"Cold Hearted" (often mistitled "Cold Hearted Snake") is a single from Paula Abdul's album Forever Your Girl, written and co-produced by Elliot Wolff. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the album's third song to top the US chart. "Cold Hearted" became one of Abdul's best known songs for its then streetwise lyrics and provocative music video.

The video for "Cold Hearted" was inspired from Bob Fosse's erotica dance sequence from the movie All That Jazz. In the video, Abdul dances for music executives with a group of semi-nude dancers. The "cold hearted snake" may refer to one continually bored male executive who replies to Paula's request for a critque simply with "very nice". She turns away, makes a face, the screen goes dark, and something happens to make the dancers laugh. The dance floor includes scaffolding where Abdul and her dancers hang and grind. Abdul's choreography for this video was very sexual and intricate, showing her more naughty side. The video was directed by David Fincher (of Fight Clubfame), and spent more than three weeks on top of MTV's video rotation list.

It is notable for featuring both female/male and male/male dancer combinations. In the video, Paula performs a rap interlude; this is included on some variations of the single. In 1999, Christina Aguilera shot the video for her second single "What a Girl Wants" in the same place and with a similar plot to Abdul's video for "Cold Hearted".

"Cold Hearted" topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week in September 1989, ending Richard Marx's three week run at the summit with "Right Here Waiting". "Cold Hearted" became one of the biggest hits of the year and was ranked sixth in the "Top 100 hits of 1989". Due to the single's enormous popularity, it was slow to descend from the chart, spending a total of eight weeks (2 months) in the Billboard Top 10 alone.

"Cold Hearted" was the final UK release from Forever Your Girlin 1990. It was issued in remixed form unlike in the US and elsewhere, where an edit of the album version was released instead. It charted on 29 September 1990 at #55, going on to peak at #46 the following week. This remixed version was the follow to the Shep Pettibone remix of "Knocked Out" which had reached #21 three months previously.

US/Euro 12"/Euro CD single

UK CD single

American indie band sBACH covered the song. An audio sample can be heard on their official MySpace page.

Uzbek singer Vicki Vaka recorded a cover of the song in 1999 and included it on her second compilation album in 2003.