This week, Taylor Swift and Sophie Turner were pictured on two girls’ night outs together in New York, weeks after Turner and Joe Jonas announced their divorce.
Now, we love some girls supporting girls, so we loved to see Swift supporting a fellow now-single girl through what's been dubbed the summer of celebrity breakups. Taylor of course split from long-term boyfriend Joe Alwyn earlier this year and has been enjoying glamorously-dressed dinners with various members of her erstwhile girl squad – from the Haim sisters to Blake Lively – ever since.
The elephant in the room here – a huge glaring one that the internet delighted in almost immediately – is that Swift and Turner have more in common than their single status, and that's Joe Jonas.
Swift briefly dated Jonas in 2008 when she was 18, before he reportedly broke up with her in a 25-second phone call. Swift addressed the breakup on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, saying ‘When I find that person that is right for me, he'll be wonderful and when I look at that person, I'm not even gonna be able to remember the boy who broke up with me over the phone in 25 seconds when I was 18.’
True to style, Taylor penned several breakup songs (some of which only recently emerged from her now infamous Vault) that fans believe are about Jonas, including 'Forever & Always,' 'Mr. Perfectly Fine,' 'Better Than Revenge', and 'Last Kiss.' However, Swift and Jonas have long since made amends - in 2019, she joked on the Ellen DeGeneres show about putting Jonas ‘on blast’ and they ‘laugh about it now.’
For Turner, who shares two children with Jonas, the breakup is much fresher. Jonas filed for divorce from Turner after five years of marriage earlier this month, which the couple confirmed via a joint statement on their Instagram accounts. 'After four wonderful years of marriage we have mutually decided to amicably end our marriage,' they wrote. 'There are many speculative narratives as to why but, truly this is a united decision and we sincerely hope that everyone can respect our wishes for privacy for us and our children.'
Things took a turn at the end of this week though, when it was reported that Turner is petitioning Jonas for the return of their children to the UK (where she’s originally from and it seems they had been living with the children since April, prior to the divorce).
The documents, seen by various media outlets, claimed Jonas is refusing to hand over the children’s passports. And it also emerged that Turner claims she only found out that Jonas was filing for divorce, after it emerged in the media.
Following the news about the court documents breaking on Thursday evening, Turner was spotted out for dinner with Taylor in New York for the second time.
A statement on behalf of Jonas asked the actress to ‘reconsider her harsh legal position’. His representative added: ‘His only concern is for the wellbeing of his children.’ A statement to NBC reportedly said the language of ‘abduction’ was ‘misleading at best, and a serious abuse of the legal system at worst’.
Away from the courts and in memeville (the internet) social media users gleefully shared pictures of Taylor and Sophie’s dinners (we’re coining Saylor, because two dinners in a week constitutes a renaming) and suggested that Swift and Turner's union is a dig at Jonas.
One user, on sharing a picture of the pair walking together with their arms linked, wrote ‘it's never more over for joe Jonas.’ Another echoed this sentiment by writing ‘Joe jonas party is over.’
Other eagle-eyed Swifties picked up on the similarities to a line from her 2022 hit 'Vigilante S**t', which reads 'Picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife.'
It's true that there is something oddly satisfying about buddying up with your ex's ex, especially if you've been hurt by the break-up (nothing cements a bond quite like a toxic ex).
Which, we get it, is fun. But it turns out that Swift and Turner's union is actually nothing to do with Jonas at all, making it an even better demonstration of girl power. Because not everything has to revolve around men, right?
What we're seeing here is an empowering, long-term friendship, where it doesn't matter that two women share the same ex. Swift and Turner were first pictured together in May 2019 when they appeared as guests on the same episode of the Graham Norton Show.
The following month, Sophie told Life&Style ‘She’s a really sweet girl. We met a couple times before, we’re [friendly]. She definitely wasn’t fangirling over me … I fangirl over her!’
After Swift’s hit ‘Mr Perfectly Fine’ came out in 2021, Turner showed she approved of it in an Instagram story. 'It's not not a bop,' she wrote alongside a screenshot of the song. Taylor then shared Sophie's story to her own and added the comment 'forever bending the knee for the queen of the north,' referencing Turner’s Game of Thrones character.
Since her breakup with Joe Alwyn in April, Taylor has been pictured going out for dinner with Selena Gomez, Zoë Kravitz, Greta Gerwig, the Haim sisters and Blake Lively.
It's clear that Swift has overcome all the speculation around her personal life to focus on the friendships that have stood the test of time – maybe she’s just trying to give Sophie a glimpse of that post-breakup life too.
Either way, we’re here for the rise of Saylor – and await our invite to the next girl squad dinner patiently.