Taylor Lautner expresses regret over his breakup with Taylor Swift, admitting he now sees himself as someone who wasn’t capable of handling a relationship. He wishes they could rekindle their friendship and continue it once again.

Taylor Lautner is very popular among Swifties!Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE at The Lemons Foundation 1st Charity Gala in West Hollywood on Sunday, Lautner, 31, reacted to being termed Taylor Swift’s “best ex” by her fans.“[That] sounds like a nice compliment to me,” says the actor. “I will take it.”

Lautner and Swift, 33, met on the set of Valentine’s Day, where they played high school sweethearts, and they went on to date for a few months back in 2009.The Twilight alum went on to share that his now wife, Taylor Dome Lautner — with whom he celebrated his first wedding anniversary on Saturday — is a “diehard Swiftie.”

She let me know that I’m the only ex without a diss track now,” Lautner adds. “So that sounds like a nice thing. I’ll take it and run. No complaints here.”“In my mind they’re not even exes,” his 26-year-old wife says, with Lautner commenting that the singer is “our friend.”Swift’s other exes include actor Joe Alwyn, The 1975 frontman Matty Healy and singer Joe Jonas.

In July, Swift surprised her fans by bringing Lautner out on stage during her Eras Tour stop in Kansas City. The actor then shocked fans by cartwheeling and backflipping onstage in a throwback to a scene he shared with Swift in Valentine’s Day.I’ve been in front of a lot of people before, but I’ve never been in front of 75,000 Swifties before,” Lautner recalls of his appearance at the concert to PEOPLE. “And it’s a different level of passion. So that was just pretty surreal.”

Asked if the experience was akin to the craze of starring in the Twilight franchise, Lautner says, “Yeah, because Twilight fans are definitely insanely passionate themselves. So I had experienced a taste of that, [but] never 75,000 of them at once. And obviously what Taylor’s doing right now in her career is just unheard of. So similar, but this was definitely up there. It’s a very, very cool experience.”

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She deserves everything that she is getting and going through right now because she’s the hardest-working person,” he continues to PEOPLE. “And just being at the pinnacle that she’s at right now, the way that she carries herself and is just so gracious and kind to absolutely everyone, no matter who you are, it speaks to her character. And that’s the greatest part about her in my opinion.”