When the news broke in April 2023 that Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn had called it quits, a lot of Swifties felt blindsided by the split. Some of Swift’s most romantic songs came out during the six years the couple spent together. All signs pointed to Swift and Alwyn being endgame. So, what went wrong? The most popular theory as to why they broke up is that Swift wanted to get married and Alwyn didn’t.
She gives us tons of evidence to support this theory throughout The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), but some fans aren’t convinced. There’s another theory about why the couple broke up that’s been gaining traction on social media in the weeks leading up to TTPD’s release claiming that Alwyn may have cheated on Swift. Now that the album is out, there are a few details that prove the rumors might be right.
Alwyn was rumored to have had an affair with his Brutalist co-star Emma Laird around the time it was revealed that he and Swift had called it quits. Closer to TTPD’s release, the cheating rumors shifted to Alwyn’s Conversations with Friends co-star Alison Oliver. Theorizers say the stars got a little too close on set. Somewhere on the internet, there’s rumored to be video footage of Alwyn saying Oliver’s real name during a sex scene rather than her character’s name. It’s also rumored that Alwyn threw a party for Oliver at the house he shared with Swift while the singer was out of town.
One of the biggest red flags of Alwyn’s possible infidelity was that TTPD was set for an April release date. All of Swift’s albums (not including the Taylor’s Version editions) have been released in the second half of the calendar year, usually between October and December.
So why release TTPD in April? Some fans think it’s a sneaky reference to Alwyn’s rumored infidelity. Sleuths found a picture of Oliver and Alwyn on Oliver’s Instagram page that was posted on April 19, 2022 — the same day TTPD came out two years later.
Additionally, a ton of Swift’s friends unfollowed Alwyn on Instagram on April 19, 2023, after their breakup became public information. If this is the reason why TTPD came out so early in the year, Swift is operating on an honestly impressive level of pettiness.
The release date could just be a coincidence, but Swift does mention cheating a few times in TTPD. She specifically refers to cheating husbands in two songs: “Fortnight” and “Florida!!!” In the song “How Did It End?,” she sings that interlopers will “go home to their husbands / Smug ‘cause they know they can trust him.” Though she doesn’t directly insinuate infidelity in the song “loml,” she sings about feeling like she’d been conned in her relationship with lyrics like “a con man sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme.”
Cheating is woven a lot more subtly in TTPD than marriage is, but the few hints we get about cheating are enough to convince some fans that their theory is right.
Personally, I don’t buy the cheating rumors at all. Swift isn’t one to take it easy on people who have done her dirty.
If Alwyn had cheated on her, I think the reveal would have taken a page out of Eternal Sunshine’s book and been a lot more obvious. Since Swift talks about weddings in a third of TTPD’s songs, I have a feeling the real reason behind her and Alwyn’s breakup can be found on her bare ring finger.