Well, she's said as much in these songs, but factually we know they were "together" around the later 1989 era, and even then there were people saying while there was no official word from publicists, they saw Taylor aggressively kissing him white out, before having her "handlers" remind her she could be seen in public (Matty already had a reputation at this time). Now, some of this is speculation but looking at the songs in Rep, Folklore, and Evermore, not a lot of them fit Joe's personality. Let's be honest, Joe was a bit of a beige wall, but Matty was that passionate, fiery, forbidden love obsession Taylor had. Many of those "type" of songs fit Matty moreso than Joe. Taylor also said Joe wrote some music and performed on folklore and Evermore, but by Joe's own admission he's not in any way musically inclined. But you know who is? The lead singer for The 1975. Now you take TTPD, and But Daddy I Love Him, Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, The Black Dog, etc etc etc... you get the picture that indeed, a lot of those songs, especially the ones about Infidelity, affairs, stolen glances, etc are Matty-based songs. Yes, she had Joe songs, I'm not saying Joe didn't have his songs, both positive and negative (basically the whole Lover album on the plus side, The Great War, (possibly) Hoax, So Long London, etc on the negative end) but it appears around 2019/2020 sje and Joe were getting a bit rocky, and she couldn't keep fron thinking about, or sneaking away for quick snippets of time with, Matty Healy.
Then in April 2023, they announce she and Joe officially are split, and we start seeing her and Matty at Electric Lady Studios together, one time even holding hands while leaving. The swifties lose their minds, they HATE Matty. Taylor doesn't care though, as she says in But Daddy I Love Him, she doesn't care about his bad reputation or the swifties bitching and moaning, she has loved her "bad boy" for so long and now she finally had him. They weren't going to officially announce anything for a while, a "hard launch" of the relationship to the public and paparazzi, but she thought this was it. Finally, after all this time, she was a big enough star, famous enough, to weather the backlash for loving such a controversial personality.
Now, whether it was the toxic Swifties, or he just got cold feet, or once he had the "forbidden fruit" of TS all to himself, it wasn't attractive to him anymore, but it seems after two weeks (thus the track Fortnight), Matty just fucking dipped. He bailed, ghosted Taylor, and didn't even acknowledge the goodbye. It appears, if her song lyrics are anything to go by, the next time she even heard anything about him was her friend who gets her drugs heard from him as he was trying to score some pills.
That's why TTPD comes across as maybe he most unambiguous and most rage-filled album. There's not much subtle about who she's talking g about and how fucking pissed she was.
10 years of an obsession that turned out to be a mirage takes a toll on a person, man or woman.
