Rock solid, baby! Joe Alwyn and Taylor Swift have each other’s backs, no matter how hard things get in their lives.
“Taylor has had a tough year and Joe has been a rock for her,” a source told Us Weekly exclusively on Wednesday, December 4.
The couple, who began dating in May 2017, reside in two different countries but they make time for one another, even during the holiday season. “Taylor and Joe did spend Thanksgiving together in London,” the insider added. “They are still going very strong.”
The “Lover” singer, 29, previously opened up about her difficult year during her Artist of the Year acceptance speech at the 2019 American Music Awards on November 24. After thanking the Swifties in her Artist of the Decade speech earlier in the night, Swift again took the stage to acknowledge her fans and address her personal hardships.
“Wow, I really don’t have anything articulate to say. I just — just that [the] fact that the last year of my life has had some of the most amazing times and also some of just the hardest things I’ve gone through in my life,” she said after taking the stage. “Not a lot of them are things that haven’t been public, and I wanted to thank you so much for being the thing that has been a constant in my life.”
She concluded, “This year for me, has been a lot. A lot of good, a lot of really complicated and so on behalf of, like, my family and me, thank you so much for being there and for caring.”
The Grammy-winning artist has been through many ups and downs this year amid her legal battle with Big Machine Records’ executives Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta. Beginning in June 2019, the “You Need to Calm Down” singer has been back and forth with the business partners over the rights to her music and songs she recorded before signing with Republic Records in November 2018.
Ahead of the AMAs, Swift claimed that the duo allegedly banned her from using her old records in an upcoming Netflix documentary and prohibited her from performing any of her old music during the show.
“[They] said that I’m not allowed to perform my old songs on television because they claim that would be re-recording my music before I’m allowed to next year,” she wrote on social media on November 14, referring to her plans to re-record her past hits and therefore own all of her catalog.
Swift added, “I just want to be able to perform MY OWN music. That’s it. I’ve tried to work this out privately through my team but have not been able to resolve anything.”
On November 21, Braun, 38, broke his silence on the issue saying, “I just think we live in a time of toxic division, and of people thinking that social media is the appropriate place to air out on each other and not have conversations. I don’t like politicians doing it. I don’t like anybody doing it.”
He continued, “If that means that I’ve got to be the bad guy longer, I’ll be the bad guy longer, but I’m not going to participate. We’re inciting all of this by continuing these arguments in public. We just need to go behind closed doors and see if we can have a conversation. And if we’re not having conversations, then I don’t think we’re going to find a resolution.”
