There are a handful of moments that define pop culture or, at the very least, shake it up a bit. Case in point: when Taylor Swift and Harry Styles dated in 2012. The two singers sparked romance rumors in the fall of that year when Swift was rehearsing for her performance on “The X Factor” and Styles was reportedly on hand to support her, according to E! News. Not long after, #Haylor took the world by storm; however, their romance was short-lived as they split in January 2013.
While the breakup between Swift and Styles is nearly 10 years in the past, the aftermath of their brief relationship has continued to play out, with both singers using their music to touch on the highs and lows of their relationship. Most recently, Swift released her “Midnights” album, and fans are theorizing that “Maroon” and “Question…?” may be about Styles.
In light of the recent speculation, here’s a timeline of Swift’s relationship with Styles.
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Fall 2012: Harry Styles and Taylor Swift Spark Dating Rumors
Back during Styles’s One Direction days, the singer notoriously wore a silver paper-plane necklace on the regular, so much so that Swift would eventually reference this necklace later in her iconic song “Out of the Woods,” but we’ll get to that later. In the fall of 2012, the two sparked dating rumors when Swift was seen wearing the same necklace, though neither confirmed or denied the speculation at the time.
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December 2012: Harry Styles and Taylor Swift Are Pictured Together
It didn’t take long for Styles and Swift to take their relationship public. In December 2012, the two pair were spotted on a stroll in New York City. According to E! News, Styles and Swift were walking in the Central Park Zoo along with Styles’s hair stylist, Lou Teasdale, plus Teasdale’s fiancé and their daughter, Lux. “Harry and Taylor were walking next to each other. They seemed happy to be together, talking and smiling. Taylor seemed to be in a great mood. Lou and Tom were walking next to them and pushing their baby Lux in a stroller,” a source told the outlet at the time.
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January 2013: Harry Styles and Taylor Swift Break Up
After just a few short months of dating, Styles and Swift called it quits. Us Weekly reported that the breakup occurred while the two were vacationing together in the British Virgin Islands. Following the split, Swift reportedly traveled back to Nashville, while Styles remained on vacation and was even seen stopping by the home of billionaire Richard Branson.
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2015: Taylor Swift Discusses Having Anxiety While Dating Harry Styles
Swift may not have explicitly named Styles as her boyfriend to the public, but she hasn’t shied away from referencing her relationship with him over the years. In 2015, the singer delivered a stunning performance of “Out of the Woods” during a a Grammys listening session and dived into the inspiration behind the song to the audience.
“The song itself, what I wrote, hearing this track, it just kind of conjured up all these feelings of anxiety that I had had in a relationship where everybody was watching, everybody was commenting on it,” Swift said. “You’re constantly just feeling like ‘Are we out of the woods yet? What’s the next thing going to be? What’s the next hurdle? We’re going to have to jump over it. Are we going to make it to next week?'”
