Taylor Swift suggests fans don’t ‘defend’ her ‘against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago’
Taylor Swift presumably hopes her fans will leave John Mayer alone.
During the Minneapolis stop of her Eras Tour on Saturday night, Swift urged fans to extend “kindness” and “gentleness” to their “internet activities” in the days ahead before playing the “Speak Now” song “Dear John” for the first time in years.
Why does all this connect to Mayer? Swift is set to release “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” on July 7. The album includes the track “Dear John,” which most assume is about the brief relationship Swift potentially had with Mayer when she was 19 and he was 32. (Their relationship has never been confirmed.) “Dear John, I see it all now that you’re gone,” Swift sings in the song. “Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?”
On Saturday night, Swift said she loved seeing how kind her fans were to each other – but hoped they can move on from speculation about relationships she may or may not have had when she was a teenager.
“I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote and the memories we made,” Swift said. “I’m not putting this album out so that you can go and should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.”
As mentioned, Swift has never confirmed “Dear John” is actually about Mayer, but Mayer certainly thought it was. In 2012, Mayer told Rolling Stone that the song made him feel “terrible” because he “didn’t deserve it.”
“I’m pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do,” he added of Swift’s song.
Asked about Mayer’s comments later that same year, Swift said to Glamour, “How presumptuous! I never disclose who my songs are about.”
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