The Night Manager might be a thriller, but the show promises to deliver some steamy romance moments for Tom Hiddleston’s Jonathan Pine on the side. Season two has picked up with Jonathan in a ‘fluid love triangle’ with Camilla Morrone’s character. While his on-screen romance continues to sizzle, off-screen Tom has been linked to some big names.
Before he met his fiancée and mother to his two children Zawe Ashton, Tom made headlines a decade ago for a high-profile romance with singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, 36. The A-list couple’s three-month relationship burned bright but brief with romantic getaways across Europe and earned them the fan-dubbed portmanteau ‘Hiddleswift’.
So what went wrong? Read on for a look back at the romance that was one of the most talked about pairings in popular culture in 2016.
How did they meet?
The couple were first linked at one of the biggest celebrity gatherings of the calendar year: The Met Gala. Taylor, who was in her bleached hair phase and dating DJ Calvin Harris at the time, was co-chair of the May 2016 event.
While what happens inside the Met Gala historically stays a secret thanks to the strict ‘no phones’ rule, a video emerged of Taylor boogieing on the dance floor with Tom.
“I sat next to her at dinner that night,” Tom told MTV UK after. “She was very charming, she is amazing,” the actor said, revealing he had seen “a couple of videos” of hers.
Taylor and Calvin called off their relationship in June 2016. A couple of weeks later, Taylor and Tom were publicly seen together near the singer’s Rhode Island mansion. And so, ‘Hiddleswift’ was born.
© Getty/ WireImageGallivanting around Europe
The couple’s romance was a whirlwind of getaways across three months. The pair were pictured looking loved-up in Tom’s native England, Rome and on Australia’s Gold Coast, where Tom was busy filming Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok.
“The truth is that Taylor Swift and I are together, and we’re very happy. Thanks for asking,” Tom told The Hollywood Reporter in July while addressing rumours his very high-profile romance with Taylor was all a publicity stunt.
The famous tank top
Ah, the tank top. Tom joined his girlfriend and her A-list friend group for Taylor’s Fourth of July party at her Rhode Island mansion. Actresses Ruby Rose and Blake Lively and models Karlie Kloss, Cara Delevingne and Gigi Hadid were all there – but all the internet seemed to be able to focus on was the tank top Tom was wearing which had “I [heart] T.S” splashed on the front.
Tom later cleared up the reason he wore the shirt was he had hurt his back playing a game at the party and had wanted to avoid sun exposure. “And one of her friends said, ’I’ve got this.’ And we all laughed about it. It was a joke. Among friends,” he told GQ.
“Nobody had the context for that story. And I’m still trying to work out a way of having a personal life and protecting it, but also without hiding.”
Why did they split?
By September 2016, Hiddleswift were done. While neither Taylor or Tom explicitly confirmed why they called it quits on their romance, multiple outlets at the time reported it was amicable. Tom seemed to allude to the spotlight playing a factor in their split in a 2017 interview.
Both Taylor and Tom were big in their respective fields at the time – but Taylor’s star in particular is on a whole different level these days. “A relationship in the limelight… A relationship always takes work. And it’s not just the limelight. It’s everything else,” Tom told GQ after the breakup.
While there was some speculation their romance was a PR stunt, Tom shut down the discourse with five words: “Of course it was real”. The actor added: “Taylor is an amazing woman. She’s generous and kind and lovely, and we had the best time.”
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