Swifties Go Wild Over Joe Alwyn Dig in “The Fate of Ophelia”

Taylor Swift fans spiraled into a frenzy over her new album The Life of a Showgirl, with some convinced they found a dig at her ex Joe Alwyn.

The English actor dated Swift for approximately seven years before their split in 2023, whereupon she plunged into a whirlwind fling with bad boy rocker Matty Healy before settling down with her NFL fiancé Travis Kelce. 

Now fans have seized on her latest album’s lead single The Fate of Ophelia, which is about how the 35-year-old ‘pledges allegiance to’ a love interest who ‘dug me out of my grave’ and ‘saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia.’

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the title character coldly ends his romance with Ophelia, telling her to ‘get thee to a nunnery,’ and later mistakenly murders her father Polonius.

Ophelia goes wild with grief and drowns in what is implied may be a suicide, and now some Swifties have determined that their idol’s new song is about how Kelce rescued her from her own bout of malaise after her breakup from Alwyn.

Incidentally, Alwyn, 34, happens to be featured in a new movie adaptation of Hamlet, playing not the lead role but rather Ophelia’s brother Laertes.

Daily Mail has contacted Swift and Alwyn’s representatives for comment.

Some fans have also divined a swipe at Alwyn in two other lines from the new song: ‘All that time, I sat alone in my tower / You were just honing your powers.’

Alwyn and Swift were famously private during their long romance, in stark contrast to the relentless publicity of her relationship with Kelce.

In addition to playing Laertes in a new film, Alwyn is in the new Chloe Zhao film Hamnet about Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife (Jessie Buckley) coping with the death of their young son, who is thought to have inspired the play Hamlet.

One fan observed on X, formerly Twitter: ‘mind you joe alwyn is starring on Hamlet this year and tay wrote The Fate of Ophelia,’ adding: ‘oh taygamon…’

‘I know Taylor choosed the fate of ophelia as a single because Joe is on Hamnet and Hamlet, but i just cant prove it #TaylorSwift,’ theorized another. 

Still another demanded: ‘and when are we gonna clock that taylor wrote fate of ophelia because joe is in a new hamlet adaptation and hamnet.’

One particularly enthusiastic Swiftie wrote: ‘the fate of ophelia is sooo good and iconic bc she romanticized joe and her being depressed together for so long and now she’s finally admitting yeah that’s relationship was gonna kill me. and she rediscovered that happy side of herself with travis.’ 

Swift took a number of perceived swipes at Alwyn on her previous album The Tortured Poets Department, her first since their breakup.

Even the title was widely regarded as a jab at Alwyn, who revealed in 2022 that he was part of a WhatsApp group called The Tortured Man Club with his close friends and fellow actors Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott. 

Meanwhile Alwyn has remained relatively tight-lipped and diplomatic about Swift, breaking his silence on the breakup a year after the fact.

‘I would hope that anyone and everyone can empathize and understand the difficulties that come with the end of a long, loving, fully committed relationship of over six and a half years,’ he told the Sunday Times in 2024.

Describing their split as ‘a hard thing to navigate,’ he added: ‘What is unusual and abnormal in this situation is that, one week later, it’s suddenly in the public domain and the outside world is able to weigh in.’

Earlier this year, he reflected on how he drowned out the ‘noise’ of the public frenzy surrounding around his relationship to Swift, in an interview with the Guardian.

‘If you don’t, and if you let all of that other stuff in, and if it starts to affect you and your behavior, you’re living from the outside in. And then you’re pretty f***,’ he said.