The Joe Alwyn Cheating Theories Explained

Joe Alwyn's social media return really couldn't have come at a worse time. Just days after Taylor Swift released the tracklist for her new album, "The Tortured Poets Department," further incentivizing fans to connect her breakup with Alwyn with the album's sad, sorta shady song titles, fans have produced yet another theory about the ex-couple's relationship. Interestingly, a large number of fans have decided that Alwyn cheated on Swift at some point during their courtship. The latest drama kicked off after Swift performed a trio of songs — "August," "Getaway Car," and "The Other Side of the Door" — during the Australian leg of her Eras Tour, on February 17.

Swift is known for occasionally randomizing her setlist, but this particular pairing of songs sparked interest from Swifties for containing lyrics that seemingly referenced infidelity. One fan tweeted a collage of the song's cheating-centric lyrics. "But with three of us, honey, it's a slideshow," Swift sang in "Getaway Car." In "The Other Side of The Door," Swift asked her fictional suitor if "she was worth this mess." Finally, "August" contained the lyrics, "You were never mine." Another fan dug up a clip of Taylor passionately singing the "was she worth it" line from "The Other Side of The Door" during an earlier Eras Tour performance. Swift shook her head "no" with a smirk. Of course, none of this means that Alwyn cheated on Swift, as it's all just fan theories, but Alwyn may want to keep his comments off for awhile.

A curated setlist isn't enough to accuse Joe Alwyn of cheating on Taylor Swift; however, many of her fans have leaned into the popular fan theory. The original tweet has racked up over 39,000 likes, but the responses are even more revealing. "I didn't wanna believe it, but the evidence just keeps stacking up now," tweeted one fan. "What's crazy is that if he did cheat, joe is the one that cheated while he was dating THE TAYLOR SWIFT," wrote a second fan. Meanwhile, a third fan implied that Swift was trying to lay Alwyn's infidelity out plain for fans. "Not a coincidence. Taylor probably went lurking and saw everyone trying to look over all the clues she laid out for us," tweeted the fan.

Whether or not Alwyn was actually unfaithful to Swift, it definitely doesn't seem that she was happy towards the end of their relationship. On February 19, two days after her concert medley, Swift implied that she was lonely during the COVID-19 quarantine that she supposedly spent with Alwyn. "[I was] imagining that, instead of being a lonely millennial woman covered in cat hair drinking my weight in white wine ..." started Swift during her tour (via Cosmopolitan). "I instead was a ghostly Victorian lady wandering through the woods with a candle in a candlestick holder, and I wrote only on parchment with a feathered quill. And that was in my mind, what I thought I looked like writing 'Folklore.'"

One day, Joe Alwyn may wake up and decide to become a trending topic by offering his side to his breakup with Taylor Swift. Until then, there have been a few rumblings via secretive yet chatty sources concerning how Alwyn reportedly feels. In June 2023, Radar Online published commentary from an anonymous source who claimed Alwyn was annoyed that Swift — who'd recently released a song titled "You're Losing Me," which was believed to be about their break up — was capitalizing off of their split. "It may have been delusional, but Joe was under the impression she'd spare him the Harry Styles treatment," said the source. Alwyn also reportedly thought her fling with Matty Healy was "tacky."

A source who spoke with the Daily Mail in February 2024 has also claimed that Alwyn is not here for Swift trashing him on her new album. "Joe has not said one word about Taylor or their breakup and has been completely respectful of her," shared the source. "If it is a diss album, that is shady. He helped her with songwriting on her past album, so it will really come as a shock to him if she talks about their breakup, as it is something he has not spoken of at all." They continued, "Regardless of what she does, he will still not respond because he has removed himself from her narrative and is very glad he did." Ouch!