Tom Hiddleston breaks silence on doomed Taylor Swift romance

One of the most high profile relationships of 2016 was undeniably Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston’s bizarre pairing, with the two stars being papped canoodling on a private beach just three weeks after Taylor had split from her long-term boyfriend, Calvin Harris.

The couple’s whirlwind romance continued to be papped every step of the way – Taylor was pictured meeting Tom’s parents after just nine days of dating, Tom was spotted kissing Tay’s hand in a not-at-all-posed candid snap in Italy, and – most famously – Tom was pictured frolicking in the sea wearing an ‘I Heart T.S.’ vest top at her Fourth of July party.

Needless to say, that last move made the Hollywood actor a laughing stock, with many bemused fans taking to their social media pages to poke fun at the incredibly public declaration of love after such a short space of time.

When the pair eventually split after three months, nobody was surprised. Still, both parties kept a dignified silence… Until now, with Tom opening up about his relationship with Taylor in a new interview with GQ magazine and – also unsurprisingly – he had quite a lot to say.

Insisting that it wasn’t a ‘showmance’, Tom shared: “Taylor is an amazing woman. She’s generous and kind and lovely, and we had the best time.

“Of course it was real.”

And there was something else that Tom wanted to set the record straight on, saying of that ill-fated vest top: “The truth is, it was the Fourth of July and a public holiday and we were playing a game and I slipped and hurt my back.

“And I wanted to protect the graze from the sun and said, ‘Does anyone have a T-shirt?’ And one of her friends said, ‘I’ve got this.’

“And we all laughed about it. It was a joke. It was a joke among friends.”

But that’s not all that Tom had to say, with GQ commenting that once he started talking about Hiddleswift he “literally could not stop”.

The star continued: “I have to be so psychologically strong about not letting other people’s interpretations about my life affect my life. A relationship exists between two people. We will always know what it was.

“The narratives that are out there altogether have been extrapolated from pictures that were taken without consent or permission, with no context. Nobody had the context for that story.

“And I’m still trying to work out a way of having a personal life and protecting it, but also without hiding. So the hardest thing is that that was a joke among friends on the Fourth of July.

“I don’t know I just, I was surprised. I was just surprised that it got so much attention. The tank top became an emblem of this thing.

“I only know the woman I met. She’s incredible. A relationship in the limelight… A relationship always takes work. A relationship in the limelight takes work. And it’s not just the limelight. It’s everything else.

“So we decided to go out for dinner, we decided to travel.”

When Tom and Taylor announced their split, the actor was in Australia filming the next installment of ‘Thor’, and he was hounded by the waiting paparazzi every day.

Still, the star decided to rise above it, concluding with: “I’m not going to live my life in hiding.”

And that, ladies and gents, is Tom’s side of the story… And if we know Taylor at all, we only have to wait until the release of her next album to learn hers.