Taylor Swift & John Mayer’s Age Gap: She Was ‘Too Young’ When They Dated
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They briefly dated between 2009 and 2010 and while celebrity romances always capture the public’s attention, it was Taylor Swift and John Mayer’s age gap that had people preoccupied.
In 2009, Swift told Elle magazine that Mayer was one artist she really wanted to collaborate with. “He Twittered the other day that he wrote a song, and he wants to make it a duet with me,” she said at the time. “I freaked out when I heard because I’ve been such a big fan of John for such a long time. I’m really excited about just the idea that he would even mention me in his Twitter!”
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Speaking with MTV, Mayer further explained his intentions around originally reaching out to Swift via social media He joked that there’s “no better way to put it out into the universe than to tweet it,” adding, “but then it’s not like she reads the tweet and goes, ‘I’m in,’ although she may have. I don’t remember.” Collaborate they did, later that year for “Half of My Heart”, on his album Battle Studies. They would go on to perform a handful of shows together.
Then, US Weekly reported that Swift and Mayer enjoyed a two-hour dinner at Nashville’s Bistro Cabana on January 24, 2010. which sparked rumors that their friendship was escalating. After moving out of her parent’s home in December to her new digs in Tennessee, Swift subsequently broke it off with Taylor Lautner to make Taylor squared a single Taylor once more. Swift and Mayer reportedly bonded when they were both in Nashville on January 24 and were seen flirting in a recording studio. “She was sitting on John’s lap, her arms were around him, and she was talking in his ear,” a source told InTouch Weekly magazine. “They were acting like teenagers.”
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Neither spoke publicly on the romance, but both released breakup songs—Swift’s “Dear John” and Mayer’s “Paper Doll”—which are widely believed to reference their relationship.
What was Taylor Swift and John Mayer’s age gap?
Taylor Swift and John Mayer’s age gap is 12 years. While that doesn’t seem like a lot by today’s standards, Swift was only 19, and Mayer was 32, when they got together, which was a sore enough point for her to mention it in her 2010 song “Dear John”. The composition features the lyrics: “Dear John, I see it all now that you’re gone / Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?”
Speaking to People about the inspiration for the song, Swift didn’t mention who it was about. “A lot of times when people’s relationships end, they write an email to that person and say everything that they wish they would have said,” she said, adding: “A lot of times they don’t push send.”
In 2012, Swift told Glamour that it was “presumptuous” to think “Dear John” was about Mayer. “I never disclose who my songs are about.” She added that she had avoided reading his response. “I know it wasn’t good, so I don’t want to know,” Swift said. “I put a high priority on staying happy, and I know what I can’t handle.” She continued, “It’s not that I’m this egomaniac and I don’t want to hear anything negative, because I do keep myself in check. But I’ve never developed that thick a skin. So I just kind of live a life, and I let all the gossip live somewhere else. If you go too far down the rabbit hole of what people think about you, it can change everything about who you are.”
The song originally appeared on Swift’s third studio album, Speak Now, and was re-released on July 7, 2023, as part of her Taylor’s Version re-recordings reclaiming ownership over her material after Scooter Braun sold the rights to her music. “The songs that came from this time in my life were marked by their brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions and wild wistfulness. I love this album because it tells a tale of growing up, flailing, flying and crashing… and living to speak about it,” she tweeted in May 2023, upon announcing the Speak Now re-recordings.
The song “Dear John” caught Mayer off-guard when it was first released in 2010 so it’ll be interesting to see how he reacts once their relationship is back under the microscope. He told Rolling Stone in 2012 that, “I never got an e-mail. I never got a phone call,” he said. “I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I’d already been dressed down. I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you’ve ever been, someone kicked you even lower?” When asked about the song’s line, “Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?” Mayer said, “I don’t want to go into that.”
He continued: “I will say as a songwriter that I think it’s kind of cheap songwriting. I know she’s the biggest thing in the world, and I’m not trying to sink anybody’s ship, but I think it’s abusing your talent to rub your hands together and go, ‘Wait till he gets a load of this!’ That’s bullshit.”
Their age gap and ill-fated relationship received further scrutiny when Swift released “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” on her Midnights album: “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first / And I damn sure never would’ve danced with the devil / At nineteen,” the lyrics go.
Upon joining TikTok in March 2021, Mayer found a slew of Swift fans that weren’t so happy to see him. Hours after his first post, the comments were flooded with observations about the former couple’s 12-year age difference. “You’re not safe here john,” one TikTok user wrote beneath Mayer’s first upload. Another fan referenced the lyrics to Swift’s 2010 song “Dear John,” writing, “John don’t you think 19 was too young?”
He later uploaded a video with text overlay that read: “POV: You’re berating me and I’m hearing you out,” he captioned the clip, causing fellow TikTok users to speculate that it was his response to Swifties’ comments. “she had enough dirt on you to write a 6 and half minute song,” wrote one user. “She was a year out of high school and you were in you 30s,” said another.
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