Nearly a year after their breakup, we know now that Taylor Swift was “lonely” with Joe Alwyn—or, at least, that’s what she seemed to suggest during a recent stop on her Eras concert tour.
On February 17, 2024, the “Anti-Hero” singer performed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, where she took a moment during her show to reflect on her 2020 album, Folklore. The 34-year-old pop star wrote the album during lockdown—a period which she described as “lonely” despite being in a relationship and spending time at home with her then-boyfriend, Joe Alwyn. She also hinted at “drinking” more during this period of her life.
“[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 said during the concert. “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.” And with that, Swift went on to sing her song, “Betty,” from the album.
This isn’t the first time that Swift has opened up about her experience during the pandemic. In a December 2020 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Swift explained how she and Alwyn passed the time together. “I wasn’t expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night,” the pop star shared with the publication. “I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t seen Pan’s Labyrinth before. One night I’d watch that, then I’d watch L.A. Confidential, then we’d watch Rear Window, then we’d watch Jane Eyre.”
She continued, “I feel like consuming other people’s art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, ‘Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven’t I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?’”
After six years together, however, Swift and Alwyn called it quits in April 2023. Sources told People at the time that the Midnights songwriter and Conversations With Friends actor outgrew each other. “They’ve had rough patches before and always worked things out, so friends thought they would take some time apart but eventually come back together,” one source said, before noting that they ultimately “weren’t the right fit for one another.”
“They had plenty in common and fell in love in a safe bubble while she was retreating from the world during Reputation,” the source added. “Then the pandemic hit, and they were locked down together and able to continue growing their relationship in this insulated way. But he didn’t really ‘know’ her yet outside of that bubble.” The source continued, “Joe has struggled with Taylor’s level of fame and the attention from the public. The differences in their personalities have also become harder to ignore after years together. They’ve grown apart.”
As we all know, Swift has since moved on with Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce—and it seems the NFL star doesn’t have the same problem with Swift’s level of stardom. The pair were last seen packing on the PDA after Kelce’s win at Super Bowl LVIII on February 11, 2024, and the star tight-end is rumored to join Swift soon as she continues her Eras Tour around the world.
“Football is everything to him. He lives and breathes it. But he’s ready for some downtime now and to show up for Taylor the way she has for him,” an insider recently told People. “The attention on them is definitely a lot, but Travis has done a great job deflecting and focusing on what’s important.”
Following her show in Melbourne, Swift is scheduled for back-to-back concerts at Sydney’s Accor Stadium and will hit other international spots like France, Singapore, Sweden, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Canada, among others, in the coming weeks. Chances are, we’ll see Kelce supporting his girlfriend just like she did at his NFL games earlier in the season.
