Taylor Swift’s Ex Shares Bloody Childhood Prank That Left His Neighbors ‘In Tears’

Joe Alwyn says his biggest childhood prank went wrong – and involved the police.

The “Brutalist” the actor shared Friday on “The Drew Barrymore Show” that decades before he dated Taylor Swift and (and possibly became the inspiration for the title of her 2024 album, “The Tortured Poets Department,”) tortured his entire neighborhood with a bloody practical joke.

“When I was … about eight years old, I thought it would be a fun idea to prank the neighbors and I wrote some letters,” Alwyn told Barrymore. “They were fun, but they were the menacing fun kind, and they were dipped in fake blood from a toy store.”

Alwyn, who grew up in a small town near London, sheepishly added: “I can’t believe I’m telling this,” before explaining how he and his older brother Thomas left the letters in every letterbox on his block.

He told Barrymore: “My parents came back from a dog walk and the phone rang and it was a neighbor on the phone saying, ‘Do you have one too?’ And me and my brother thought it was really funny because it worked! Success!”

The actor recalled that he and his siblings were so giddy at the budding chaos that they ran upstairs to get a better view of the situation, but realized their little prank had turned into something far more serious when the police started arriving.

“I’m not kidding, it’s true,” Alwyn said Friday. “The street was … quickly filled with the whole neighborhood crying, screaming and worried. And understandably they had called the police and Scotland Yard were on their way.”

The practical joke came to an end when three officers visited Alwyn’s home and the brothers confessed, although at the time Alwyn was sure he would be arrested.

“I don’t remember what the policeman yelled at me,” Alwyn said, “but they were yelling.”

He left behind his mischievous past to become a professional actor with roles in major films such as “The favorite” (2018) and “Kind of kindness” (2024), and also contributed to two Swift albums during their 2017 to 2023 romance.

Alwyn, who is one of many ex-boyfriends rumored to have inspired her workbroke her silence in June about the relationship ending – and told The Times of London at the time, although he feels “good,” the breakup was a really “hard thing to navigate.”

Alwyn recently wrapped an adaptation of “Hamlet” co-starring Oscar winner Riz Ahmed.