On GRAMMY night (February 4), Taylor Swift won Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, and proceeded to announce a forthcoming album during her acceptance speech. The Tortured Poets Department will drop on April 19, and Swift revealed she’d been keeping the project secret for about two years.
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Now, Swifties love to connect the dots, and a lot of them are speculating that this new album could be centered around Swift’s breakup with actor Joe Alwyn in 2022. They’ve already flooded social media with theories and memes that make sense only to Swifties, but what about the uninitiated? How does the average bear make sense of all this? Here’s a crash course in Joe Alwyn, his relationship with Taylor Swift, and why her fans are so adamant this new album is their Breakup Opus.
First and Foremost, Joe Alwyn is an English Actor
Alwyn’s acting credits include Mary Queen of Scots (2018), Stars at Noon (2022), and Catharine Called Birdie (2022). His upcoming film roles include the as yet to be released Kinds of Kindness, The Brutalist, and Hamlet. On television, he had a minor starring role on Conversations with Friends from 2022, based on Sally Rooney’s popular novel.
He and Taylor Swift Dated for Six Years
Alwyn and Swift began dating in 2016, and their relationship was the subject of much scrutiny in the media. Swift was open about their relationship and often spoke positively of Alwyn, while he seemed to only lament on their need for privacy. Swifties had latched onto Alwyn in a new way as their relationship progressed through the years, with many wondering why they were not engaged.
Swift’s romantic partners are usually catapulted to a level of scrutiny in the press that they’ve likely never had before, and not to mention scrutiny from her fans, which is often intense. They speculate on when her current relationship will run its course, analyze every word her boyfriend says and every lyric to every song looking for clues. Many critics of Swiftie culture have called it a “hive mind,” but it’s more of a “tribe mind,” as in Swift’s fans have found a community of like-minded people who all relate to the same things in her music, according to a report from Psychology Today.
Swift was Worried About the Media Ruining Her Relationship
This is important to know in the context of Joe Alwyn because he was the longest relationship Taylor Swift had at the time. They dated for six years, and fans took him to be serious about her despite his reluctance to talk about their dating life. Yet, Swift herself shared concerns about her level of fame ruining what she had with Alwyn.
Speaking with The Guardian in 2020, Swift said, “I’ve learned that if I do [talk about the relationship], people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion.” She also stated to Rolling Stone that year, “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.”
In the deluxe version of her 2019 album Lover, Swift included diary entries from 2017 discussing the beginning of her relationship with Alwyn. She wrote, “I get all scared about the future because so much has changed in the last year of my life. I mean, this time last year I was living in LA, getting ready for Grammys and now I’m essentially based in London, hiding out trying to protect us from the nasty world that just wants to ruin things.”
She continued, “We have been together and no one has found out for 3 months now. I want it to stay that way because I don’t want anything about this to change or become too complicated or intruded upon. But it’s senseless to worry about someday not being happy when I am happy now.”
Joe Alwyn Had Co-Writing Credits on 10 of Swift’s Songs from Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights
In 2020, Swift and Alwyn started collaborating on songwriting, a move that Swift described in her Netflix documentary as “a surprise,” but “in a way, it wasn’t because we have always bonded over music and had the same musical tastes.”
Alwyn had co-writing credits on 10 songs—”Exile,” “My Tears Ricochet,” “August,” “This is Me Trying,” “Illicit Affairs,” and “Betty” from Folklore (2020), “Champagne Problems,” “Coney Island,” and “Evermore” from Evermore (2021), and finally “Sweet Nothing” from Midnights (2022). The pair were nominated for Album of the Year for Folklore and Evermore, winning in 2020.
Alwyn and Swift Broke Up in 2022 Because of Differences in Personality
According to reports from Glamour and People, among others, Swift and Alwyn broke up due to “differences in their personalities.” According to sources close to the situation, “They had plenty in common and fell in love in a safe bubble while she was retreating from the world during Reputation. Then the pandemic hit, and they were locked down together and able to continue growing their relationship in this insulated way. But he didn’t really ‘know’ her yet outside of that bubble.”
Allegedly, the notoriously private Joe Alwyn was not prepared for the rowdy, media-filled circus of Taylor Swift’s life as the biggest pop superstar in the world. Swifties will say he couldn’t hack it, yet they still mourned the relationship in a very literal way. Some left flowers outside Swift’s old New York City apartment, while others attempted to rip down the Cornelia St. sign.
Now, Fans are Convinced The Tortured Poets Department is Swift Throwing Shade at Joe Alwyn
This may very well be Taylor Swift’s breakup album for Joe Alwyn. She’s been known to center entire albums around failed relationships—for example, allegedly, Red was about Jake Gyllenhaal—and Swifties are convinced The Tortured Poets Department will be Joe Alwyn’s cross to bear.
Fans first thought Midnights was their breakup album, as they split six months after the album came out and there were allegedly hints at turbulence in some of the songs. However, with the announcement of this new album, fans are connecting more dots than ever before.
Swift said herself that the new album has been in the works for the past two years. Fans went the extra mile and remembered a 2022 interview Joe Alwyn did with actor Paul Mescal where he revealed that he, Mescal, and Andrew Scott had a group chat called “The Tortured Man Club.” Allegedly, Scott named the chat based on the sad characters they’ve all played, but the similarities are too good for Swifties to ignore.
Many fans complimented Swift on her “pettiness” and “represent[ing] the crazy girls so well.” Other fans weren’t so impressed. One wrote on Reddit, “I really hope she never complains again about people making her music about the men in her life. But she probably will. This is so petty and I really don’t buy her ‘I’m happier than ever’-attitude when she does stuff like this at the same time.”
Featured Images by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The Recording Academy; Mike Coppola/Getty Images for The Gotham Film & Media Institute
