Taylor Swift has shared a rare comment about her six-year-relationship with Joe Alwyn, revealing that they’ve had to “dodge weird rumours”. The 32-year-old singer opened up about her British actor boyfriend in a video shared to her Instagram on Friday, where she discussed the first track, “Lavender Haze,” that will be featured on her upcoming album, Midnights.
As she acknowledged that she came up with the song name through watching Mad Men and looking up the phrase online, she described how the saying relates to “love”. “And it turns out that it’s a common phrase used in the ’50s where they would just describe being in love,” Swift explained. “If you were in the ‘lavender haze,’ then that meant you were in that all-encompassing love glow. And I thought that was really beautiful.” The “All Too Well” singer explained that “theoretically,” when someone is in that “lavender haze,” they will “do anything to stay there” and won’t let “people” ruin that feeling.
With that in mind, she described how the internet can negatively affect someone when they’re “in love”. “I think that a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just like ‘public figures,’ because we live in the era of social media, and if the world finds out if you’re in love with somebody they’re going to weigh in on it,” she explained. She then highlighted her own dating experience, adding: “Like my relationship for six years we’ve had to dodge weird rumours, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. So this song is about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.”
One of the biggest rumours that have sparked about the couple, over the years, is that they secretly got engaged. However, during an interview with the WSJ Magazine in April, Alwyn not only acknowledged the speculation, but also noted that if he was engaged, he wouldn’t publicly say anything about it.
“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.” This wasn’t the first time that Alwyn, who’s been dating the “Bad Blood” singer since 2017, has addressed that he doesn’t like to publicly talk about his relationship.
“It’s just not for other people. And I don’t say that with aggression. I don’t know how best to talk about it,” he told The Guardian in April. “I mean, I’m aware of people’s… of that size of interest, and that world existing. It’s just not something I particularly care about, or have much interest in feeding, I guess, because the more it’s fed, the more you are opening a gate for intrusion.”
