Are Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn engaged? Call it what you want—but they're not saying.
After months of speculation about the couple's relationship status, the British actor, 31, finally addressed engagement rumors in a new interview with WSJ. Magazine.
"If I had a pound for every time I think I've been told I've been engaged, then I'd have a lot of pound coins," Alwyn, who began dating the 32-year-old singer in 2016, told the outlet. "I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn't say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn't say."
While the Conversations With Friends star was coy about the rumors, he was very clear as to why he keeps his private life, well, private. "We live in a culture that people expect so much to be given," he shared. "So that if you're not posting all the time about what you're doing, how you're spending a day or how you made a breakfast, does that make you a recluse?"
Though Alwyn admitted that he'd "like to feel slightly less guarded sometimes in interviews or in whatever kind of interactions," his approach is "just a knee-jerk response to the culture we live in."
As The Favourite actor noted, "If you give it to them, it just opens the door."
Alwyn's latest interview echoes his recent comments to Elle about keeping his personal life close to his heart. "It's not really [because I] want to be guarded and private, it's more a response to something else," he explained. "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."
As for Swift, after years of being open about her relationship woes, she's also been tight-lipped about her romance with Alwyn. Though she has shared a few details in her songs, including a nod to his "ocean blue eyes" in "Gorgeous" and a reference to her necklace with Alwyn's initial on it in "Call It What You Want." In fact, the couple even collaborated together on a number of songs on her recent albums, folklore and evermore.
And although the stars tend to stay out of the spotlight, they recently made a rare exception to attend a pre-Oscars party. "Taylor was introducing Joe to many people around her," a source told E! News in late March. "She looked smitten and proud to be there with him."