Joe Alwyn is opening up about breaking up with Taylor Swift — kind of.
“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,” Alwyn said in an interview published Sunday.
“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.”
He was speaking with the London Sunday Times Style Magazine about his new movie, “Kinds of Kindness,” in which he plays a single father opposite Emma Stone, but naturally, the conversation turned to Swift.
The pair dated for more than six years before a high-profile breakup in April 2023, and since then both have kept quiet about the details (assuming nobody counts Swift’s cryptic lyrics from “The Tortured Poet’s Department”).
Alwyn and Swift had a very private relationship, which was something the two of them mutually decided on, he said.
When they started dating in 2016, she had come off years of relationships with big names in the entertainment industry, including Jake Gyllenhaal, Tom Hiddleston, Calvin Harris, Joe Jonas, John Mayer and Harry Styles. In her 2020 documentary, “Miss Americana,” the pop musician said she was attracted to the less-famous Alwyn because of his “wonderful, normal, balanced kind of life.”
The actor saw no reason to change the status quo after their split, preferring to keep any potentially messy details quiet.
“I’m sure you can appreciate, given the level of noise and scrutiny about my past relationship, why I wouldn’t want to just open the door to things like that right now,” he told the magazine.
Alwyn said he doesn’t want his past to be “dissected, speculated on, pulled out of shape beyond recognition.”
“And the truth is, to that last point, there is always going to be a gap between what is known and what is said,” he said. “I have made my peace with that.”
Times staff writer Christi Carras contributed to this report.