‘Hard thing to navigate’: Actor Joe Alwyn breaks silence on split from Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s actor ex Joe Alwyn has opened up about their split for the first time, saying their break-up was “hard to navigate”.

Joe Alwyn hopes people can empathise with the “difficulties” of navigating his publicised split from Taylor Swift and respect his decision to remain tight-lipped about their involvement.

“I would hope that anyone and everyone can empathise 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 Times in an interview published over the weekend, making his first official comments following their separation. “That is a hard thing to navigate.

Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn dated from 2016 to early 2023. Picture: Christopher Polk/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank

“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.”

Further explaining how being in the spotlight made the split so unique, Alwyn, 33, continued, “So you have something very real suddenly thrown into a very unreal space: tabloids, social media, press, where it is then dissected, speculated on, pulled out of shape beyond recognition.

“And the truth is, to that last point, there is always going to be a gap between what is known and what is said. I have made my peace with that.”

The couple kept their relationship away from the spotlight and were rarely seen together in public. Picture: Robert Kamau/GC Images

Swift, 34, said she understood that dating her meant never knowing true peace during a 2020 interview with Paul McCartney for Rolling Stone.

“I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalise 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,” she noted. “I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.”

Alwyn recently attended the Prada Spring/Summer 2025 Menswear Fashion Show on June 16 in Milan, Italy. Picture: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images for Prada

“But I think that in knowing him and 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,” she added without mentioning her then-beau’s name.

“Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture — the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy.”

Swift and the Kinds of Kindness star began dating in 2016 and enjoyed a guarded and low-profile relationship. When they were photographed together, or when Swift shared the rare tidbit about their romance, the information would be cross-examined by generally supportive Swifties as they tried to identify with the romance.

A rare PDA between Swift and Alwyn in her Netflix documentary.

To fans’ surprise, they broke up in April 2023 — weeks after the 14-time Grammy winner kicked off her record-breaking Eras Tour. At the time, an insider confirmed to Page Six their separation “wasn’t dramatic” and that their relationship simply “ran its course.”

While Alwyn chatted with the Times, he made it clear that he plans on keeping everything about their relationship under wraps. He also declined to mention if he and Swift are in any form of contact.

“As everyone knows, we together — both of us, mutually — decided to keep the more private details of our relationship private,” he said. “It was never something to commodify and I see no reason to change that now.”

Fast forward 14 months from the initial reports about their split, Alwyn said he feels “fortunate to be in a really great place in (his) life, professionally and personally.”

Swift is now dating NFL star Travis Kelce. Picture: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

It’s unclear if he is in a new relationship, but Swift has changed course and is now enjoying a very public relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

They began seeing each other last July and went public with their relationship in September 2023, when Swift appeared at his NFL game against the Chicago Bears.

Swift opened up about their decision to launch their relationship publicly during her Time Person of the Year profile last December.

“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she said.

“The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”

This article originally appeared in Page Six and was reproduced with permission