When a billionaire music megastar suggests you join her somewhere ‘where we can be alone’ – you should probably expect conditions.
And no matter how often Taylor Swift appears to have a dig at ex-boyfriends in her hits – they rarely bite back – in fact Harry Styles even thanked her after they split up.
‘I don’t talk about my personal life in great detail. I write about it in my songs, and I feel like you can share enough about your life in your music to let people know what you’re going through’, the star said previously.
And Taylor appears to dedicate much of her new album The Tortured Poets Department to her break-up with Joe Alwyn and her brief rebound dalliance with rockstar Matt Healy.
But neither Joe nor Matt have responded, despite disparaging lyrics on TTPD including claims of infidelity, broken promises and vanity that fans believe must be aimed at them.
It has led to speculation that she may ask lovers to sign NDAs to give her an iron-clad assurance that they will never speak about their relationship unless they want to be sued for millions of dollars.
There may even be binding clauses to delete pictures and control their posts on social media, one leading British lawyer told MailOnline today.
Emma Gill, a leading British lawyer who represents high-value footballers and celebrities for Vardags, one of the UK’s top divorce firms, said: ‘Taylor Swift has settled a number of scores in song, yet cleverly ensured her ex-lovers rarely become liabilities’.
Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn at the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 5, 2020, a time when fans were convinced they were engaged. Joe has never spoken about their relationship, either during or after
Matt Healy with Swift on May 23 last year in NYC. When asked if he they had been a couple he said: ‘I wouldn’t say no’
Harry Styles and Taylor enjoyed a short relationship said to have ended with a big row. Harry thanked her for breaking up with him
Tom Hiddleston, pictured with Swift in 2016, has not been keen to discuss their relationship
Calvin Harris did bite back to lyrics written by his ex. But deleted the tweets. John Mayer said she had humiliated him with the song ‘Dear John’ – they had a 13 year age gap
The silence of her A-list exes doesn’t end with Joe and Matt.
Harry Styles and Taylor were said to have split after an ‘almighty row’ on holiday and claims he kissed someone else. But the British singer and One Direction star has only been complimentary about Swift.
One of her earliest boyfriends Jake Gyllenhaal said he does not resent Taylor Swift for expressing herself in her music when he was apparently subject to some of her cutting lyrics.
And when asked about his relationship with Taylor, British actor Tom Hiddleston told a journalist: ‘I would rather not talk about this if that’s all right’.
Taylor Swift on her ex-boyfriends in her songs (and the very little they’ve said about her)
Taylor: ‘I’m p***ed off you let me give you all that youth for free’ – in So Long, London
‘You sh*t-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles’ – in Loml (love of my life)
Joe Alwyn: ‘People on the street wouldn’t tell strangers about their personal lives, so why should I’.
Taylor: ‘I would’ve died for your sins. Instead, I just died inside. You said normal girls were boring. But you were gone by the morning’ – in The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.
Matt Healy: ‘I mean, bl**dy hell, what am I going to do, go out with Taylor Swift? She’s a sensation. I wouldn’t say no. As much as it’d be amazing for me if it did, unfortunately it didn’t’.
Taylor: ‘Think about the place you first met me. The ties were black, the lies were white. It’s no surprise I turned you in, ’cause us traitors never win’ – in Getaway Car.
Tom Hiddleston: ‘I would rather not talk about this if that’s all right’
Taylor: ‘How many days did I spend. Thinkin’ ’bout how you did me wrong, wrong, wrong? Lived in the shade you were throwin’. ‘Til all of my sunshine was gone, gone, gone’ – in I Forgot That You Existed
Calvin Harris: ‘I know you’re off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy [Perry] ETC but I’m not that guy, sorry. I won’t allow it,” Harris in a tweet he deleted
Taylor: ‘Her heart belonged to someone who couldn’t stay. They loved each other recklessly. They paid the price. She danced to forget him’ – album notes in 1989
Harry Styles: ‘Meeting someone new, sharing those experiences, it’s the best sh*t ever. So thank you’.
Taylor: ‘Dear John, I see it all now, it was wrong. Don’t you think nineteen’s too young. To be played by your dark, twisted games. Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with? The girl in the dress, cried the whole way home’ – in Dear John on their 13-year age gap.
John Mayer: ‘I never got an email. I never got a phone call. I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me’.
Only John Mayer has spoken of being humiliated by Taylor in her song ‘Dear John’.
Superstar DJ and producer Calvin Harris also hit out at her in a series of tweets – but he then hastily deleted them and has not mentioned it since.
Emma Gill told MailOnline today that the silence from Taylor Swift’s ex-boyfriends suggests she may have got them to sign non-disclosure agreements.
She said: ‘By definition, we’ll never really know what conditions are imposed by non-disclosure agreements – but you can find templates for ‘Relationship NDA’s’ online, and the law is there to protect your reputation and prevent confidential information about you being used for someone else’s personal gain.
‘NDA’s have a toxic vibe, but an honest conversation among mature adults is always sensible and using a lawyer to capture that can give both sides comfort as their relationship progresses’.
‘These days, when so much is shared in public, shrewd millennials are also keen to set boundaries and expectations for social media, not to mention more intimate material, and a pre-nup will now often specify how photos or videos have to be deleted or returned along with the keys to the house or car’.
She added: ‘Kris Jenner apparently has a 100 pages of “dos and don’ts” for anyone dating her family, and breaching the conditions imposed by another star can cost you a million dollars’.
Ms Gill has suggested that Swift may have imposed legally-binding agreements with her lovers to protect her privacy, including financial penalties if they speak out.
‘I have yet to encounter this in Manchester, even among the Premier League stars I represent. But young professionals, who have worked hard to build a decent life are increasingly up front about spelling out some ground rules early on about what they expect as a relationship progresses and what to avoid if they break up’, she said.
‘There are practical considerations when you move in together. Who pays the rent and who stays in the flat if you split up. Pets add another dimension, children raise the stakes and marriage takes commitment to different level with pretty clear financial consequences if you divorce’.
Joe Alwyn has not been drawn into a war of words with Taylor Swift despite her savage new album suggesting he cheated, shattering her dream of marriage and children with him.
He has faced barbs ever since they split last year.
In fact the British star, 33, has adopted the mantra of the country’s late matriarch Queen Elizabeth II – to never complain and never explain – having spent six years refusing to discuss his relationship with the world’s most famous woman.
The Tunbridge Wells-born actor admitted he understood the interest in their relationship – but always made it clear that the only person he would ever discuss it with was Taylor herself.
‘People on the street wouldn’t tell strangers about their personal lives, so why should I’, the star of The Favourite and Boy Erased said before they split up last year.
Joe Alwyn has never discussed his relationship with Taylor, whose new album appears to be a full frontal attack on him and contains hints that he cheated
Their breakup appears to be at the heart of her new album The Tortured Poets Department
It is the Bad Blood singer’s 11th studio album since she burst onto the music scene in 2006. Its title The Tortured Poets Department even appears to be a slight on Joe
But it appears Ms Swift hasn’t held back herself with her new record The Tortured Poets Department, which fans believe is the story of their break-up, her brief rebound dalliance with rockstar Matt Healy and meeting new love Travis Kelce.
It contains stinging lyrics fans believe suggest Joe was unfaithful when she believed they would marry and have children together.
And even its title is being viewed as an attack on her ex-boyfriend and muse, because it is so similar to the name of a WhatsApp group Joe famously shares with close friends and fellow actors Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott called The Tortured Man Club.
Emma Gill, Regional Managing Partner – Head of Manchester for divorce firm Vardags, said: ‘Taylor Swift has settled a number of scores in song, yet cleverly ensured her ex-lovers rarely become liabilities’
But while the musical attack on him may increase pressure on Joe to have his say, he has always been clear that their six-year relationship was always going to be off limits.
He told Harper’s Bazaar in 2022: ‘I completely expect people to ask those questions [about their relationship], if I’m putting work into the world, of course people are going to ask about that’.
But he added definitively: ‘I can understand that those questions would be asked, but I don’t see why these questions should always be answered’.
Swifties became convinced they were planning to get married or had already secretly walked down the aisle, especially after they spent the pandemic together and he even co-wrote songs with her award winning albums Folklore and Evermore.
Is it fair for Taylor Swift to take digs at her exes in her songs?
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But Joe was again absolute in his silence.
‘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.’
The Tortured Poets Department, released with great excitement last night, is being viewed as their break up album with a number of songs apparently about the split.
In Loml, short for love of my life, Taylor sings: ‘You s**t talked me under the table. Talking rings and talking cradles. The coward. He was a lion. I’m combing through the braids of lies’.
Her new song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived is equally scathing.
The lyrics include: ‘And you’ll confess why you did it . . . And I’ll say good riddance. ‘Cos it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden.
‘You didn’t measure up in any measure of a man. I would have died for your sins but instead I just died inside’.
The album’s third track ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys’ includes a lyric that could be about Joe, as Swifties have long accused him of shying away from the spotlight and forcing the star to be ‘secretive.’
‘Put me back on my shelf. But first, pull the string and I’ll tell you that he runs because he loves me,’ she sings.
In the fourth track, ‘Down Bad’, Swift admits to breaking down ‘crying at the gym’ and how the end of hers and Joe’s six-year relationship left her feeling ‘hollow.’
She sings: ‘Did you take all my old clothes just to leave me here naked and alone/ In a field in my same old town that somehow seems so hollow now.
‘You deserve prison, but you won’t get time. You will slide into inboxes and slip through the bars. In plain sight you hid but you are what you did. And I’ll forget you, but I’ll never forgive the smallest man who ever lived’.
Taylor and Joe publicly announced their split in April 2023, after six years together. The pair pictured in April in 2019
Perhaps the most transparent riposte to her time with Alywn comes via ‘So long, London’.
The raw track details Swift’s heartache as she realised that her relationship with the British actor is over.
READ MORE: Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department full tracklist and meanings: How singer’s lyrics reflect on her ill-fated romances and reignite bitter feud in most personal album yet
Taylor Swift officially dropped The Tortured Poets Department on Friday – her hotly-anticipated 11th studio album
She sings: ‘I stopped trying to make him laugh/ Stopped trying to drill the safe,’ she sings. She then talks of bidding farewell to ‘the house in the Heath.’
Taylor and Joe reportedly met when they crossed paths at the 2016 Met Gala.
After years of her relationships being obsessively scrutinized in the media, the couple went to great lengths to keep their relationship out of the public eye.
It wasn’t until more than a year after their meeting that they were photographed together in 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee.
But it was a huge shock when they suddenly parted in 2023.
Taylor and Joe were together for six years but split up last year when many believed that they were destined to marry after her disastrous love life and dating some of the world’s most famous men.
DailyMail.com exclusively revealed that Taylor’s unparalleled starpower played a role in the end of her relationship with Joe amid claims by fans that he was unfaithful.
A source close to the singer said at the time: ‘The bottom line for the difficulties in their relationship was that Taylor’s career took priority over Joe’s – which can be awkward for a couple when it’s not balanced.
‘This drove them apart and ultimately, they both realized they were not on the same page anymore.’
The insider explained that ‘it’s been hard for Joe trying to make it in Hollywood and not quite becoming leading man material while dating one of the most famous women in the world over the last six years.
‘It was easier during the pandemic when it was just the two of them, but once things returned to normal, Taylor Swift the superstar emerged, and their differences were even more apparent.
‘They really made a go of it and tried everything they could but ultimately were unable to save the relationship,’ the source concluded.
Taylor wowed in the album artwork for the eagerly-anticipated record
She gave the black and white shots her all after releasing the album
She showed off her figure while reclining on a bed
News of the pair’s split broke suddenly but a source told ET that Joe and Taylor amicably parted ways ‘a few weeks ago.’
‘The relationship had just run its course,’ the insider added. ‘It’s why [Alwyn] hasn’t been spotted at any shows.’
During their early years together they would sometimes don disguises to visit each other or make outings together undetected, according to US Weekly.
Do you think Taylor is hinting that Joe was a cheat?
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She made frequent under the radar trips to his home in London.
In October 2018, Joe told British Vogue that the secrecy around their relationship was intentional.
‘I’m aware people want to know about that side of things. I think we have been successfully private,’ he said.
Rumours about the couple’s long-term plans together were frequent, with sources telling outlets Taylor thought she’d found her soulmate and that she was hoping they would get engaged.
That speculation soared in January 2020 with the release of Netflix’s documentary ‘Miss. Americana,’ in which she could be seen wearing a large diamond on her ring finger during an interview.
Many thought it was a sure-sign the engagement had finally come to pass, with some even suggesting they had secretly gotten married.
Months later in April, 2020, Joe addressed the rumors in an interview with WSJ Magazine, saying he wouldn’t confirm them even if they were true.
‘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.’
When the pandemic sent the world into quarantine in 2020, social media posts made by the couple indicated they were living together, and even had even started co-writing songs together.
Then when Folklore was released, a mysterious man named William Bowery was given numerous songwriting credits, despite no trace of him existing anywhere else.
After the requisite speculation as to Bowery’s identity, Taylor later confirmed the mystery man was her boyfriend. Joe is the great grandson of William Alwyn, a famed composer.
‘There’s been a lot of discussion about William Bowery and his identity because it’s not a real person. So, William Bowery is Joe, as we know,’ Taylor said on the Disney + concert special, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions.
In addition to the speculation that the Folklore ‘Invisible String’ was about Taylor’s relationship with Joe, fans have long suspected that the title track and numerous songs off her 2019 album ‘Lover’ were also about him.
In 2020, Taylor confided in an interview with Paul McCartney that she was drawn to Joe because of a sense of much needed normalcy and steadiness he brought to her life.
‘I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives,’ she said. ‘I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.’
‘I think that in knowing him 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,’ she added.
