Getty ImagesKeeping your personal and professional life totally separate really might be a good idea—just look at Calvin Harris.
The Scottish DJ (real name: Adam Wiles) had post-breakup drama with exes Taylor Swift and Rita Ora over music they created while they were still dating. In both cases, mixing business with pleasure seemed to backfire.
In the case of Taylor, things took a turn for the worse after the singer confirmed she wrote Adam and Rihanna's single, "This Is What You Came for" under the pseudonym Nils Sjoberg. Adam tweeted the link to an article confirming he worked with Taylor, adding, "And she sings on a little bit of it too...Amazing lyric writer and she smashed it as usual."
He then added: "I wrote the music, produced the song, arranged it and cut the vocals though. And initially she wanted it kept secret, hence the pseudonym."
And then the gloves came off. "Hurtful to me at this point that her and her team would go so far out of their way to try and make ME look bad at this stage though," Adam tweeted. "I figure if you're happy in your new relationship you should focus on that instead of trying to tear your ex bf down for something to do...I know you're off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy ETC but I'm not that guy, sorry. I won't allow it."
Taylor, whose whirlwind romance with Tom Hiddleston has been making headlines, has yet to publicly respond to her ex-boyfriend's comments. Her predecessor Rita, who dated Adam from 2013 to 2014, has spoken candidly about how collaborating with her then-beau on her 2014 song "I Will Never Let You Down" caused friction in their relationship.
"There was a reason why I split up with him," she told Marie Claire's July 2015 issue. "And there was a reason why I'm at this point in my life where I feel like I have so much musical freedom, and I don't have to explain myself to anybody...It was more of a thing where I was in awe. I was at that point in my relationship where I felt he could do no wrong. I thought he had my back and that he'd never steer me wrong. But then 'I Will Never Let You Down. came out, and everything started to go a bit weird. I don't know if it was because business was mixed with personal or what."
Adam previously prevented Rita from performing "I Will Never Let You Down" at the 2014 Teen Choice Awards. During an appearance on On Air With Ryan Seacrest, the singer explained, "For anybody who doesn't understand how it works, he wrote and produced the song....So he has to approve anything TV-wise for anybody who doesn't get it. And obviously he owns the rights to it and he didn't approve the Teen Choice Awards."
Back then, Adam took to Twitter to defend his decision, telling fans, "You'll only know 1 side of the story RE Teen choice awards because I choose not to talk to the papers about every aspect of my personal life....But just know I had a damn good reason." (These tweets were later deleted.)
Now, though, the tables have turned—so could Taylor prevent Adam and Rihanna from performing "This Is What You Came for?" Billboard Senior Editor Jem Aswad tells E! News that Taylor "can prevent him from performing it on TV (where a synch license would be involved), but she can't prevent him from performing it live unless there's a contract giving her that control."
—Additional reporting by Roxana Salcedo