The Swifties were right!
During Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions special, which debuted on Disney+ on Wednesday (November 25), Taylor Swift confirmed a long-standing rumor, revealing that her boyfriend Joe Alwyn is actually the βWilliam Boweryβ credited on her latest studio album, Folklore.
βThereβs been a lot of discussion about William Bowery and his identity βcause itβs not a real person,β she said while alongside co-executive producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner. βSo, William Bowery is Joe, as we know. And Joe plays piano beautifully, and heβs just always playing and making things up and kind of creating things."
The 30-year-old singer-songwriter went on to discuss Joe's contributions to her album, sharing that he worked on βExileβ with Bon Iver and βBetty.β
"'Exile' was crazy because Joe had written that entire piano part and was singing the Bon Iver part," Taylor explained. "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. It was pretty obvious that it should be a duet because heβs got such a low voice and it sounded really good sung down there in that register.β
She then spoke about the 29-year-old actor's contribution to βBetty,β saying, βI just heard Joe singing the entire fully formed chorus of βBettyβ from another room and it was just like, βHelloβ. It was a step that we would have never taken because why would we have ever written a song together?β Taylor continued, "So this was the first time we had a conversation where I came in and was like βHey, this could be really weird and we could hate this, so because weβre in quarantine and thereβs nothing else going on, could we just try and see what itβs like if we write this song together?ββ
Taylor, Jack, and Aaron filmed the Disney+ special in upstate New York back in September.
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