Taylor Swift announced the April release of The Tortured Poets Department at the 2024 Grammys in February, and Swifties spent the ensuing two months presuming the bulk of the album would be about Swift’s early 2023 breakup from British actor Joe Alwyn. Plot twist: Upon the album’s release last Friday, April 19, the presumption changed to The 1975 lead singer Matty Healy being Swift’s predominant Tortured Poets muse. Of course, Swift will never confirm nor deny which song is about whom, but the Easter egg hunt is fun anyway, and Healy was inevitably asked to comment on it.
Paparazzi approached Healy and asked, “How would you rate your Taylor diss track compared to the 30 others?” First of all, leading the witness? Second of all, Healy could not have appeared more unbothered — casually strolling on the sidewalk in sweats. “My diss track?” he asked, seemingly earnestly confused. Once it was explained that he was being asked to comment on “Taylor’s new song,” Healy laughed and responded, “Oh, I haven’t really listened to that much of it, but I’m sure it’s good.”
Matty Healy admits he hasn’t listened to all of Taylor Swift’s new album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ but is “sure it’s good.” pic.twitter.com/pKNaSwaYRA
— Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) April 24, 2024
It’s unclear which song from Swift’s 31-song album — initially the 16-song The Tortured Poets Department, followed by 15 more songs to make The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology — the pap was referring to, but the title track has most widely been linked to Healy, especially in the second verse: “You smoked, then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep / Like a tattooed golden retriever.”
Following Swift’s split from Alwyn, she and Healy were briefly romantically linked last spring. TMZ reported Swift was “single” again in early June, and she publicly launched her still-going relationship with Kansas City Chiefs All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce last September. She later confirmed to Time that they had privately begun seeing each other “right after” Kelce “very adorably put me on blast on his podcast” last July.