The Taylor Swift-Tom Hiddleston Breakup Twist That No One Saw Coming

Basically what sources are saying is the last thing anyone would have predicted

By Natalie Finn Sep 07, 2016 12:00 AMTags

If you perhaps expected Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston to break up—maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon—you had your reasons.

Taylor's storied dating patterns. Too much, too soon. Tom getting cold feet, the cad. Tom not being able to handle the brightness of Taylor's particular brand of limelight.

Let's just say... Everyone was wrong. Hiddleswift is no more, but apparently not for the reason any of us would have smugly guessed.

"Taylor felt he wanted to take the relationship to be too public," a source told E! News today in the wake of their split, which we're hearing was amicable, "and she was not happy about it and thought it was too much publicity."

Let's take a minute to absorb this revelation.

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Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston Break Up

Because what we've got here sounds as though Taylor Swift, who has left no relationship unturned in her Grammy-winning repertoire, wanted a more private relationship than did Tom Hiddleston—Emmy nominee, celebrity impressionist and meme-worthy portrayer of Loki.

Who, when it comes down to it, we didn't really know all that much about in the relationship department.

read
The Day Tom Hiddleston Dumped Us for Taylor Swift: Why the Loss of This Internet Boyfriend Has Been So Hard
AKM-GSI

Perhaps he emerged from his self-imposed abstention on serious relationships (fully committed to his work to the detriment of everything else, he had said pre-Hiddleswift multiple times) and was ready not just to mingle with Taylor but... with the whole world's perception of him? Could it be that the "I ♥ T.S." tank was his idea?

Because, to be honest, it's really hard to imagine Hiddleston being the one who was basking in the attention, especially because he always seemed so uncomfortable when reporters asked him questions about Swift.

Did he, perhaps, think that level of attention was what he wanted, but then decided it wasn't for him? (Kind of a metaphor for failed relationships in general, really.) Had he read the stories and figured the media couldn't be that aggressive, only to find out the media was exactly that aggressive?

Maybe. And really, for all the crap that Swift got for rebounding so fast, we can see why this summation of events could indeed be the case.

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Taylor Swift on Dating and Relationships

Swift hasn't released any new music since she and Calvin Harris got together in early 2015. She's about due but, aside from a concert on Oct. 22 at the Formula One United States Grand Prix in Austin, her only scheduled show of 2016, there's no momentous release date looming on the horizon.

So we don't know yet what sort of reflections she's planning to share, if any, about what to date has been her longest, most serious-looking relationship. 

Moreover, what was so unusually public about her time with Harris, whom she dated for almost 15 months—a solid chunk of time for anybody, especially a celebrity? The answer: nothing. She shared some pics on Instagram, they went on vacation together, they had a PDA-fest at an awards show...There was really nothing over-the-top about their public footprint.

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In Defense of Taylor Swift: Her Songwriting, Her Timing, Her Terms

The nature of their togetherness actually became more of a big deal after they were already apart, once Taylor had hooked up with Tom, leaving Calvin "hurt" and "blindsided" by the, er, swiftness with which his ex moved on. But Calvin's the one who had ended it in the first place, according to a source, so basically, Taylor was just living her life.

Her timing proved inconvenient to some, but otherwise, the relatively low-key way in which she went about her relationship with Calvin could very well now be her preferred mode of operation. And if Tom wanted something different...

Next!