Taylor Swift’s Exes Most Candid Quotes About Their Relationships and Her Songwriting

Credit: Getty Images (3)

Taylor Swift's Exes Most Candid Quotes About Their Relationships and Her Songwriting

Taylor Swift's exes have been very vocal about whether 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. “I think when you're in a relationship, you are constantly scrutinized, your friends are scrutinized, but ... I would love to not talk about my personal life," Gyllenhaal told The Guardian in March 2017 when asked about Swift. Swift, for her part, revealed that she doesn’t necessarily take her exes’ opinions into account when writing music. "I haven't thought about their experience, to be honest," she said during a November 2021 appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Scroll down to see what Swift's exes have said about her over the years:

Credit: Getty Images (3)

Taylor Swift's Exes Most Candid Quotes About Their Relationships and Her Songwriting

Taylor Swift's exes have been very vocal about whether 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. “I think when you're in a relationship, you are constantly scrutinized, your friends are scrutinized, but ... I would love to not talk about my personal life," Gyllenhaal told The Guardian in March 2017 when asked about Swift. Swift, for her part, revealed that she doesn’t necessarily take her exes’ opinions into account when writing music. "I haven't thought about their experience, to be honest," she said during a November 2021 appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Scroll down to see what Swift's exes have said about her over the years:

Credit: Getty Images (2)

Matty Healy

Several tracks on Swift’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, are rumored to be about her romance with The 1975 frontman Matt Healy, which included brief flings in 2014 and 2023. While Swift seemingly defends their controversial relationship on the track “But Daddy I Love Him,” she also appears to slam Healy’s behavior in the song “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”

Days after TTPD’s April 2024 release, Healy was asked how he felt about his “diss track” by Swift. “Oh,” he began before breaking into a laugh in a video obtained by Entertainment Tonight. “I haven’t really listened to that much of it but I’m sure it’s good.”

Credit: Shutterstock (2)

Joe Alwyn

Joe Alwyn, who won a Grammy award for his credits on Folkore’s “Betty” and “Exile,” opened up about how being a part of Swift’s music came to fruition.

“[It was] the most accidental thing to happen in lockdown,” Alwyn, who split from Swift in April 2023, told GQ Hype in May 2022. “It was just messing around on a piano and singing badly and being overheard and then thinking, you know, what if we tried to get to the end of it together? It was fun to do together, and I was proud of it. It was nice getting such a positive reception.”

That same month, he explained why he initially chose to be credited on the album under a pseudonym during an episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show.

“We chose to do it so the people, first and foremost, would listen to the music first before dissecting the fact that we did it together,” he explained. “We did it under the name William Bowery … Very fancy. It sounds like a kind of Agatha Christie character that should be wearing a monocle with a big mustache.”

He continued, “It was a combination of William … my great-grandfather — who I actually never met — [who] was a composer. He wrote a lot of classical music, and he wrote a lot of film scores,” Alwyn added. “And then Bowery is the area in New York that I spent a lot of time in when I first moved over there. So I stuck them together.”

Credit: Shutterstock (2)

Harry Styles

Harry Styles previously gushed over Swift's songwriting on 1989, an album many fans believe is based on their relationship, which lasted a few months from late 2012 to early 2013. "We always say we write from personal experience and I think everyone does so it would be hypocritical of us to be like 'Oh, you can't write songs,'" he said in a 2014 Google+ hangout. "And she's really good, so they're really good songs. So I'm lucky in that sense."

Three years later, Styles reflected on the 2012 photos taken of him and Swift together in New York City that initially linked them romantically. “Relationships are hard, at any age. And adding in that you don't really understand exactly how it works when you're 18, trying to navigate all that stuff didn't make it easier,” he told Rolling Stone in 2017. “I mean, you're a little bit awkward, to begin with. ...  It was a learning experience for sure. But at the heart of it ... I just wanted it to be a normal date.”

During a May 2022 interview with Howard Stern, Styles was asked if his upcoming song “Daylight” referenced any connection to Swift, who penned a song with the same name.

“You know I’d love to tell you you’re spot-on, but you’re not,” the "Watermelon Sugar" singer claimed after Stern accused him of "smiling" at the question. “We will always wonder.”

The U.K. native went on to say that the song was about a particular woman who had not responded to his affections the way he had anticipated.

Credit: INFphoto.com

Jake Gyllenhaal

Jake Gyllenhaal has often shut down questions about his history with Swift, playing coy about their 10-month relationship in 2009. When asked during a September 2017 Facebook Q&A if he thought Swift would write "a country song" about him, he reluctantly teased, "She's sort of moved more into pop now."

After Red (Taylor's Version) dropped in November 2021, a cat believed to be owned by Gyllenhaal weighed in on the 10-minute version of "All Too Well," noting in an Instagram post, "MEOUCH — y'all need to clam [sic] down and stop cyber bullying."

Four months later, Gyllenhaal was asked directly about the track, telling Esquire, “It has nothing to do with me. It’s about her relationship with her fans. It is her expression. Artists tap into personal experiences for inspiration, and I don’t begrudge anyone that.”

Credit: Broadimage/Shutterstock

Calvin Harris

"It's very difficult when something I consider so personal plays out very publicly," DJ Calvin Harris told British GQ three months after his June 2016 split from the "Begin Again" singer. "The aftermath of the relationship was way more heavily publicized than the relationship itself. When we were together, we were very careful for it not to be a media circus. She respected my feelings in that sense. I'm not good at being a celebrity."

Credit: Amanda Schwab/Starpix/Shutterstock

John Mayer

Two years after Swift penned 2010's "Dear John" about their short-lived romance, John Mayer told Rolling Stone he was "humiliated" by the track, calling it "cheap songwriting" to directly reference an ex. However, his stance later seemed to have changed. (Mayer and Swift were romantically linked in early 2010.)

"It made me feel terrible," he added. "Because I didn't deserve it. I'm pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do. ... I was really caught off guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I'd already been dressed down. I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you've ever been, someone kicked you even lower?"

However, his stance later seemed to have changed. "I don't think it's a dirty admission. Sometimes, a song is so good, I go, ‘Man, I hope that’s about me.' ...  I'll check everyone's music out. I'm a fan," he told Andy Cohen in February 2021.

Later that year, a source exclusively told Us that Mayer would no longer “make any public comments directly related to her songs or album,” adding, “It’s coming back to haunt him.”

Credit: BDG/Shutterstock

Taylor Lautner

"It was a good time. It was a fun few months there," Twilight actor Taylor Lautner joked in a 2016 Facebook Live with Lea Michele and John Stamos, who brought up his past romance with his Valentine's Day costar, which transpired in 2009. "I don't know why you guys want to talk about it. That's what she does. She writes songs. It's good music. I listen to it."

In May 2023, Lautner joked to Today.com that he felt “safe” compared to Swift’s ex Mayer following news of Swift’s Speak Now album rerecording. Swift sang apologetically about her romance with Lautner on the 2012 track “Back to December,” while the song “Dear John” seemingly slammed her brief relationship with Mayer.

“Praying for John,” the Scream Queens alum joked.

Later that month, Lautner put his words into action, as his wife, Taylor Dome, shared a video of him praying while listening to “Dear John” via TikTok.

Credit: Broadimage/Shutterstock

Tom Hiddleston

The viral 2016 photos of "Hiddleswift" had some fans wondering whether the relationship was all for show, but Tom Hiddleston insisted there was nothing fake about it. "Of course it was real," the British actor told GQ in 2017. "Taylor is an amazing woman. She's generous and kind and lovely, and we had the best time. I only know the woman I met. She’s incredible."

Credit: Disney/Kobal/Shutterstock

Joe Jonas

"That's part of being a musician, I guess. You write songs about each other," Joe Jonas told Access Hollywood in 2015, seven years after he dated Swift. "She’s great. Yeah, we're friends. In this industry, you meet a lot of people and you stay in touch. Obviously, it's tough to be friends with people that are always constantly traveling, but yeah, we're cool."

In 2020, Swift included a line on Folklore's "Invisible String" about sending former flames presents for their babies, which fans believed to be about Jonas' daughter, Willa, who he shares with ex-wife Sophie Turner. Jonas and Turner also share daughter Delphine.

Credit: Shutterstock (2)

Lucas Till

MacGyver alum Lucas Till sparked a brief romance with Swift after he starred in her 2009 music video for "You Belong With Me." Later that year, he told MTV,  "We dated for a little bit. But there was no friction because we were too nice. We just really both liked each other, [but] most relationships work out 'cause you get along and then you don't, and then you make up and it's passionate, and with us, I really just liked her as a friend. That's the only reason that [it] didn't work out."