Joe Alwyn Finally Tells Us How He Really Feels

It’s been over a year since pop overlord Taylor Swift and her English actor boyfriend Joe Alwyn shocked the world by calling it quits. 

While we’ve had countless songs, easter eggs and messages from Taylor’s camp about the breakup, the notoriously private Joe has kept his head down and stayed quiet on the matter. 

Until now. 

Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn while they were dating. Image credit: Getty

In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine on June 16th, Joe addressed the infamous breakup for the first time, touching on the bizarre elements of having something so personal to him be so publicly scrutinised (and by Swifties, no less).

“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 publication. “What is unusual and abnormal in this situation is that, one week later, it’s suddenly in the public domain and the outside world is able to weigh in.”

If you recall, the internet more or less lost its nut when the news broke, and the world became obsessed with conspiracy theories about timelines, infidelity, and whether or not varying levels of fame were the real catalyst for the relationship’s demise.

“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,” Joe elaborated, “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.”

One narrative that Joe was quick to debunk was that it was his choice entirely to keep the relationship private, a juxtaposition from many of Taylor’s other very public relationships (including her present one, I see you Travis, and so does the rest of the world). Let us NOT forget the time Taylor’s bestie Gigi Hadid’s baby-daddy Zayn Malick spilled the tea on the lengths Taylor and Joe were going to avoid the paparazzi. 

“As everyone knows, we together –both of us, mutually –decided to keep the more private details of our relationship private. It was never something to commodify, and I see no reason to change that now. And, look, this is also a little over a year ago now, and I feel fortunate to be in a really great place in my life, professionally and personally,” Joe clarified. 

As previously mentioned, Taylor’s narrative of the breakup was well crafted and supported by sources without her having to make any public statements. Prior to the release of The Tortured Poets Department in April this year, Marie Claire explored all the information that had been revealed about the relationship. 

“It was more of Taylor’s decision to break up, but both of them realised that they weren’t completely right for one another,” a source told Entertainment Tonight.  “Joe has struggled with Taylor’s level of fame and the attention from the public. The differences in their personalities have also become harder to ignore after years together,” an insider disclosed to People. “It’s been hard for Joe trying to make it in Hollywood and not quite becoming leading man material while dating one of the most famous women in the world over the last six years,” a friend told Daily Mail. 

Ouch, lol.

Then came TTPD. Oh boy, was there a lot to unpack. 

Image Credit: Taylor Swift

While remaining cryptic and never actually naming Joe, fans straight off the bat believed the album’s title was a dig at Joe. Back in 2022 in an interview with Variety, it was revealed that Joe, Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott were in a group chat titled “The Tortured Man Club”. (Side note, I think I’ve dated most of the men in the Melbourne faction, it’s not cute.)

Upon release, fans went bonkers trying to decipher which songs and lyrics were references to Joe. While the album was surprisingly predominantly an ode to her failed situationship with Matty Healy, Swifties were convinced ‘So Long, London’ and ‘How Did it End?’ were about Joe. 

Joe denied commenting on the album during his interview, but playfully asserted that he’d never been to Vauxhall, the suburb in which ‘The Black Dog’ bar is located (aka the establishment in which Taylor laments over watching her ex attend via location tracking in the eponymous song).

We may never know the truth about why Taylor and Joe actually broke up, and to be honest, I think that’s okay. Girlfriend is absolutely thriving in a very publicly celebrated relationship and the tortured pommy has made peace with it all, so maybe that’s all that matters.

Written by Lil Friedmann, a staunch defender of reality television and investigator of celebrity breakups. You can follow her at @lilfriedmann on socials.

Image credit: @nathanielgoldberg for The Times