Credit: YouTube.

It's no secret that Adele mined her love life to pen her Grammy-winning album 21, but there have been no details about the guy who broke the singer's heart and inspired all those songs - until now.

A source told the New York Post that the alleged cad is a man named Slinky Winfield. Also known as Slinky Sunbeam, the 25-year-old musician was fingered as the inspiration for the 21 songs including "Rolling in the Deep," and "Someone Like You." Though Adele has indicated that she and the man who inspired those songs simply "grew apart," the source tells the Post that the romance failed because Slinky got involved with a Burberry model named Morwenna Lytton Cobbold.

"Adele likes to keep part of her life back for herself, but it's an open secret that Slinky was the guy who inspired 21," the source told the Post, describing him as a "seriously good-looking guy…(with) a great body" and "crazy hair (like) Jimi Hendrix" who was "the life and soul of the party." The source goes on to say, "It's easy to see what attracted Adele to him," but noted that the relationship "was always going to end in tears, and those tears were always going to be Adele's."

Adele has since said that she's forgiven Mr. 21, Slinky or otherwise. She's also moved on and is now dating Simon Konecki, a 36-year-old divorced entrepreneur who now heads the charity Drop4Drop.