Joe Alwyn Made His ‘Peace’ With the Taylor Swift Breakup

It feels like just yesterday that people were crying on Cornelia Street after finding out it’s all joe-ver. Now, tortured man Joe Alwyn feels ready to talk about his former relationship with his ex Taylor Swift. A year after news spread that the two had broken up after 6.5 years, Alwyn spoke with The Sunday Times about Swift in the most Joe Alwyn-way possible— avoiding the initial question given to him and just going with his (most likely pre-prepared) statement. When asked if he heard the Tortured Poets Department, an album mostly about Swift’s situationship with The 1975’s Matty Healy with some songs about Alwyn sprinkled in, he admitted he wasn’t going to answer directly. He said, “I would hope that anyone and everyone can empathize 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. 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… There is always going to be a gap between what is known and what is said. I have made my peace with that.” This is coming from the man who kept bringing up coins when talking about Swift a few years ago; a detailed, personal answer was probably not in the cards.

“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,” Alwyn concludes in the interview. “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. I feel really good.” However, he does leave us with one little nugget of Taylor Swift lore; he hints to the interviewer he’s not the muse for “The Black Dog” by slyly sharing he’s “never been to Vauxhall,” the neighborhood in London where the bar is located. At least he leaves us with one mystery solved.