Jake Gyllenhaal Breaks His Silence About Taylor Swift's Album 'Red,' Insisting It Has "Nothing To Do" With Him

41-year-old A-lister Jake Gyllenhaal is one of those Hollywood pillars that has been around for as long as we can remember. He's also one of those celebrities who tends to keep his personal life fairly private. Which is precisely why people went crazy when photos surfaced of him and Taylor Swift hand-in-hand in 2009.

Taylor Swift's Album 'Red' Is Supposedly about Her Romance with Jake Gyllenhaal

Taylor re-released "Red" in November 2021 (it was originally released in October 2012), and she had hinted before that many of the songs were inspired by her relationship with Jake. The single "All Too Well" was one of the most popular hits from the album, and it reached the top Billboard charts yet again last year when her fans heard the new extended 10-minute version of the song.

"Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much, but maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up, running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well," the lyrics read. "You call me up again just to break me like a promise, so casually cruel in the name of being honest."

If you listen to the heartfelt lyrics of the song, it certainly sounds like Jake broke Taylor's heart. To put it even more bluntly, it sounded like he did her wrong. There are references to their age gap in the lyrics as well as the 10-minute music video she released on YouTube, which featured Sadie Sink and Dylan O'Brien.

Jake Gyllenhaal Finally Responded to the Rumors

Jake has pretty much stayed silent on the whole drama for the last decade. But in his recent interview with Esquire, he opened up about what he really thinks about Taylor's album "Red."

There's no doubt that many of Taylor's loyal fans felt animosity towards Jake, and there were plenty of comments on his Instagram (and even on his sister Maggie Gyllenhaal's social media pages) that displayed their anger at him for whatever he allegedly did to Taylor. Jake finally broke his silence about the whole situation.

“It has nothing to do with me. It’s about her relationship with her fans,” he said. “It is her expression. Artists tap into personal experiences for inspiration, and I don’t begrudge anyone that.” 

Jake turned off his Instagram comments around the same time that the extended version of "All Too Well" was released, so clearly he was affected in some way by the social media avalanche of negative feelings toward him. But Jake kind of shifts the conversation rather than speaking particularly about Taylor and her music.

"At some point, I think it’s important when supporters get unruly that we feel a responsibility to have them be civil and not allow for cyberbullying in one’s name,” he continued. “That begs for a deeper philosophical question. Not about any individual, per se, but a conversation that allows us to examine how we can—or should, even—take responsibility for what we put into the world, our contributions into the world. How do we provoke a conversation? We see that in politics. There’s anger and divisiveness, and it’s literally life-threatening in the extreme.”

He doesn't refer specifically to Taylor anymore and sort of ends the conversation about Taylor here. But he does say that he's happy with where his life is, and he's "not unaware that there's interest in my life."

“My life is wonderful. I have a relationship that is truly wonderful, and I have a family I love so much. And this whole period of time has made me realize that," he added. Jake has been dating Jeanne Cadieu since 2018, and it seems like they're still going strong.