Taylor Swift and her boyfriend Joe Alwyn began dating in 2016, though their romance did not become public knowledge until they were spotted together in May 2017. Despite Swift penning several love songs about Alwyn on her 2017 album Reputation and 2019 album Lover, the two have kept their relationship private.
In her speech at the NYU’s Spring 2022 graduation ceremony, where she recently received an honorary doctorate of fine arts, the ‘Lover’ singer made reference to why she now keeps her love life private.
She said, “Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely.”
Back in December 2020, Swift told Paul McCartney during an interview for Rolling Stone that her relationship with her boyfriend Joe Alwyn allows her to be in love and feel like a regular person within her superstar life.
“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.”
She continued, “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.”
Taylor’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn has also echoed similar sentiments about keeping his relationship with the ‘Bad Blood’ singer private.
Alwyn told Elle UK that “it’s not really” because he wants “to be guarded and private, it’s more a response to something else.”
“We live in a culture that is so increasingly intrusive,” he continued. “The more you give — and frankly, even if you don’t give it — something will be taken.”
While Taylor has always written about her relationships, she and her boyfriend have very few pictures together and she seldom talks about their relationship in interviews, telling The Guardian, in an August 2019 interview,
“I’ve learned that if I do, people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion…If you and I were having a glass of wine right now, we’d be talking about it – but it’s just that it goes out into the world. That’s where the boundary is, and that’s where my life has become manageable. I really want to keep it feeling manageable.”
