Taylor Swift name-dropped Charlie Puth on her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, and fans quickly found a way to connect the lyric to her ex Matty Healy.
Swift’s 11th album arrived on Friday, April 19, and while it was suspected the songs would focus on her split from Joe Alwyn after six years together, many listeners instead picked up on clues pointing to Healy, 35.
“You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist,” Swift, 34, sings on the album’s title track. “I scratch your head, you fall asleep / Like a tattooed golden retriever.”
Not only is “Chocolate” the name of Healy’s band The 1975’s breakout hit, but he also gave a shout-out to Puth, 32, years before TTPD was released.
“That Charlie Puth and Boyz II Men track is harrrrrd,” Healy tweeted in May 2018, according to a resurfaced screenshot. (He was seemingly referring to “If You Leave Me Now” from Puth’s second album, Voicenotes.)
Puth retweeted the message at the time, writing, “Thank u matty!”
2018 pic.twitter.com/oarofnlfd2
— The 1975 TH (@the1975_thteam) April 18, 2024
Swift and Healy initially sparked romance rumors in 2014 after they were spotted wearing each other’s merch. The 1975 was just starting to gain popularity at the time, and Healy later claimed in an interview with Q Magazine that it was “emasculating” to be linked to someone more famous than him.
Following a wave of backlash, Healy attempted to clarify his comments. “Now I may admit to being an idiot on occasion, but I am not a misogynist,” he said in a 2016 statement.
He continued: “I was for a very short time immersed in a celebrity world that I found confusing and scary. At that time, I had fears of being ‘somebody’s boyfriend’ (remember this is all speculation as we never dated!) before even being recognized for my music or presence as a person in my own right.”
The twosome reconnected following Swift’s 2023 split from Alwyn, 33, with a source exclusively telling Us, “They’re looking to give things a second chance.”
Swift and Healy were spotted together on multiple occasions — he even took the stage at one of her Eras Tour concerts alongside her opening act Phoebe Bridgers — before calling it quits in June 2023.
“They had fun together, but it was never serious,” a source told Us at the time.
The fling may have been more serious to Swift than fans expected, with Healy — and his many controversies — seemingly serving as the inspiration for much of TTPD.
“They shake their heads saying, ‘God help her’ when I tell ’em he’s my man / But your good Lord doesn’t need to lift a finger / I can fix him, no really I can / And only I can,” she sings on “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can).”