From what I’ve seen and heard from Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, I’m surprised by just how much of it seems to be about Matt Healy. Fans can argue that there’s a decent shot that some of TTPD is about Joe Alwyn and Travis Kelce (“You know how to ball, I know Aristotle/Brand new, full throttle/Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto”) and sure, I believe that Taylor is pulling from all three relationships. But still, Healy is all over this album. It sort of confirms something I long suspected, which is that Taylor and Joe ended months before we knew anything about it, and Taylor and Matt started months before we knew too. Remember how Taylor joined The 1975 on stage in January 2023? I’m pretty sure they were already banging by then. So, this was a secret “affair” turned official relationship turned into catastrophe. Add to that, Healy was joining Taylor in the studio during their relationship and likely influencing her on a musical level. All of which to say, Healy at least knew that some of this was coming. Reportedly, he’s relieved that Taylor got it out of her system:
Matty Healy is breathing a sigh of “relief” after the release of Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, a source exclusively tells Us Weekly.
“Matty still thinks very highly of Taylor but we were all nervous about what she might have said on the album,” the insider tells Us, noting that people close to The 1975 musician “couldn’t be happier” with how the record turned out.
According to the source, Healy’s family was thrilled with the way Swift, 34, sang about Healy, 35, in her highly-anticipated 11th studio album, which dropped on Friday, April 19.
“Matty’s family knew about the relationship,” the insider explains. “And they were worried that Taylor was going to rip him apart. Matty has struggled with life in the public eye, and he’s been doing really well, but the last thing that he needs is for every Swiftie in the world to think he’s a villain.”
A separate insider tells Us that Healy was “really appreciative” to receive a heads-up from Taylor’s team about TTPD. “He was worried that their story would be shed in a negative light,” the source explains, adding he had concerns “the public wouldn’t get the full story.”
Healy was “also very nervous about the Swifties,” — a notoriously devoted fanbase — but is “happy he can move on with less anxiety.”
“Their relationship was fast, but extremely passionate and real,” the insider says of Healy and Swift, sharing that although they “don’t speak anymore,” they “had a strong bond” and he will “always hold a special place for her.”
LOL, it sort of feels like Healy wrecked her life and left. He probably takes it as a compliment that she’s written all of these songs about him. That’s the way Harry Styles took it too, and he was another guy who left her after a few months – Harry has always just breezed past questions about Taylor’s songs about him, but he compliments her as a songwriter. As for Healy, he’s just glad he won’t be getting the full Taylor’s Ex Treatment. Please, the Swifties were so happy when Healy and Swift called it quits, now they’re discombobulated because Taylor clearly loved that racist POS.
Meanwhile, Healy’s aunt gave an interview to the Daily Mail and she said that Healy is currently dating Gabbriette Bechtel and he is “very happy” and focusing on his girlfriend.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
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- New York, NY – Taylor Swift and her boyfriend Matthew Healy leave Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Pictured: Taylor Swift, Matthew Healy BACKGRID USA 15 MAY 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Taylor Swift and her boyfriend Matthew Healy leave Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Pictured: Taylor Swift, Matthew Healy BACKGRID USA 15 MAY 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Taylor Swift and beau Matthew Healy exit Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Pictured: Taylor Swift, Matty Healy BACKGRID USA 15 MAY 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: BlayzenPhotos / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Taylor Swift and beau Matthew Healy exit Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Pictured: Taylor Swift, Matty Healy BACKGRID USA 15 MAY 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: BlayzenPhotos / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Taylor Swift and beau Matthew Healy exit Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Pictured: Taylor Swift, Matty Healy BACKGRID USA 15 MAY 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: BlayzenPhotos / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Taylor Swift and beau Matthew Healy exit Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Pictured: Taylor Swift, Matty Healy BACKGRID USA 15 MAY 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: BlayzenPhotos / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend at Camperdown Park. Featuring: Matty Healey, The 1975 Where: Dundee, United Kingdom When: 27 May 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend at Camperdown Park. Featuring: Matty Healey, The 1975 Where: Dundee, United Kingdom When: 27 May 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend at Camperdown Park. Featuring: Matty Healey, The 1975 Where: Dundee, United Kingdom When: 27 May 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
“Taylor and Joe ended months before we knew anything about it”
That contradicts the personal video of Taylor made during Midnights, saying how Joe and her were protecting their relationship from tabloids and media while talking about the song Lavender Haze. They were also together at Grammy party on february.
“Taylor and Matt started months before we knew too”
That I agree.
“And I wouldn’t marry me either
A pathological serial cheater*”
* a truer version
What’s funny/sad is that her fans still constantly make viral tweets about Joe who has not said a single word about her even though her songs don’t ever accuse of him doing anything wrong and it definitely looks like she was the one in the wrong.
Yeah, I also find it very funny that people listen to a song about Taylor cheating on her partner and understand why she cheated. There is no accusation about Joe cheating, at least from Taylor. But, her deranged fans believe he did and see it the worst thing he could do, sending him / his friends / his coworkers death threats, while they are listening to her songs justifying her cheating. The morality police works one day in their deranged fandom. I wonder what Joe’s family think about all these. They accepted Taylor into their family for 6 years and she ruined their son’s reputation with a little help from her cult members.
Or – hear me out. She and Joe were still together when she and Healy started up and that’s the REAL reason she and Joe split. She cheated on him and left him for her new lover! We all know how Taylor loves to “overlap” relationships. See: Calvin and Tom Hiddleston
@Ameerah I think you’re right on the money. This album’s focus on Healey makes much more sense if he was someone she had been carrying a torch for and blew up her long term relationship to be with, only to have him leave her a few months after they went public.
I’ve listened and, um…he does not come off well in this album. He sounds like an emotionally unavailable a-hole with huge ego and commitment issues. Also lmao to the idea that “Taylor has this out of her system”. She NEVER has relationships out of her system. Her whole thing is analyzing hookups from 10 yrs ago again and again and again.
I was going to say. He’s relieved at how he came off? Does he think the Smallest Man Who Ever Lived was about someone else despite the fact that it’s clearly about him? She raked him over the coals for swooping in, love-bombing, and then ghosting her and abandoning years of promises to her over the course of the album.
Listed to the album yesterday and it felt a bit like listening to her sing her diary. A lot of it felt cathartic.
The poetic muse is tough to define. Sometimes, a good love doesn’t inspire much poetry, especially if there isn’t a lot of longing or drama. Many artists write their best work when in, or ending, a tumultuous relationship and think that’s the case here.
Plus, she’d already written a lot of song ls about Joe through their relationship. Not sure why so many people are surprised she wrote so much about the rebound guy.
This was my thought as well. There might not be much to write about when a relationship just runs its course because you want different things, or outgrow each other.
or, you might not want to bring it up that you cheated on someone if other commenters here are correct lol
Agree completely. I feel like this was cathartic to her, getting it all off of her chest and closing a door. I was distressed at how many songs were about Matty at first, but reflected on how the crash and burn of that relationship as a rebound after she and Joe broke up probably magnified everything.
I also think this album shows that she’s sad about Joe, and mad as hell about Matty. This article is funny to me because… The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived absolutely eviscerates him IMO. And it’s very clear who it’s about. That… that was a woman scorned. It’s going to live with All Too Well, Dear John/Could’ve Would’ve Should’ve in the TS canon of breakup songs.
So true, about the poetic muse! We always remember the bad crap we’ve been through with more vivid memories. When she released the album, she wrote “This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”
She also wrote that she writes the bad loves better. I think her relationship with Joe had its issues, but he wasn’t a bad guy, so he doesn’t get written about as much. Matty was a whirlwind, which started when she first met him when they were quite young. I think she finally got the rebel guy – that she had been infatuated with – to notice her and he chewed her up and spit her out. She had blinders on and saw him still as that guy she first met. I’ve been there, as a perpetual people pleaser who wanted a bad boy so badly, they tore me apart. Thank goodness my last bad boy ended up a good guy who just seemed bad LOL
I’ve listened a couple times and I think some songs are clearly Matty (smallest man that ever lived) some are clearly Joe (so long London) and some are a random mix where the person goes in and out because at the time her mind was doing that and that’s sort of what a jump off is. Like daddy I love him starts off matty and clearly ends Travis.
I also noticed in tone the songs about Joe (or that I think are about Joe)are incredibly sad and heartbreaking but resigned. And she isn’t going to give us anything to spin a narrative she’s still protecting that one. Versus matty where he is like yeah he’s trash and I lost my mind.
But loml that is a mix of joe and matty and I think ultimately a joe song. But if you listen to how did it end that is all Joe and it’s basically like you do t get to know.
This one is taking more listens but I do think the crux of the meaning of the album is prophecy.
Totally agree on how you can tell some songs are about Mat, Joe, or a mashup of emotional outlet.
I was also struck by how the Joe songs are more melancholy and reflecting, while the Matty songs are more anguished and angry – makes it easier to know who she’s signing about!
Looking forward to giving it another listen on a long beach walk.
I can’t help feeling she dates guys for content. It must surely mess with one’s head after a while… looking over at your new beau and then having to think of potential lyrics about them.
I don’t think she dates people for content, but it’s clear that she is most successful when writing about really specific personal experiences. It also seems to be the songs that her fans likes, so maybe she’s in a bit of a feedback loop there.
I do think it’s slightly unfair to fault her for that, when all songwriters pull from their private lives for their songs. She is just a little more direct about it. It’s obviously fair to say you don’t like the songs, but I don’t agree with that being a valid criticism of her work, if that makes sense
If cigarette smell was a person, it would be Matt Healy.
@milkshake 🤣🤣🤣 Nailed it!
Ooh, harsh! What did cigarette smoke ever do to deserve being compared to Matt Healy??
Cause asthma attacks and cancer?
At 43, I heard some of her new music on Sirrus yesterday and I just can’t seem to connect to it. I dated and broke up with a series of losers in my 20s and then was in a long ass relationship in my 30s. Looking for a mature, serious love now, not any of this mess. Lol
A go round with an uncheck narcissist in a romantic relationship leaves way more dings than a regular breakup.
That’s all I’ve got to say.
From what I’ve read, Taylor and Matty had feelings for each other since 2014 and then they finally decided to give it a try when she broke up (for good) with Joe. Anyway, has anyone listened to that song that’s apparently about Matty where she says “you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding”? If she were my friend I’d tell her to stand up inmediately.
If she were my friend I would told her to get an editor. “You take my ring off my middle finger and put it on The One. And that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding” would have been better.
“now they’re discombobulated because Taylor clearly loved that racist POS.”
I suspect it was a lot less “love” and a lot more, in the immortal words of Michael K., dicktamization!
Yeah if you listen to this alum it is clear she didn’t love him at all, she was upset what she thought was the one failed and was dickmatized. And when he ghosted it just made her think no one would stay and she was mad.
He sounds like an absolute insufferable nepo a-hole in her songs. I still don’t understand how he inspires such strong feelings in female artists who date him. He probably does enjoy being a muse and the whole “he’s focusing on his current gf” seems very pointed. If there wasn’t physical overlap there was definitely emotional cheating. She even has a song that connects Healy to a lovey soul mate song she wrote back in the thick of her previous relationship. She has another song that implies she was already checked out at the end of her long term relationship and thinking about Healy. Again, I just don’t get it with that guy. Unless her new album is basically tongue in cheek “I was delulu” it’s baffling how much she was into him.
She says in the prologue “As you might all unfortunately recall, I had been struck with a case of restricted humanity, which explains my plea here today of temporary insanity”
“‘ It was not a love affair’ I screamed while bringing my fists to my coffee ringed desk, it was a mutual manic phase, it was self harm, it was house and then cardiac arrest.”
etc.
She didn’t physically cheat on Joe, but she did in every other way in the last few months of 2022. I think she was in the studio and was having a lot of interaction with Matty, and with her relationship with Joe giving more and more dwindling returns, she was ripe for the flirtation and heavy push from Matty, which was mutual. The album is a real-time stream of consciousness regarding the chaos of her life for that period of time.
For people that post that she left a good guy for a bad guy, she had been hanging on to someone that had been pulling away for a while. I imagine she didn’t write as much about Joe, because it was long coming. He didn’t fight for her. In my mind, he had been passive-aggressively ending it for a while. He just wanted her to pull the trigger. So here came along Matt going in hard and she fell for it and fell hard and had a past with him. I found this to be a brave album.
Matt ended up dumping her and that’s humiliating, but she put it all out there. I found it a fascinating album for that reason. Not the best lyrics all of the time, not the best melodies, often spoken-word singing, but fascinating because of the turmoil she was in for the brief, lightening hot, intense romance where you were being told you were this love of his life, he couldn’t live without you, and putting on a world tour at the same time.
In your mind, you are still hanging on to every word they told you when you jumped off the cliff into this relationship and can’t believe it could end so abruptly, that what you thought you had wasn’t real. Sure, we can all say, it’s no surprise, but when you are in the thick of it, you think: No one understands what we have.
Here’s a song with the lyrics on it that says everything to say about the dying days, months, years (maybe) of her relationship with Joe. I found the lyrics “How much sad did you think I had, did you think I had in me” haunting. There was sadness and melancholy in the song, but also anger at Joe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCUr2pNJft4&ab_channel=TaylorSwift
OR she is a cheater who is trying her best to justify her actions. I understand in long term relationships, it takes time for the love to die and at the end, you can just walk away since it died long ago. However, this is HER side, justifying why she left what they had in order to be with someone like Matty. If we heard from Joe’s side, maybe he was suspecting emotional cheating from Taylor and didn’t think a marriage was good idea under the circumstances. She is singing about getting off dreaming about Matty in one song. She has been singing about Matty for years according to swifties. Do you think that Joe has never suspected of it? Maybe he didn’t know for a fact, but felt that she wasn’t fully committed to him emotionally.
He was with her for six years. He had all the time in the world to marry her.
@Jayna, on folklore (2020), there are obvious Matty songs. It is clear she was longing for that ashtray for years when she was with Joe. I don’t think she ever fully committed to him. She likens the relationship to jail. So, why did she want to marry him? Why would he? I don’t think the relationship was ever safe and sound now. She should be glad they never married, otherwise she would deal with divorce now. You don’t make lifelong commitment to someone if you still dream about another man.
I’m with Seven here. She heavily implied Cardigan was about Matty Healy at the beginning of her tour. Unless she was just re-writing history, she was apparently pining after him for years. She wrote that when she was with Joe and made it her lead single, FFS! Joe dodged a bullet.
I agree Jayna and “How much sad did you think I had, did you think I had in me” is also just devastatingly haunting to me too.
It seems the briefer a relationship is, the more songs Taylor will write about it. She didn’t date Joe Jonas, Harry Styles, Tom Hiddleston, or Jake Gyellenhaal for long but they all got several songs dedicated to them. Dunno how many songs she wrote about Calvin Harris but they dated for a year. Until she met Joe Alwyn, that had been her longest relationship. I think Joe A. is one of the most decent guys she’s dated, from everything I’ve seen of him he didn’t want to sell out Taylor or his relationship. She can’t accuse of him of having used her for clout or to get better roles. Even now, he’s kept his silence and my guess is he always will.
Whatever happened between them, he seemed to have always treated her well. I don’t think their breakup was very dramatic, my guess is there had been distance there for awhile. It doesn’t make for many dramatic songs if Joe was such a solid guy who treated Taylor well. Matty Healy however, we all know he was a (very problematic) bad boy Taylor had had her sights on for many years and the fantasy did not match the reality at all. So I’m not surprised that a three month fling or however long they were together got us an album full of Matty Healy breakup songs.
Haha… “Mr. Steal your girl then make her cry” … she definitely cheated emotionally with Matty and fell for him hard!!!! Perfect case of thinking the grass was greener on the other side. Then he ghosted her.
I’m surprised no one is worried about Travis, considering she fell into his arms just a few months after all this because of a friendship bracelet. This woman is in love with the idea of being in love. She has repeated the same behaviors in very relationship. All of this running into Travis’s arms, wearing his hat, having him in the private suite with her dad, have all been done before.
I’ve been worried about Travis since they went public! I’m just waiting for the day she breaks his heart.
Not a 3 month fling . She has been pining away for Matt Healy for years. Since he was 25, when they were first linked in 2014. Peter is all about Matt. Smh