If you’ve noticed a certain actor trending recently and wondered ‘what’s that all about? ‘, we’re here to break it down.
Jake Gyllenhaal hasn’t exactly been keeping out of the headlines this year. In August, he told Vanity Fair that he found showering “unnecessary” while promoting Prada’s Luna Rossa Ocean fragrance. Obviously, twitter latched on to this revelation.
This wasn’t his first step into the internet’s bad books, though. Taylor Swift’s loyal army of fans have long suspected the Spider-man: Far from home actor of being the focus of ‘All Too Well’, a pretty damning song written by Taylor.
The timeline
Rumours started flying after Jake and Taylor attended Emma Stone’s hosting of Saturday Night Live together in October 2010.
After dodging questions about the relationship, Taylor was spotted together with Jake in NYC. The pair spend thanksgiving with Jake’s sister, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. It was during this weekend that Taylor was snapped wearing that infamous scarf (more on that later).
In December, it was reported that the pair had split just before New Year’s Eve. A source told US weekly that Jake had sort-out the relationship and was the one to call it quits. They told the magazine that Jake was uncomfortable with the “all the attention they got” and “could feel the age difference”. Taylor was apparently hurt by the breakup and, 8 months later, her album ‘Red’ hit shelves.
All too well
Fans went into full detective-mode over one ‘Red’ track. ‘All Too Well’ tells the story of a short-lived romance that started perfect but after the older guy breaks it off, he leaves the young girl heartbroken – sound familiar?
Well, Taylor’s fans thought it did and immediately got to speculating. There are references to Upstate New York, a place it’s believed the pair spend some time together, to plaid shirts, a favorite of Jake’s that Taylor adopted to match and to a certain scarf.
Photo credit: The Verge
The Scarf
Honestly, this scarf could get its own movie and people would go see it. It’s become a pop-culture treasure that so many people have become obsessed over and one that may or may not be lost in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s dresser.
The song mentions it twice. At the beginning, “I left my scarf there at your sister’s house and you’ve still got it in your drawer, even now.”, and later in the track, “But you keep my old scarf from that very first week ’cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me.”
Fans made the connection pretty quickly.
Taylor was photographed wearing a scarf on a walk during that Thanksgiving weekend. Then, in the following months, Jake was seen wearing a strikingly similar one. This was taken as solid evidence and Jake was officially declared as the inspiration for All too well.
Taylor has never actually said that Jake Gyllenhaal is the aforementioned heartbreaker, but her fans are known for their excellent sleuthing skills so it’s not impossible to imagine she left these breadcrumbs as clues.
All too well – the 10-minute version
Fast forward a decade and Taylor is re-releases her albums (that’s a story for another day). November 12th 2021 saw the much-anticipated re-release of Red, featuring new ‘From the Vault’ songs. This included a 10-minute version of All too well with lyrics that made Swifties everywhere grab their detective hats.
That wasn’t all though, there was another surprise. A 14-minute short film, directed by Taylor, was released as a music video to the new version. It stars Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien as the central pair. What’s the age gap between these two? It’s a little over 10 years. The age gap between Jake and Taylor? 9.
The first new line seemed to be a dig at his ‘F*** the patriarchy’ keychain. Something that Taylor seems to think is ironic. She then goes on to suggest that maybe the relationship was on-and-off-again in some way, with the line, “Check the pulse and come back swearin’ it’s the same after three months in the grave”.
There’s a line about keeping the relationship on the down-low and another that reads, “You said if we had been closer in age, maybe it would’ve been fine”, a throwback to what US weekly printed about Jake’s reasons for ending things.
I think it’s fair to say that one line got everyone’s attention: “And I was never good at tellin’ jokes, but the punch line goes “I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age”.”
So, the memes came in thick and fast and Jake Gyllenhaal’s publicist probably hasn’t slept since. A lot of people quickly jumped on the trend of calling him out.
Here are some of the highlights of the twitterstorm:
Evan the legendary Dionne Warwick tweeted, “If that young man has Taylor’s scarf he should return it.” She then penned a follow up saying, “It does not belong to you. Box it up and I will pay the cost of postage, Jake.”
So, in conclusion, don’t mess with Taylor Swift or you’ll have Dionne Warwick to answer to.
