Taylor Swift opens up about feeling "lonely" during Joe Alwyn romance

Melbourne, Australia - Taylor Swift has opened up about her folklore writing process in 2020, and fans think that her comments may have also shed light on the end of her romance with Joe Alwyn.

Taylor Swift (l.) has seemingly shed light on her romance with Joe Alwyn, whom she dated from 2016 to 2023.
Taylor Swift (l.) has seemingly shed light on her romance with Joe Alwyn, whom she dated from 2016 to 2023.  © Collage: IMAGO / ABACAPRESS & Avalon.red

The 34-year-old pop star reflected on her songwriting amid the Covid-19 quarantines during her Melbourne concert on Saturday.

Taylor famously penned and released both folklore and evermore in 2020, albums which also featured some lyrics by Joe.

"[I was] imagining that, instead of being a lonely millennial woman covered in cat hair drinking my weight in white wine, I was a ghostly Victorian lady wandering through the woods with a candle in a candlestick holder," she told the crowd.

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"And I wrote only on parchment with a feathered quill. That was, in my mind, what I thought I looked like, writing folklore. So that's all that matters: the delusion."

Taylor's admission of feeling lonely during this period raised some eyebrows, given the recent speculation surrounding the end of her relationship with the 32-year-old actor, which was seemingly still going strong at the time in question.

Why did Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn call it quits?

Taylor Swift fans believe the singer is opening up about her split from Joe Alwyn in her new music.
Taylor Swift fans believe the singer is opening up about her split from Joe Alwyn in her new music.  © IMAGO / AAP

Taylor and Joe, who first started dating in 2016, collaborated on her quarantine albums, with the Conversations with Friends star receiving songwriting credits on tracks like betty, my tears ricochet, this is me trying, and more.

Joe was credited under the pseudonym William Bowery and made another appearance on Taylor's discography with Sweet Nothing off of 2022's Midnights.

Ever since the pair called it quits in 2023, Swifties have been speculating as to what went wrong.

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Amid Taylor's current high-profile romance with Travis Kelce, many have wondered if her ultra-private relationship with Joe was more isolating than previously believed.

The theme was made clear on her Midnights vault track, You're Losing Me, which is widely assumed to be inspired by the ill-fated romance. Surprisingly, Taylor's long-time producer, Jack Antonoff, revealed that the heartbreaking song was penned two years before the split actually happened.

The Karma artist appeared to admit her regrets in "hiding" during the relationship during her TIME Magazine profile last year, telling the outlet, "Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years – I'll never get that time back."

Fans expect further telling revelations on Taylor's next album, The Tortured Poets Department, which she told fans was a "lifeline" for her in the past two years.

Cover photo: Collage: IMAGO / ABACAPRESS & Avalon.red

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