In her new streaming special folklore: the long pond studio sessions, Taylor Swift confirms rumours that her boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, is the “William Bowery” credited on her latest album.
“There’s been a lot of discussion about William Bowery and his identity ’cause it’s not a real person,” the singer acknowledged. “So, William Bowery is Joe, as we know. And Joe plays piano beautifully, and he’s just always playing and making things up and kind of creating things.”
Alwyn, as “William Bowery,” is credited on “Exile” along with Swift and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who is featured on the song.
“Joe had written that entire piano part and was singing the Bon Iver part. He was just singing it, the way that the whole first verse is. So I was entranced and asked if we could keep writing that one,” Swift recalled. “It was pretty obvious that it should be a duet because he’s got such a low voice and it sounded really good sung down there in that register.”
On Tuesday, the song was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance – an award that could go to Swift and Vernon.
Swift also revealed how her beau ended up co-writing “Betty.”
“I just heard Joe singing the entire fully formed chorus of ‘Betty’ from another room and it was just like, ‘Hello.’ It was a step that we would have never taken because why would we have ever written a song together?,” she said.
“So this was the first time we had a conversation where I came in and was like ‘Hey, this could be really weird and we could hate this, so because we’re in quarantine and there’s nothing else going on, could we just try and see what it’s like if we write this song together?’”
Swift did not explain why Alwyn chose to be credited under a pseudonym.
The pop star has previously admitted to writing songs under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg, including the 2016 Calvin Harris track “This Is What You Came For” ft. Rihanna.