On the same day Taylor Swift released a video for "Begin Again," a song about starting over after a bad breakup, word comes that the country singer's romance with Conor Kennedy is kaput.
Citing an unnamed source close to Swift, Us Weekly reported that the 22-year-old "You Belong to Me" singer and the 18-year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy have split.
"They quietly parted ways a while ago," the friend told the magazine. "It was just a distance thing. No hard feelings. They're fine."
The pair were hot and heavy over the summer, with Swift and Kennedy spotted several times strolling hand in hand in Hyannis Port. Just two weeks ago, Ethel Kennedy, Conor's grandmother, raved about the country singer, and seemed to confirm a widely circulated rumor that Swift had plunked down $4.9 million — a tiny fraction of her sizable fortune — to buy a handsome 4,440-square-foot gray shingle house across the street from Ethel's place in Hyannis Port.
"I'm happy that we'll be neighbors," said RFK's widow. (No word if Swift now plans to sell the seaside spread.)
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Even before she and Conor clicked, Swift had an interest — a fixation, you might say — with the Kennedys. In a 2011 profile in The New Yorker, the singer revealed that she likes to watch History Channel documentaries.
"I'm just so obsessed with the whole history of J.F.K. and R.F.K.," she said, adding that she had read a 900-page book called "The Kennedy Women."
In an interview in the new issue of Billboard, Swift talks about the songs on her new album, "Red."
"At one end of the spectrum you have 'Sad Beautiful Tragic,' which is a breakup song in the form of a funeral march," she says, "and you also have 'Never Ever Getting Back Together' again, which is a breakup song in the form of a parade."
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We can only wonder where Conor fits into that "spectrum."
Of course, considering how often Swift has cycled through famous boyfriends — John Mayer, Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, and Jake Gyllenhaal, to name a few — it's perhaps surprising that she and young Kennedy, who's a senior at Deerfield Academy, lasted as long as they did. (Who's next? There's speculation that Swift might be sweet on Kennedy's cousin Patrick Schwarzenegger.)
But on the bright side, Swift will no doubt get a song out of the experience. She always does.