Musicians You Didn't Know Were Romantically Involved When They Recorded These Classic Duets

Some of the most famous duets in music history became so successful because the singers believably sold the song's inherent romantic chemistry — which wasn't so hard to do, it seems, because they'd already coupled up before they recorded. Of course, that's not always the case. The biggest and best love duets are flowery and profuse expressions of devotion, romance, and obsession, and it takes professional musicians to make them work. Singers are actors who can bring out the passions and feelings in a song without actually experiencing any of them with regard to their duet partner. 

But as mentioned, sometimes those duets capture real love, or at least affection and infatuation, and they're an encapsulation of two musicians who are actually into each other and really mean what they're singing. For various reasons, it behooved the parties to keep that real-life connection secret, but eventually, the truth came out: That love song was built on experience. Here are a few well-known duets performed by singers that you maybe didn't know were amorously involved when they headed into the studio.

Pop-R&B group Destiny's Child quickly went downhill after its lead singer abandoned the other members to go solo, but Beyoncé wound up becoming one of the most successful acts ever. In late 2002, she earned a featuring credit on "'03 Bonnie and Clyde," a collaboration with one of the era's biggest rappers, Jay-Z. That was a Top 5 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and in the spring of 2003, the pair returned with "Crazy in Love," Beyoncé's brassy and giddy 1970s soul throwback was made contemporary with a substantial Jay-Z guest verse. It won Grammy Awards for best R&B song and best rap/sung collaboration.

The romantic themes in both songs, as well as the palpable chemistry between the singer and rapper, suggested an out-of-studio relationship, but neither party said anything for well over a year. Eventually, they confirmed that they were an item when they walked the red carpet of the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards together. In subsequent years, Beyoncé and Jay-Z got married, welcomed multiple children, and revealed that they'd been well entrenched in a romantic relationship by the time production began on both of their early duets. In 2013, Jay-Z told Vanity Fair that when he and his future wife graced that magazine's cover for a 2001 music edition, it was when they "were just beginning to try to date each other." Beyoncé confirmed as much in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. "We were friends first, for a year and a half, before we went on any date."

Upon their first meeting in 1956, Johnny Cash was a superstar on the rise, and June Carter was a member of the Carter Sisters, part of the dynastic Carter family. They felt a connection, but on account of how they were married to others, they just fostered a musical partnership. By the 1960s, Carter was a support vocalist in Cash's band and co-wrote his first Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 pop hit, 1963's "Ring of Fire," about her burgeoning romance with Cash. "It was not a convenient time for me to fall in love with him, and it wasn't a convenient time for him to fall in love with me," Carter later explained to Rolling Stone, with Cash adding, "We knew what was going to happen: that eventually we were both going to be divorced, and we were going to go through hell." It's that emotional climate that can be heard throughout "Jackson," a No. 2 hit on the Hot Country Songs chart in the spring of 1967.

One of the best Johnny Cash collaborations of all time, Cash and Carter sing together throughout the rapid-fire country rave-up, a tale of a once hot romance that's descended into a chaotic state riddled with wishing, hoping, and fantastical projections. It also arrived toward the beginning of the official romance between the performers. Carter divorced her second husband in 1966, and Cash divorced his first wife in 1967. About a year later, following a live duet performance of "Jackson," Cash proposed on stage. (Carter accepted.)

"Leather and Lace" is about how hard it is for famous musicians to maintain a relationship amidst the pressures of fame. The song started coming together when Stevie Nicks was commissioned to write it for married country stars Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter. "I worked very hard trying to explain what it was like to be in love with someone in the same business, and how to approach dealing with each other," Nicks wrote in the album notes for her greatest hits collection "TimeSpace" (via Songfacts). She added: "I have to tell you now that Mr. Don Henley was pretty much responsible for this song because he came over every day and told me to either start over, or that I was on the right track, and he made me finish it."

Nicks and Henley recorded a demo and sent it along, but she took it back when she learned that Jennings and Colter were in the process of divorcing. The pair responsible for the song's creation and development cut the track, and it debuted on Nicks' 1981 album "Bella Donna" and peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100 in early 1982. But Henley and Nicks' relationship was more than just musical and professional. The soft rock stars were a romantic couple from 1977 to 1978, but they stayed close and friendly through the recording of "Leather and Lace" and for decades after. When "Bella Donna" was in the works, Nicks was quietly seeing its producer, Jimmy Iovine.