Although it’s never been confirmed, fans of the singer have figured out that they probably met at the 2016 Met Gala.
In her song Dress from her album Reputation, Taylor sings “flashback to when you met me, your buzzed cut and my hair bleached”.
Taylor was rocking a cropped, bleach-blonde look, while Joe arrived at the New York event with buzzed hair.
At the time, Taylor was still in a relationship with DJ Calvin Harris. It was also the same night she met her next partner, Tom Hiddleston, whom she dated briefly after splitting from Harris.
Reports of the pair dating didn’t arise until May 2017, but unbeknownst to fans, they had both been spotted at a few of the same events, although not together.
Taylor allegedly gave proper confirmation to a group of fans at the end of 2017, when she released her new single Gorgeous, also from the Reputation album, when she hosted a secret listening party.
“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,” an attendee wrote on Tumblr.
Joe would then make his first public mention of Taylor around a year later, while speaking to British Vogue.
“I’m aware people want to know about that side of things,” he admitted.
“I think we have been successfully very private and that has now sunk in for people … but I really prefer to talk about work.”
While Joe and Taylor are now spotted attending the occasional event together, they definitely don’t position themselves as a public-facing couple.
Even when the documentary about Taylor’s career, Miss Americana, dropped in 2020, fans still didn’t get to see much of Joe.
He was spotted kissing Taylor’s hand from behind the camera, cutting a shadowy figure Taylor embraced after a performance, and it was also implied he was filming as Taylor sang an acoustic version of Call It What You Want.
However, Taylor did touch on the relationship during the film.
“I felt alone, I felt really bitter,” she said about a time in 2016 where she faced a lot of public backlash.
“I felt sort of like a wounded animal lashing out. I figured I had to reset everything. I had to reconstruct an entire belief system for my own personal sanity. I also was falling in love with someone who had a wonderfully normal, balanced life.”
“Even though it was really horrible, I was happy. But it wasn’t happy in the way I was trained to be happy. It was happiness without anyone else’s input. We were just … happy.”
While they remained notoriously private, fans spotted what were likely references to Joe throughout the albums Lover and folklore.
Taylor even confirmed that Joe inspired the lyrics of her song peace, speaking with Paul McCartney for an issue of Rolling Stone.
“[The song] is actually more rooted in my personal life. 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,” Taylor said to McCartney.
“But 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.”
While rumours of engagement and marriage abound about the pair, they have both remained quiet on the subject, neither confirming nor denying where they are in their relationship.
“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,” Joe said to WSJ.
“I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn’t say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn’t say.”
We’re certain the mystery will only continue, but we’re also certain our obsession with Joe and Taylor will too.
You can catch Joe Alwyn in Conversations With Friends from Monday, May 16 on Amazon Prime.
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