Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn’s Relationship Timeline: From Met Gala Meeting to Their Shocking Split

May 2, 2016

Taylor and Joe first crossed paths at the 2016 Met Gala, which she sang about on the song “Dress.”

The 2017 track features the lyrics, “Flashback when you met me, your buzz cut and my hair bleached,” which lines up with the stars’ hairstyles on this night. At the time, Taylor was dating Calvin Harris.

September 28, 2016

In 2018, Taylor seemingly confirmed the official start of her relationship with Joe to be September 28. While covering Earth, Wind & Fire’s song “September” for the Spotify Single series, she changed the lyrics from, “Do you remember the 21st night of September?” to “Do you remember the 28th night of September?”

This date was shortly after it was revealed that Taylor had split from Tom Hiddleston, whom she was with for three months after ending things with Calvin.

Taylor’s song lyrics have revealed that she and Joe were friends before things turned romantic. “I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this,” she said on “Paper Rings,” which was released in 2019. The song also featured the lyric, “The wine is cold like the shoulder that I gave you in the street, cat and mouse for a month or two or three,” which seems to represent the months before they started dating.

October 12, 2016

Taylor attended a Kings of Leon concert with her friends in New York City and internet sleuths later figured out that Joe was also in attendance at the show. At the time, the public had no idea that they were an item. 

January 2017

When Taylor released her album Lover in 2019, she also shared previous journal entries that she had written. One of them was penned during the early days of her relationship with Joe.

“I’m essentially based in London, hiding out trying to protect us from the nasty world that just wants to ruin things,” she wrote. “We have been together and no one has found out for 3 months now.”

May 2017

News of Taylor and Joe’s relationship was first reported by The Sun. They were able to keep the romance under wraps for more than six months before it was first revealed to the public.

November 10, 2017

Taylor released her album Reputation, which was filled with tracks about her relationship with Joe. Considering she had basically retreated from the spotlight for almost an entire year prior to the record’s release, fans were given a lot of insight into what she’d been up to thanks to these songs.

December 2017

Taylor performed at Jingle Ball in New York City and Joe was there to support her. The duo watched Ed Sheeran’s performance in the crowd and fan videos showed them dancing together during the set.

May 2018

Taylor and Joe seemingly went Instagram official, as they both posted photos from the same exact location ahead of Taylor’s Reputation tour. Joe was also in attendance for the tour’s opening night in Arizona.

July 2018

Taylor and Joe took a romantic vacation to Turks & Caicos together. Photographs surfaced of them hitting the beach in their swimsuits on the trip.

September 2018

Taylor was in attendance for the premiere of Joe’s movie The Favourite in New York City. They did not walk the red carpet together but were photographed holding hands while leaving the afterparty.

While promoting the movie, Joe spoke about the pair’s decision to keep their relationship private. “For me, I just don’t feel it’s something I want to offer up to be picked apart by people who don’t know about it,” he told Total Film. “And it’s just not theirs to have.”

December 2018

Taylor and Joe were rarely photographed together when they were dating. However, photographers caught them out and about in New York City on a chilly winter day. They were joined by Joe’s brothers on the outing.

January 2019

Joe walked the Golden Globe Awards red carpet solo but Taylor popped up inside the event to support him at the ceremony. They sat together at a table with his The Favourite costars and Taylor even took the stage to present an award with Idris Elba.

February 2019

Instead of attending the 2019 Grammys, Taylor stayed in the U.K. to support Joe at the BAFTA Awards. Again, she did not walk the red carpet, but the couple left an afterparty hand-in-hand.

August 2019

Taylor echoed Joe’s previous sentiments about keeping the relationship private. “I’ve learned that if I do [talk about it], people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion,” she told The Guardian. “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.”

October 2019

Taylor performed on Saturday Night Live and Joe supported her at the afterparty.

December 2019

Joe was at the New York City premiere of Cats with Taylor. They opted to skip walking the red carpet together, but he watched the movie screening and guided the pop star through a crowd when they left.

Later that month, Joe admitted that having Taylor write songs about him was “flattering.”

January 2020

After Taylor and Joe spent New Year’s Eve together in the Maldives, she released her documentary Miss Americana. Joe briefly appeared in the footage. She recalled “falling in love with someone who had a wonderfully normal, balanced life.”

The singer said that she and Joe “decided together” to keep their relationship private. “Even though it was [a] really horrible [time], I was happy,” she added. “But I wasn’t happy in the way I was trained to be happy. It was happiness without anyone else’s input. We were just … happy.”

February 2020

Taylor was honored at the NME Awards and Joe was in the audience to support her. They packed on the PDA at their table during the show.

July 2020

Taylor released her album Folklore and fans quickly figured out that one of her cowriters, William Bowery, was actually Joe. She confirmed this later that year. Joe helped pen two of the songs, as well as three tracks on the follow-up, Evermore, in December 2020.

March 2021

Taylor gave Joe a shout-out while accepting the award for Album of the Year at the Grammys. “Joe, the first person I play every single song that I write,” she said. “I had the best time writing songs with you in quarantine.” Joe was not in attendance.

September 2021

While Joe was filming Conversations With Friends in Ireland, Taylor spent a lot of time there with him. She also promoted the show on Instagram when it was released in 2022.

December 2021

While things looked to be going great between Taylor and Joe, she later hinted at major trouble in paradise by the end of 2021. Taylor released “You’re Losing Me” weeks after it was revealed that she and Joe had broken up in 2023. The heartbreaking song seemed to be about the split. Months later, Jack Antonoff confirmed that the track had actually been written in December 2021, long before its release.

The song features lyrics like, “I can’t find a pulse, my heart won’t start anymore for you,” and “I wouldn’t marry me either.”

April 2022

Joe and Taylor faced engagement rumors many times during their romance. He addressed the speculation in an interview with WSJ magazine. “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,” Joe admitted. “I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn’t say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn’t say.”

August 2022

October 2022

Taylor released her album Midnights and confirmed that the first song, “Lavender Haze,” was about her relationship with Joe. “My relationship for six years, we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it,” she said. “And so this song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.”

Several songs on the record are speculated to be about Joe. Specifically, she references the six years of their relationship on th

February 2023

Once again, Joe skipped attending the Grammys with Taylor. However, fans noticed that she was wearing his jacket in a photo from the afterparty.

April 2023

News broke that Taylor and Joe had split. It was first reported by Entertainment Tonight. The exact timeline of their breakup is unclear but fans have speculated that the split happened before she embarked on her Eras tour in March 2023, as Joe was not in attendance at any of the shows.