In an unusual development, Grammy-winning pop star Taylor Swift defended her ex-boyfriend John Mayer who is facing backlash before performing ‘Dear John’ at the Eras Tour. During a concert in Minneapolis on June 24, 2023, Taylor Swift said, "I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19." She further added “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.”
Swift was 19 when she briefly dated Mayer, who was 12 years older than her and fans have long been convinced that her song 'Dear John' is about him and their breakup. “Don’t you think I was too young?” she sings. “You should’ve known.”
Taylor Swift’s brutal John Mayer diss track had fans shook but she clarified that it was not related to him in any way. In seeming confirmation that her plea for “kindness” and the tune are about Mayer, she played “Dear John” for the Minneapolis crowd after 11 years.
Mayer has slammed Swift for the song, telling Rolling Stone a decade ago that he didn’t “deserve it.” “I’m pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that,” he said. “It was a really lousy thing for her to do.”
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However, her fans have been slow to forgive Mayer. Last year, they mobilized when he was announced as a guest on the 'Call Her Daddy' podcast, hosted by fellow Taylor fan Alex Cooper.
As the 33-year-old pop star prepares to release the re-recording of 'Speak Now' on July 7, she has a message for fans about online harassment. Swift's music inspires a lot of passionate support from fans sometimes at the expense of the songs' alleged subjects. For example, Jake Gyllenhaal, who dated Swift when she was 20 and he was 29, received a wave of backlash following the release of “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)," which appeared on the re-recording of her song 'Red' in 2021.