Actor Joe Alwyn is keeping mum about his relationship with singer Taylor Swift.
The notoriously private couple started dating in 2016 and have been managing to keep their six-year relationship out of the headlines. Earlier this year, there were rumors that the two had gotten engaged during a surprise trip to The Lakes district, which Taylor, 32, had written about in one of her songs.
In a recent interview for WSJ. Magazine‘s May issue, which will be publicly available on April 30, the “Conversations with Friends” star, 31, was asked about the engagement rumors.
Joe Alwyn Will Not Confirm Or Deny That He’s Engaged To Taylor Swift
When asked about the engagement rumors, the “Boy Erased” actor joked, “If I had a pound for every time I think I’ve been told I’ve been engaged, then I’d have a lot of pound coins.”
He added that he “wouldn’t say” if he was really engaged to the “All Too Well” singer or not.
“I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn’t say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn’t say,” he told them.
He told the publication that “We live in a culture that people expect so much to be given” and asked, “So that if you’re not posting all the time about what you’re doing, how you’re spending a day or how you made a breakfast, does that make you a recluse?”
Although he admitted that he’d “like to feel slightly less guarded sometimes in interviews or in whatever kind of interactions,” he said the decision to maintain his privacy is “just a knee-jerk response to the culture we live in.”
“If you give it to them, it just opens the door,” Alwyn added.
The British actor had talked more about the “intrusive” culture in a recent conversation with Elle to promote his upcoming Hulu series.
Joe Alwyn Remains Private To Defend Himself Against The ‘Increasingly Intrusive’ Culture
The outlet asked Joe directly why he chooses to keep his relationship out of the public eye. Joe replied, “It’s not really [because I] want to be guarded and private. It’s more of a response to something else.”
“We live in a culture that is so increasingly intrusive … the more you give — and frankly, even if you don’t give it — something will be taken,” he explained.
In 2018, Joe told British Vogue that “I’m aware people want to know about that side of things. I think we have been successfully very private, and that has now sunk in for people … but I really prefer to talk about work.”
The “You Belong With Me” singer is also content to keep her relationship out of the spotlight. An insider told PEOPLE that Taylor “is very happy” in their relationship and even happier with Joe. “He is her rock,” the source said. “Their relationship is mature and wonderful.”
In 2020, Swift told singer Paul McCartney in an interview for Rolling Stone that her relationship with the English actor helps give her a sense of “normalcy” in her life.
“I think that in knowing him 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,” she said at the time.
“Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture … it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy,” she added.
The pair seems to be stronger than ever, with Joe even earning co-writing credits on several of Swift’s songs. Fans who watched “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions” on Disney+ know that Joe collaborated with the “Red” singer on multiple tracks for “folklore” and her follow-up album “evermore.” Joe helped create the beloved songs “betty” and “exile” on “folklore,” writing under the pseudonym William Bowery. He also contributed to “champagne problems,” “coney island” and “evermore” from her “evermore” album.
