NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
Taylor Swift dated actor Joe Alwyn for six years but the pair broke up in 2023. It now appears that her ex-boyfriend key subject in her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department.
Taylor’s new album was released today and with news that some fans are booking days off work to listen to the 31 tracks in the album, its safe to say it’s a pretty big deal.
In the new record, the songwriter, 34, has taken aim at her exes Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy as the singer’s lyrics point to specific incidents that caused the breakdown of these relationships.
Joe, 33, and Taylor began dating in October 2016 when she was 28 and he was 26. The pair apparently met at the Met Gala, just a few months after the Lover singer dated Tom Hiddleston.
There were several engagement rumours throughout their six year relationship but the pair remained tight-lipped. Joe once told the Wall Street Journal: ‘If I had a pound for every time I think I’ve been told I’ve been engaged, then I’d have a lot of pound coins.’
Taylor’s new lyrics hint at commitment issues may have been a catalyst in their break up in April 2023 as she sings about the various issues in their relationship.
Joe Alwyn has kept a low profile since his split from Taylor, waiting until November – seven months after their April 2023 break-up – to make his first big public appearance at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in London.
Joe is an actor and has notably appeared in movies: The Favourite, Boy Erased, and Mary Queen of Scots . He has also has appeared in the Sally Rooney BBC series Conversations with Friends.
The actor has some films coming up, one named Kinds of Kindness from Poor Things director, Yorgos Lanthimos. The film is set to be released this year and Joe will star opposite Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Hunter Schafer and Willem Defoe.
His other upcoming films, The Brutalist and Hamlet, have yet to have confirmed release dates.
As a private person, his social media has not revealed much about his current whereabouts but suggests that he has spent time abroad and travelling since their breakup.
In Taylor’s new album, it’s thought that So Long, London is about Joe who she previously called her London Boy in her Lover album. The lyrics read: ‘You swore that you loved, me but where were the clues, I died on the altar waiting for the proof.’
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Fans believe Taylor’s new song, How did it End? also refers to Joe as she is left reeling after a long relationship and confused about how it all came to fall apart.
The lyrics for this song read: ‘Say it once again with feeling/ How the death rattle breathing/ Silenced as the soul was leaving/ The deflation of our dreaming/ Leaving me bereft and reeling/ My beloved ghost and me/ Sitting in a tree/ D-Y-I-N-G.’
Fans have also speculated that; My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys, loml, and The Black Dog are about Joe. In these songs, Taylor sings about being let down but someone you trust and being let down.
Her album title, The Tortured Poets Department is also theorised to be a reference to Joe’s group chat with Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott called Tortured Man Club.
While dating Taylor, Joe also received some song-writing credits on her albums; Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights. It has been speculated by fans that various songs on these albums were inspired by him as Taylor was in a relationship with him at the time.
It is unclear if Joe is currently dating anyone as he is notoriously private – something that is referenced in several of Taylor’s new songs as she reflects on the secretive nature of their relationship.
It was speculated that Joe was dating Alison Oliver, 26, who he starred opposite in Conversations with Friends. Although the Saltburn actress may have played his lover in the series, it has never been confirmed that they are in a relationship.
Similarly, there have been rumours about a link between Joe and his co-star, Emma Laird, 25, in The Brutalist.
The actress shared photos of Joe on her social media when they worked together, sparking romance rumours.
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True to form, the actor refused to comment one whether this dating gossip was true.
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