Wait, is Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ about Matt Healy??

Almost one year ago exactly, Taylor Swift was about to launch a full-blown love affair with The 1975’s Matt Healy. If you ask me, I always believed that Taylor and Matt started months before The Sun broke the story last May. I think there was some overlap between “the end of her relationship with Joe Alwyn” and “the beginning of her thing with Healy.” Taylor and Matt went full-throttle once they were officially together, and it was a month of chaos. Healy has a long history of saying and doing deeply problematic and racist things, and he got really upset that Taylor’s fans noticed. Taylor’s fans were really upset with her too and they exerted pressure on her to dump him. I often got the feeling that Taylor’s team understood how this problematic relationship was hurting Taylor’s image, but Taylor was arguing with them and trying to “manage” everything… until finally, she was convinced. Taylor and Matt were done by June 2023. Travis Kelce came into the picture and Taylor quickly rebranded.

So, enter The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift’s new album which officially drops tomorrow. Everyone thought that TTPD was going to be the big Joe Alwyn album, devoted to what went wrong in her years-long serious relationship with Alwyn. Except the whole album apparently leaked on Wednesday and the streets are saying that it seems to be almost entirely about Matt Healy?? You guys, this is too funny. For what it’s worth, Healy was regularly in the Electric Lady Studio with Taylor during their brief affair, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she wrote or produced several of these songs during that time. That jackass probably was her muse!!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images. Cover courtesy of Taylor Swift.

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88 Responses to “Wait, is Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ about Matt Healy??”

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  1. Nanea says:

    Weren’t we told about a WhatsApp group of Joe and some other guys that was called Tortured Poets something or other?

    This is all so delightfully immature.

    • Mika says:

      I think it is going to be about both of them.

      Also, Midnights was low key the Joe Alwyn break-up album.

      • LBB says:

        I have always thought Midnights was their break-up album as well.

      • Sarah says:

        I have long thought this as well.

      • Kimmy says:

        I’ve always thought the same. How can Midnights not be about them?!

        I think Midnights is definitely the end, TTPD is probably going to be the aftermath, which Healy is definitely a part of.

    • Kate says:

      And also that this album has been in the works for 2 years. Although she dated harry styles for a hot minute and he proved very inspirational for her musically so I don’t think the length of the relationship is the only factor for what makes a good song. And probably she and Joe just outgrew each other and wanted different things which doesn’t seem like good fodder for a whole album.

    • Mare says:

      That’s the Swifties claiming that, she never pretended it was. A lot of the things said about this album was speculations from them, especially the cheating ones, they wrote fanfics and then acted like it was words of truth when it’s not. The Poets song is about Matty.

      • sevenblue says:

        @Mare, but the swifties are not claiming that out of air. She was giving them clues. The album name, saying that she started writing it as soon as Midnights finished, organizing love songs about Joe under some weird denial list. She was mentioning Joe without mentioning him. This is what she did all her career, giving clues to her fans about which song is about which of her ex. My theory is she knows her fans like to pretend that Matty didn’t happen or just 3 weeks fling. So, she hid the fact that the album is about him not to lose those sweet sweet sale numbers.

  2. Fifty-50 says:

    Waiting for her to drop the act and bring out her MAGA hat already. She hasn’t changed, and never will.

    • Abby says:

      What part of endorsing Biden publicly and encouraging fans to vote for a democrat in a local election (both of which incited rage from the right) are MAGA? Help me understand your thinking.

      • R says:

        Because she is obsessed with a bigot (Ratty Healy) and attacking her fans for “not letting” her be with him? I figure if you’re down with Healy’s racism, misogyny, belitting of LGBT rights and other grossness, you’re probably okay with MAGA!
        As I said below, she didn’t leave Ratty because she found those things out, which is part of the story that her PR spun for naive fools (me=naive fool). HE left HER, and she’s lashing him for that, not for being a bad person. It’s so gross. I now believe that she’d vote red because it’s better for her financially, as she revealed herself to not be a very moral person. Travis needs to run ASAP!

      • Kitten says:

        LOL some of these comments are so unhinged.

    • Atorontogal says:

      @ Fifty-50 – Hasn’t changed? You’re right. She’s always been Democrat. Why are you so angry with her?

  3. Dee(2) says:

    Oh boy the coming think pieces. I don’t get the Pop Crave tweet, Joe is supposed to have cheated on her or is that from when they were assuming the album was about him and it’s actually Matt? This is where not being a real fan can be interesting, cuz I’m not invested at all so it’s just gossip.

    • sevenblue says:

      From what I have seen, Joe didn’t cheat. Swifties were making up theories about him cheating on her because why else she would leave her long-term relationship to date an edge lord. They were sending death threats to the guy and it was all lies they themselves made up.

      • Sass says:

        @Sevenblue thank you for clarifying. I had not heard anything credible about Joe having cheated. It was speculation on the part of Swifties.

      • Dee(2) says:

        @Sevenblue thanks. I’ll be the first to admit other than the post here I don’t pay attention to what’s going on with her so I didn’t know if that was like common knowledge that he had cheated on her or something. I never see anything about him. If that’s the case that sucks because relationships can end without there being a ” bad guy “. I feel like he’s going to pop up in five years with a wife and like two toddlers, he just doesn’t seem like the let’s make the fans part of my relationship type. Hope they leave him alone since they have the relationship they want for their fave now.

    • Lau says:

      I’m not sure swifties can actually understand that a relationship can just end and that maybe it’s not about cheating everytime. But really they needed to cover Swift’s a** because she ended things with her long-term boyfriend for one of the worst guys possible.

      • Tiffany:) says:

        If Midnights was a breakup album it sounds like she ended her long term relationship for legitimate compatibility reasons. Then she dated a rebound guy for a short time.

    • Amando says:

      There is no evidence of Joe cheating on her. If he had, you better believe forever-victim Taylor would have been screaming it from the rooftops. In fact, Taylor is notorious for cheating and she probably cheated on Joe with Matty. Yuck. Matty is gross in every way possible. I remain firm on believing Joe dodged a bullet.

  4. Digital Unicorn says:

    This should be an interesting album then – 1975’s music is not bad (not totally my thing thou) but he is totally a whiney pretentious muppet who thinks he’s something special. He tries to front like he’s some sort of starving artist – he’s a nepo baby of 2 successful / well known British actors, his mother is also well known day time TV presenter.

  5. Normades says:

    It’s probably about both of them and every guy (Calvin, Jake etc.) that looked down on her work.

  6. Draadje says:

    As a fan, I’d be surprised if the entire (or majority of) album is about Healy. I thought she’d treat him the same way as Calvin Harris. I’ll await judgement until I hear the album.

    • Looper says:

      I’ve long suspected that the relationship with Calvin was more intense and devastating than we’ve been led to believe–I think more songs are about him than considered. I think the narratives are perpetually being rewritten to shape the image that she, and her team, want projected to her fans.

      Pure gossip fodder, which is a huge piece of her brand. Makes $$$$$, keeps many readers engaged. Click, click.

  7. Mika says:

    Pettiness is good for art.

  8. sevenblue says:

    “But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave
    And I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen”

    I refuse to believe this is the same person who wrote Folklore and Evermore. How can an artist progress and then regress so much? The only thing I am happy about is she was misleading that this will be a joe breakup album where she is gonna give all the “dirt”. Instead, from what I have seen it is mostly about the edge lord she dated and apparently who dumped her. Both of them can fight in the mud as much as they want, I don’t care. Just leave the poor introvert guy alone, who was just depressed (such a sh*tty thing to reveal on an album) and didn’t want to marry her.

    • Belli says:

      Honestly with the heat Joe has been catching (death threats, death threats sent to his family, death threats sent to his female colleagues because the swifties decided he’d cheated etc) only for him to have done nothing I have to side eye the misdirection leading up to the album’s release too. That’s downright cruel.

      • sevenblue says:

        @Belli, my only explanation is if she gave clues that it was gonna be about Matty, swifties wouldn’t buy / support the album as much. They have a love/hate relationship with Joe. They listened to the love songs about that guy for 6 years. So, they were eager to see his fall down. She is living in her own world, where she is the idol of millions of people. So, she probably doesn’t care that Joe and his family, friends are getting death threats because of her marketing campaigns.

      • Beach Dreams says:

        She’s been lowkey egging on her fan base to go after her ‘enemies’ for over a decade now. This isn’t surprising or new behavior for her. Her vague request for them to back off John Mayer is an anomaly.

    • K-Peace says:

      This is embarrassing, melodramatic drivel.

      I believe Aaron Dessner provided what was good about Folklore/Evermore.

      • sevenblue says:

        @K-Peace, That is incorrect. Aaron said he would send the music production to Taylor and she would write the lyrics to the music. So, the lyrics were all Taylor on these albums. That is why it is shocking to see how she regressed so much after.

      • Mare says:

        I’m starting to believe Joe really helped her to write some of the songs because the quality dropped quite a bit, I also believe she sees Aaron as someone to not disappoint so she actually tried to give her best while collaborating with him while with Jack they are BFF she just go with the flow bad or good.

      • LBB says:

        Sure, let’s give all the men in her life credit for her success, because that has never been done.

    • Veronica S. says:

      Honestly, with the way she knocks out albums left and right, it’s not surprising the quality dips on some of them. It’s really hard to to be that prolific and maintain a certain level of sophistication.

    • NotSoSocialB says:

      Perhaps it’s an AI creation.

  9. Miranda says:

    God, I hope it’s not ALL about him. Girl, this is embarrassing. I have so much respect for her talent, but Taylor frequently seems to prove that theory that child stars are emotionally stuck at the age at which they first achieved fame. And I’m not suggesting that as an excuse for her poor choices, but as a reason. This is some cringey rebellious teenager shit, romanticizing a toxic guy and stubbornly insisting on hooking up with him not in spite of, but BECAUSE everybody told her that he was a walking red flag. My theory has always been that Joe dumped her, or at least she saw that him doing so was inevitable, and she went after Matt Healy to prove a point to Joe. And what was that point? F–k if I know. It’s rebellious teenager shit, it doesn’t have to make sense.

    • Mrs. Smith says:

      I agree Miranda! Remember how all Taylor’s pals surrounded her and paps got photos of them all going to dinners together? And that same circle all unfollowed Joe on social? That seems like what your friends would do to show support if some guy dumps you.

    • R says:

      I know that I don’t actually know Taylor and I don’t like when people think celebrities owe us explanations, but I do actually draw the line at defending and accepting bigotry. And I just lost SO much respect for Taylor as I’m hearing the Ratty Healy truths coming from this album. Like, I’m an idiot because I believed the PR line that it was a rebound fling with someone she had known a long time and that when she learned the full truth of his racism, misogyny and general disgustingness she was out of there. But hearing that HE left her, and she was devastated and willing to risk it all for him, and she literally attacks her fans for not being cool with his bigotry?! I still can’t even believe it.
      .
      I do think people may be exaggerating *how* many songs are about him (because the people indulging in leaks seem to be people who don’t like Taylor or who like Ratty, and reading lyrics I feel like they are reaching on some of it). Plus calling him the “smallest man who ever lived” is NOT a compliment. But for me, the problem is that she’s not lashing him because she was appalled by his being a bad person, it’s because he left her. Like…she’s way more messed up than I realized.

  10. atlantababe says:

    she and her stans are so freaking embarrassing and immature. Joe dodged a bullet. dating na/zi matty and now travis who likes trump but joe is somehow the worst.

    • Beach Dreams says:

      Yup! Can’t wait to see what idiotic excuses they’ll be making for her this time, because this is hilarious to watch. Good for Joe!

    • K says:

      Has Travis said he supports Trump?

      • Mcali02 says:

        No lol

      • Flamingo says:

        No, but he (or his PR team) liked a insta post by Sage Steele and she supports Trump. An Instagram post featuring Donald Trump’s night out at UFC 299. So people have extrapolated that he is pro-Trump. Which he has never publicicly done.

        And to remind the people posting that Taylor is MAGA. She publicly supported and endorsed Joe Biden for President. If you are going to cray cray please do so responsibly.

    • Lucy says:

      Travis didn’t like Trump, he was one of the nfl players kneeling. I don’t think he’s super political, he’s a rich white guy, but almost all of his longtime friends that are in his life are Black. I don’t think folks would overlook that.

      • QuiteContrary says:

        Travis did a whole vaccine ad … and a Bud Light commercial … he’s not a Trumper LOL.

    • R says:

      Travis absolutely does not support Trump and he is NOT racist. The man grew up with, went to school with, works with, and is best friends with mainly Black people (not to mention dated a Black woman for five years). He was the first and most prominent white player to kneel, has several charities that serve minority communities, pushed back on the fade haircut debacle with a BHM shout-out and wears clothes from black-owned brands that are intended to raise awareness about racism. People can disagree with the way he has celebrated things like the SB but I 100% believe he is NOT okay with racism and I’m guessing the Ratty Healy stuff is going to be a wake-up call for him about Taylor. This album is telling him and the world that she was/is obsessed with a racist and willing to support and defend that racism and it honestly makes me sick. Guess she thinks she’s too big to fail.

  11. KeKe Swan says:

    LOL. I honestly had forgotten all about this guy! 🤣😂🤣😂🤣

  12. Abby says:

    I hate that the album was leaked. That’s so disrespectful to the artist, and she does THE MOST for her fans. I’m not listening until it drops tonight. And I’m not going to speculate if any of it is about Matty till I hear it myself.

    She said this has been in the works for 2 years. That predates her thing with Matty.

    I am holding my thoughts till I listen when SHE releases the album.

    • VoominVava says:

      Ditto. I want to give it a chance and listen a few times to make my own judgement. It’s hilarious to see non-fans posting clips of songs on twitter and declaring the album to be a bomb and the same old style she does. Why do these people think she’s all of a sudden going to make an album they like if they don’t like her style? I don’t expect metallica to make an album of pop songs I’ll listen to. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. Heck, I may not like it either .. I didn’t like a lot of midnights at first, it took a few months to grow on me and I love it now. Music is so personal. I like her story telling style and hope this is going to be a great listen.

  13. Winnie Cooper’s Mom says:

    Imagine being Taylor Swift – arguably the most famous woman on the planet right now, powerful, talented, beautiful etc – and you get with a mega douche who has the most punchable face of all time. It’s incredible, really.

  14. Mare says:

    The remarkable thing here is how this album is truly about Ratty. Last night I was flabbergasted, I was definitely not expecting this album to be about how Ratty was basically the Love/Loss of her life, the great love she always wanted, he’s her one and only who got away before but she could rekindle it and finally have that second chance with him and she defended the shit out of him, she was literally calling people and specifically her fans out while CURSING at them for not understand it’s HER LIFE and she can do whatever SHE WANTS (forgetting she literally made all of her money out of their parasocial relationship and was happy when they were treated her “enemies” like trash in defense of her honor).
    Then she was annoyed by him because he couldn’t handle the heat and ask him, I have been handling it for years so why can’t you and look, I made sure to make this situation go away *cough* using Ice Spice *cough* yet he was not used to be seen as the racist garbage can he is by the global public and he didn’t like it. She was like, it doesn’t matter they don’t know you like I do, I looooove you…
    And he ghosted her…that’s how they broke up, she didn’t leave him, he ghosted her while she was thinking she was going to “marry him” because he’s not a rebound the one she wanted for years and she’s angry and regret that she cheated with him and then finally gave him the chance she always wanted to give him.
    Meanwhile, she’s just sad that Joe was depressed and never asked her to marry him even if she waited for it (in Midnights she pretends she never thought about it but she lied) and in The Black Dog, where Swifities are pretending it’s about him cheating on her, it’s actually about when they broke up for a few weeks and she’s angry because she’s realizing he’s not as sad as she is and he’s avoiding her and she’s bitter at the idea he can move on way more easily than her and she’s bitching about the women that might go out with him later and she wonders if he still thinks about her. It’s more a possessive/obessive song than anything and she talks about stalking him via geolocalisation…that’s messed up.
    That album is a mess and I can’t wait to listen to the other bonus tracks so I can laugh, it’s was entertaining.

    • NotSoSocialB says:

      I watched Miss Americana a year or two ago, and in a few scenes where she was talking with her mgmt team in what I assume was one of her homes, she is wearing a giant pear cut ( like 5 ct) solitaire on her hitchin’ finger, so 🤷🏼‍♀️ guess we’ll never know.

  15. JustStop says:

    1. She writes about her personal emotional journey. Anyone else is a muse–a position women have filled for eons with no one caring in the least, but it’s somehow bad if a woman artist uses men as muses. 2. Matty was a three-week one-night stand (i.e., a momentary coping mechanism). He ain’t a muse for anything, I guarantee.

    • sevenblue says:

      She announced her break up with Joe on Matty’s birthday. If you really believe they just dated for 3 weeks, no wonder Taylor is so successful at rewriting history.

      • Mare says:

        exactly what a delulu take. Her whole stick is the parasocial relationship she created since teenager years with her fandom, all about being relatable…now pretending it was never her whole PR is very funny.

  16. Flamingo says:

    Every Easter Egg Taylor has dropped has been connected to Joe so far.

    Not sure how a fling tops a six-year relationship. For an album that was written years before they hooked up for a second.

    • Lisa says:

      Yep this is a Joe album, and every Easter egg has also pointed to how she knew they weren’t right and ignored it.

  17. Truthiness says:

    I would really love it if the album was actually about her cats and the secret life of her cats. For example Loml could really be about catnip.

    • Urbanelf says:

      I would listen to that all day long!

      The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived could be inspired by a dream about chasing tiny humans around the house.

    • Kitten says:

      What better muse(s) than two Scottish Folds and a Ragdoll?

  18. Rai says:

    Lots of opinions for an album no one’s really heard yet…

  19. mblates says:

    i’m not a taylor swift fan, so everything i know about her relationships i’ve gotten from here. but, it seems she treats people in her life as props, which is kind of gross. i get writing songs about your personal experiences and life changes. and if you’re public with your relationships, it’s only natural fans are going to know or guess who you’re talking about. but with what everyone is saying here about easter eggs and promotion and hints being about joe vs. matt. it’s all just kind of gross. it’s like she no longer sees them as actual people. which, matt, who cares, he’s horrible. but joe seems to have gotten a lot of undeserved crap from her fans from all of this, and it doesn’t sound like she’s ever told them to stop harrassing him or his family. which is also gross. and in this day and age, dangerous and irresponsible.

  20. KansasGal says:

    So, if TnT break up, it will be Swifties vs Chiefs fans. Yikes!

  21. Miss617 says:

    Kaiser, your refusal to refer to let this 34 year old man go by “Matty” is as iconic as your picture selection skill.

  22. Kitten says:

    The unhealthy level of investment people have in Taylor Swift’s dating life is why this woman will always be successful.

  23. Jennifer says:

    So I did a brief Reddit search and someone posted a photo of the liner notes for the prologue to the whole album. And that makes it clear the album is about both Joe and Matty. She refers to a dying relationship, one that couldn’t be saved, and then going to someone who promised he could be “new.” Ultimately she claims temporary insanity and says it was like going from house arrest to cardiac arrest. I’m not going to dive too deep into the leaks, but it certainly sounds like a comparison of a relationship she truly wanted to last fading out and a relationship that she desperately jumped into without realizing how terrible it would be. She also says “it’s the worst men that I write the best.” I’m here for the drama and I’ve certainly had friends who went from a long term love to a piece of crap. There’s no talking people out of a shit rebound until they see it themselves.

    • dose of reality says:

      Yes…most of us know people that have left “forever” relationships only to jump into a bad situation without thinking. They are not over the lost love and either go for the total opposite because it is opposite or are in shock or whatever and can’t see what they are getting into. There is no talking out because they can’t see. It is like the friend who gets divorced and starts dating the first guy who asks, no matter what he is like. I’m not judging Taylor for this, and I would not judge my friend if she had momentary insanity. Whether she left for her fans, herself or he left her…it’s over. Sanity returns.

  24. Mina_Esq says:

    The alleged lyric about a golden retriever makes me think that this may be AI shenanigans. AI probably picked up on all of our comments about Travis being a golden retriever boyfriend lol

    • Becks1 says:

      That clip has to be AI, right? No way did she write a lyric that bad – coming from someone who doesn’t think she’s that amazing a songwriter overall (some exceptions, but overall – not so much for me.)

      The rest of this just has me so confused with the timelines and such – its giving me a headache lol.

      I will say Stevie Nicks’ best songs were with either Lindsey Buckingham or Jimmy Iovine and she would probably be the first to admit that, and it doesn’t take anything away from her as an artist (in response to some of the misogyny comments above.)

      • Elo says:

        I definitely believe there is some AI trickery afoot. I read through more of the “lyrics” – one colorful phrase was dick watch. I’m just not buying it. Between that and the golden retriever line, I wouldn’t doubt what we have not seen or heard a bit of the real album.

      • VoominVava says:

        Is it that bad? She sprinkles facts into her songs, so it sounds like it was a conversation she had with someone while they were both high – lyric starts with ‘we smoked’ – and those conversations are rarely sensible LOL I need context .. to hear the whole song before I pass judgement.

  25. Ilsa says:

    Just here to ask in what world does 34 qualify as “pushing 40”?
    That said, at 41, I’m pushing 50, so maybe I’m just old and out of touch.

  26. Alwcaday says:

    Having read the leaked album liner notes, and maybe listened a wee bit, it seems like she’s pretty aware Healy was an arse and her jumping straight in was absolutely a shitty, immature and stupid decision in reaction to slowly losing the guy who she thought was going to be her forever. It’s not exactly praising either Healy or herself.

    I’m primarily more an NFL person so her dating Kelce has all being a very weird exposure to how obsessed people are about her. And the more they say they hate or or want to ‘critique’ her, the more obsessed and more time they spend on her and her boyfriends.

    I find absolutely fascinating there’s a section of her fandom who is completely obsessed with digging the dirt up on any dude she dates and circulating clips from old interviews (usually compromisingly edited) to make them look as shitty as possible. They are a loss to ‘dark arts’ political consulting firms who get paid a fortune to do the sort of work they’re doing as a…hobby? compulsion? I mean – there are people who say they hate football/Kelce who must be literally watching and reading more hours of his interviews than the most fanatical Chiefs fanboy,

    Mainly seems to be people who think she’s a lesbian or don’t like she’s dating someone they would never because she’s their self-insert. It’s just bizarre to me. Why spend so much time focused on people you claim to loathe… but at the end of the day, I guess they’re probably still streaming the songs, so Taylor won’t care. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Kelce in a year or two though, once he retires – whether he just becomes a footnote in her bigger story…

  27. Ange says:

    I’m low key loving that the Matty Healy and Travis Kelce stuff is finally showing just how darn basic Taylor is.

    Very ’emperor wears new clothes’.

  28. Oswin says:

    Will she EVER grow up?

  29. Thinking says:

    The tweet about her pushing 40 is a bit strange. She’s only 34.

    Maybe it makes me anxious to think that the bar for pushing to the start of a new decade keeps inching closer to the early side of the decade you’re actually in.

    I have no opinion on which boyfriend she should be writing about. I did like the blonde British one though.

    • Jayna says:

      It will be both. “Poets” as in plural. It’s not about Joe or Matty. It will have songs about both of them and also possibly use both of them together as inspiration for a few songs as far as how they made her feel. There are all kinds of ways she can come at the songs for this album since she’s always dated men who are artists (actors, musicians).