To quote Taylor Swift’s own lyrics,
“the rumors are terrible and cruel, but honey most of them are true”.
Fans of Swift spent much of the weekend
grappling with the possibility that the “Midnights” singer and her longtime
boyfriend, British actor Joe Alwyn, had broken up, after reports from
“Entertainment Tonight” and People magazine said the couple was through.
اضافة اعلان
“ET” was vague about how it had come by the
information, saying in its story on Friday afternoon only that it had “learned”
that Swift and Alwyn had split. A few hours later, People matched the report
with a story of its own citing an unnamed person close to the pair as its
source. Both outlets said the breakup had occurred weeks ago
With no comment from Swift, Alwyn, or their
representatives, fans of the singer were not sure whether to trust what they
had read. Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, did not immediately respond to requests
for comment for this article.
“I think it’s a poorly written, unconfirmed
article,” Brittany Browning, a 30-year-old writer who lives in St. Petersburg,
Florida, said of the “ET” story.
She added that she did not believe the pair
had really split up and predicted that Alwyn would make an appearance at
Swift’s next concert stop, in Tampa, Florida, “out of spite”.
Waiting for confirmationAnother fan, Tiffany Hammer from Puyallup,
Washington, was also skeptical. “I won’t believe it’s true until I hear
something officially affiliated with Swift, whether that’s Tree or whether
that’s her mom mentioning it casually in an interview a year from now,” Hammer,
37, said, referring to Swift’s longtime publicist, who has become a celebrity
in her own right among fans. “As respectfully as possible, it’s none of our
business until we know what she wants us to know.”
“I won’t believe it’s true until I hear something officially affiliated with Swift, whether that’s Tree or whether that’s her mom mentioning it casually in an interview a year from now.”
Hammer noted that some Swifties have gone
into an online frenzy as they try to digest the unconfirmed report.
“On Reddit, people are combing through her
lyrics about this supposed breakup and grieving something that’s not even
confirmed yet,” she said. “It’s like, your poor parasympathetic nervous system.
Give yourself a breather until you know everything.”
Other fans accepted the reports as truth,
albeit with caution.
“On Reddit, people are combing through her lyrics about this supposed breakup and grieving something that’s not even confirmed yet.”
“I think that media literacy is really
important, and I have the benefit of having a few more years on some of these
newer Swifties or younger Swifties,” said Katherine Mohr, a 31-year-old project
manager from Madison, Wisconsin. “I’ve been through the wringer on celebrity
gossip before and know who you can trust and who you can’t.”
‘A seriousness factor’Mohr said she had not been quick to believe
earlier gossip items concerning Swift, including those about marriage,
pregnancy, and some recent online speculation on why the singer had made a
change in her set list, replacing “Invisible String”, a love song believed to
be about her relationship with Alwyn, with a different number. But the articles
from “Entertainment Tonight” and People were enough to persuade her that the
breakup news was legit.
“There is a seriousness factor to this that
there wasn’t with any of those rumors, and we need to be able to tell the
difference,” Mohr said. “Otherwise, we’re never going to be able to survive in
celebrity culture knowing what’s true and what’s not.”
Morgan Chadwick, 27, recalled meeting Swift
at an event years ago and chatting with her about how the two women had been
dating their boyfriends for the same amount of time. Chadwick, a graphic
designer in Chicago, said she would often joke to her boyfriend, who is now her
husband, that each new love song Swift wrote was about them.
“There is a seriousness factor to this that there wasn’t with any of those rumors, and we need to be able to tell the difference. Otherwise, we’re never going to be able to survive in celebrity culture knowing what’s true and what’s not.”
“He would always roll his eyes,” she said.
“It’s sad, but also I’m an adult,” Chadwick
added.
She said she was not sure what to make of
the breakup reports. “They’ve been so private in their relationship that I
don’t know that there’s going to be any sort of confirmation other than, like,
she might make some comment at a show, or he’s going to show up at a show,”
Chadwick said.
Katie Devin Orenstein, 23, a recent college
graduate living in New York, said she is counting down the days until she gets
to see Swift at one of her concerts in New Jersey in May. She is, however,
rethinking her outfit, which she had planned to wear as a nod to “Invisible
String”: a teal shirt and yogurt shop employee uniform in homage to the line
“teal was the color of your shirt when you were 16 at the yogurt shop”.
She added that she will be looking to Swift
for the final word on her relationship status.
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