Why Taylor Swift Fans Think Her New Album Title Is a Dig at Ex Joe Alwyn
Taylor Swift, Joe Alwyn
After Taylor Swift announced her 11th studio album during her acceptance speech at the 2024 Grammy Awards, fans began speculating that the project's title could be a direct dig at her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn.
On Sunday, Feb. 4, Swift revealed her newest LP, The Tortured Poets Department, would be out on Friday, Apr. 19, and it didn't take long for dedicated Swifties to piece together the potential inspiration behind the album's name.
All it took was a resurfaced video of an interview Alwyn had conducted with Irish actor Paul Mescal, in which the two discuss a group chat they're a part of with Fleabag's Andrew Scott.
While all seems fairly normal, the title of the trio's group chat is seemingly too similar to overlook.
"So what's the name of the WhatsApp group we're in?" Mescal said in the original Variety interview, posing the question to Alwyn with a laugh. "Tortured..."
"It's either 'The Tortured' or 'The Lonely,'" Alwyn, 32, replied, going on to correct himself, "'The Tortured Man Club,' I think."
"It hasn't had much use recently," Alwyn added before Mescal, 28, interjected, "No, I feel like we're less tortured now."
Shortly after Swift's new album was announced, the clip was resurfaced and shared across almost all social media platforms with comments referencing the soon-to-be-released project's title, "THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT," and replies speculating features Swift may have secured for with one hoping for a "Phoebe Bridgers feature incoming" and another suggesting, "there’s a reason they’re the hated exes of two blonde grammy winners and i fear we’re abt to find out why," a nod to Bridgers' past relationship with Mescal.
The clip was originally released over a year ago, as part of an in-depth interview with the magazine that was first published in Dec. 2022. Along with the mention of their not-so-secret group chat, which they said Scott started, the two actors also candidly touched upon what it's like to film steamy, more adult scenes.
