Taylor Swift dated Joe Alwyn for six years, but the public rarely heard about the relationship during this time. This has felt especially notable since she began dating Travis Kelce, and fans see them everywhere.

Swift’s relationship with Alwyn lasted a long time. Still, she once said a romantic partner who wanted too much privacy felt like a red flag to her.

Joe Alwyn and Taylor Swift kept quiet about their relationship while they were together

Swift and Alwyn began dating in 2016 and broke up six years later, in early 2023. During this time, her fans heard little about the relationship. Alwyn once spoke about why.

“It’s not really [because I] want to be guarded and private, it’s more a response to something else,” he told Elle. “We live in a culture that is so increasingly intrusive … The more you give — and frankly, even if you don’t give it — something will be taken.”

Swift said she felt similarly. She didn’t think she should offer up too much of herself of the rest of the world.

“I’ve learned that if I do, people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion,” she said in 2019. “If you and I were having a glass of wine right now, we’d be talking about it — but it’s just that it goes out into the world. That’s where the boundary is, and that’s where my life has become manageable. I really want to keep it feeling manageable.”

Before she dated Joe Alwyn, Taylor Swift said she didn’t want a private relationship

Several years before she started dating Alwyn, Swift said she’d had enough romantic experience to know what she didn’t want in a relationship.

“I have red flags now,” she told Vogue in 2012.

She noted that traits like being threatened by the presence of her security guards, or not being comfortable with her success. She also thought it was ridiculous for someone to demand too private a relationship.

“Also, I can’t deal with someone who’s obsessed with privacy,” she said. “People kind of care if there are two famous people dating. But no one cares that much. If you care about privacy to the point where we need to dig a tunnel under this restaurant so that we can leave? I can’t do that.”

Before long, though, she was in a notoriously private relationship.

Her relationship with Travis Kelce is more public

Swift is now dating Kelce. Fans have already seen more of them than they did of Swift and Alwyn in their six years together. Kelce admitted that getting used to the attention hasn’t exactly been easy.

“The paparazzi, that’s probably the only thing I didn’t really grasp until you’re in it,” he said on the Bussin’ With the Boys podcast (per The New York Daily News). “That’s probably the craziest part, like I’m just playing golf and all of a sudden in the trees there’s a f***ing guy with a camera.”

Still, he said he tries not to let it bother him. He doesn’t mind stepping out in public with her, even when people say they’re seeking attention.

“[We’re] having fun with it man, being a couple,” he said. “It gets thrown out there, like we’re trying to seek attention every now and then, but it’s like we’re just enjoying life and having fun going to hockey games, kinda introducing her to some more of the sports world.”