Some of the world’s most famous songwriters have used their real-life love traumas as inspiration for their biggest hits – and Taylor Swift proved she’s no exception with her 11th studio album, which dropped Thursday.
The Tortured Poets Department has made her recent romances with British men – including ‘London boy’ ex Joe Alywn and 1975 star Matty Healy – her latest muses, inspiring some of the new release’s more barbed lyrics.
Currently happily stepping out with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce, it’s clear the 34-year-old singer had plenty to get off her chest, with tracks including ‘So long, London’ and ‘Fortnight’ apparently about painful memories of her UK-based lovers.
The heartbreaking lyrics include her pain at the end of he six-year relationship with Joe, and her two-week rebound ‘situtionship’ with Healy.
Her penchant for dating Brits saw her briefly romance Harry Styles in 2012 and Tom Hiddleston in 2016, followed by a 15-month affair with Scot Calvin Harris, six years dating actor Joe Alywn – and a doomed dalliance with Matty Healy this time last year.
Write about what you know, right? The title of Taylor Swift’s latest work, The Tortured Poets Department, had caused fans to speculate that the name was aimed at her ex, Joe Alwyn. Her British love affairs over the last decade – with five high profile stars – have sparked some of her biggest heartbreaks
Cathartic: The new release is peppered with references to her failed romances, with Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy both apparent muses
The Bad Blood songstress, who recently teased a ‘timetable’ to her fans ahead of the LP’s release, initially announced the album while attending the 2024 Grammys earlier this year in February.
Fans rushed to stream the 16-track album when it was released to platforms on Thursday night, keen to find not-so-hidden details of Swift’s lost loves weaved amongst the lyrics. And they didn’t have to listen for very long to find them.
Here, FEMAIL looks at how British boys have served up some of the biggest heartbreaks for the global star…
JOE ALWYN: IS TTPD THEIR BREAKUP ALBUM?
Many fans have predicted that The Tortured Poets Department album would be the ultimate Joe/Taylor ‘breakup album’, it’s long been speculated the name was a direct dig at the British actor, whom she dated from 2016 to early 2023.
Joe, born in Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and Taylor were initially romantically linked in 2016, but famously kept details of their relationship out of the spotlight. They broke up in April 2023, after six years of dating.
The name of the album has long been speculated to be a jab at Joe, who previously revealed that he is part of a WhatsApp group chat with close pals Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott called The Tortured Man Club.
Taylor Swift is clueing fans in on the end of her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn as well as her short-lived fling with The 1975 rocker Matty Healy in songs on her new album The Tortured Poets Department; seen with Joe in 2019
The track So long, London features on Swift’s latest release and appears to document how her long-term relationship with the British actor could not be saved; the couple pictured in 2020
The album’s third track ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys’ includes a lyric that could be about Joe, as Swifties have long accused him of shying away from the spotlight and forcing the star to be ‘secretive.’
‘Put me back on my shelf/ But first, pull the string and I’ll tell you that he runs because he loves me,’ the Pennsylvania native sings.
In the fourth track, ‘Down Bad’, Swift admits to breaking down ‘crying at the gym’ and how the end of hers and Joe’s six-year relationship left her feeling ‘hollow.’
She sings: ‘Did you take all my old clothes just to leave me here naked and alone/ In a field in my same old town that somehow seems so hollow now’.
The album’s third track includes a lyric that could be about Joe as fans have long accused him of shying away from Swift’s spotlight and forcing her to be ‘secretive’; Joe seen in 2022
Perhaps the most transparent riposte to her time with Alywn comes via ‘So long, London’. The raw track details Swift’s heartache as she realises that her relationship with the British actor is over.
The song is 9 minutes and 28 seconds in length and Joe and Taylor were first confirmed to be dating on September 28, 2016.
Swift write: ‘I stopped trying to make him laugh/ Stopped trying to drill the safe,’ she sings. She then talks of bidding farewell to ‘the house in the Heath.’
The couple famously hunkered down together in a rural location in the UK back in 2017 amid the fallout of her feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
MATT HEALY: THE REBOUND ROMANCE TURNED BARBED MUSE
Swift found herself in a whirlwind romance with Healy — though neither ever directly confirmed it — just two months later after they were seen kissing in NYC; seen in May 2023
In April 2023, firmly on the rebound from Alywn, Swift found herself in a whirlwind romance with 1975’s frontman Healy — though neither ever directly confirmed — after they were seen kissing in NYC.
But the fling ended as fast as it began after Healy’s ‘bad boy’ image and ‘racist’ remarks caused squeaky clean Swift to face backlash.
The first TTPD track, ‘Fortnight’, is the album’s lead single and features rapper/singer Post Malone. In it, Swift appears to to take aim at Healy — who she refers to as her ‘miracle move-on-drug’ — and how their toxic love was ‘ruining my life.’
And fans have spotted lyrics that could be about Healy in three more TTPD songs.
Fans quickly pressed play on the 16-track album when it was released to streaming platforms at midnight Friday so they could find references to Alwyn and Healy — both the good and the brutal
‘Fortnight’ is the album’s lead single featuring rapper/singer Post Malone. In it, Swift appears to to take aim at Healy — who she refers to as her ‘miracle move-on-drug’ — and how their toxic love was ‘ruining my life’; seen in 2015 before their fling
Swift implies that Healy would be devastated if she left him and even appears to reference his close friend Lucy Dacus of the band boygenius (Matt pictured in May 2023)
She sings: ‘And no one here’s to blame/ But what about your quiet treason? /I took the miracle move-on-drug/ The effects were temporary/ And I love you, it’s ruining my life.’
The track’s title Fortnight, a British English word defined as ‘a period of two weeks,’ could be perceived as a direct nod to the British rocker as well as the brevity of their relationship.
And the track with the same name as the album, also seems to have a veiled attack at Healy’s love of old fashioned type writers. The song features the lyric: ‘Like, ‘Who uses typewriters anyway?’
Back in 2019, Healy was clowned online when he confessed to GQ that he ‘really likes’ using a typewriter.
MORE BRITS WHO (TEMPORARILY) STOLE SWIFT’S HEART
CALVIN HARRIS: SCOTTISH DJ SNIPED OVER SONG CREDIT AFTER SPLIT
Calvin Harris dated Swift for 15 months but their love affair was tarnished by his public outburst on X about the star after their split
They dated for 16 months but Taylor Swift is unlikely to remember their love affair fondly, after less-than-friendly exchanges following their split.
When the couple parted in June 2016, Harris caused a stir after ranting about his ex-love on X.
Calvin had launched into a tirade about his ex-girlfriend, after she confirmed she wrote his hit track This Is What You Came For, which saw him collaborate with Rihanna.
The Scottish DJ admitted he had ‘snapped’ at Taylor because he felt she had been ‘belittling’ his talent and claimed he had been ‘protecting’ himself.
He told GQ in 2017: ‘I was protecting what I see as my one talent in the world being belittled. It felt like things were piling on top of me and that was when I snapped.’
TOM HIDDLESTON: ‘TAYLOR IS AN AMAZING WOMAN’
Former flame: Taylor and Tom had dated for three months from June to September 2016, as they are pictured in Suffolk back in June
Dashing Tom Hiddleston dated Taylor for three months in 2016, when the British actor was at the height of his fame thanks to hit show The Night Manager.
And it seemed this was one relationship that didn’t cause too much heartbreak when they parted ways.
‘Taylor is an amazing woman,’ Tom said afterwards. ‘She’s generous and kind and lovely, and we had the best time.’
He also nixed speculation the relationship was a stunt purely designed for publicity, insisting: ‘Of course it was real.’
He claims they were both seeking a normal relationship, adding: ‘So we decided to go out for dinner, we decided to travel… She’s incredible. [But] a relationship in the limelight… A relationship always takes work. And it’s not just the limelight. It’s everything else.’
HARRY STYLES: DID BRITISH IDOL INSPIRE A QUARTET OF SONGS?
Styles was spotted out and about with singer Taylor Swift in late 2012 and early 2013 before the pair called time on their romance just days after ringing in the new year (pictured December 2022 in New York). It’s thought their time together inspired four Taylor Swift tracks
Between 2012 and 2013, Styles and singer Taylor Swift had a three-month fling before the pair were reported to have split shortly after the new year following an ‘almighty row‘.
Little more than a week after a very public display of affection on New Year’s Eve as the clock struck midnight to kick off 2013, a source confirmed to MailOnline that Styles and Swift had parted ways.
Swift, who is known to write songs about past relationships, is thought to have penned at least three songs about Styles – I Knew You Were Trouble, Style and Out Of The Woods.
In 2015, the singer revealed her whirlwind romance with Styles had been an experience filled with anxiety.
During a performance at the Grammy Museum, she introduced Out Of The Woods by telling the audience about an anxiety-inducing relationship – although she didn’t mention Styles by name.
‘I’m going to play you a song that I wrote about a relationship that I was in that the number one feeling I felt in the whole relationship was anxiety,’ she explained as she sat at her piano.
‘Because it felt very fragile, it felt very tentative. And it always felt like, “Okay, what’s the next road block? What’s the next thing that’s gonna deter this? How long do we have before this turns into just an awful mess and we break up? Is it a month? Is it three days?”‘
Last year, Swift got fans talking again about her romance with Harry after she branded an unnamed ex-boyfriend a ‘lying traitor’ in a new song.
On the new version of her fifth album 1989, which took her career to new heights when it came out in 2014, a track called Is It Over Now, sees the star hit out at a former partner for being a ‘lying traitor’ and sleeping with a series of models after they broke up.
