Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris’ relationship has ended in exactly the same it started - on social media, for all the world to see.
In an age where our ascent into the digital world has become seamless, it is increasingly commonplace for celebrity couples to air their dirty laundry on the internet after they break up.
Swift and Harris are something of a case in point and could be called a cautionary tale of romance in the online epoch. Since they parted ways two weeks ago at the beginning of June, the 26-year-old Pennsylvania-born pop singer and 32-year-old Scottish DJ have gone from showcasing sentimental selfies to seeking to erase all trace of their 15-month relationship.
A fast skim of Swift’s Instagram shows no sign of Harris. That romantic photo of their one-year anniversary tropical mini-break in March has disappeared.
But Harris has stepped it up a notch and has now deleted the tweet (“The only truth here is that a relationship came to an end & what remains is a huge amount of love and respect”) he wrote after the pair broke up. In turn, the “power couple”, who were rated as the world’s highest paid celebrity couple by Forbes, have inadvertently or intentionally fuelled speculation around their relationship.
In another twist, photos of Swift and Tom Hiddleston, the actor best known for his role in The Night Manager, emerged in The Sun on Wednesday. The pair were photographed embracing, kissing, and taking selfies (of course) on a rocky beach in Rhode Island. This follows a video of them staging an impromptu dance-off at the Met Gala in May. The video, which has spurred multiple gifs, was rebuked as “cringeworthy” by more than one.
The ongoing saga of Swift and Harris is testimony to social media's ability to inflame the public's appetite for celebrity gossip. While it is, of course, impossible for anyone to ever know exactly what goes on behind doors in these carefully curated, PR polished relationships, sites like Instagram have undoubtedly given the world a new lens to view them through.
Representatives for Swift, Harris and Hiddleston did not immediately respond to request for comment.
