Here’s Everything Taylor Swift & Joe Alwyn Have Said About Their Relationship (2024)

• October 2017 - Taylor Tells Fans 'Gorgeous' Is About Joe

  A Swiftie who attended one of the Reputation secret listening sessions took to Tumblr and wrote, “Basically Taylor made us all promise that if anyone made any accusations of who this song is about, we tell them it is 100 percent about her angel boyfriend of one year. This isn’t a secret. She wanted us to tell people.”

  With lyrics like, “”You should take it as a compliment / That I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk,” it wasn’t a hard code to crack.

• September 2018 - Joe Talks Taylor for 'British Vogue'

  “I’m aware people want to know about that side of things,” he said of their relationship. “I think we have been successfully very private, and that has now sunk in for people.”

  “But I really prefer to talk about work,” he added.

• November 2018 - Joe Doubles Down on Maintaining His Privacy With Taylor

  “Someone’s private life is, by definition, private. No one is obliged to share their personal life,” he understandably toldGQ. When asked about his favorite TSwift song, Alwyn laughed and said, “I’m just not even going to go into that side of the world.”

• November 2018 - Taylor Gushes Over 'The Favourite'

  Alwyn starred in the Oscar nominated filmThe Favourite, and Swift showed support for her “Lover” with a sweet Instagram post upon its release. “The Favourite is absolutely phenomenal, and it opens in NY and LA tomorrow,” she wrote alongside the trailer.

• August 2019 - Taylor Weighs in on Keeping Her Relationship Private & 'Manageable'

  “I’ve learned that if I do, people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion,” she toldThe Guardian.“If you and I were having a glass of wine right now, we’d be talking about it – but it’s just that it goes out into the world. That’s where the boundary is, and that’s where my life has become manageable. I really want to keep it feeling manageable.”

• December 2019 - The 'London Boy' Talks Love Songs Dedicated to Him

  When asked byThe Sunday Times if he minds that Swift dedicates entire songs to him, Alwyn replied, “No, not at all. No. It’s flattering.”

• January 2020 - Taylor Recalls 'Falling in Love' With Joe

  During theMiss Americanadocumentary, Swift recalls, “[I] was falling in love with someone who had a really wonderfully normal, balanced, grounded life and we decided together that we wanted our relationship to be private.”

• November 2020 - Taylor Tells Paul McCartney About the Meaning of 'Peace'

  For their Rolling Stone conversation, Swift told the Beatle about the personal meaning behind “Peace,” off her 2020 album, Folklore. “I think that in knowing [Joe] 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. 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. That’s what that song ‘Peace’ is talking about.”

• November 2020 - Taylor Confirms Joe Is Mysterious Co-Writer William Bowery

  Taylor confirmed what fans had long believed: Joe—under the pseudonym William Bowery—helped her co-write “betty” and “exile” off her folklore album. “Joe plays piano beautifully and he’s always just playing and making things up and kind of creating things. And ‘exile’ was crazy because Joe had written that entire piano part,” Swift said in the Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions documentary. “He was singing the Bon Iver part, the ‘I can see you standing honey, with his arms around your body, laughing but the joke’s not funny at all.’ He was just singing it. And I was entranced and asked if we could keep writing that one.”

• December 2020 - Taylor Says She & Joe 'Bonded Over Music'

  “Joe and I really love sad songs. We’ve always bonded over music. We write the saddest [songs]. We just really love sad songs,” Swift told Zane Lowe. “What can I say? It was a surprise that we started writing together. But in a way, it wasn’t because we have always bonded over music and had the same musical tastes.

  “He’s always just playing instruments and he doesn’t do it in a strategic ‘I’m writing a song right now’ thing,” she continued. “He’s always done that. But do I think we would have taken the step of, ‘Hey, let’s see if there’s a song in here. Let’s write a song together’? If we hadn’t been in lockdown, I don’t think that would have happened, but I’m so glad that it did.”

  “In a way, it wasn’t [surprising] because we have always bonded over music and had the same musical tastes. And he’s always the person who’s showing me songs by artists and then they become my favorite songs or whatever.”

• February 2021 - Taylor Says Joe Encouraged Her to 'Speak Out' About Politics

  After Swift released “Only the Young,” she allowed it to be used in a voter-turnout video from California congressman Eric Swalwell. “As a country musician, I was always told it’s better to stay out of [politics],” Swift explained, adding, “The Trump presidency forced me to lean in and educate myself. I found myself talking about government and the presidency and policy with my boyfriend [actor Joe Alwyn], who supported me in speaking out. I started talking to my family and friends about politics and learning as much as I could about where I stand. I’m proud to have moved past fear and self-doubt, and to endorse and support leadership that moves us beyond this divisive, heartbreaking moment in time.”

• March 2021 - Taylor Thanks Joe in Grammy Acceptance Speech

  “Joe, who is the first person that I play every single song that I write, and I had the best time writing songs with you in quarantine,” Swift said while accepting her album of the year award forFolklore at the 2021 Grammy Awards.

• February 2022 - Joe Says He's in a 'Happy' Relationship

  “I think people can do what they want and makes them happy. I’m obviously happy in a monogamous relationship,” he said during a Conversations With Friends CTAM presentation.

• April 2022 - Joe Reveals If He'd Write More Songs

  “It’s not a plan of mine, no,” he simply replied toElle, when asked if he hopes to continue songwriting after the success of his William Bowery contributions.

• April 2022 - Joe Is Asked If He's Engaged

  “We live in a culture that people expect so much to be given,” he explained toWall Street Journal. “So that if you’re not posting all the time about what you’re doing, how you’re spending a day or how you made a breakfast, does that make you a recluse?”

  “If I had a pound for every time I think I’ve been told I’ve been engaged, then I’d have a lot of pound coins,” he continued. “I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn’t say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn’t say.”

• May 2022 - Joe Talks Winning a Grammy With Taylor

  In an interview withThe Guardian, the actor spoke about gettingbelatedly awarded a Grammyfor his role as co-producer on six songs from the album, which won album of the year at the 63rd Grammy Awards in 2021. “That was a surreal bonus of lockdown… That’s an understatement,” Alwyn said about collaborating — under the pseudonym William Bowery — with Swift on theFolkloresongs “Betty” and “Exile.”

  He noted, however, that making music together wasn’t the official plan. “It wasn’t like, ‘It’s five o’clock, it’s time to try and write a song together,’” he explained. “It came about from messing around on a piano, and singing badly, then being overheard, and being, like, ‘Let’s see what happens if we get to the end of it together.’”

  “I mean fun is such a stupid word, but it was a lot of fun. And it was never a work thing, or a ‘Let’s try and do this because we’re going to put this out’ thing. It was just like baking sourdough in lockdown,” said the actor who played “a bit of guitar awfully” in a school band called Anger Management when he was 12. “The Grammy was obviously this ridiculous bonus.”

  As for what it’s like to be dating one of the most famous singers on the planet, Alwyn said he tries not to dwell on it. “It’s not something I think about, unless I’m in situations like this, and someone says, ‘What’s it like?’ and I have to think about what to say about it,” he said, adding, “It’s [the relationship] just not for other people.”

• May 2022 - Joe Explains How Taylor Feels About His Racy Scenes in ‘Conversations WithFriends’

  “I mean she’s read the book and she loves the book, so she knows it,” he toldExtraabout his superstar girlfriend in a joint interview with co-star Alison Oliver. “She just, like, couldn’t be a bigger fan of the project.”

• May 2022 - Joe Gushes Over Taylor's Honorary NYU Degree

  Taylor Swiftmade one of herlong-time career goalscome true in May when she waspresented with an honorary doctorate degreeduring NYU’s spring 2022 graduation ceremony. Speaking withExtra, Alwyn said that Swift earning her doctorate is “an incredible honor, it’s absolutely amazing.”

• May 2022 - Joe Gives William Bowery Pseudonym Explanation

  The actor joinedThe Kelly Clarkson Show, where he explained that he and Swift decided to have him go under a different name to keep the quality of the songs the focus of the album. “We chose to do it so the people first and foremost would listen to the music before dissecting the fact that we did it together. We did it under the name William Bowery. Very fancy. It sounds like a kind of Agatha Christie character that should be wearing a monocle with a big mustache,” he told Clarkson.

  Dissecting the name into its two separate parts, theConversation With Friendsstar said the pseudonym “was a combination of William … my great-grandfather — who I actually never met — was a composer. He wrote a lot of classical music and wrote a lot of film scores.” As for the last name? Alwyn shared, “Bowery is the area in New York that I spent a lot of time in when I first moved over there.”

• October 2022 - Taylor Reveals How Joe Inspired "Lavender Haze"

  After Swift announced the Midnights opening track, “Lavender Haze,” she took to Instagram to explain it a bit further. “I happened upon the phrase ‘lavender haze’ when I was watchingMad Men,” she explained in the clip. “I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool, and it turns out that it’s a common phrase used in the ’50s where they would describe being in love.”

  “I guess theoretically, when you’re in the lavender haze, you’ll do anything to stay there and not let people bring you down off of that cloud,” she continued. “I think a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just ‘public figures,’ because we live in the era of social media. If the world finds out that you’re in love with somebody, they’re going to weigh in on it.”

  “Like, my relationship for six years, we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff — and we just ignore it,” she added. “This song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.”

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