Taylor, where the hell have you been, Loca?!
(Sorry, I had to.)
On July 7, Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner reunited on stage in Kansas City, Missouri – 14 years since they dated as teenagers newly in the public eye.
Lautner joined Swift on stage during her Eras Tour stop to premiere the music video for 'I Can See You', a 'vault track' included on Speak Now (Taylor's Version), the third album in her quest to re-record her first six albums, which was released that same day.
In the video, Lautner, Joey King and Presley Cash — who both starred in Swift's 'Mean' music video when they were just nine and 13 years old — break into a vault where Speak Now-era Swift is trapped and help her escape.
Swift said the music video was a visual representation of how fans are helping her own her art through her re-recordings project.
When welcoming him onstage, Swift said Lautner was "a very positive force" in her life during the time she made Speak Now, and that he and his wife Taylor Dome had become some of her closest friends.
"And it's very convenient because we all share the same first name," she joked.
Hilariously, Lautner spontaneously backflipped his way down the Eras Tour stage – a hark back to his Valentine's Day character (which both the famous Taylors starred in) doing the same in that film.
In front of the 76,000-strong crowd, Lautner told Swift he respected her "so much".
"Not just for the singer you are, the songwriter, the performer – but truly for the human you are. You are gracious, humble, kind and I'm honoured to know you," he said.
The Taylors, who were often referred to as Taylor Squared by fans, had a brief but highly publicised relationship in 2009.
They met that year, while filming 2010 romantic comedy Valentine's Day. In the film, they play highschool couple Willy and Felicia, who are experiencing the excitement of fresh, young love.
While filming, a 19-year-old Swift was experiencing her first wave of major success following the release of her 2008 album Fearless, featuring songs like 'Love Story' and 'You Belong With Me', and Lautner, then 17, was part of the biggest teen movie franchise, Twilight.
They were seen together at various events throughout the second half of 2009, including at a hockey game and at her Fearless tour stop in Chicago.
Swift even mentioned Lautner during her Saturday Night Live monologue that October.
"If you're wondering if I might be dating the werewolf from Twilight," she said, before blowing a kiss, waving, winking and mouthing, "Hi Taylor!" She continued: "I'm not gonna comment on that in my monologue".
Lautner was a presenter on stage at the VMAs in September 2009, when Kanye West took the microphone during Swift's Best Female Video acceptance speech.
Three months later, Lautner also hosted SNL, and joked during his monologue about making up for not stepping in during the interruption.
"What I really wanted to do was this," Lautner said, before fighting a cardboard cut-out of the rapper (the moves he pulls in this are copied almost step-by-step in the 'I Can See You' music video, because of course they are).
In late December 2009, Swift and Lautner's relationship was reported to have ended.
This timeline was confirmed when Swift released her third album, Speak Now, in October 2010. The third track 'Back To December' is about how she regrets hurting him.
In the lyrics, she refers to him comforting her after the VMAs: "And how you held me in your arms that September night, the first time you ever saw me cry," she sings in the bridge.
"The person I wrote this song about deserves this," she has said about the song. "This is about a person who was incredible to me — just perfect in a relationship — and I was very careless with him. So, this is a song full of words that I would say to him that he deserves to hear."
Lautner confirmed it was about him in a 2016 Facebook Live.
In a 2023 episode of The Squeeze, Lautner's podcast with his wife, he recalled thinking the onstage West incident was a skit he was not privy to.
"I presented the award to her, so I gave her the award [and] I took five steps back and was standing five feet behind her. In the middle of giving her thank you speech, Kanye jumps up onto the stage," he recalled.
"I can barely hear it. I can't see them. I'm just assuming that this whole thing was a practised and rehearsed skit because why else would Kanye West be jumping up on the stage, interrupting Taylor Swift? It just didn't make sense. He jumped off, she finished [and] the second she turned back around and I saw her face for the first time, I was like, 'Oh. No, that wasn't good.'"
In the lead-up to Speak Now (Taylor's Version)'s release, Lautner joked multiple times about feeling 'safe' but said he was "praying for John [Mayer]", the subject of the album's most scathing song, 'Dear John'.
After the tour appearance, the three Taylors — Swift, Lautner and Dome — all shared a photo of themselves recreating the famous three Spider-Man point meme.
The Taylorverse, indeed.
Feature image: Getty/Twitter.
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