Joe Alwyn and Taylor Swift Dominique Charriau/WireImage ; Gareth Cattermole/TAS24/Getty Images
Taylor Swift might have noticed via location-sharing app that her ex walked into “some bar called the Black Dog” after their breakup, but it’s allegedly not Joe Alwyn.
Alwyn, 33, was point-blank asked in his Sunday Times Style profile whether The Black Dog pub in Vauxhall, England was his least favorite eatery because of Swift’s song.
“I’ve never been to Vauxhall,” Alwyn said in the profile, which was published on Saturday, June 15. The outlet further reports that the actor was “smiling a smile that hints that there is more to say.”
Swift, 34, named one of her The Tortured Poets Department songs “The Black Dog,” which came out in April.
Many fans speculated that much of Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, would be inspired by her split from Joe Alwyn — and they weren’t completely wrong. Although less of the record seems to be dedicated to her nearly six-year relationship with the actor than some anticipated, Swift sets aside some of the most heartbreaking […]
“I am someone who, until recent events / You shared your secrets with / And your location / You forgot to turn it off,” she sings. “And so I watch as you walk / Into some bar called The Black Dog / And pierce new holes in my heart.”
She continues, “I just don’t understand / How you don’t miss me / In The Black Dog / When someone plays The Starting Line and you jump up / But she’s too young to know this song / That was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming.”
After the song came out, Swifties deduced that there was a real bar called The Black Dog in Vauxhall, a suburb of London.
Swift and Alwyn, who dated for six years until their 2023 split, spent much of their time in London. The Kinds of Kindness star retains a residence in his native England while Swift has returned to the United States. She splits time between New York City, Los Angeles, Nashville and Kansas City when she is not on her international Eras Tour. (Swift’s new boyfriend, Travis Kelce, plays for KC’s Chiefs football team.)
Taylor Swift‘s exes have been very vocal about whether or not they enjoy being the singer’s muses. Swift’s 10-month-long relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal is heavily rumored to be the inspiration behind the breakup song “All Too Well” from 2012’s Red. When asked about his ex in a March 2017 interview with The Guardian, Gyllenhaal gave […]
Swift has not publicly confirmed whether any TTPD songs are about Alwyn or fellow ex Matty Healy, but fans have presumed that breakup tracks about the respective relationships populate the record. (TTPD also features songs with nods to Kelce, 34, and football.)
Alwyn, for his part, has not listened to any of TTPD.
“I would hope that anyone and everyone can empathize and understand the difficulties that come with the end of a long, loving, fully committed relationship of over six and a half years,” he told The Sunday Times. “That is a hard thing to navigate. What is unusual and abnormal in this situation is that, one week later, it’s suddenly in the public domain and the outside world is able to weigh in.”
