• Producer friend tells Heat Street that Hiddleston says his romance is for real.
• Much-lampooned July 4th frolic in Rhode Island was “blowing off stress”.
• Hiddleston said to be presently under stress over recent film flops and his worries over UK’s Brexit vote.
Actor Tom Hiddleston has dismissed to friends talk that his very public romance with Taylor Swift is a giant publicity stunt.
The union of pop star Swift and posh English actor Hiddleston reached new heights of ridicule and skepticism over the Fourth of July weekend when they were seen cavorting among twentysomething starlets in the Rhode Island surf.
But a theater producer, who co-produced Hiddleston’s role in Coriolanus in 2013, told Heat Street that he’d just spoken to the actor: “Tom was adamant to me that this is not a publicity stunt to promote Taylor and himself. He’s just letting off steam and enjoying himself.”
The 35-year-old, Cambridge-educated Hiddleston was wearing a ‘I Heart T.S.’ tank top on his Rhode Island vacation. The pair were joined at Swift’s clifftop estate by young celebrity friends including Cara Delevingne, Karlie Kloss, Ruby Rose, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Gigi Hadid.
Swift finished a relationship with her DJ boyfriend Calvin Harris in early June while Hiddleston, previously considered a cerebral, reserved personality, has been single since a relationship ended with his Avengers co-star Elizabeth Olsen.
Calm down everyone, Tom Hiddleston is just a huge T.S. Eliot fan.
— Ryan Finnigan (@sicryan) July 4, 2016
The pair hit it off at May’s Met Gala in New York and ever since have been conducting a very public romance leading to accusations their union is a publicity stunt or footage being filmed for an upcoming music video from Swift, who has long enjoyed twisting her public image.
Many have pointed out that public exposure will do Hiddleston no harm since he is fresh off the back of the success of AMC TV mini-series The Night Manager, and is currently waiting to discover whether he will become the seventh actor to replace Daniel Craig as James Bond.
But the theater producer who spoke to Heat Street said, “He doesn’t think he’s in the running for the new James Bond film and he’s upset about Brexit and the current political instability in Britain. It’s actually been a stressful few months for him- The Night Manager worked out well but his recent films High-Rise and [Hank Williams biopic] I Saw the Light both bombed at the box office.
“I want Tom to do more theater but he’s off to Queensland in a few weeks to shoot the new Thor film and he said he wanted to relax before then.”
Heat Street last met Hiddleston in Toronto last fall where he wanted to talk about his extreme diet to play Hank Williams which involved running ten miles and going on an exercise bike for fifteen minute each day to physically replicate the pencil-thin singer from Alabama: “I tried to do it in a healthy way which is a little more running. It was alright in the end- I lived to tell the tale!
“But it was very intense …in so many respects it was far away from me but I honestly found the experience of excavation and research a pleasure and it was a pleasure to learn to sing like Hank and how to play.”
Hiddleston added of his friendship with Jeremy Irons: “We play squash together and that’s not a euphemism.” By his account, he’s doing more than playing squash with Taylor Swift.
Invite like getting golden ticket willy wonka style https://t.co/ek6v2uQZgN
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) July 5, 2016
