How Taylor found happiness in her Notting Hill romance
After a series of high-profile relationships, the megastar is thriving in her ‘normal life’ with Brit actor Joe Alwyn
Blink and you might have missed it, but when Taylor Smith accepted her Global Icon Award at
The Brits last week, she paid tribute to boyfriend Joe Alwyn in her acceptance speech. Pausing briefly, she smiled and fleetingly thanked him alongside her other supporters, referring to him only as “Joe” .
Taylor’s name was once synonymous with A-list heartthrobs and celebrity spats, but for the past few years, her personal life has been low-key and drama free. Meanwhile, she’s hit a number of career highs, and pals attribute her contentedness to her stable relationship with British actor Joe, who she’s been dating for nearly five years.
It’s a stark contrast to Taylor’s previous relationships, many of which have played out with PDAs in front of the world’s media. Unlike her megastar exes, like Joe Jonas, Jake Gyllenhaal, Harry Styles, Calvin Harris and Tom Hiddleston, actor Joe, 30, was relatively unknown when the pair began dating in autumn 2016. At the time he’d starred in two films, had 3K followers on Twitter and reportedly still lived with his parents.
FIERCELY PRIVATE
Since then, the couple have kept their relationship fiercely private, with only a handful of photos ever taken of them. And sources say Taylor’s circle of friends are now “regular people”, such as Joe’s old-school and university pals. One source even tells Closer that their understated romance mirrored hit film Notting Hill, where British bookseller William – played by Hugh Grant – welcomes Hollywood actress
Anna (Julia Roberts) into his normal life.
The source says, “Joe has a really solid group of friends from school, all living in London. A few years back, when he’d just started dating Taylor, one of his friends held a dinner party and Joe asked if he could bring the girl he was seeing. The guests were all shocked when he arrived with Taylor Swift – it was like a scene from Notting Hill. They had a great night and Taylor fitted in with all his friends so well.”
The 11-time Grammy Award winner gave a rare insight into her new life with Joe in 2019 when she released her song London Boy. In it she sings,
“He took me back to Highgate, met all of his best mates…
You can find me in the pub, we are watching rugby with his school friends.”
Prior to 2017, Taylor, 31, had hit headlines for her A-list feuds, most notably a fallout with Kim Kardashian and
Kanye West. In 2016, Kanye West’s single, Famous, sparked a row over whether Taylor had approved the line, “I feel like me and Taylor Swift might still have sex/Why? I made that b***h famous.”
Shattered by the ensuing public fallout and “character assassination” she encountered, Taylor later suggested she’d found sanctuary in her newfound relationship with Joe. “I felt alone,
I felt really bitter,” she said. “I figured I had to reset everything. I also was falling in love with someone who had a wonderfully normal, balanced life.”
MUSICAL BOND
Now, Taylor readily admits she prefers her “normal life”. Speaking in an interview, she said, “I think that in knowing [Joe] and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids.”
And it seems that Joe – who starred in critically acclaimed film The Favourite in 2018 – has also helped Taylor excel with her music. Having studied English and Drama at Bristol University, he has a keen interest in writing, and last year Taylor confirmed he’d helped her pen her Grammy award-winning album Folklore, under the pseudonym William Bowery.
“Joe and I really love sad songs,” she’s said. “It was a surprise when we started writing together, but in the same way it wasn’t, because we’ve always bonded over music.”
Sources also claim that living a quieter life has inspired
Taylor to want to settle down and start a family in the near future. And in December Joe’s family fuelled speculation when they refused to deny rumours that the pair had secretly married.
“Taylor and Joe are the real thing,” says the source. “He is her rock and she feels happier than ever now in her career and personal life. She definitely wants a family one day, and she can see that happening with Joe.”
By Lily Smith