Taylor Swift receives an award onstage at the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards. Photo / Getty
Taylor Swift receives an award onstage at the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards. Photo / Getty
She's got a blank space, baby. Taylor Swift is single (again) after breaking up with Tom Hiddleston.
So what happens to all the ex-boyfriends she leaves in her wake?
Calvin Harris, Harry Styles, Taylor Lautner, John Mayer, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joe Jonas, Conor Kennedy and now ... Tom Hiddleston have all dated the Blank Space singer, with each breakup seemingly messier and more public than the next.
But do Swift's ex-boyfriends end up with their credibility, respectability and careers intact or do their professional lives and public images suffer after they break up with her?
Swift's latest ex is British actor Hiddleston, 35. The Thor actor was ridiculed as soon as he started dating Swift in June, when they were dubbed "Hiddleswift" (they broke up after a three month-long whirlwind, over-exposed romance).
After being pictured wearing an "I heart TS" tank, cringe-worthy PDAs including a seemingly staged photo shoot on rocks, and photographed with Swift's squad of supermodels meant it was hard for anyone to take Hiddleston seriously as a Hollywood action star.
Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston are seen at LAX on July 06, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. Photo / Getty
The backlash over "Hiddleswift" is said to have cost Hiddleston the role of James Bond - a part he was favourite to win.
Being one of Swift's ex-boyfriends doesn't really fit with the 007 action hero, tough guy image - in fact, it made him look like a lovestruck schoolboy, which is definitely not Bond-esque.
A source told The Sun: "Bond needs an air of mystery - his public romance with Taylor has made him totally uncastable".
The "Hiddleswift" saga directly followed the singer's 18 month relationship with DJ Harris, which ended with a war of words after she started dating Hiddleston.
Calvin Harris
Though Swift and Harris appear to finally have made peace this week when she posted an Instagram video of her singing along to the song they wrote together, 'This Is What You Came For,' while sitting front row at BFF Gigi Hadid's Tommy Hilfiger runway show in New York (and Harris "liked" the video on Instagram).
The 'Shake It Off' singer famously writes songs about her breakups, with each album (most recently, 1989) basically a little black book about her ex-boyfriends.
Harris pulled a Taylor Swift on Taylor Swift by writing songs about her.
Taylor Swift and DJ Calvin Harris attend the 2015 Billboard Music Awards. Photo / Getty
He has penned at least two Tupac/Biggie-style "dis tracks" about her - Ole and the soon-to-be-released My Way (while Ole's lyrics are about infidelity, Harris has reportedly denied it is about Swift).
Harris' image hasn't had as much of a battering as Hiddleston's.
But his comments about Swift - accusing her of trying to "bury" him like she did to Katy Perry - were evidence of bad blood between the pair when Swift's team reportedly leaked the news that Swift wrote 'This Is What You Came For.'
"I know you're off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy ETC but I'm not that guy, sorry," Harris tweeted.
Unlike Hiddleston, Harris's career hasn't really taken a hit - his involvement with Swift has added emotional depth to his otherwise vanilla, although commercially successful, songs.
'Your Body Is A Wonderland' singer Mayer's romance with Swift in 2009 (when she was 19 and he was 31) inspired her song Dear John ("Don't you think I was too young to be messed with? The girl in the dress cried the whole way home").
It added to Mayer's reputation as a serial womaniser though Mayer told Rolling Stone he was "really humiliated" by the song. But his heartfelt reaction to the track contradicted his playboy image, admitting he was hurt by it.
"I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I'd already been dressed down," Mayer told Rolling Stone in 2012.
John Mayer and Taylor Swift perform onstage during Z100's Jingle Ball 2009. Photo / Getty
"I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you've ever been, someone kicked you even lower?
"It was a really lousy thing for her to do."
Did Mayer's music career suffer? No. He hadn't really had a hit since 2002 anyway. It added to his reputation as a cad but any of his other ex-girlfriends, including Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Aniston, could probably tell you that.
Swift wrote a string of songs about Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal on her album Red, most famously 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,' which painted him as emotionally unstable ("I remember when we broke up the first time, saying, 'This is it, I've had enough,' 'cause like we hadn't seen each other in a month when you said you needed space").
His involvement with Swift didn't seem to cost the Southpaw actor - known for his intense and physically demanding movie roles - any cred in Hollywood but Swift's songs about him (also 'Red' and 'All Too Well') certainly tarnished him with the "bad boyfriend" brush.
Gyllenhaal managed the post-Swift breakup crisis around the release of 'Red' flawlessly by not speaking about her publicly, which is valuable advice for any other Hollywood actors intending to date Taylor Swift.
Harry Styles
Pre-Swift, Harry Styles was already a super-famous member of British boy band One Direction, with a reputation as a ladies' man.
Styles's relationship with Swift only made him more famous, especially in America.
Taylor Swift and Harry Styles are seen walking around Central Park on December 02, 2012 in New York City. Photo / Getty
After they broke up in 2013, Styles went on to date models including Kendall Jenner and Paige Reifler.
While Swift wrote 'Style' and 'Out Of The Woods' about him, he wrote the One Direction song 'End of the Day', off 1D's Made In The Am, about her.
His career lull coincided with 1D's break-up, though he is eyeing an acting career with a role in director Christopher Nolan's upcoming movie Dunkirk, alongside Tom Hardy.
Taylor Lautner
Last month, Lautner described his former relationship with Swift, which blossomed on the set of Valentine's Day, as "a good time".
"It was a fun few months there," Lautner said.
Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner sighting at the Alice+Olivia Boutique on Robertson Blvd.Photo / Getty
Taylor Swift wrote 'Back To December' about Taylor Lautner, whose Hollywood career stalled after his role in the Twilight Saga.
Joe Jonas
Jonas really hurt Swift by breaking up with her over the phone, prompting her to write songs about him -among them, 'Forever and Always,' 'Better Than Revenge', 'Last Kiss' and 'Holy Ground.'
On 2008's 'Forever and Alway's, Swift sang: "Did I say something way too honest? Made you run and hide like a scared little boy?"
Singers Taylor Swift and Joe Jonas at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards at Paramount Pictures Studios. Photo / Getty
The former Jonas Brothers singer and Swift made up when he started dating her best friend, supermodel Gigi Hadid (Hadid and Jonas have since broken up).
Jonas still has a successful music career in the US, most recently with the song Cake By The Ocean with his band, DNCE.
