A folklore secret has spilled, Perezious readers!
The mysterious William Bowery, credited with writing Betty and Exile, is none other than Taylor Swift’s long-time boyfriend Joe Alwyn!
Related: Taylor Swift’s Response to Scooter Braun Selling Her Masters!
The news dropped on T-Swift’s latest Disney+ concert film, folklore: the long pond studio sessions. During the special, which premiered on Wednesday, she revealed the following to collaborators Aaron Dressner and Jack Antonoff:
“There’s been a lot of discussion about William Bowery and his identity. He’s not a real person. William Bowery is Joe, as we know. And Joe, Joe plays piano beautifully, and he’s always just playing and making things up and kind of creating things.”
Our mouths literally dropped! Not that any of us were exactly surprised! Swifties have been speculating that William Bowery’s name was a placeholder for the 29-year-old British actor and musician ever since Taylor created a post thanking those who worked on the album. In her message, she tagged everyone EXCEPT Bowery.
Yeah, super suspicious!
Super fans dug a little deeper and uncovered that Alwyn’s grandfather is actually composer William Alwyn. It didn’t take long for them to put two and two together. So, not only did Joe help his girlfriend on her latest album, but he also paid homage to his heritage in the process! We’re here for all of it!
But that isn’t the only influence Joe’s had on Taylor. According to rumors, she wrote Gorgeous and Delicate based on their relationship. Even though we don’t know a ton about their life together, listening to the lyrics in both of those songs says a lot about what he must mean to her.
The duo, who probably met at the Met Gala in 2016, have been public with their relationship since June 2017 after they were caught together by the paparazzi in Nashville. Speaking to her need for privacy, Taylor told British Vogue in September of 2018:
“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 … I really prefer to talk about work.”
Based on all of this, it comes as no surprise that Swift would’ve wanted to help maintain Alwyn’s privacy by giving him a pseudonym credit on her album. She admitted in the Disney+ special that Joe’s involvement was risky, because they weren’t sure if working together in a professional sense would jive.
This collaboration ended up inspiring the male version of the song Betty. Swift said:
“He was singing the chorus of it and I thought it sounded really good from a man’s voice, from a masculine perspective. I really liked that it seemed to be an apology… We decided to make it from a teenage boy’s perspective, apologizing after he loses the love of his life because he’s been foolish.”
Inneresting!
With how successful the album folklore has been — the biggest debut of 2020 — we’re left wondering if we’ll see more shared projects between Swift and Alwyn!
What do you all think?!
[Image via Instar/WENN/Instagram]
The post Taylor Swift CONFIRMS BF Joe Alwyn Worked As Her Mystery <i>Folklore</i> Writer! appeared first on Perez Hilton.