While her fans flock to Cornelia Street, Taylor Swift is putting on a brave face blocks away.
The 33-year-old Grammy winner was spotted dining with longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff and his fiancée, Margaret Qualley, in New York City on Monday, April 10, days after her breakup from Joe Alwyn made headlines. Swift sported high-waisted jeans with an embroidered butterfly on the leg, a black top, heels and red lipstick for the outing.
Several outlets report that the outing took place at Carota restaurant, not far from Cornelia Street, the NYC street Swift penned a track about on her 2019 album, Lover.
“And I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends / I’d never walk Cornelia Street again / That’s the kind of heartbreak time could never mend / I’d never walk Cornelia Street again,” she sings on the track, which is believed to be about Alwyn. “And baby, I get mystified by how this city screams your name / And baby, I’m so terrified of if you ever walk away / I’d never walk Cornelia Street again.”
Earlier on Monday, Vulture reported Swifties were laying flowers outside of the singer’s former West Village apartment in light of her breakup with Alwyn, 32.
“It made me believe that love wasn’t real anymore. And I puked,” one fan told the outlet of the split.
Us Weekly confirmed earlier this month that Swift and Alwyn, who started dating in 2016, called it quits.
“Fame factored into their split. Joe is very shy and never liked all of the attention that came with dating one of the most popular singers in the world,” a source exclusively told Us, clarifying that the Conversations With Friends star never “blamed” her for her popularity.
The “Betty” singer seemingly hinted at trouble in paradise when she swapped “Invisible String” — a love song — for “The 1” — allegedly about her ex Joe Jonas — during her March 31 concert in Arlington, Texas. She also appeared to get emotional during her performance of “Champagne Problems” while singing the lyrics, “Sometimes you just don’t know the answer ‘til someone’s on their knees and asks you.”
In addition to dating for several years, Swift enlisted the actor to help her pen songs for Folklore and Evermore, released in August 2020 and December 2020, respectively.
“Joe and I really love sad songs. We’ve always bonded over music. … We write the saddest. We just really love sad songs. What can I say?” she explained to Zane Lowe of writing with her then-partner. “And I say it was a surprise that we started writing together, but in a way, it wasn’t because we have always bonded over music and had the same musical tastes. And he’s always the person who’s showing me songs by artists and then they become my favorite songs.”
Alwyn, who uses the pseudonym William Bowery, spoke to GQ U.K. about the process in May 2022.
“It was really the most accidental thing to happen in lockdown. It wasn’t like, ‘It’s three o’clock, it’s time to write a song!’” he explained of writing “Exile,” which features Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. “It was just messing around on a piano and singing badly and being overheard and then thinking, you know, what if we tried to get to the end of it together? … Sending it to Justin with the idea of doing a duet and getting voice notes back of him singing over the top and stuff was surreal.”
