Not so friendly. Taylor Swift‘s recent Red album rerelease may have explored her brief romance with Jake Gyllenhaal, but her ex-boyfriend John Mayer is also not thrilled about the music.
“Even though [John is] a pretty open minded guy, he disagrees with the way Taylor goes about targeting exes in her music, especially with all the online trolling and bullying that goes on these days,” a source exclusive tells Life & Style. “He acts like he doesn’t care but of course he finds it hurtful.”
Mayer, 44, and Swift, 31, originally dated from December 2009 to February 2010. Following their short-lived romance, the Miss Americana star released the 2010 album Speak Now, which included songs like “Dear John,” that discussed the twosome’s significant age difference.
“Dear John, I see it all, now it was wrong / Don’t you think 19 is too young / To be played by your dark twisted games, when I loved you so? / I should’ve known,” the lyrics read.
At the time, the “New Light” singer said he “didn’t deserve” to be addressed by Swift in such a public way.
“It made me feel terrible. It was a really lousy thing to do,” he told Rolling Stone in June 2012, calling Swift’s music “cheap songwriting.”
The Connecticut native expected to hear from the “Bad Blood” singer before she addressed their relationship in an album.
“I never got an email. I never got a phone call. I was really caught off guard,” he added. “[That’s] abusing your talent to rub your hands together and go, ‘Wait ’til he gets a load of this!’ That’s bulls–t.”
As Swift continues to rerecord her previous discography to have full ownership of her music, her 2012 Red album was recently reimagined with 30-tracks and an “All Too Well” short film. After the project’s release on Friday, November 12, the insider noted that Mayer has “no time” for Swift and that they “aren’t friends” at the moment.
“John is extremely wary of Taylor. He‘s convinced that she’s trying to bring him down,” the source adds, referencing Swift’s plans for Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). “Whenever she’s about to drop a new song or album he becomes nervous that it could be about him. It’s a horrible feeling.”
Swift, for her part, recently sounded off on how she thinks the subjects behind her songs feel about the new versions.
“I haven’t thought about their experience, to be honest,” the songwriter said during an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers on Thursday, November 11.