Lea Michele has accomplished a feat journalists have tried and failed to achieve for years: confirming whether Taylor Swift’s 2010 ballad “Back to December” is, in fact, about ex-boyfriend Taylor Lautner.
On Monday, Lea Michele, Lautner and John Stamos took part in a Facebook Live Q&A to preview the new season of Fox’s “Scream Queens” during the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour in Beverly Hills. But attention quickly turned toward the “Twilight” star’s dating history when Stamos joked about how he “exposed” a past relationship of Lautner’s in an earlier interview. (The actor famously dated Swift in 2009.)
“He dated quite a few girls,” Stamos said. “There was a list. Right, Taylor?”
“I need to catch up,” Michele quipped.
“Um ... I mean ... Yeah, I’ve dated some people,” Lautner admitted.
“You dated Taylor Swift,” Michele continued. “I remember that.”
But instead of laying off the hot-button issue, the actress pressed on further, trying to identify the song written about her new “Scream Queens” co-star and seemingly confusing Swift’s “Back to December” with “All Too Well.” The pop star is famous for writing songs about exes but has refused to name names, leaving fans to speculate which song is about which former boyfriend.
“Didn’t she write a song about you?” Michele asked.
“That’s what she does,” Lautner said. “She writes songs.”
After confessing to be a Swiftie herself, Michele tested out some lyrics on Lautner.
“Something about, ‘If I would have known / I wouldn’t have done that / I’ll make you a hat,’” she said. “Something about a hat! I don’t know!”
Although she misremembered the lyrics, Michele had Lautner backed into a Swift-sized corner. He interjected, revealing, “It’s called ‘Back to December.’”
So the unnamed gentlemen with “tan skin” and a “sweet smile” with whom Swift wished she had a second shot is Taylor Lautner after all.
Now all we need is to lock Michele in a room with Jake Gyllenhaal.
That probably wouldn’t end all too well.