Jake Gyllenhaal has broken his silence on Taylor Swift's re-release of her song 'All Too Well', widely thought to be about the former couple's short-lived 2010 romance.
Speaking to Esquire Magazine, the Nightcrawler star addressed the wave of backlash and online abuse he received after Swift's updated 10-minute-long version of the track dropped in November - but shrugged off any connection to the song.
"It has nothing to do with me," Gyllenhaal said when asked about 'All Too Well'.
"It's about her relationship with her fans. It is her expression. Artists tap into personal experiences for inspiration, and I don't begrudge anyone that."
When asked if he had listened to his ex-girlfriends re-recorded Red album, which features the song, he replied simply: "No."
The actor, who turned off his Instagram comments amid the wrath of Swift fans following the song's release, was careful not to be too specific when he switched into a discussion about copping online hate.
"At some point, I think it's important when supporters get unruly that we feel a responsibility to have them be civil and not allow for cyberbullying in one's name," Gyllenhaal said.
"That begs for a deeper philosophical question. Not about any individual, per se, but a conversation that allows us to examine how we can - or should, even - take responsibility for what we put into the world, our contributions into the world.
"How do we provoke a conversation? We see that in politics. There's anger and divisiveness, and it's literally life-threatening in the extreme."
The Brokeback Mountain star continued: "My question is: Is this our future? Is anger and divisiveness our future? Or can we be empowered and empower others while simultaneously putting empathy and civility into the dominant conversation?
"That's the discussion we should be having," he said.
Gyllenhaal insisted that despite the internet fallout, the past few months hadn't been hard on him.
"My life is wonderful," he says. "I have a relationship that is truly wonderful, and I have a family I love so much. And this whole period of time has made me realise that."
