Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn split: A look back at their 6-year romance

Taylor Swift's love story with Joe Alwyn has come to an end after six years.

News of the split broke on Saturday night via Entertainment Tonight. A source told the outlet that the romance between the "Lavender Haze" singer, 33, and the British actor, 32, "had just run its course" and the split, which took place a "few weeks ago," was "not dramatic" — as in no bad blood.

However, as the narrative unfurls in the days since, a People source pointed to "differences in their personalities." Also, it's noted that while they had "rough patches before" and "eventually [came] back together," they've come to the realization that "ultimately [they] weren't the right fit for one another."

Swift — whose exes also include Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joe Jonas and John Mayer — is in the middle of her hot ticket "The Eras Tour" and it was the Alwyn's absence from the early concert dates that led to speculation that they weren't together anymore. But they've kept a very low profile over the duration of their romance, which we look back at here...

2017: The "New Romantics"

Reports first surface in May that the superstar, whose high-profile love life has long been a hot topic to the world and has fueled her songs, is dating the Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk actor. The couple is rumored to have started dating in the fall of 2016, but she kept a lid on it after her brief romance with Tom Hiddleston blew up on her the summer before and she stepped back from the spotlight.

Swift and Alwyn are photographed together for the first time a month later, in June 2017, while sitting a balcony in Nashville.

During a listening session for her album Reputation in October, Swift tells fans the song "Gorgeous" is about Alwyn. (That is one of many. See: Every Song Taylor Swift Has Written About Joe Alwyn — So Far.)

They attend an Ed Sheeran concert together in December and there is PDA. Swift's pal Sheeran calls Alwyn a "good dude."

The timeframe of their relationship emerges: It's theorized that the new couple met at the 2016 Met Gala and her song "Dress," also from Reputation, is about that first interaction. "Flashback when you met me / Your buzzcut and my hair bleached," she sang, seemingly referring to their looks at the A-list event. Swift was dating Calvin Harris at the time, but they parted ways a month later. She briefly dated Hiddleston over the summer but split by September. In October, Swift and Alwyn both attended a Kings of Leon concert, and in November she went to a screening of his film Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.

2018: Their "Love Story"

Swift kicks off her "Reputation" tour and Alwyn is there on the first night. As she performs "Gorgeous," she's seen pointing to him in the crowd, and he is recording it.

While Swift and Alwyn don't go Instagram official, they both post photos with the same cactus. When he makes his Instagram public shortly after, much is made over the thorny connection.

Alwyn speaks for the first time about his love, but only to say that he won't be speaking about her. "I'm aware people want to know about that side of things," he tells Vogue U.K. in September. "I think we have been successfully very private, and that has now sunk in for people. But I really prefer to talk about work."

In October, Alwyn tells British GQ, "Someone's private life is by definition private. No one is obliged to share their personal life."

After Swift gets political for the first time, Alwyn applauds her while responding to a question about it on a red carpet, saying, "I think it's great, and I think it’s important."

Swift, who is spotted wearing a "J" necklace, posts the trailer of her boyfriend's new film, The Favourite, and tells her followers that it's "absolutely phenomenal" and they should go see it.

The next month, she attends the premiere of his film Mary Queen of Scots — and goes to the after-party.

In December, Alwyn says in an interview that he didn't seek any guidance from friends when he started dating Swift "because I know what I feel about it. I think there's a very clear line as to what somebody should share, or feel like they have to share, and what they don't want to and shouldn’t have to.”

2019: "Paper Rings" and Engagement Rumors

The couple attends the Golden Globes in January, but separately. She is a presenter and his film The Favourite is nominated.

Photographers actually do a get a pic of them together a few weeks later while they attend a BAFTA Awards after-party in February. Why they didn't pose, they let their hand-in-hand PDA speak for them.

By summer, engagement rumors are flying ahead of the release of her album Lover. Swift fuels them by calling it a "really romantic album."

When the album drops in August, songs including the title track and "Paper Rings" make fans think Swift is making a marriage reveal. That turns out not to be true and Swift tries to keep Alwyn out of the narrative when she gives interviews for the project, telling The Guardian, "I've learned that if I do [talk about my relationship], people think it's up for discussion, and our relationship isn't up for discussion. If you and I were having a glass of wine right now, we'd be talking about it — but it's just that it goes out into the world. That's where the boundary is, and that's where my life has become manageable. I really want to keep it feeling manageable."

The lovebirds spend Thanksgiving and Christmas together in England with his family.

Alwyn attends the premiere of Cats with Swift, but they skip the carpet.

2020: "Invisible String"

Swift is nominated for "Best Original Song" for the Cats song "Beautiful Ghosts" that she wrote with Andrew Lloyd Webber. She doesn't win, but she and Alwyn sit together and allow photos of them to be taken at their table. They also appear loved up at an after-party.

Miss Americana, the doc about Swift, is released and Alwyn is in it in a low-key way, consistent with their relationship.

They attend the NME Awards and a fan captures them sharing a kiss.

As the COVID-19 pandemic hits, the couple isolates together, tipped off by photos he posts to Instagram of her cats.

They grow closer and write music together for Folklore, including "Exile" and "Betty," with Swift not initially confirming the musical partnership — under his songwriting pseudonym William Bowery — until months later. He otherwise inspires songs her songs including "Invisible String," as she sings about a London yogurt shop where Alwyn worked in as a teen.

Swift tells Paul McCartney, who interviewed her for a Rolling Stone story, that Alwyn helps her find the "Peace" she sings of. She says the song is "rooted in my personal life... I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives. I can't control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow." She adds that her partner "absolutely" sympathized with that, saying, "Being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids."

In the Disney+ film Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, she confirms Alwyn's songwriting collaborations, saying, "So, William Bowery is Joe — as we know."

Swift and Alwyn also collaborate on "Champagne Problems," "Coney Island" and "Evermore" for Evermore, which comes a few months later.

Engagement rumors persist.

2021: "You Belong With Me"

Swift tells Vanity Fair in February that Alwyn "supported me" speaking out about politics.

Alwyn wins his first Grammy when Swift's Folklore takes home Album of the Year. Swift thanks him in her speech, saying, "Joe, who is the first person that I play every single song that I write, and I had the best time writing songs with you in quarantine."

In Swift's BRIT Awards acceptance speech for the Global Icon award, she thanks Alwyn in a list of other "amazing creative people" who helped on her recent albums.

2022: "Lavender Haze"

Swift and Alwyn attend CAA's pre-Oscars party together.

Alwyn co-writes Swift's "Sweet Nothing" for Midnights.

Swift plugs Alwyn's Conversations With Friends, calling it "phenomenal."

While Alwyn promotes the Hulu series, he is asked about Swift — a lot. He says he's "obviously happy in a monogamous relationship." He tells Elle UK, "It's not really [because I] want to be guarded and private, it's more a response to something else. We live in a culture that is so increasingly intrusive… The more you give — and frankly, even if you don't give it — something will be taken." Even Wall Street Journal Magazine asks about the relationship, to which he replies, "If I had a pound for every time I think I've been told I've been engaged, then I'd have a lot of pound coins. I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn't say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn't say."

He does talk about their musical collabs, telling British GQ, "It wasn't like, 'It's three o'clock, it's time to write a song!' 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."

Swift and Alwyn are spotted leaving a MTV VMAs after-party in August.

"Lavender Haze" is released in October and is inspired by her relationship with Alwyn via Mad Men, where she says she first heard the term. "I happened upon the phrase" while watching the AMC show, she says on Instagram. "I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool, and it turns out that it's a common phrase used in the '50s where they would describe being in love... If you were in the lavender haze, then that meant that you were in that all-encompassing love glow, and I thought that was really beautiful."

Swift says Alwyn also inspired the track "Midnights," explaining, "If the world finds out that you're in love with somebody, they're gonna weigh in on it. Like my relationship for six years, we've had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff and we just ignore it. And so this song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff."

2023: Not "The 1"

While they haven't been photographed lately, Swift wears Alwyn's jacket to a Grammys after-party in February.

Swift kicks off "The Eras Tour" on March 17.

Alwyn isn't seen at any of the early concert dates, but People reports on March 22 her boyfriend will be visiting her along the way as the tour runs into August. "Joe will travel with her when he can," an insider says. "They are great together. Joe is super supportive of her career."

Swift replaces "Invisible String," about Alwyn, with "The 1" on her set list. The former song is about two soulmates, inspired by Alwyn, while the latter is about about lost loves.

Entertainment Tonight reports on April 8 that the couple split "a few weeks ago."

People also confirms the split. A source says they had "plenty in common and fell in love in a safe bubble while she was retreating from the world during Reputation," in 2017. "Then the pandemic hit, and they were locked down together and able to continue growing their relationship in this insulated way. But he didn't really 'know' her yet outside of that bubble."

Keeping consistent with their relationship style, neither comments on the breakup.