Fans were quick to draw an apparent connection to Joe Alwyn after they heard the name of Taylor Swift’s upcoming album: The Tortured Poets Department.
Swift, 34, announced the release of her 11th album after winning the award for Best Pop Vocals at the 2024 Grammy Awards on Sunday, February 4.
“[The way I can celebrate] is by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the past two years, which is that my brand new album comes out April 19th. It’s called The Tortured Poets Department and I’m going to go post the cover right now backstage,” she said.
One Swiftie subsequently posted via X: “The album name is a literally reference to joe’s and paul mescal groupchat … girlies obsessed with the sally rooney universe we are about to EAT.”
Alwyn previously talked about his group chat with Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott during Variety‘s Actors on Actors interview special in December 2022.
“It’s the Tortured Man Club, I think. It’s me, you — and Andrew Scott started the group,” Alwyn shared at the time. “[Andrew is] just messaging himself good mornings. We were both in the Sally Rooney universe and crossed over with Lenny Abrahamson. We were so lucky to have that experience.”
Swift and Alwyn started dating in 2017, with the singer offering glimpses at their relationship through her music and by collaborating with Alwyn on several songs off her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore.
In April 2023, Us Weekly confirmed that Swift and Alwyn called it quits after six years of dating.
A source exclusively told Us at the time that “fame factored into” their decision to part ways, adding, “Joe is very shy and never liked all of the attention that came with dating one of the most popular singers in the world.”
According to the insider, Swift wasn’t at “fault” for the breakup. “[Joe] just didn’t like having to be on all of the time,” the source noted.
Swift later moved on with ex Matt Healy but their connection quickly fizzled out. She has since proudly showed off her bond with boyfriend Travis Kelce.
The pair quietly started dating last summer after the athlete, 34, revealed his crush on Swift. After attending a stop on her Eras Tour in July 2023, Kelce made his move and Swift began regularly attending his Kansas City Chiefs games two months later.
Swift recently made it clear that she isn’t concerned about the public reaction to their romance.
“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she gushed in her TIME 2023 Person of the Year interview in December 2023. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”
After getting off stage on Sunday, meanwhile, Swift shared the artwork for her 11th record via Instagram, which featured her lying in a bed wearing black lingerie.
“And so I enter into evidence my tarnished coat of arms,” she wrote above the photo. “My muses acquired like bruises, my talismans and charms. The tick, tick, tick of love bombs. My view of pitch black ink. All’s fair in …”
Tortured Poets Department will be released on April 19.
