Taylor Swift: ‘I went through two breakups on the first half’ of the Eras Tour

Taylor Swift’s docuseries, End of an Era, has been airing on a weekly basis on Disney+. I haven’t watched it, but I’ve enjoyed some of the stories that are coming out of it. I think I forgot that Taylor’s Eras tour technically began in March 2023 and didn’t end until December 2024. Think back to the start of the tour – many believed that she was still with Joe Alwyn at the time, and then the confirmation of their split happened in April 2023. The split announcement came out for two reasons, in my opinion – one, Taylor was already starting *something* with Matt Healy, and two, Taylor’s fans noticed that Joe wasn’t around for the first tour dates. Once Joe and Tay were officially over, Healy happened and it was a whirlwind romance full of melodrama and racism. It was over by June 2023. Then, that same summer, Taylor began seeing Travis Kelce. Why this walk down memory lane? Because Taylor references her “two breakups” during the Eras tour.

Taylor Swift credits her Eras Tour for helping her get through tough times. “The Fate of Ophelia” singer, 36, revealed in episode four of her The End of an Era docuseries on Disney+ that she faced lots of heartache in her personal life amid the worldwide tour, which ran from March 2023 to December 2024.

“There were points in this tour when the tour was really the only thing that was really keeping me going in my life,” the Grammy winner admitted. “But there were never points in the tour where I thought, ‘Oh, you know what? I want to quit the tour ‘cause the tour’s hard.’ No, my personal life was hard. I went through two breakups on the first half of this tour, and that’s a lot of breakups actually.”

The Grammy-award winner was seemingly referring to her split from British actor Joe Alwyn, 34, whom she dated for over six years before the pair called it quits in early 2023, and The 1975 frontman Matty Healy, with whom she had a brief romance following her split from Alwyn.

“The show was what gave me purpose and was what I could use to get me out of bed. So, the tour has never been the hard thing in my life,” Taylor shared in her documentary. “The tour has been the thing that has allowed me to find purpose outside of the s— that was going wrong in my life.”

“Men will let you down, the Eras Tour never will,” she added with a small smile.

Calling writing music “a form of therapy,” Taylor said of her 11th studio album, “Tortured Poets album is like this purge of… just, like, everything, everything bad that I felt for two years. It was a really rough time in my life, so the songs reflect that. Feeling like I’m not a person, I’m just this like, big conglomerate that no one sees as a real human being and especially not men that I date. And in the whole process just being like…nothing, nothing works. There’s no one for me in the world.”

[From People]

As it was happening, it didn’t feel like the three relationships played out all in a row so quickly, but yeah… that timeline is more compressed than I recall. Of course, once she started up with Healy, I always felt like… that relationship only really made sense if she was developing feelings for Healy at the same time she was winding things down with Alwyn. I’ve always believed there was an overlap, but no one has ever really confirmed the timeline. Alwyn always kept his mouth shut, which drove Taylor crazy too. He didn’t bad-mouth her, he didn’t participate in her drama, and he walked away relatively unscathed. Anyway… it’s crazy to think that Matt Healy was really the turning point of Taylor’s adult life, but there you go.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

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23 Responses to “Taylor Swift: ‘I went through two breakups on the first half’ of the Eras Tour”

  1. Steph says:

    She sounds like someone who can’t be alone with herself. If that’s the case, her marriage will fail.

  2. LadyUltimate says:

    Ha! Had totally forgotten about Matt Healy. I just thought she meant Joe Alwyn and Blake Lively (because falling out with a close friend can also feel like a break-up). But yes, makes sense. She really has a great PR team for keeping her image relatively clean (with few exceptions and even then it could have been so much worse) when really she can be quite messy.

  3. K8erade says:

    I always kind of assumed that Taylor and Joe broke up before the Era tour began. But the whole jumping into something with Matt Healy made zero sense. Guy’s a tool and a half.

  4. terra says:

    I hate that I know all of this off the top of my head (excellent long term memory has been my curse since childhood), but – for the record – Taylor originally had a flirtation/fling with Matty Healy during the 1989 era, between her situationship with Harry Styles and when her relationship with Calvin Harris began.

    So the fandom suspicion is that, as things were going wrong with Joe Alwyn despite all best efforts, she began to feel romantic feelings toward Matty Healy again while working on her album Midnights with him at the end of 2021 (none of the songs they collaborated on ended up making the album, but we know they were in contact then, thanks to Jack Antonoff producing The 1975’s album).

    Presumably, she continued to try to make it work with Alwyn and as soon as that relationship ended in early 2023 she jumped STRAIGHT to Healy, thanks to his love bombing her (see the title track of The Tortured Poets Department and also loml off the same album).

    Thank you for attending my TED Talk. I’ll see myself out now.

    • Dot says:

      Honestly, this was my take too. And while she should have spoken out against Healy being a racists, misogynistic knobhead, it was clearly a rebound while she was grieving a 6 year relationship she thought would lead to marriage, so I give her some grace for that.

      • Lexluthorblack says:

        Personally, I don’t give grace to racist people. And I don’t give grace to people to hang out racist people.

  5. Carol says:

    I love how happy Travis makes her!

  6. sunny says:

    For the non-Tyalor initiated or casual fans, the Matty Healy had been brewing a very long time. They had a brief fling pre-Joe that didn’t last long but if you look at her lyrics and even some of his in the intervening years, it seems like the torch was still burning on both their ends at various points. It must have absolutely sucked to then give it a try only to have it blow up in her face so spectacularly.

    I honestly think that’s where this line on the new album came from. “I had a bad habit of missing lovers past/My brother used to call it/Eating out of the trash/it’s never going to last.”

    The thing I found most surprising in the episode, or at least as it related to her relationships is that it was her mother that urged her to give Travis a chance. Mama Swift saw the story of Travis wanting to ask Taylor out, did some digging on him and then urged her daughter to violate her “I don’t date athletes policy.” Everyone thought it was their mutual friends, or even her dad because he is friends with the coach of KC. But really it was her mom who told her that she needed to start doing something different.

    • NotMika says:

      Ok, my take on Taylor’s relationship based on only the music and a regretable self centered reflection on my own break ups around her age.

      She’s flirting with Matt in her 20s but for whatever reason it doesnt happen. Then she meets Joe. He’s amazing in those early years, she’s obsessed with him, I assume he goes down like a champ. She stays with Joe in her 20s and they are happy until professional jealousy, depression, lack of comitment then resentment and bed death. They should break up, but covid hits and they are isolating together and it feels sad but safe – see all the songs on Midnights. But Matty Healy has been texting Taylor for a while – see Cardigan. It’s exciting and I assume hot. Amd i assume he is promising her all the things Joe isnt giving her. She breaks up with Joe when her tour starts and runs to Matty. But he’d on so many drugs the hottness of those texts never materialises. But she want to believe in Matty because of those promises and she loves thier story. They date for a few weeks and he ghosts her, she only knows hes still alive because he is texting thier mutual friends for drugs – see tortured poets department. Shes real sad but then moves onto Travis because she needs to feel new feelings. The end.

  7. ariel says:

    I enjoy how she says the first half of the tour.
    The tour went almost 2 years, the breakups happened between March and June 2023. That is a lot of turmoil in a short period of time.

    She is not the only woman who has thought she found her person, only to have it die while you tried so hard to make it work, then end up love bombed with someone so different from that last person- something intense- it feels almost mystical.
    And you’re like- this is it, i’ve found it! And then it is basically a mirage.
    What does she say in smallest man- it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden.

    I LOVE the Travis romance b/c it is a HUGE billboard of – if he wanted to, he would.
    And if girls and women who enjoy Taylor learn that lesson, we all win (excepting mediocre to crappy men who are used to treating women like crap with no consequences)

    A lot of things Taylor has said as she has grown up and become a woman in her mid thirties- i love it for younger generations. Unlearning internalized misogyny being at the top of the list.
    Being okay with being loud, not apologizing for taking up space.

    Also- have y’all been watching the doc episodes- i just cry through them.
    Kam and his mom, Jessalyn, Whyley.
    And episode 4 covered the shows in my city, new orleans, it made me so happy to see the city looking gorgeous, swifties on wrought iron balconies, doing karaoke on Bourbon Street.

  8. Harla says:

    I’m not a fan of Taylors and only know one of her songs but I’ve been watching the documentary on Disney and am really enjoying it. And yes, I still only know one of her songs 🙂

    • wendy says:

      watch the concert — I couldn’t go live because I didn’t have a kidney to sell for tickets, but I have watched it on Disney and it is impressive.

  9. Auntie Fah says:

    New drinking game: take a shot every time she says “tour.”

  10. Normades says:

    I recently watched Meally’s Chicken soup date episode and guy really is such a tool. When Amelia asked what was the most important quality in a girlfriend he actually said “hot” and admitted that was the most important thing to him (and he didn’t sound like he was kidding). But funniest line of the bit was when Amelia asked him what his worst quality was and he said “my personality”. That was actually really funny but he really is that smug pretentious hipster dude.

  11. Eliza says:

    Look at the joy this woman brings to people. The politics in the US are so terrible, human rights degraded, poverty and suffering, lack of education, bankruptcy because of one night in a hospital and on and on. The looks of pure happiness and connection and healing that run through her stadiums, this is spirituality without the threat of hell. And I don’t mean worshipping her, I mean a state of togetherness and healing. It’s a once in a generation ability to bring people together like this.

    • Normades says:

      I’m not a Swiftie but I completely agree with you. If someone gave me tickets I wouldn’t resell them, I would totally go. I would love to experience her show. I know people who went and said it was A-maz-ing

  12. KaC says:

    The way she talked or hinted at past relationship in the doc kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s just… Is it neccessary? I’ll be very curious to hear what the story will be about Travis should it ever end. She did not hold back about how wonderful and perfect he is.

    I really enjoyed learning about her dancers, though. They seem like a fun bunch.

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