Taylor Swift’s most conspiratorial fans have come up with a possible explanation for the alleged falling out between her ex-boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal and her longtime friend Ryan Reynolds.
The two A-list stars were once seemingly the best of pals after starring together in the 2017’s Life, and they described bonding together during the shooting of the sci-fi horror film.
But the two seemed to cool on each other rapidly, and now a recently resurfaced clip of Gyllenhaal’s icy response to questions about his friendship with Reynolds has ignited speculation among the 35-year-old singer’s fans that she may have been the cause of their reported rift.
Taylor and Jake famously dated in late 2010, but the relationship wasn’t long for the world, and they split sometime in early 2011.
In the E! News clip from the June 2019 premiere of Jake’s film Spider-Man: Far From Home, the 44-year-old actor is asked about his ongoing ‘feud’ with Ryan, 48, which at the time seemed to be purely for comedic effect.
‘Who?’ he asks after the Deapool star’s name is uttered.
Taylor Swift’s most conspiratorial fans have recently theorized that she may have played a part in the alleged falling out between her ex Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds; seen February 2 in LA
The rumors began flying after a 2019 video of Jake at the Spider-Man: Far From Home premiere resurfaced, in which he responded in a seemingly cold manner to questions about his possibly fake ‘feud’ with Ryan; seen with mutual friend Hugh Jackman (L)
When the correspondent asks him what it would take for the two to be ‘BFFs’ again,’ he offers a pained smile and pauses, before responding.
‘Well, I mean, in truth, there was a time in which we were [BFFs],’ Jake says in a surprisingly somber, wistful tone. ‘As everybody knows, Instagram had its way with our friendship.’
When Jake was asked if Deadpool or his Spider-Man villain would come out ahead in a competition, he simply said it was ‘unanswerable.’
‘I can’t do it,’ he added as he grinned slightly at the red-carpet correspondent.
The interview concluded with a request for a message to Ryan, but Jake responded in a surprisingly harsh tone.
‘I have nothing to say to him,’ he said in a staccato rhythm, before looking directly into the camera with an unsmiling face.
But the video faded out just as he turned back to the correspondent and began to smile at her, suggesting that the seemingly angry outburst was all for comic effect.
At the time, Jake and Ryan had signaled a falling out via seemingly joking Instagram posts from earlier in June 2019.
Jake and Ryan had become fast friends after working on the 2017 sci-fi horror film Life (pictured above). The two put on a great show of friendship afterward, but by 2019 things seemed to have soured
After affectionate displays on social media, but mid-2019, both Jake and Ryan posted photos with their mutual friend Hugh Jackman for National Best Friends Day while joking in the captions that the third amigo was ‘not pictured’
Since then, Ryan and Jake have had no public connections, while Taylor’s friendship with Ryan and his wife Blake Lively — as well as Hugh — seems to have only strengthened
They both posted photos of themselves with their mutual friend Hugh Jackman for National Best Friends Day, and in the caption wrote that their third amigo was ‘not pictured.’
The faux feud was something Ryan and Hugh were already well versed in, but fans came to suspect that it wasn’t as fake as it initially seemed after Ryan and Jake were rarely seen again together.
Hugh’s friendship with Jake also seemed to disappear from the public eye despite the two having reportedly been close for years after starring together in 2013’s Prisoners, even though he and Ryan continued to be friends.
In 2021, a source told OK! Magazine that the source of the alleged falling out was the competitive pressure of Hollywood, as ‘Things started cooling down once they realized they were competing for the same roles.’
They also claimed that Ryan’s marriage to Blake Lively and their three children — now four — had changed his priorities and made it difficult for him and the famous bachelor Jake to find as much common ground.
Following the seeming friendship split between Ryan and Jake, fans have noticed that Ryan, his wife Blake and Taylor all appeared to have unfollowed Jake on Instagram.
While the timeline of the social media feud is fuzzy, fans have alleged that three stars stopped following him first, while he continued to follow them.
However, Jake no longer follows any of them, signaling a significant split.
Fans have speculated after the video resurfaced that Taylor may have driven a wedge between Ryan and Jake due to her allegedly bad breakup with the Brokeback Mountain star; pictured in her video for Bet You Think About Me
Blake went on to direct the video for her Red (Taylor’s Version) single Bet You Think About Me, which is allegedly about her relationship with Jake and starred Miles Teller
Taylor went on to direct a short film for her 10-minute version of All Too Well, and fans were convinced that Dylan O’Brien and Sadie Sink were stand-ins for Jake and her
On social media, some fans have speculated that, as Ryan and Blake’s friendship with Taylor strengthened, it would have been untenable for him to be seen liking the Brokeback Mountain star’s Instagram posts — ironically — because it might anger Taylor’s most overzealous fans.
Among the reasons that fans think Taylor’s friendship with Ryan could be related to his falling out with Jake is that Ryan’s wife Blake directed the video for the vault song I Bet You Think About Me, which was released on the rerecorded Red (Taylor’s Version) album.
The song, which featured a video featuring actor Miles Teller, is alleged by fans to be a kiss-off break-up song inspired by her split from Jake, though she has not confirmed as much.
Red also famously featured another break-up song, All Too Well, which is also believed by fans to be about her split from Jake, which preceded the recording of her massively popular album Red (2012).
That song took on a new life with the 2021 release of the rerecorded version of Red, which included a new 10-minute-long expanded version of All Too Well, though a rerecording of the previous shorter arrangement remained in the original track listing.
Taylor went on to perform the expanded version of the song on Saturday Night Live, and she made her filmmaking debut by directing a 15-minute short film doubling as a music video for the expanded version of All Too Well that starred Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien, in addition to herself.
The short film didn’t do anything to dispel rumors that the original song was written about Taylor’s relationship with Jake, as Dylan bears a striking resemblance to the older actor and sported a beard similar to the one Gyllenhaal often wears between pictures.
He’s also several years older than Sadie, which seemingly mirrored the eight-year age gap between the original couple.
Taylor, Ryan and Blake reportedly all unfollowed Jake on Instagram, and fans have lately speculated that Ryan’s stronger relationship with Taylor may have made following his alleged former friend untenable
In an Esquire interview after the release of Red (Taylor’s Version), Jake denied that All Too Well was about his relationship, and he claimed he had not listened to the rerecorded album; seen Monday in NYC
In an interview with Esquire after the Red rerelease, Jake disputed any connection to All Too Well.
‘It has nothing to do with me,’ he said when asked about the song. ‘It’s about her relationship with her fans. It is her expression. Artists tap into personal experiences for inspiration, and I don’t begrudge anyone that.’
At the time, he turned off comments on his Instagram posts, after fans speculated that he would be receiving plenty of abuse coinciding with the new album.
‘At some point, I think it’s important when supporters get unruly that we feel a responsibility to have them be civil and not allow for cyberbullying in one’s name,’ Gyllenhaal said in the same interview. ‘That begs for a deeper philosophical question. Not about any individual, per se, but a conversation that allows us to examine how we can — or should, even — take responsibility for what we put into the world, our contributions into the world. How do we provoke a conversation? We see that in politics. There’s anger and divisiveness, and it’s literally life-threatening in the extreme.’
He added that he had never listened to Red (Taylor’s Version).
