Hours after Taylor Swift’s latest album dropped, all eyes are on her ex Joe Alwyn.
With apparent references to their six-year relationship featured throughout The Tortured Poets Department, a source told People that the British actor, 33, wanted to keep their romance ‘his own personal story.’
Although the news ‘took a lot of people by surprise’ in Alwyn’s life, he ‘wasn’t showing off in some way.’
Swift, 34, dated Alwyn from 2017 to 2023, during which the 14-time Grammy Award winner mostly retreated from the spotlight.
They won a Grammy together for Album of the Year in 2021 after he co-wrote and co-produced several tracks on Folklore under the pseudonym William Bowery.
The pair was also nominated for the same award a year later for Evermore.
Meanwhile, the Boy Erased actor refused to publicly discuss their relationship.
‘People on the street wouldn’t tell strangers about their personal lives, so why should I?’ he said before they split last year.
In 2022, Alwyn told Harper’s Bazaar that he ‘can understand’ the interest in their relationship, ‘but I don’t see why these questions should always be answered.’
‘I completely expect people to ask those questions [about their, if I’m putting work into the world, of course people are going to ask about that,’ he added.
He flat-out told the outlet he ‘wouldn’t say’ whether or not they had decided to get engaged amid speculation at the time.
On Swift’s new track ‘So Long, London’, she appeared to reference their relationship with the lyrics, ‘I stopped trying to make him laugh / Stopped trying to drill the safe.’
‘And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free,’ sings Swift.
She also appeared to hint that Alwyn cheated on her in the song ‘Fresh Out the Slammer’.
‘Another summer taking cover / Rolling thunder, he don’t understand me / Splintered back in winter / Silent dinner, bitter he was with her in dreams,’ she sings.
In a teaser she shared Thursday for the music video of lead single ‘Fortnight’, Swift also appears to channel her bridal look from this year’s Grammy Awards.
Swifties speculated that the original dress was a reference targeted at Alwyn, who reportedly ‘refused to marry’ her.
After TPD dropped on Thursday night, Swift shared a statement about letting go of the ‘sensational and sorrowful’ time that inspired the album.
‘This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up,’ she wrote. ‘There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed.
‘And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted,’ added Swift.
‘This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.’
The Tortured Poets Department is now available for streaming and download, and the ‘Fortnight’ video drops Friday at 8pm ET.
