MUMBAI: Taylor Swift has got a blank space, baby, and she’ll write your name-even if it’s not your actual name.
The music superstar guested on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday, Dec. 14, where host Jimmy Kimmel wanted to know the backstory behind her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, getting credited as “William Bowery” for the songwriting work he did on Taylor’s two surprise 2020 albums, folklore and evermore.
“Your boyfriend wrote some of the lyrics to some of the songs under a pseudonym, William Bowery,” Kimmel said during the interview clip, seen below in the video. “Who chose that name? Did you choose that, or did he?”
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Taylor took a beat before answering, as it appeared that she was hesitant to divulge anything about the mysterious pen name. Ultimately, she replied, “He did.”
Jimmy then did his due diligence by asking if there is a meaning to that specific name choice.
“You gotta ask him because it’s really more his story than mine,” she demurred. The 31-year-old Grammy winner was then about to add to this by starting to say, “But yeah, he does a lot of …” but she couldn’t finish the sentence before the host cut her off with a joke. C’mon, Jimmy, know your place.
Taylor had previously confirmed speculation about the mysterious songwriter during her concert film folklore: the long pond studio sessions, which debuted on Disney+ on Nov. 25. William Bowery is credited with co-writing “exile” and “betty” on folklore, along with “champagne problems,” “coney island,” and the titular track on the recently released evermore.
“There’s been a lot of discussion about William Bowery and his identity because…it’s not a real person,” she revealed in the film. “So, William Bowery is Joe…as we know.”
Fans have guessed that the name might refer to Joe’s great-grandfather, composer William Alwyn, and the fact that among Joe and Taylor’s first public outings together was a Kings of Leon show at New York City’s The Bowery Hotel in 2016.
During the Dec. 14 Kimmel appearance, the “willow” performer also opened up about the truth behind the “woodvale” rumors that had permeated social media lately after fans spotted the word written on folklore album art.
