John Mayer Responds To Threatening Messages From Taylor Swift Fans

After Taylor Swift dropped the extended, “Taylor’s Version,” of her song “All Too Well,” which allegedly discusses her contentious former relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal, fans have been sending threatening messages to John Mayer, who also dated Swift in 2009. A 15-year-old fan, shared screenshots of her DMs with Mayer before privatizing her account. In the screenshotted messages, the fan told Mayer “f–k yourself you ugly bitch I hope you choke on something.” The fan then followed, “respond you bitch,” clearly not anticipating that Mayer would acknowledge her DM.

Mayer, 44, did not shy away from the hate, choosing to respond directly to the fan through his account by stating “Hi —-, it’s John. I’ve been getting so many messages like these the past couple of days. I decided to choose your message at random to reply to. You can feel free to screenshot, share in any way you like if you want.” The singer continued, “I’m not upset, I just tend to have a curious mind and feel compelled to ask. Do you really hope that I die?”

Shocked that Mayer responded, the fan replied to the DM, admitting “OMG WHAT I don’t want you to DIE” along with a 30-second voice clip echoing a similar sentiment. Mayer’s account continued by writing, “It’s okay. I wanted to understand. So it’s a fun thing people are doing without taking into account that I might see it and be affected by it?” The fan followed up by stating “yeah, I guess nobody thought you would see it or answer since you are famous and don’t really interact with random people. Again, very sorry!!” After the interaction, the fan took to TikTok to post the messages in a since-removed video.

Swift is in the process of re-recording her first six albums, including 2010’s Speak Now, which includes the song “Dear John” which is purportedly about Mayer. Fans believe Mayer will be next to the buzzsaw that Gyllenhaal recently endured, with fans already flooding to Mayer’s TikTok comment section with resentment. Given that the age gap between Mayer and Swift when they dated was larger than her and Gyllenhaal’s (11 and 9 years respectively), fans anticipate that Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) will pack a rueful punch.

Mayer is no stranger to feelings of indignation toward Swift, as he stated in a 2012 Rolling Stone cover story that he resented “Dear John” and was “really humiliated by the lyrics.” It seems that Mayer may have changed his attitude in recent years because an appearance on an episode of SiriusXM’s Radio Andy revealed that he would secretly be “jazzed” if an ex wrote another song about him.

Swift recently performed “All Too Well” on Saturday Night Live.