Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn call it quits after 6 years: What went wrong?

It’s official: Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn are no longer together. The pop superstar and the British actor have ended their relationship after six years of dating, according to multiple sources.

What happened?

A source close to Taylor confirmed the news to CNN, saying, “Taylor and Joe broke up a few weeks ago. They grew apart and planned to remain friends.” Entertainment Tonight was the first to report the news, citing a similar reason for the split. “The breakup was not dramatic,” ET said. “The relationship had just run its course.”

Neither Swift nor Alwyn has publicly commented on their breakup, and their representatives did not respond to requests for comment. The former couple was known for keeping their romance private, rarely appearing together in public or on social media.

How did they meet?

Swift and Alwyn reportedly met in 2016, shortly after Swift’s high-profile breakups with DJ Calvin Harris and actor Tom Hiddleston. The pair were first spotted together at a concert in Nashville in October 2016, they did not confirm their relationship until May 2017, when they were photographed holding hands in New York.

Over the years, Swift and Alwyn avoided the paparazzi and the tabloid rumors that plagued some of Swift’s previous relationships. The singer-songwriter said in her 2020 documentary “Miss Americana” that she was attracted to Alwyn because of his “wonderful, normal, balanced kind of life.”

How did they collaborate?

Although they kept their personal lives private, Swift and Alwyn did collaborate on some of Swift’s music. Alwyn co-wrote several songs for Swift’s albums “Folklore” and “Evermore” under the pseudonym William Bowery. He also contributed to a song called “Sweet Nothing” on Swift’s latest album “Midnights”, released in October 2022.

Swift revealed Alwyn’s involvement in her music in a Disney+ documentary called “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions” in 2020, where she praised his musical talent and creativity. “He plays piano beautifully and he’s always just playing and making things up and kind of creating things,” she said.

Alwyn also earned a Grammy for his work on “Folklore”, which won album of the year in 2021. He explained his decision to use a pen name in an interview with Kelly Clarkson in 2022, saying “We chose to do it so the people first and foremost would listen to the music before dissecting the fact that we did it together.”

What’s next for them?

Swift is currently on her “Eras Tour”, which kicked off in March 2023 and will run until August 2023. The tour features songs from all of her nine studio albums, including her latest hit “Lavender Haze”, which she said was inspired by Alwyn.

“Like my relationship for six years, we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff and we just ignore it,” she said on Instagram in October 2022. “This song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.”

Alwyn is set to star in a Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel “Conversations With Friends”, which will premiere later this year. He recently appeared in a comedy film called “Catherine Called Birdy”, based on a historical novel by Karen Cushman.