Joe Alwyn says he doesn’t want to discuss Taylor Swift relationship because ‘it feeds into a weird part of the culture’

The actor and musician have been dating since 2016 but have kept their relationship largely under wraps

Joe Alwyn has swerved questions about Taylor Swift in a new interview, saying he doesn’t want to discuss their relationship because it “feeds into a weird part of the culture”.

The actor has reportedly been dating the musician since 2016. The pair have largely kept details about their relationship under wraps ever since, but Swift’s 2019 track “London Boy” is rumoured to be about him.

Talking about the decision not to discuss it, he told The Guardian: “It’s just not for other people. And I don’t say that with aggression.”

He added: “I don’t know how best to talk about it. I mean, I’m aware of people’s… of that size of interest, and that world existing. It’s just not something I particularly care about, or have much interest in feeding, I guess, because the more it’s fed, the more you are opening a gate for intrusion.”

Alwyn said keeping the relationship private is his “response to a culture that has this increasing expectation that everything is going to be given”, adding: “If you don’t post about the way you make your coffee in the morning, or if you don’t let someone take a picture when you walk out of your front door, is that being private? I don’t know if it is. So I just don’t really feed that…

“There are more interesting things to talk about and I just think it feeds into a weird part of the culture that I’m not really interested in being a part of.”

Joe Alwyn and Alison Oliver in ‘Conversations with Friends’ ( Hulu)

On working on songs with Swift on her albums Folklore and Evermore, he said: “It came about from messing around on a piano, and singing badly, then being overheard, and being, like, ‘Let’s see what happens if we get to the end of it together.’”

He added that it was a “fun” thing “just like baking sourdough in lockdown”.

Alwyn can next be seen in the BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s debut novel Conversations with Friends.