Anyone who's been cheated on, or even had someone close to them be cheated on, knows that revenge on the one who strayed is, at least at first, irresistible.

One woman went viral recently after a video of her retaliating against her cheating boyfriend — as well as his car — made its way to the internet. Now, she's explained exactly why she did it, and some think she's blaming the wrong person entirely.

Influencer and fitness model Sydney Taylor smashed her cheating boyfriend's windshield at a red light after he and the woman he cheated with pulled up next to her. 

When the video first went viral, many assumed it was an incident of road rage gone to a shocking extreme. (That's one of many misconceptions that have arisen about the video, including claims that it took place in Miami. Taylor lives in Modesto, California.)

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The video shows Taylor banging her hands into another car's windows and athletically hoisting herself onto its hood in one quick, impressive movement. Once there, she bashes in the windshield before leaping back down to seemingly try to bash in some more glass.

Taylor explained that her boyfriend cheated on her with her best friend, and when she saw her driving his car, she retaliated.

People online assumed the incident was borne of either road rage or "roid rage." Taylor is a fitness trainer, competitive bodybuilder and bikini model, and many assumed her outburst was the result of steroid use due to her muscular body.

But in a video response of her own, she explained that there was far more to the story.

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Along with clips of her viral windshield-smash, Taylor said, "This wasn't 'roid rage,' this wasn't road rage. This was betrayal of my friend and my man having an affair behind my back." She then went on to explain her friend's shocking betrayal, calling her "a girl that had a seat at my table, you know, she was welcome in my home, obviously, at any time, and used that as an opportunity."

When they had a chance encounter on the road, Taylor decided to teach her now-former friend and boyfriend a lesson. "When she pulled in front of me in his car — really?" Taylor said. "There was a red light opportunity." And boy, did she take it.

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Many people applauded Taylor for her retribution, but others felt she was blaming the other woman way too much while giving her boyfriend a pass.​

Knowing the details of the incident, it's hard not to watch the video of Taylor's payback and not clap and cheer. How many of us have wished we could do the same thing to someone who hurt us? Most of us can't even come up with a good verbal comeback in the moment, let alone hoist ourselves onto a truck hood and wreck a windshield.

Many people online agreed. One TikToker called it "female rage at its finest," while a man on Instagram who said he has "definitely been there with someone who I thought was a close friend of mine" wrote, "I 100% percent would have done the same f---ing s--t."

Photo: Instagram

But others were appalled by Taylor's response, and many commenters saw in Taylor's response a total lack of blame placed on her cheating boyfriend. "The way you blame her and not him... yikes," one Instagrammer wrote. Another sniped, "This woman will continue to get cheated on her entire life if she continues to blame the other woman." On TikTok, a woman asked, "Did your significant other (hopefully now ex) receive this same energy?"

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Blaming the other woman is extremely common when a man cheats, and experts say it often comes down to shame, fear and heartbreak.

In 2020, divorce and personal development coach Cindy Holbrook told us that among the reasons betrayed wives and girlfriends end up blaming the other woman is that they can't face the reality that they made a mistake in trusting their partner not to stray. And particularly if their partner is also volatile or violent, it can feel safer to lash out at the other woman while giving him a pass. 

Psychologists agree. Los Angeles therapist Brandy Engler says, ultimately, blaming the other woman comes down to the humiliation those who are cheated on often feel.

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Blaming the other woman is "all a distraction from the underlying feelings of shame," she writes. "It’s easier to turn to rage and a desire to attack another person than it is to deal with shame."

Further complicating the matter is the obvious heartbreak involved, which pushes many people to give their cheating partner a pass and stay in the relationship. "As for the man who cheated, the betrayed woman likely still loves him... It’s hard to sit with that," Engler adds. 

For her part, Taylor told commenters that she hadn't "dealt with being cheated on and... really didn’t know how to handle that pain," and several commenters pointed out that she's said in other videos that she dumped her cheating boyfriend.

People are ultimately reading a lot into her very brief description of what went down and, at the end of the day, it's her boyfriend who's been punished — it's his windshield she smashed to pieces, after all. As Carrie Underwood famously put it, "Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

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John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.