‘When Emma Falls in Love’: Investigating Whether Taylor Swift’s New Song Is About Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield
Taylor Swift dropped a handful of never-before-heard songs with the release of her latest rerecorded album — and one track has fans wondering if it’s about Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield.
Swift, 33, debuted Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) on Friday, July 7. Along with updated versions of the original 16 songs, the songstress added six new bonus tracks including “When Emma Falls In Love," a song that seemingly hints at Stone — who is a longtime friend of Swift.
"When Emma falls in love, she calls up her mom / Jokes about the ways that this one could go wrong," Swift sings in the first verse. "She waits and takes her time / 'Cause Little Miss Sunshine always thinks it's gonna rain."
As they began dissecting the lyrics, some listeners grew convinced that "little miss sunshine" referred to Stone's memorable Easy A scene in which she sings along to Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine."
Elsewhere in the new track, Swift sings: "Emma met a boy with eyes like a man / Turns out her heart fits right in the palm of his hand / Now he'll be her shelter when it rains / Little does he know, his whole world's about to change."
While some fans have theorized that the boy in question might be Stone's ex Kieran Culkin — the pair dated after working together on the 2009 movie Paper Man — others wondered whether the song is more focused on friendship than on romantic love.
"Well, she's so New York when she's in L.A. / She won't lose herself in love the way that I did," Swift sings in the bridge. "'Cause she'll call you out, she'll put you in your place / When Emma falls in love, I'm learning."
Stone's most high-profile relationship, however, was with Garfield — which began after Swift wrote the track. The twosome met when they played Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker, respectively, in 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man. Sparks immediately flew, and their onscreen chemistry quickly turned into a real-life love story.
“She keeps you on your toes and that wakes you up. That was the beginning,” Garfield told MTV News in June 2012, admitting that he was “so happy” when he learned Stone had accepted the role after their screen test. “Those are the days I’d look forward to, you know? For [my character] Peter as well, because Peter goes through some horrible stuff in the movie. There’s some joy to be had when experiencing his first love.”
The pair returned for the franchise’s follow-up film, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, in 2014 before ultimately calling it quits one year later. “They still have a lot of love for one another and they are on good terms with each another and remain close,” an insider exclusively told Us Weekly of the breakup at the time. “It just wasn’t working.”
While they've since gone their separate ways romantically — Stone tied the knot with Dave McCary in 2020 — both the exes have continued to cheer each other on from the sidelines over the years, with Garfield telling Vanity Fair in 2017 that the “care” he and Stone have for each other is “unconditional.”
“There’s so much love between us and so much respect,” he explained. “I’m her biggest fan as an artist. So for me, it’s been bliss to be able to watch her success and watch her bloom into the actress that she is. And it’s been wonderful to have that kind of support for each other. It’s nothing but a beautiful thing.”
While Stone has maintained deep bonds with her exes, she’s forged an even longer connection with Swift. The duo met in 2008 at the Young Hollywood Awards where Stone told MTV News that she wrote Swift "an email saying I liked her music” and their friendship grew from there. “She’s so funny and she’s exactly who you think she is, and I love that,” she shared.
The BFFs have since been spotted doing everything from fun-filled ice cream runs in New York City to meet-ups in Paris. In 2010, Swift attended the premiere of Stone’s film Easy A — and was present again for the debut of her 2018 flick The Favourite. (The movie also costarred Swift’s boyfriend at the time, Joe Alwyn.)
“It’s just so important to have people that you trust and Emma and Selena [Gomez] and I, we’ve had so many things in our lives that have changed over the last couple years, but our friendship has stayed the same,” Swift gushed of her friendships to Access Hollywood in October 2012. “So that’s really good.”
Prior to the original launch of Speak Now in 2010, Stone revealed that she and the Grammy winner were so close, she was even able to hear the album early. “I was lucky enough to hear it pretty early on, so it’s so exciting for it to be out and own the songs instead of just be singing them [in my head],” Stone shared to MTV News at the time. When Swift embarked on her 2023 Eras Tour earlier this year, Stone was in the crowd on opening night.
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“The concert was pretty amazing,” Stone told Vanity Fair in June 2023, noting that Swift “hooked me up” with the hard-to-grab tickets. “She’s a wonderful friend,” she added.
