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Joe Alwyn has broken his silence following his split from Taylor Swift after six and a half years together. The actor’s secrecy left a blank space in the canon of Swift’s relationship history, with Alwyn opting not to acknowledge the discourse surrounding their publicised breakup or pointed lyrics featured on The Tortured Poets Department for over a year since their separation. However, that all changed when Alwyn shed light on their scrutinised romance during a recent profile with the British publication, The Sunday Times Style.
“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,” Alwyn began, marking the first time he’d addressed the end of their relationship. “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,” he continued. Alwyn acknowledged his discontent with how the news was shared with the public, as reports of their breakups were confirmed by sources close to Swift less than a month after they parted ways.
“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 explained. “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.”
While Alwyn rebuffed the writer’s attempts to gauge whether he was currently still in touch with Swift or in another relationship (“I wouldn’t want to just open the door to things like that right now”), he did touch on whether he was the subject of Swift’s widely-theorised single “The Black Dog”. The song, which appears on her eleventh studio album, takes its name from a pub in South London, which Swift uses as a metaphor to lament over her boyfriend moving on with someone much younger than her. Despite The Black Dog’s owner telling the press they have a certain blonde regular, Alwyn admitted that he had never been to Vauxhall, the Thames-side suburb where the pub is located.
As you may recall, Swift and Alwyn’s breakup in April 2023 coincided with some cryptic behaviours, including the singer dining at a Lower East Side restaurant near Cornelia Street, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds collectively unfollowing Alwyn on Instagram and making some last-minute alterations to her Eras Tour setlist. Following their split, Swift proceeded to date The 1975 frontman Matty Healy and is currently in a relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end, Travis Kelce. Alwyn, on the other hand, has focused on his career and recently appeared in Yorgos Lanthimos’ highly-anticipated triptych, Kinds Of Kindness.
For those pondering on how Alwyn is reeling from the split, he had this to say: “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.”
