Taylor Swift and Tom Odell were seen together for the first time at Groucho Club in London on February 22, 2013, after the BRIT Awards. Previously, Tom had complimented Taylor's songwriting and claimed he was a fan of hers. He also covered her song "I Knew You Were Trouble" back in January 2013.
While they were never in a relationship and apparently didn't go on more than one or two dates, in a 2014 interview with GQ, he admitted that the experience of briefly 'dating' Swift was "terrifying" given the amount of paparazzis attention they got. He commented, "I'd have to be very in love to be with someone that famous."
In July 2021, Tom Odell released his fourth studio album called "Monsters" that included a song "Country Star" that is speculated to be about his brief affair with Taylor and the paparazzis assault. "Picture this, I'm in an English bar with a young American country star/She's telling me all about her new guitar/She's a little bit clever, a little bit daft, a little bit happy with a broken heart [...] Well, picture this, and boy, we're driving fast/The paparazzis are flying past/Like rain on tinted glass/I'm a little bit common and she's a little bit class"
"To some extent, I had a brief brush with worldwide fame when my first album came out. I didn't have any interest in it, but it's very alluring. And it's very self-perpetuating. If you want, you can stay there. You can go out with the right people and you can go to the right parties. The price you pay is your privacy, and it was far too great a price, I felt. I needed to acknowledge that experience." – Tom Odell about the meaning behind "Country Star" to Apple Music.