Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know is the perfect break-up revenge song. It’s driven by the special bitter anger of a scorned lover, and it’s about a special somebody (and no, it’s not your ex-boyfriend even though it describes him perfectly.)
It’s Full House‘s Dave Coulier! (a.k.a. Joey) He spilled the details during a video interview with HuffPost Live
Dave says that he knew the song was about him from the line “I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner.” He says: “We had already broken up….She called and I said, ‘Hey, you know, I’m right in the middle of dinner. Can I just call you right back?’ When I heard the line, it was like, uhhh-ohhh!”
The 53-year-old actor, who is 15 years her senior, said he called Alanis when people started suspecting he was the guy behind the song. “I called her and said, ‘Look, what do you want me to say to the media when these folks call me? And she said, ‘You can say whatever you want.'” For years he deflected when people asked if it was him. “I’ve always taken the high road and said, “You know, the guy in that song is an idiot. I would hate to be that guy.'”
As the comment section below points out, this has been rumored for quite some time, and Dave himself actually spoke out about it the first time in 2008. He revealed then that when he first heard the song on the radio, he didn’t know it was his ex-girlfriend. “I said, ‘Wow, this girl is angry.’ And then I said, ‘Oh man, I think it’s Alanis,’ I listened to the song over and over again, and I said, ‘I think I have really hurt this person.'” He said then that he called up Alanis and they hung out for a day and made things good between them again. Happy ending!
P.S. Most people have known this for 15 years, but I, for one, had no idea that they ever dated. Sharing pop culture trivia and history is fun for me. – Rebecca
