Songfacts®:

• This raw piano ballad is addressed to Labrinth's father, who walked out on his family when he was four years old. "A lot of people have been through that experience," the singer explained. "It's kind of written from the perspective of how my family felt at the time, but I wanted to write it so anyone could dig into the song and relate it to their own situation."
• Labrinth and his eight siblings were raised by their mother in Hackney, London. "I grew up not really having a father figure and it didn't bother me because he wasn't there in the first place," he told The Evening Standard. "But then he started other families and I was jealous. It was like he was happy without our family."
• Labrinth co-penned the song with country songwriters Josh Kear (Luke Bryan's "Drunk On You," Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away") and Natalie Hemby (Little Big Town's "Pontoon," Lady Antebellum's "Downtown") during a writing trip to Nashville. The Londoner explained that he opted to spend time in the home of country music, "because I wanted to learn how to be a better songwriter, as well as being a good producer. It was a great trip to teach me how to upgrade my skill."
• Labrinth sat on the ballad for a time because he didn't think it was right for the album. "I didn't want it to be to self indulgent so listeners couldn't grab their own personal experience from it," he told The Sun. "But I think it is one of the strongest songs because it made me have to take a bit of myself out and put on a record and I've never really done that before."
• When making the video for Adele's hit single "Hello," the director Xavier Dolan asked her to cry, so she made them play "Jealous."
  
  "The minute that piano starts I'm like," the songstress told i-D pretending to weep. "Snot going everywhere. I can't cope with that song. You could play it at my kid's birthday and I'd burst into tears."
• Sophie Muller, who directed Labrinth's "Beneath Your Beautiful" clip, helmed the music video.