It was thought that Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn would one day say, “I do,” but the notoriously private pair ultimately went their separate ways in April 2023 after more than six years together.
Here is a breakdown of the Grammy-winning singer and British actor’s love story:
When they met
Fans believe that Swift and Alwyn first crossed paths when they attended the 2016 Met Gala separately. At the time, the singer was dating Calvin Harris, but he did not attend the event with her.
Swift seemingly alluded to the theory in her 2017 song “Dress,” in which she sings the lyrics, “Flashback when you met me / Your buzzcut and my hair bleached.” At the gala, where the theme was “Manus X Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology,” the actor notably attended with a shaved head, while Swift showed up with a bleach-blond bob.
To this day, Swift has never confirmed the lyrics were about Alwyn.
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Putting on a show
After Swift and Harris broke up in the summer of 2016, she and Alwyn raised eyebrows when they were seen attending the same private Kings of Leon concert in October of that year.
At the time, a video on a fan account showed Alwyn leaving the New York City venue where Swift was also at with her pals Dakota Johnson, Martha Hunt, Cara Delevingne and Lily Donaldson. It’s unclear whether they interacted during the show.
Breaking news
The Sun was the first to report in May 2017 that Swift and Alwyn had been secretly dating for months.
A source told the outlet at the time that she flew to visit the England native “via private jets, and her security has made it a military-like mission to prevent her from being seen.”
The source added that they both used disguises to keep the news of their relationship a secret.
Swift previously had very high-profile relationships with Harris, Tom Hiddleston, Jake Gyllenhaal and Harry Styles, among others, before retreating from the spotlight with Alwyn.
PDA at play
While they were able to stay under the radar in the beginning, the duo were finally spotted showing some serious PDA in December 2017, further confirming their relationship.
They were photographed holding hands after Swift’s performance at Z100’s Jingle Ball. Then in March 2018, they looked very cozy while on a hike in Malibu.
A witness told Pvnew at the time that they “seemed very intimate and deep in conversation – despite having her bodyguard trailing 20 feet behind them.”
That May, Swift serenaded Alwyn during the first show of her “Reputation” tour.
Confirmation station
In August 2018, the duo gave a glimpse into their relationship when they both posed in front of the same cactus in photos posted to their respective Instagram accounts.
A month later, Alwyn finally confirmed he was dating the country-turned-pop superstar but stayed mum on any details.
“I’m aware people want to know about that side of things,” the actor told British Vogue. “I think we have been successfully very private, and that has now sunk in for people … but I really prefer to talk about work.”
Lyrical love
Swift’s 2019 album, “Lover,” is believed to tell the full story of her relationship with Alwyn, from her song “Cruel Summer,” which seems to allude to the early stages and having “no rules,” to the title track, in which they seem to become official as she croons, “This is our place, we make the rules.”
She closed out the album with “Daylight,” in which she suggests that she found the one with the lyrics: “I don’t want to look at anything else now that I saw you / I don’t want to think of anything else now that I’ve thought of you / I’ve been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night, and now I see daylight.”
Engagement rumors swirl
In January 2020, the couple first sparked engagement rumors when Swift wore a massive diamond ring on her left hand in her Netflix documentary, “Miss Americana.” Fans later believed the pair had actually tied the knot after she wore a wedding dress in her “Willow” music video.
However, Alwyn addressed the chatter in April 2022 in an interview with WSJ. Magazine, saying, “The truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn’t say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn’t say.”
Public comment
Swift spoke about her relationship with Alwyn and how they navigate dating in the public eye during an October 2020 interview with Paul McCartney in Rolling Stone, though she did not mention him by name.
“I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids,” she said at the time. “Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture — the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy.”
She added, “That’s what that song ‘Peace’ is talking about. Like, would it be enough if I could never fully achieve the normalcy that we both crave?”
Cat’s out of the bag
Alwyn shared with his Instagram followers that he was quarantining with Swift during the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020.
Alwyn posted a photo of the singer’s cat Benjamin Button hiding inside a cardboard box and in a paper bag, confirming that he and Swift were enjoying lockdown together.
Swift has two other cats who were not seen in photos named Olivia Benson and Meredith Grey.
Award-winning boyfriend
Swift gave a rare look into her relationship with Alwyn when she thanked him during her acceptance speech at the 2021 Grammy Awards, where she took home Album of the Year for “Folklore.”
“Joe, who is the first person that I play every single song that I write,” Swift said, adding, “And I had the best time writing songs with you in quarantine.”
Alwyn co-write two songs on “Folklore,” “Exile” and “Betty,” under the pseudonym William Bowery. He also helped write the tracks “Evermore” and “Champagne Problems” on “Folklore’s” sister album, “Evermore.”
Conversations about her man
Alwyn opened up about how Swift is very supportive of his acting career, specifically his role in Hulu’s “Conversations with Friends,” in May 2022.
“I mean, [Taylor has] read the book and she loves the book, so she knows it,” the actor told “Extra,” referring to the sex scenes in the series. “[Taylor] just, like, couldn’t be a bigger fan of the project.”
Swift confirmed that she was behind her man’s involvement in the show by promoting “Conversations With Friends” on her Instagram Story.
“Can confirm it’s phenomenal,” she wrote.
Island kisses
In another rare move, the couple were spotted locking lips while enjoying a romantic getaway in the Bahamas in June 2022.
The pair were believed to have been staying in Lenny Kravitz’s Airstream trailer.
It’s a love story
In June 2022, The US Sun reported that Swift and Alwyn had been secretly engaged for months and only told their inner circle about the news.
“Basically immediate family and trusted, very old friends,” a source told the outlet. “Everyone has been sworn to secrecy, too.”
Alwyn allegedly presented Swift with a “beautiful ring” that she only wears in private.
The source added, “They want their love to stay away from the cameras as much as possible. This is just for them. And if and when they do exchange vows, there most definitely won’t be any Vogue, Rolling Stone or Hello! magazines there.”
Neither Swift nor Alwyn have confirmed the report.
The love story ends
Swift kicked off her sold-out “Eras Tour” in March 2023, but fans couldn’t help but notice that one person was missing in the crowd — Alwyn.
A few weeks later, Pvnew confirmed that the pair had called it quits after more than six years together.
“It wasn’t dramatic,” the source said. “[The relationship] just ran its course.”
The aftermath
Seven months post-split, Alwyn and Swift were still making headlines for rumors they secretly tied the knot before breaking up — and the singer’s publicist, Tree Paine, stepped in to set the record straight.
“Enough is enough with these fabricated lies about Taylor from Deuxmoi,” Swift’s rep tweeted in November 2023. “There was NEVER a marriage or ceremony of ANY kind.
“This is an insane thing to post,” she continued. “It’s time for you to be held accountable for the pain and trauma you cause with posts like these.”
That same month, fans speculated that the former couple had been on the rocks for years due to a hint from Jack Antonoff.
The Bleachers frontman revealed to his Instagram followers that he and Swift wrote “You’re Losing Me,” a breakup ballad believed to be about Alwyn, in December 2021.
The song, which debuted in May 2023, featured lyrics about the “final blow” in a relationship that wouldn’t “rise from the ashes” again.
Taylor sings about the split
In true Swift style, she seemed to address the breakup by singing about it in her album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” released in April 2024.
Swiftie fans theorized that she included three songs about him on the album: “So Long, London,” “Loml” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”
In “So Long, London,” Swift sings about saying goodbye to the British city where she and Alwyn lived for six years.
“I left all I knew you left me at the house by the heath,” she wrote, seemingly referring to their private life there.
Swift later alluded to the two not being able to settle on their future together in “Loml” when she sings, “You s–t talked me under the table / talking rings and talking cradles / I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all.”
Finally, in “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” Swift recalls starting her Eras Tour in March 2023 right before Pvnew confirmed that they had broken up.
“Lights, camera bitch smile / even when you want to die,” she sings, before adding, “All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting, ‘More!’”
Joe breaks his silence
Alwyn addressed the highly publicized split for the first time in an interview with the Times published on June 15, 2024.
“I would hope that anyone and everyone can empathise and understand the difficulties that come with the end of a long, loving, fully committed relationship of over six and a half years. That is a hard thing to navigate,” he told the outlet.
Alwyn admitted that their breakup was particularly “unusual and abnormal,” because it was “suddenly in the public domain and the outside world is able to weigh in.”
“So you have something very real suddenly thrown into a very unreal space: tabloids, social media, press, where it is then dissected, speculated on, pulled out of shape beyond recognition,” he continued. “And the truth is, to that last point, there is always going to be a gap between what is known and what is said. I have made my peace with that.”
