Joe Alwyn Discloses The Breakup Agreement He Made With Taylor Swift

When Joe Alwyn and Taylor Swift started dating in 2016, the two stars made an agreement that they continued to honor even after their April 2023 breakup. Speaking to The Sunday Times, in June 2024, the actor asserted that he wouldn't get into the details of why their relationship ultimately ended, revealing only, "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." As a result, Alwyn and Swift kept their 6-year relationship as private as they possibly could. In the "Cruel Summer" hitmaker's 2018 interview with The Guardian, Swift made it clear that she would only discuss their romance in a private setting to protect it from prying eyes. 

Moreover, her former beau further underlined how serious they were about keeping things under wraps by refusing to even share his favorite Swift song during a chat with GQ that very same year. However, Alwyn's subsequent silence only left more room for tabloids and fans alike to theorize about all his supposed shortcomings during their long-standing relationship. Still, the "Favourite" star seemed like he would rather have people speculate than offer up the truth, as Alwyn reasoned, "There is always going to be a gap between what is known and what is said. I have made my peace with that." While the "Blank Space" songstress remained similarly tight-lipped for the most part, Swift made her feelings about the breakup clear through the April 2024 release of "The Tortured Poets Department."

In Taylor Swift's TIME 2023 Person of the Year profile, the singer-songwriter seemingly implied that she didn't want to keep her relationship with Joe Alwyn as private as he did. Reflecting on the past few years of her life, the Grammy winner regretted all the time she'd spent hiding from the world to protect their relationship. "Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years — I'll never get that time back. I'm more trusting now than I was six years ago," the "Bad Blood" hitmaker noted. Notably, she expressed similar regrets through "Fresh Out The Slammer" off "The Tortured Poets Department." Swift included a rather obvious reference to Alwyn with the first verse's lyrics: "Another summer takin' cover, rolling thunder / He don't understand me." 

The lines could describe how the world-conquering pop star was forced to spend her sparkling summers indoors to honor her then-partner's need for privacy. Similarly, in "So Long, London," Swift angrily finishes the second verse by singing, "And I'm p****d off you let me give you all that youth for free." The scathing lyrics are likely a reference to how she couldn't go out and enjoy a large part of her 20s because of their relationship. For fans, the lyrics didn't come as a surprise and instead confirmed what they'd long suspected about Swift's romance with Alwyn. Ultimately, the "Fortnight" songstress seems to be making up for lost time by keeping her high-profile relationship with Travis Kelce relatively public.