Entertainment Music Pop Music Taylor Lautner Reacts to Taylor Swift's Upcoming 'Speak Now' Re-Release: 'I Feel Safe — Praying for John' Speak Now contains Taylor Swift's ballad "Back to December," widely thought to be about Taylor Lautner, and "Dear John," believed to be about John Mayer By Rachel DeSantis Rachel DeSantis Rachel DeSantis is a senior writer on the music team at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2019, and her work has previously appeared in Entertainment Weekly and the New York Daily News. People Editorial Guidelines Published on May 16, 2023 05:21PM EDT Taylor Lautner; Taylor Swift; John Mayer. Photo: Dillon Sherlock/CBS/Getty; Kevin Mazur/WireImage; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Taylor Lautner is ready for the wave of renewed attention he's about to receive from Swifties when ex Taylor Swift releases Speak Now (Taylor's Version) — and he's keeping fellow possible Swift muse John Mayer in his thoughts, too. Lautner, 31, and his wife Tay Dome Lautner stopped by the TODAY show on Tuesday, where he offered his thoughts on Swift's 2010 album, which contains "Back to December," a song many fans believe is about their brief relationship. "I think it's a great album," he told TODAY.com. "Yeah, I feel safe. Praying for John." John, of course, is John Mayer, who is also thought to be the subject of a song on Speak Now — though while "Back to December" paints its subject in a positive light, "Dear John" does not. Though Swift, 33, has never confirmed that the song is about Mayer, 45, he told Rolling Stone in 2012 that the lyrics to the ballad made him "feel terrible." RELATED VIDEO: Taylor Swift Defends Fan from 'Aggressive' Security Mid-Performance in Viral Clip: 'Hey, Stop!' "Because I didn't deserve it. I'm pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do," he said. "I never got an email. I never got a phone call. I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I'd already been dressed down. I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you've ever been, someone kicked you even lower?" Swift and Lautner, meanwhile, dated in 2009 after meeting on the set of the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, and the "Anti-Hero" singer even poked fun at their relationship in her Saturday Night Live monologue that November. "If you're wondering if I might be dating the werewolf from Twilight," she jokingly sang, before mouthing "Hi Taylor" to the camera and blowing a kiss — and finishing with "I'm not going to comment on that in my monologue." Taylor Swift Announces 'Speak Now (Taylor's Version)' at Nashville Show: 'I Love to Surprise You' Taylor Swift. Lisa Lake/TAS23/Getty for TAS The two have stayed friendly in the years since, and on the debut episode of his new podcast The Squeeze, which he hosts with his wife, Lautner recalled the moment that Kanye West famously stormed the stage during Swift's VMAs acceptance speech. The Twilight actor said he "was unaware that the Kanye thing was not a skit," saying, "I presented the award to her. I took five steps back and was standing five feet behind her. And, yeah, in the middle of her giving her 'thank you' speech, Kanye jumps on the stage." Tay Dome Lautner, meanwhile, revealed in a February episode of The Viall Files podcast that she is an "OG fan" of Swift's, and thinks highly of Speak Now. Taylor Lautner Shares Romantic Video of Wedding to Wife Taylor Dome: 'Six Months Down, Forever to Go' "That album was the one I was like, 'That's probably one of the best albums of all time," she said. "The lyrics are insane." Swift announced earlier this month while on stage in Nashville that Speak Now (Taylor's Version) will be released on July 7, with six previously unreleased songs from the vault. "I first made Speak Now, completely self-written, between the ages of 18 and 20. The songs that came from this time in my life were marked by their brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions and wild wistfulness," she wrote on social media following the announcement. "I love this album because it tells a tale of growing up, flailing, flying and crashing … and living to speak about it." Close