Hey, isn’t that the guy on the screen? Coming straight home to….someone, certainly not Taylor Swift.
Joe Alwyn emerged Wednesday evening at the British GQ Men of the Year Awards at London’s Royal Opera House, the first public sighting of the actor formerly known as Taylor Swift’s Long-Term Boyfriend since Swift went (very) public with her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce this fall. Last weekend at a concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at which Kelce was in attendance, Swift swapped lyrics in her song “Karma” from “the guy on the screen” (Alwyn!) to “the guy on the Chiefs” (Travis!) when naming who was “coming straight home to [her].”
Alwyn, who was romantically linked to Swift from 2016 to 2022, walked the event’s red carpet wearing a black double-breasted leather jacket over a white dress shirt and skinny black tie, paired with dark pants. He does not appear to have participated in any interviews, an unsurprising move given his reputation for playing things close to the vest. Take, for example, the first time he acknowledged Swift in an interview, telling British Vogue in 2018, “I’m aware people want to know about that side of things. I think we have been successfully very private and that has now sunk in for people…but I really prefer to talk about work.”
This is only the second time Alwyn has been spotted since he and Swift ended their relationship. In May, he attended a dinner at the Cannes Film Festival and kept his lips, as usual, zipped to the press. At the time, Swift was rumored to be in a relationship with The 1975 lead singer Matty Healy.
Alwyn not only shares a romantic history with Swift, but a professional one as well. Under the pseudonym William Bowery, Alwyn co-wrote several tracks with Swift on her Folklore and Evermore albums, earning him coveted Grammy winner status when Folklore won Album of the Year. For her part, Swift has 12 Grammy wins, and is the only female solo artist to have won Album of the Year three times.