How Much Money Is Joe Alwyn Making Off Taylor Swift Songwriting Credits?

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Taylor Swift collaborated with her former boyfriend Joe Alwyn on several songs across multiple albums, ensuring he’ll continue to profit from the songwriting credits for years to come.

Their collab included tracks from Swift’s albums Folklore and Evermore, such as “Exile,” “Betty,” “Champagne Problems,” “Evermore,” “Coney Island,” and “Sweet Nothing” from Midnights. Alwyn, 33, wrote songs under the pseudonym “William Bowery,” which was later revealed to be him by the pop icon herself in her 2020 Disney+ film, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions.

Alwyn continues to benefit financially from his contributions, with a recent analysis by Life & Style suggesting he’s already made around $2.3 million from Spotify streams alone. This doesn’t include even more earnings from streaming, live performances, and Swift’s Eras Tour, which has grossed $1 billion.

“I came in and I was like, ‘Hey, this could be really weird, and we could hate this, [but] because we’re in quarantine and there’s nothing else going on, could we just try to see what it’s like if we write this song together?'” Swift, 34, recalls in her Disney+ film. She highlights Alwyn’s significant involvement, especially in composing “Exile’s” piano part: “He was just singing it, the way that the whole first verse is… I was entranced and asked if we could keep writing that one.”

Their partnership even contributed to Swift’s Folklore winning Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, where the singer acknowledged her boyfriend at the time’s impact in her acceptance speech. “Joe is the first person that I play every single song that I write, and I had the best time writing songs with you in quarantine,” she said while accepting her award.

The Shake It Off singer reflected on their unlikely musical collaboration, attributing it to the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 lockdown, which brought them closer creatively. “Do I think we would have taken the step of, ‘Hey, let’s see if there’s a song in here. Let’s write a song together’ if we hadn’t been in lockdown? I don’t think that would have happened, but I’m so glad that it did.” she reflected in a 2020 interview with Zane Lowe of Apple Music.