#(I could make another joke but it's crude so I shan't lol)

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Your deep dive of ttpd was amazing💕 I just have one question. First off I despise MH and second I don't hate JA but I think he is a very depressing man who doesn't know what he wants out of life. Question is when TS performed at the 1975 concert with anti hero, were they involved then ? I am terrible at time lines not that it really makes a difference when he started to play her but he is so despicable I just wondered if they were together then.

Hi anon,

This is delicate and I'd also like to caveat that I am not privy to Taylor's personal life, nor is anyone else on the internet, so I can't speak in absolutes.

But going from the story she's laid out in TTPD: it's not necessarily likely they were physically involved at the time of that concert, but there were at the very least complicated emotional entanglements by then. IIRC in some article at the time of their relationship, someone (maybe Jack? idk) confirmed that they reconnected as friends (after years of not speaking) through Jack when he and Taylor were finishing Midnights in 2022 (and Jack was producing The 1975's album, hence the connection). I can't remember where I read this, but someone pointed out that Taylor and Matty were rarely if ever actually on the same continent until he showed up for Eras because of his band's touring schedule. But also don't take my word for it because I pride myself on knowing as little about him and his band as possible lol.

So like, the story we "know" is that they got involved for real when he showed up at Eras in Nashville in May, because he'd been on tour most of the year before then. As far as we know, Taylor and Joe broke up sometime between Arlington and Vegas tour stops in March of 2023. So there's at the very least murkiness re: the emotional affair, which she all but outlines in Guilty As Sin? and How Did It End?, but beyond that, what we know is what we she's shared in TTPD and what we saw play out.

TL;DR: there was probably risky (and ill-advised) flirtation happening at the time of that concert and an emotionally intimate relationship, but beyond that, we don't know, so I'm taking Taylor's word for it unless she offers other information in the future.

(Frankly, I also think if they'd been physically intimate at the time, Matty would have had no problem bragging about being "the other man" after the shitstorm in 2023 because he is the type and the fact that he hasn't leads me to believe they weren't, but I digress.)