The Real Reason Taylor Swift And Joe Alwyn Are Keeping Their Relationship Quiet
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After several high-profile relationships, Taylor Swift seems to be settling down this time with her current boyfriend, Joe Alwyn. Unlike her past relationships, this one has been elusive. But in a recent interview with Elle UK, Alwyn finally addressed why they've been keeping it low-key. He also set the record straight on those engagement rumors.
When Did Taylor Swift And Joe Alwyn Start Dating?
Swift and Alwyn started dating in October 2016. Many believe that their relationship began when they both attended the same Kings of Leon concert. But at the time, no one suspected anything — even when the 11-time Grammy winner went to the premiere of Alwyn's movie, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. In May 2017, the press finally realized that they might be dating. A month later, the paparazzi caught them together for the first time, which ultimately confirmed their relationship.
Others also believe that the two first met at the Met Gala in May 2016. Fans even thought that the singer's track, Dress from her 2017 album, Reputation was about that encounter. The said lyric goes, "flashback to when you met me, your buzzed cut and my hair bleached." The Love Story hitmaker notably had bleached hair during that event. Alwyn also went to the Met Gala that year, but no one has ever confirmed if he crossed paths with Swift. Another thing — Swift was actually dating Calvin Harris back then. They broke up soon after the gala. Then she briefly moved on to Tom Hiddleston that summer.
In October 2017, Swift had a secret listening session for her album, Reputation. She reportedly admitted to fans that the song Gorgeous is about Alwyn. "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," a fan wrote on Tumblr. "This isn't a secret. She wanted us to tell people." Two months later, the couple engaged in some PDA during Ed Sheeran's performance at iHeartRadio's Jingle Bell Ball in New York City.
Why Do Taylor Swift And Joe Alwyn Keep Their Relationship Private?
In Swift's 2020 documentary, Miss Americana, the singer talked about keeping her relationship amid her drama with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. "We decided together we wanted our relationship to be private," she explained. "Even though it [Swift's public image in 2016] was really horrible, I was happy. But I wasn't happy in the way I was trained to be happy. It was happiness without anyone else's input. We were just…happy." In Alwyn's recent Elle UK interview, he also confessed that his personal struggle with fame was a factor in keeping their relationship under wraps.
"It's not really [because I] want to be guarded and private, it's more a response to something else," he said. "We live in a culture that is so increasingly intrusive… The more you give – and frankly, even if you don't give it – something will be taken." In November 2020, Swift revealed that her song Peace was inspired by the lack of privacy in her relationship with Alwyn.
In a cover story for Rolling Stone, she told Paul McCartney about the struggles of giving her boyfriend a sense of "normalcy" at the time. "Peace is actually more rooted in my personal life," Swift shared before telling McCartney: "I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you've met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living."
Are Taylor Swift And Joe Alwyn Engaged?
Swift and Alwyn have been dating for five years, so it's easy to assume that he might have proposed to her at this point. The rumors started in 2019 when people realized that they've been getting serious. Others also claim that the massive diamond ring Swift was wearing on her left hand during a scene in Miss Americana was an engagement ring. Finally, the Favorite actor addressed the rumors in a recent interview with Wall Street Journal. "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 said.
"I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn't say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn't say," he continued. Alwyn went on to explain why they refuse to share details about their relationship. "We live in a culture that people expect so much to be given," he said. "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 you give it to them, it just opens the door."
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