Happy Taylor Day, besties. July 7 marks the official release of Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) album, and with each re-recording of her back catalog, tea on former flames and details of past relationships resurface once again. This time around, Taylor’s brief rumored romance with John Mayer, which allegedly began in 2009 and ended some time in 2010, is back in the headlines.
Why’s that? Well, Taylor wrote Speak Now, her third studio album, around the time that she was linked to John. While neither Taylor nor John confirmed or denied the relationship rumors, the two collaborated on John’s “Half of My Heart” and were spotted out to dinner together in January 2010. Then, in October 2010, Taylor dropped “Dear John” as a track on Speak Now, and fans *immediately* suspected that it was inspired by a short-lived romance with the singer.
Ahead of the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Taylor performed in Minneapolis as a stop on her Eras Stadium Tour, and before playing “Dear John,” asked her fans for “kindness” and “gentleness” online. So, in other words, fans interpreted that to mean “pls don’t come for John.”
Exactly how long were Taylor and John together? Below, we’ve taken a trip down memory lane to provide a complete timeline of Taylor and John’s rumored romance. Back to 2009 we go.
March 2009: John Posts on Twitter That He Wants to Collaborate with Taylor
John Mayer, 32 at the time, takes to Twitter to share that he wants to collaborate with 19-year-old Taylor Swift on a song. “Waking up to this song idea that won’t leave my head. 3 days straight now. That means it’s good enough to finish. It’s called ‘Half of My Heart’ and I want to sing it with Taylor Swift,” he wrote at the time, per Entertainment Weekly.
“She would make a killer ‘Nicks’ in contrast to my ‘Petty’ of a song,” he continued, referring to artists Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty.
May 2009: Taylor Invites John to Perform With Her On-Stage
During the Los Angeles stop of her Fearless tour, Taylor invited John up on stage. The duo performed “White Horse,” from her second studio album, and John’s “Your Body Is a Wonderland.”
June 15, 2009: Taylor Says She Is a “Big Fan” of John
After their impromptu performance together, Taylor admitted to ELLE that she would love to work with John and “freaked out” when he said he wanted to collaborate.
“He Twittered the other day that he wrote a song and he wants to make it a duet with me,” she said at the time. “I freaked out when I heard, because I've been such a big fan of John for such a long time. I'm really excited about just the idea that he would even mention me in his Twitter!”
November 2009: John and Taylor Release “Half of My Heart”
Taylor and John released their duet, “Half of My Heart,” as a track on John’s fourth studio album, Battle Studies. During the press tour, John repeatedly complimented Taylor’s talent, and in an interview with MTV, explained what led to the collaboration.
“I thought, ‘Well, if this is going to be my love letter to that style of music, who's going to be the Stevie Nicks in this equation?,’” he said. “And I thought, ‘This Taylor Swift girl is going to be around for a long time.’”
December 11, 2009: Taylor and John Perform “Half of My Heart” Live
Taylor and John perform “Half of My Heart” live for the first (and only) time together at the Z100 Jingle Ball in New York City.
January 24, 2010: Taylor and John Go Out to Dinner
Multiple outlets report that Taylor and John were spotted out to dinner in Nashville together with a group of friends. At this time, Taylor is newly single after splitting from Twilight actor Taylor Lautner.
June 17, 2010: John Honors Taylor With an Award
At the 2010 Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony in New York City, John honored Taylor with an award and cameras snapped away as the two shared a seemingly intimate embrace. John gave Taylor a quick kiss on the cheek and the two exchanged words for a second before Taylor gave her acceptance speech.
October 2010: Taylor Releases “Dear John”
Fast forward five months later and Taylor drops “Dear John” as a track on her upcoming album, Speak Now. The lyrics (and, well, title) led fans to wonder if the song is about a brief romance with John: “Don't you think nineteen's too young / To be played by your dark, twisted games when I loved you so?”
June 6, 2012: John Responds to “Dear John”
Two years after the release of “Dear John,” John responds to the speculation and admits in an interview with Rolling Stone that the song “humiliated” him. “It made me feel terrible,” he said. “Because I 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.”
“I never got an e-mail. I never got a phone call,” he continued. “I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I’d already been dressed down. I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you’ve ever been, someone kicked you even lower?” John then added that he considered the song to be “cheap songwriting.”
Three months later, in September 2012, Taylor addressed John’s claims about the song in an interview with Glamour and said it was “presumptuous” of him to assume the song is about him. “I never disclose who my songs are about,” she said. 👀
June 18, 2013: John Drops “Paper Doll,” Rumored to Be About Taylor
John releases his own alleged diss track, “Paper Doll.” Swifties believe that the song is about the Grammy Award-winner, due to its suspected references to her famous tracks “22” and “All Too Well.”
However, during his Instagram Live show “Current Mood with John Mayer” in 2019, the singer-songwriter denied that “Paper Doll” was written about Taylor. “When ‘Paper Doll’ came out, 100 percent of the people believed it was about somebody and the person that they thought it was about brought a certain amount of superficial pop culture back and forth about it that I think kind of shat on the song.”
“But the song is not about that person,” John continued. “And I could never tell anybody ‘That’s not true’ because then I would be breaking my rule that songwriters don’t say who the songs are about or not about.”
He later admitted in April 2023 that the song is “a little bitchy.”
October 21, 2022: Taylor Releases “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve”
Taylor released “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve” as a track on her tenth studio album, Midnights. Fans are quick to believe that the song references her brief romance with John, as she mentions being 19 then (the age she was when the dating rumors with John surfaced): “At nineteen / And the God's honest truth is that the pain was heaven / And now that I'm grown, I'm scared of ghosts / Memories feel like weapons / And now that I know, I wish you'd left me wondering.”
June 24, 2023: Taylor Asks Fans for “Kindness” Ahead of Speak Now Re-Release
During the Minneapolis stop of her global Eras Stadium Tour, Taylor sends a message to fans ahead of the re-release of Speak Now: “I was hoping to ask you that as we lead up to this album, I would love for that kindness and that gentleness to extend onto our internet activities,” she told the crowd.
“I'm 33 years old, I don't care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote,” Taylor continued. “So what I'm trying to tell you is that I am not putting this album out so you should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I wrote a song about 14 million years ago.”
Taylor didn’t mention any former flame by name, but fans couldn’t help but notice that she chose to deliver this message right before her performance of “Dear John.”
July 6, 2023: John Also Asks for Kindness
John has (seemingly) entered the chat once again. The night before Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) dropped, John performed at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado, and used drones to spell out “please be kind” in the sky.
Did you expect this timeline to span 14 years? Phew!
Leah Campano is an Associate Editor at Seventeen, where she covers pop culture, entertainment news, health, and politics. On the weekends, you can probably find her watching marathons of vintage Real Housewives episodes or searching for New York City’s best almond croissants.
