Joe Alwyn addressed rumours that he and Taylor Swift are engaged for the first time in public. Below, you can read the actor’s response and learn more about the couple’s love story.

Do Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn have a relationship? Whatever you want to call it, they aren’t saying anything.

The British actor, 31, officially addressed engagement rumours in a new interview with WSJ. Magazine after months of speculation about the couple’s relationship status.

“I’d have a lot of pound coins if I had a pound for every time I think I’ve been told I’ve been engaged,” Alwyn, who began dating the 32-year-old singer in 2016, told the site. “I mean, the fact is, I wouldn’t say if the answer was yes, and I wouldn’t say if the answer was no.”

While the actor of Conversations With Friends remained tight-lipped about the accusations, he was forthright about why he kept his personal life secret. “We live in a culture where people expect a lot,” he explained.

“Doesn’t that make you a recluse if you don’t publish all the time about what you’re doing, how you’re spending your day, or how you made your breakfast?”

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Despite admitting that he’d “want to be slightly less guarded occasionally in interviews or in whatever kind of encounters,” Alwyn’s attitude is “simply a knee-jerk reaction to the culture we live in.”

“If you give it to them, it just opens the door,” said the star of The Favourite.

Alwyn’s most recent interview follows his recent remarks to Elle about keeping his personal life private. He stated, “It’s not really [because I] want to be guarded and private; it’s more of a response to something else.” “We live in an ever-increasingly intrusive civilization. The more you give, and even if you don’t, something will be stolen from you.”

Swift has been tight-lipped about her affair with Alwyn after years of being upfront about her relationship difficulties. Though she has mentioned his “ocean blue eyes” in “Gorgeous” and her jewellery with Alwyn’s initial on it in “Call It What You Want,” she hasn’t said much about him in her songs. Indeed, the couple worked together on a number of tracks from her most recent albums, folklore and evermore.

And, despite their preference for staying out of the spotlight, the celebs recently made an exception to attend a pre-Oscars party. In late March, a source told E! News, “Taylor was introducing Joe to numerous individuals around her.” “She appeared charmed and happy to be with him.”