Taylor Swift’s new song “All Too Well” has prompted women to reassess their relationship with older men.
In the 10-minute version of her hit single, 31-year-old Swift has apparently added in a reference to her relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal.
While the song, which was originally released in 2010, has long been rumoured to be about Swift’s relationship with Gyllenhaal, the new version all but confirms the singer wrote it after they broke up in 2011.
Swift and Gyllenhaal dated for three months from October 2010, splitting just after the Grammy winner turned 21 that December.
New lyrics include the lines: “And I was never good at telling jokes/ But the punchline goes: “‘I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age.’”
Gyllenhaal, 40, is currently dating 25-year-old model Jeanne Cadieu.
After Swift’s fans heard the song, they rushed to Twitter to pledge allegiance to the singer, and #JakeGyllenaal soon began trending with over 100,000 tweets under the hashtag.
Many fans are also reassessing their own relationships after listening to Swift’s song.
The Guardian’s columnist Moira Donegan wrote: “Taylor Swift revisiting her 10-years-old bad breakup with an older man reflects a really particular feeling where women remember relationships they had with older men in their teens and twenties and wake up like ‘wait, that was exploitation.’”
Another fan wrote: “I have dated a guy at 21 when he was almost 30. I swear to God that was the ugliest part of my life. I really don’t think people should date with that age gap because it’s easy to use somebody when they are 21.”
“All Too Well” features on Swift’s new release, Red (Taylor’s Version). Find our review of the album here.
