Taylor Swift asked fans not to cyberbully John Mayer

ByLydia Koh

June 26, 2023

For the first time in 11 years, Taylor Swift performed a live rendition of her 2010 track Dear John. Reportedly the track is believed to be about her past relationship with John Mayer where they dated from December 2009 to February 2010 when Mayer was 31 and Swift was 19.

Taylor Swift asked fans not to cyberbully John Mayer — Photo: Instagram/John Mayer

During her concert at the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday night, Swift played the song and discussed its upcoming re-release on her album “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).” She is in the middle of re-recording much of her earlier music due to a rights dispute with music producer Scooter Braun.

Taylor Defending herself

In the video of her introducing the song, Swift can be heard telling fans: “I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19… I’m not putting this album out so you can go on the internet and defend me against someone you think I wrote a song about 14 million years ago.”

“I’m putting this album out because I want to own my music and I believe any artist who has a desire to own their music should be able to,” she told the crowd, as quoted in USA Today.

The last time Taylor Swift performed “Dear John” live was in 2012 during a concert in Auckland, New Zealand.

Is the song about John Mayer?

Although she has never officially confirmed that the song is about her relationship with the musician, fans have widely interpreted it as such, and Mayer has hinted in interviews that he believes it is about him.

In the lyrics of “Dear John,” Swift sings lines like, “Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with? The girl in the dress cried the whole way home, I should’ve known,” and “And you’ll add my name to your long list of traitors who don’t understand, and I’ll look back and regret how I ignored when they said, ‘Run as fast as you can.'”

Paper Doll is a response to Dear John

In 2013, Mayer released a song called Paper Doll and it was believed to be a response to Dear John. The singer told Rolling Stone in a 2012 interview that he felt really humiliated by Swift’s song, stating that he “never did anything to deserve that.”

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