to My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, as an example of needing music that matched her mood. “I was angry and sad and it mirrored the chaos in my brain,” she says. “I just want to move people the most I can, emotionally.” Her previous songs like “Run For Your Money,” “My Last Fantasy,” and “He’s An Alien!” have all taken inspiration from her relationships and feelings of being in love. So now, the hope is that when she’s finally ready to come up for air and put her energy towards some serious songs, people will still be there to listen.
“I wish I would have waited [to post the video] until I was more mentally prepared to handle it, because I’m still having breakdowns daily. All my willpower has to go to not contacting him, and I have no leftover willpower to use this opportunity. And I’m scared it will never come again. I’m trying to point to my EP which was written about falling in love with him. And the irony is that two years later, the thing that finally gets it attention is him breaking my heart.”
Lavin’s viral video contains just a glimpse of the songwriter’s talent, so there’s no doubt that she will be able to turn this experience into a project she (and fans) can be proud of. She tells Rolling Stone she’s hoping to work on new music in the future, and while she’s not planning on moving back to Los Angeles, she will be moving into a new apartment soon. But the question for the moment remains: has she spoken to him since?
“I asked him to block my cell phone number because I was having a hard time not contacting him, but we had to keep email open because of logistics, like all my stuff is still at his house,” she says. “I caved two nights ago and emailed him. He said he read the letter, but he didn’t say anything about the video. So I kind of bit back, ‘I hope you’re proud that the way you treated me was so vile that it’s making the news.’ It’s really messy. I go from begging for him back to cursing his soul off the face of the Earth every 30 seconds. I would take it all back to just be happy in Texas with him.”
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