harry styles biography 2022

Harry Styles

English-born singer Harry Styles rose to fame as one of the five members of the boy band One Direction. He launched his solo career in 2016 and made his acting debut in the 2017 film 'Dunkirk.'

Who Is Harry Styles?

In 2010 Harry Styles auditioned for the UK television show The X Factor , where the judges combined him with four other young male singers to form One Direction. The boy band became a pop music sensation, delivering hits like "Best Song Ever" and "Story of My Life" through five immensely successful studio albums. Styles then made a solo splash in 2017 with his debut single, "Sign of the Times," and a self-titled album. In 2020, he received praise for his second solo album, Fine Line .

Harry Edward Styles was born on February 1, 1994, in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in the West Midlands region of England. His parents, Des and Anne, divorced when he was 7 years old. He and his sister Gemma were brought up by their mother in the town of Holmes Chapel in Cheshire. His mother was later remarried, to Robin Twist.

Styles attended Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School, where he and three of his friends formed a band called White Eskimo. Styles was White Eskimo's lead singer, and the band was popular enough to win a band competition at their school. After school and on weekends, Styles worked at the W. Mandeville bakery in Holmes Chapel.

'The X Factor'

Performing as One Direction (a name reportedly suggested by Styles), the five boys became one of the most popular contenders in the X Factor finals that season. Although they finished the competition in third place, they were immediately signed to Cowell's Syco music label.

One Direction

Styles, the youngest member of One Direction, became a fan favorite for his curly hair, wide smile and sweet-yet-naughty demeanor. He sang some of the lead vocals on the band's first single, "What Makes You Beautiful," which was released in September 2011 in the United Kingdom. One Direction's debut album, Up All Night , was a best seller in both the United Kingdom and the United States the following year. In another highlight of 2012, Styles and the rest of One Direction performed at the Olympics closing ceremony in London.

Styles went on to enjoy immense success with his bandmates, One Direction following Up All Night with Take Me Home (2012), Midnight Memories (2013) and Four (2014), all debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The group's final album, Made in the A.M. , just missed the cut by arriving at No. 2 in 2015, before the band split for a lengthy hiatus.

Solo Albums: 'Harry Styles,' 'Fine Line'

Styles made a successful solo entry in 2017 with the epic single "Sign of the Times," his accompanying self-titled album debuting in the familiar No. 1 spot. Fans then waited another two years for his next single, which came in October 2019 with the soulful "Lights Up." His sophomore solo album, Fine Line , contained his first No. 1 single, "Watermelon Sugar." That year he was also nominated for three Grammy awards.

After appearing in concert documentaries with One Direction, Styles made his feature film debut in Christopher Nolan 's 2017 war thriller Dunkirk , as an Allied soldier named Alex.

Personal Life

Known as "the flirt" of One Direction, Styles' romantic relationships were followed obsessively by the press and fans as he rose to fame. In 2011 he began dating television presenter Caroline Flack, whom he met when he was competing on The X Factor and she was hosting its companion show, The Xtra Factor . The difference in their ages—Styles was 17 at the time, and Flack was 32—became the subject of discussion.

Styles was then romantically linked to photographer Sarah-Louise Colivet, models Emma Ostilly and Cara Delevingne, and singers Lily Halpern and Rita Ora. His most-publicized relationship of 2012 was a two-month liaison with pop star Taylor Swift , the experience allegedly fueling a couple of Swift's songs. Styles later dated French model Camille Rowe.

The singer opened up about Swift and his romantic life during a March 2020 interview with Howard Stern , calling it "flattering" to be the subject of someone else's songs, and also described his recent encounter with muggers on Valentine's Day.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Harry
• Birth Year: 1994
• Birth date: February 1, 1994
• Birth City: Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: English-born singer Harry Styles rose to fame as one of the five members of the boy band One Direction. He launched his solo career in 2016 and made his acting debut in the 2017 film 'Dunkirk.'
• Astrological Sign: Aquarius
• Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us !

• I wake up so many mornings feeling so lucky and so grateful to be where we are.

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Everything We Know About Harry Styles' 'Harry's House'

Ahead of the release of Harry Styles' new album, out May 20, GRAMMY.com compiled eight facts about the highly anticipated 'Harry's House.'

Although Harry Styles may be one of the most boisterous performers in today's pop sphere — just looking at photos from his Coachella headlining performance will psych you up — he's always approached social media with a light touch. So it's no surprise Styles took the coy route when announcing what his fans have anxiously awaited: his third album.

Styles revealed the big news on social media in March with just four words: "Harry's House. May 20th."

The boy bander turned rock star hasn't said too much about his next LP, the follow-up to 2019's Fine Line . But amid his Coachella teasers and his fitting Better Homes & Gardens cover story, there's still plenty to divulge for fans before Harry's House arrives.

Below, take a look at everything GRAMMY.com could find on Harry's House so far.

The Album Is Titled Harry's House , Arriving May 20

On March 23, Styles revealed his third album on social media in subdued fashion: A simple post of the album cover — a contemplative Styles in an upside down room — with the caption "Harry's House. May 20th."

The announcement came without any warning, naturally sending fans into a frenzy — including his Coachella duet partner , Shania Twain , who exclaimed "Oh my gosh I cannot wait!!"

The Title Came From More Time Spent At… Well, Harry's House

The pandemic-driven two years of downtime was the first time Styles had a break since his career began in 2010. Being home for an extended period proved revelatory for Styles; he found home in the physical sense, but also "in terms of a headspace or mental well-being," he told Better Homes & Gardens .

As the BH&G writer alluded, though, there are images of Harry's house sprinkled across the album, from references to the kitchen, "sitting in the garden" and "maple syrup, coffee, pancakes for two."

He Used A "Blank Canvas" To Create It

Styles' first and second albums, 2017's Harry Styles and 2019's Fine Line , paid homage to Joni Mitchell and David Bowie , both classic artists who inspired the singer.

But as detailed in Better Homes & Gardens , Styles opted to ignore his influences, cleaning his aural palette with classical music. In turn, he started anew with, as he put it, "a blank canvas.

Lead single "As It Was" indicated that the clean slate may result in a lighter melodic sense and brighter synth-pop production across Harry's House — something that was further teased when Styles performed the funked-up "Late Night Talking" during his Coachella headlining set. (He also debuted the melancholy, acoustic "Boyfriends," which was more reminiscent of the folk-inspired sounds from his self-titled LP.)

Though Styles hasn't confirmed any intentional relation, its title mirrors Mitchell's "Harry's House / Centerpiece" from her 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns . In March, Mitchell's account tweeted Styles' album announcement and said "love the title."

He Teamed Up With His Right-Hand Men

Whatever Harry's House brings, fans who enjoyed Styles' first two albums will likely revel in this one too. That's because the star wrote and recorded nearly every song with Tyler Johnson and Thomas Hull (better known as Kid Harpoon), two of his closest collaborators on Harry Styles and Fine Line .

Johnson and Hull co-produced 10 of the 12 tracks on Fine Line , and Johnson co-wrote all but one of the songs on Harry Styles ("Sweet Creature," which Hull coincidentally co-wrote). Harry's House also features appearances from Styles' previous collaborators Mitch Rowland and Amy Allen, the latter of whom co-wrote his Fine Line hit "Adore You."

The Harry's House Tracklist Is Broken Into Two Parts

In yet another abrupt-yet-subtle social media post, Styles unveiled the Harry's House track list on Twitter on April 28. The 13 songs will be split into Side A and Side B.

One fan pointed out that the album's opener, "Music For A Sushi Restaurant" is "sooo billy joel of you" (a la Joel's "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant").

Others may have noticed that Styles continues his sly odes to fruit across his discography with "Grapejuice" ( Harry Styles featured a fan-favorite rocker titled "Kiwi"; Fine Line included both "Cherry" and the GRAMMY-winning "Watermelon Sugar").

Styles Considers It "By Far The Most Intimate" Album He's Made

Styles hinted to Better Homes & Gardens that while Harry's House "sounds like the biggest, and the most fun" of his albums thus far, he also revealed, "it's by far the most intimate."

Though he didn't elaborate on what exactly he meant by "intimate," Styles did open up about getting more comfortable with talking about sex. "I think I got to a place where I was like, why do I feel ashamed? I'm a 26-year-old man who's single — it's like, yes, I have sex."

He's Celebrating The Album's Release With Two "One-Night Only" Shows

On the night of the Harry's House release, Styles will perform the album live at UBS Arena at Belmont Park, New York. Four days later on May 24, he'll play another show at London's O2 Academy Brixton.

If you aren't in New York or London, never fear: Styles is continuing his Love On Tour trek in 2022. While it's unclear if he'll add Harry's House tracks to the set list, Styles will hit the UK and Europe in June and July, and Mexico and South America in November and December. In between, he'll play mini residencies in Toronto, New York, Austin, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the singer announced May 5.

This Is The Proudest He's Felt About An Album

As he explained to Better Homes & Gardens , Styles felt limitations with his first album because of the pressures to be taken seriously post-One Direction. With Fine Line , he said he was concerned with making "really big songs." Now, his inhibitions have lessened — and it's resulted in what he feels is his best work yet.

"This is kind of the proudest I've been of something I've made so far," Styles told Capital FM . "And I feel the most comfortable I've been with myself, and happiest with what I'm making, and the best I've felt about something that I'm making."

He continued, "I feel really happy at the moment. "It's the first time I feel like I'm making music, and putting music out, from a real place of personal freedom, and that is a really liberating place to be creating from. The process has easily been the most joyous of anything that I've experienced so far while making music, and I kind of want to continue that with putting it out."

If Styles' pride correlates to the music, Harry's House might just be his best work yet. We're happy to be invited over.

GRAMMY Rewind: Harry Styles Wins His First GRAMMY, Takes Home Best Pop Solo Performance For "Watermelon Sugar"

Photo: Kevin Mazur

GRAMMY Rewind: Harry Styles Celebrates His Fellow Nominees (And His Biggest Fan) After Album Of The Year Win In 2023

Revisit the moment Harry Styles accepted the most coveted award of the evening for 'Harry's House' and offered a heartfelt nod to his competitors — Beyoncé, Adele, Lizzo, Coldplay and more.

After a wildly successful debut and sophomore record, you'd think it was impossible for Harry Styles to top himself. Yet, his third album, Harry's House , proved to be his most prolific yet.

The critically acclaimed project first birthed Styles' record-breaking, chart-topping single, "As It Was," then landed three more top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Late Night Talking," "Music for a Sushi Restaurant" and "Matilda." The album and "As It Was" scored Styles six nominations at the 2023 GRAMMYs — and helped the star top off his massive Harry's House era with an Album Of The Year win.

In this episode of GRAMMY Rewind , revisit Styles' big moment from last year's ceremony, which was made even more special by his superfan, Reina Lafantaisie. Host Trevor Noah (who will return as emcee for the 2024 GRAMMYs ) handed the mic to Lafantaisie to announce Styles as the winner, and the two shared a celebratory hug before Styles took the mic.

"I've been so, so inspired by every artist in this category," said Styles, who was up against other industry titans like Beyoncé , Adele , Lizzo and Coldplay . "On nights like tonight, it's important for us to remember that there is no such thing as 'best' in music. I don't think any of us sit in the studio, making decisions based on what will get us [an award]."

Watch the video above to see Harry Styles' complete acceptance speech alongside his collaborators Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson . Check back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of GRAMMY Rewind, and be sure to tune into the 2024 GRAMMYs on Sunday, Feb. 4, airing live on the CBS Television Network (8 -11:30 p.m. LIVE ET/5-8:30 p.m. LIVE PT) and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the special airs).

Here Are The Album Of The Year Nominees At The 2024 GRAMMYs

Photo: JMEnternational/Getty Images

Harry Styles' Biggest Songs: 10 Tracks That Showcase The Versatility & Creativity That Have Made Him A Star

Since his solo debut in 2017, Harry Styles has become one of pop's biggest names by pushing the boundaries of the genre. Dig into 10 songs that showcase Styles' musical genius, from smash hits like "As It Was" to beloved deep cuts like "Fine Line."

Throughout his career, Harry Styles has proven that his music defies categorization. From his poppier days with One Direction to the more rock- and funk-inspired sounds of his solo music, every song and album have been a testament to his ongoing evolution as an artist .

His three solo albums thus far — 2017's Harry Styles , 2019's Fine Line , and 2022's Harry's House — have explored soft rock, psychedelic pop, and synth-pop. With such genre-fluid diversity in his discography, there's something for everyone to indulge in.

Styles' genre-blending techniques have undeniably made him a household name. The past two years solidified that, whether through his 169-show Love On Tour or his Album Of The Year win for Harry's House at the 2023 GRAMMYs. 

Though Styles has remained relatively quiet since the Love On Tour wrapped in July, he surely has fans anticipating his next move. For now, take a look at 10 Harry Styles tracks that illustrate the versatility and creativity that's helped him go from boy band member to solo sensation.

"Over Again," Take Me Home (2013)

A deep cut from One Direction's second album, Take Me Home , "Over Again" features an impressive solo from a then-19-year-old Styles. This song takes listeners on a nostalgic journey, looking back to the happier days of an ill-fated relationship, yearning for the ability to rewind time to a point before the love story unraveled.

Styles' emotionally charged vocal delivery accentuates and intensifies the profound sense of melancholy that is being relayed in the song. The depth in Styles' voice invites the audience to connect and empathize with the song's heartbroken narrative — a trait that still permeates in his solo ballads today. 

"Clouds," FOUR (2014)

Styles highlights his vocal prowess in a different way on One Direction's youthful FOUR cut "Clouds." Not only did it feature extensive, powerful vocal runs, but it also showcased the rock sensibilities of his voice. "Clouds" diverted from 1D's traditional pop sound and ventured into a more guitar-driven style, incorporating rock elements and arguably foreshadowing the sounds of Styles' debut album released three years later.

"Sign of the Times," Harry Styles (2017)

Styles kicked off his solo journey in bold fashion: a nearly six-minute ballad. The cinematic, '70s rock-inspired "Sign of the Times" presented a stark departure from his previous work with One Direction, hinting that he was more than ready to evolve musically on his own.

The release of the song marked a turning point in Styles' career, enabling him to embrace a more mature sound and gain credibility as a solo artist. His continued exploration of genres is a trait that Styles has carried into his later projects, ultimately establishing his status as a genre-fluid artist.

"Kiwi," Harry Styles (2017)

One of Styles' boldest steps into the rock genre, "Kiwi" tells a story about a rebellious and free-spirited girl who captures Styles' attention, despite knowing she's no good for him. In this lively track, Styles trades polished pop for unfiltered rock vocals, showcasing an edgier side he hadn't displayed in his boy band days — both lyrically and sonically.

The song's dynamic energy is further amplified by the rich supply of classic rock-inspired guitar grooves. While Styles hasn't revisited the raw sound of "Kiwi" much since, it serves as a reminder that he can tackle any creative technique he desires.

"Watermelon Sugar," Fine Line (2019)

One could argue that "Watermelon Sugar" is a perfectly crafted pop song: refreshing guitar grooves, a lively instrumental, sultry harmonized vocals. In fact, it's so flawless, it earned Styles his first GRAMMY in 2021 for Best Pop Solo Performance.

That's just one way the Fine Line single marked a pivotal moment in Styles' career. It also became his first No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, proving that he has staying power as a pop star in his own right. And as one of two songs with more than 2 billion Spotify streams alone, "Watermelon Sugar" has also proven to be a Harry Styles classic. 

"Falling," Fine Line (2019)

One of Styles' most gut-wrenching tracks, "Falling" offers an introspective take on heartbreak. The haunting piano-driven melody emphasizes the pain in Styles' voice as he realizes his harmful habits caused him to lose a lover.

The song's emotional transparency and stripped-down vocals make it one of his most emotionally mature tracks, as well as one of his most captivating. While the track is Styles' lowest-charting single to date (it reached No. 62 on the Hot 100), "Falling" has proven itself to be a fan favorite, with more than 1 billion streams on Spotify. 

"Fine Line," Fine Line (2019)

Despite being the title track, "Fine Line" isn't just a deep cut from Styles' acclaimed 2019 album, it's an outlier in his whole discography — but in a beautiful way. The song is largely instrumental, with a lonely, yet emotionally-charged energy that highlights Styles' stunning falsetto.

In an interview with Capital FM , Styles cited a connection between the song's lyrics and his feelings throughout the album-making process; with the closing lyrics echoing, "We'll be alright," the song sheds light on the apprehension that often accompanies embarking on a new creative journey. The message foreshadowed Styles' subsequent ventures after the record's release, including a step into acting and the exploration of a new sound in Harry's House .

"As It Was," Harry's House (2022)

The lead single for Harry's House , "As It Was" served as Styles' first plunge into the synth-pop genre, which carried throughout the project. Despite the track's buoyant melody, its true essence conveys a more gloomy narrative. Styles explores the idea that nothing remains the same once being put into the limelight — a poignant message from one of pop's biggest stars.

Along with introducing a new sound for Styles, the brilliantly juxtaposing track also cemented him as a bonafide superstar. After "As It Was" debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in April 2022, it reigned for 15 weeks , marking the most for a British artist in the chart's history. It was also a chart titan in Styles' home country, becoming the longest-running No. 1 and best-selling single of 2022 on the UK Singles Chart. What's more, it helped Styles earn his first Record Of The Year GRAMMY nomination, and undoubtedly contributed to his Album Of The Year win at the 2023 GRAMMYs.

"Late Night Talking," Harry's House (2022)

Taking the synth-pop of "As It Was" into the '80s, "Late Night Talking" blends retro-inspired vocal distortions and groovy instrumentation. Yet, somehow, it has a timeless groove that still feels contemporary — a skill that has become a Styles trademark.

The single had big shoes to fill as it followed the smash hit "As It Was" but it fiercely proved that Styles' had room for multiple hit songs under his belt. "Late Night Talking" landed the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Pop Airplay Chart and No. 3 on the Hot 100 Chart.

"Matilda," Harry's House (2022)

One of Harry's House 's few somber tracks, "Matilda" instantly became another fan favorite in his catalog. As he gently sings over plucked guitar instrumentals, he comforts someone who feels out of place within their family at home ("You don't have to be sorry for leavin' and growin' up," he sings in the chorus).

While Styles has delivered plenty of tender moments, the storytelling and emotion of "Matilda" arguably helps it stand as his most thoughtful composition to date. Although it remains as an album cut, "Matilda" is further proof that Styles' has mastered the skill of making music that resonates with listeners — whether he's compelling them to shed tears or dance along.

Harry Styles' Sonic Evolution: How He Grew From Teen Pop Idol To Ever-Evolving Superstar

Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016

Upon winning the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album for 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' Kendrick Lamar thanked those that helped him get to the stage, and the artists that blazed the trail for him.

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly . Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!

He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly .

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube . This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg , Doggystyle . This is for Illmatic , this is for Nas . We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal , Anna Wise and Thundercat ). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift 's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN ., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers .

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Watch: Harry Styles Releases New Video For "Daylight" From 'Harry's House'

"Daylight" is the latest track on Harry Styles' 'Harry's House' to receive the video treatment. The clip finds the three-time GRAMMY winner sauntering around a traveling carnival.

James Corden may have jokingly made a video for Harry Styles ' "Daylight" in three hours, for $300, but that's not the end of the story — Styles has finally finished the job.

On July 19, the three-time GRAMMY winner  — including Album Of The Year at the 2023 GRAMMYs , for his blockbuster third album, Harry's House — unveiled a full-fledged music video for "Daylight."

In the clip, Styles strolls around a traveling carnival — a complex of cherry-red structures — and interacts with its quirky denizens. Midway through, he even takes flight on black and yellow wings, and eventually finds himself astride a horse. At video’s end, Styles walks a tightrope against an azure sky.

Read More: 5 Takeaways From Harry Styles' New Album Harry's House

This is the fifth video from Harry's House , following "As It Was," "Late Night Talking," "Music For a Sushi Restaurant," and "Satellite."

The “Daylight” video arrives just three days before Styles’ final show of his long-running Love On Tour. He’ll close out the nearly two-year trek — which included 15 sold-out nights at New York’s famed Madison Square Garden — in Reggio Emilia, Italy on July 22.

Along with touring, Styles has co-starred in the psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling and romantic drama My Policeman since the release of Harry's House . He also expanded on his fashion ventures, co-releasing a Gucci collection with fashion designer Alessandro Michele in Nov. 2022.

Check out the new video for "Daylight" below and keep checking GRAMMY.com for Harry Styles news!

• 1 Everything We Know About Harry Styles' 'Harry's House'
• 2 GRAMMY Rewind: Harry Styles Celebrates His Fellow Nominees (And His Biggest Fan) After Album Of The Year Win In 2023
• 3 Harry Styles' Biggest Songs: 10 Tracks That Showcase The Versatility & Creativity That Have Made Him A Star
• 4 GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016
• 5 Watch: Harry Styles Releases New Video For "Daylight" From 'Harry's House'

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22 August 2022 12:50 PM

Harry Styles: the world’s most wanted man

Harry styles has become a global pop icon. now, he has his sights set on hollywood. how does he make all of it look so easy — even when it definitely isn’t.

By Brittany Spanos

On a Friday night in New York, Harry Styles put on a show.

It wasn’t just any show; it was the first time he performed his third and soon-to-be-biggest album, Harry’s House , in its entirety. The crowd that May night covered Long Island’s UBS Arena in feathers and glitter and tears — a ritualistic skin shedding of sorts whenever Styles comes to town.

Fans noticed something different about the encore: Styles didn’t end with his usual closer, ‘Kiwi’; instead, he opted to finish the night with a second performance of his new single ‘As It Was’, his dance-through-the-tears pandemic reflection on isolation and change. When he played it, the crowd exploded in a way even Styles had never experienced. It left him a bit shaken.

“We came offstage, and I went into my dressing room and just wanted to sit by myself for a minute,” he tells me, two months later. “After One Direction, I didn’t expect to ever experience anything new. I kind of felt like, ‘All right, I’ve seen how crazy it can get.’ And I think there was something about it where I was… not terrified, but I just needed a minute. Because I wasn’t sure what it was. Just that the energy felt insane.”

At 28, Styles has unlocked a new level of stardom for himself. Years ago, he regularly filled stadiums as a member of One Direction, his former boy band. This spring and summer, he’s playing them on his own. ‘As It Was’ has become his hugest song yet, setting streaming records and topping the charts in more than two dozen countries, including 10 weeks straight in the US. Because he’s a star with a largely young, female fan base, many have refused to engage with him as much more than a pretty teen idol. (I don’t need to lay out decades of music history to show how wrong of a take that is.) But he can feel the tides change in curious ways. “‘As It Was’ is definitely the highest volume of men that I would get stopping me to say something about it,” he notes. “That feels like a weird comment because it’s not like men was the goal. It’s just something I noticed.”

Before his headlining set at Coachella in April, I caught Harry backstage, surrounded by James Corden, Styles’s onstage guest Shania Twain, and his girlfriend, Olivia Wilde. Later, I took in sold-out shows in New York and at Wembley Stadium. The immense love showering Styles was impossible to ignore — you see it in the faces of every fan, whether they’ve been supporting him for “one year, two years, five years, 12 years”, as he says in nearly every end-of-show thank you speech. Along the way I heard him everywhere, even when I wasn’t trying. ‘As It Was’ played in every cab. ‘Watermelon Sugar’ soundtracked breakfast. ‘Golden’ lurked quietly at a London chemist’s. ‘Late Night Talking’ blasted at a Brooklyn bar, leading one man to proclaim, “I like Harry Styles. I can admit it,” like it was a radical act of self-acceptance.

And while he may be everywhere in 2022, Styles is, at the moment, literally right in front of me, sitting in an armchair of a hotel business suite in Hamburg, Germany, on a sweaty June afternoon. After a dip in the Irish Sea this morning, he flew into town and is now enjoying a day off in the middle of his first European tour since 2018.

In person, Styles looks more like your best friend’s cute, sporty older brother than the gender-bending style icon he’s become. He’s left the boas and sequin jumpsuits in the dressing room, opting instead for a blue Adidas track jacket, gym shorts, and Gucci trainers. His hair, often described as “tousled”, like he’s a renegade prince in a romance novel, is clipped back with a hair claw, a signature day-off accessory. 

Styles is a kind of millennial anomaly: he plugs his phone in across the room, never once sneaking a glance for a rogue notification. He maintains eye contact as his thoughts unfurl in his often slow drawl. He’s a bit more Zen, even stoic, than he once was; that goofy, class-clown energy he exuded when the world first fell in love with him in One Direction 12 years ago has naturally diminished. But he’s still as affable and charming as ever, remembering details from small talk we had in all the other cities where I had been (professionally) stalking him, and proving earnestly curious about how I was going to spend my time in Hamburg and how magazine deadlines work. (Back in New York, after surprising fans at a Spotify event for his new album, he asked me my thoughts on David Crosby’s most recent album, which he loved.)

“‘As It Was’ is definitely the highest volume of men that I would get stopping me to say something about it” — Harry Styles

“My great uncle lives here,” Styles says of Hamburg. “He married a German lady, so I have a German cousin. They always used to come and visit when I was a kid, and the only word in English [the cousin] knew was ‘lemonade’. I didn’t know if she actually wanted lemonade or was trying to say ‘Give me some water, please!’” 

Of course it wasn’t meant to take him this long to get back to places like Hamburg, where he’ll play for more than 50,000 fans tomorrow night at Volksparkstadion, a local football stadium. Love on Tour, the name for his current trek, was supposed to launch in the spring of 2020, a few months after Styles released his second album, Fine Line. We all know what happened next. 

Styles didn’t get to play live again until last autumn, but something funny happened in the interim. While we were bound to our homes, Styles experienced his first number one hit in Fine Line ’s ‘Watermelon Sugar’, a tune so sweet it may take a moment to realise he’s singing about cunnilingus. Less than a year later, he won his first Grammy for it. 

As the pandemic deepened, Styles ended up back in Los Angeles, where he keeps a home, and moved in with three friends. They’d “go for walks, cook dinner, wash the lettuce, all that kind of stuff,” he says, until he decided to use his downtime productively and began writing new material. Rick Rubin’s Malibu studio, Shangri-La, was available, so Styles moved in with longtime producers and co-writers Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson. “We didn’t really know what we were going in for,” he says. “It just felt like sitting at home doing nothing might feel better if we all move in together and try to make some music.” Before they knew it, they were making Harry’s House , a revelatory statement that happens to be his most radio-friendly album to date. He took inspiration from Haruomi Hosono’s 1973 LP, Hosono House, which he first heard when he lived in Japan years ago, and treated the songs like they were an internal monologue, traversing a day in his life.

When flying became an option, Styles came home to London. Later, he drove down to Italy in his late stepdad’s car with a friend, listening to the jazz CDs left behind. He visited the Trevi Fountain one day, likely wearing his short-lived pandemic moustache, and was greeted with just four other people instead of the usual throngs that surround the historic site: “I felt like every day you’d say, ‘Weird time, isn’t it?’ Then go, ‘Yeah, it’s fucking insane!’”

He credits his stream of roommates — friends, collaborators — with keeping him together during this time. “I really would’ve struggled if I’d done the whole thing by myself,” he says, mirroring the “ Harry, you’re no good alone ” lyric from ‘As It Was’. After Italy, Styles visited friends in France, then returned to work, eventually posting up at Real World Studios near Bath. By the time he set off across the US to finally tour behind Fine Line last autumn, Harry’s House was secretly finished.

Now, besides the unavoidable singles and the victory-lap world tour, there are other indicators of next-level stardom: his skincare, nail polish and clothing line called Pleasing and a fashion collection with Gucci, not to mention his flourishing movie career. He’s starring in the psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling and in the intimate drama My Policeman, and he’s nabbed a deal with Marvel Studios to play Eros in at least one of the Eternals films. “Everything in my life has felt like a bonus since X-Factor ,” he says, referring to the singing competition that led directly to One Direction. “Get on TV and sing. I never expected and never thought that would happen.”

But today, in a Hamburg hotel, Styles is still trying to make sense of it all. He thinks hard about love, shame, honesty and the importance of kindness and therapy. And he worries. He worries about how he can be one of the biggest pop stars in the world, the kind who can be everything for his fans while also being a great son, brother, friend and partner to the people standing beside him. As everything gets bigger, Styles imagines a life that is smaller. How does the world’s most wanted man save the best parts for himself?

When Styles played two sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium in June, the first thing he did after stepping offstage each night was take a shower. The post-show shower has become a ritual: a hygienic necessity, sure, but also a crucial moment of clarity and reflection. He washes away the screams full of love and desire to just be in his presence. Anyone would be overwhelmed by that. “It’s really unnatural to stand in front of that many people and have that experience,” he says. “Washing it off, you’re just a naked person, in your most vulnerable, human form. Just like a naked baby, basically.”

Those post-Wembley showers were especially gratifying. When One Direction, which Styles casually refers to as “the band”, played the stadium in 2014, he ended up with tonsillitis on the day of the show. “I was miserable,” he recalls. “We played the first one, and I remember I came off, got in the car, and just started crying because I was so disappointed.”

Styles’s solo shows at Wembley were a reunion of sorts: he had friends and family from all parts of his life and career in the audience on both nights. His mum, Anne Twist, sister Gemma, friends and his team all danced in the stands next to Wilde and her two young children. Even former bandmate Niall Horan swung by, smiling through ‘What Makes You Beautiful’.

As he’s become one of the world’s biggest pop stars, Styles’s need for privacy — for keeping that “naked baby” self out of the public eye — seems to have grown. Secrecy has helped to fend off constant questions about his sex life, the kind that were tossed his way as soon as he was of legal age.

“Everything in my life has felt like a bonus since X-Factor. Get on TV and sing. I never expected and never thought that would happen” — Harry Styles

In the past couple of years, he started to go to therapy more routinely. “I committed to doing it once a week,” he explains. “I felt like I exercise every day and take care of my body, so why wouldn’t I do that with my mind?”

Through it, he started to process parts of himself he hadn’t figured out before. “So many of your emotions are so foreign before you start analysing them properly. I like to really lean into [an emotion] and look at it in the face. Not like, ‘I don’t want to feel like this,’ but more like, ‘What is it that makes me feel this way?’”

One feeling he needed to shed was shame, the kind of shame that comes from having your sex life scrutinised while you’re still just trying to make sense of it. Over the years, he learned to stop apologising for it. He learned he could be vulnerable in private while still protecting it from the public.

Sometimes, though, he worried he was a “hypocrite” for being so closed off. His shows have become empowering safe spaces for his fans, so many of whom want to share who they are with him. Onstage, he’s helped people come out to their parents and facilitated everything from marriage proposals to gender reveals. Separating his personal life from his public one hasn’t been a choice he takes lightly. “When I’m working, I work really hard, and I think I’m really professional,” he says. “Then when I’m not, I’m not. I’d like to think I’m open, and probably quite stubborn, too, and willing to be vulnerable. I can be selfish sometimes, but I’d like to think that I’m a caring person.”

He’s found a vague balance through compartmentalisation. “I’ve never talked about my life away from work publicly and found that it’s benefited me positively,” he explains, perhaps preemptively. “There’s always going to be a version of a narrative, and I think I just decided I wasn’t going to spend the time trying to correct it or redirect it in some way.”

Drawing the curtain over his life has only made everyone who’s not behind it more curious. His sexuality, for example, has been a topic of near obsession for years. He has embraced gender fluidity in his fashion, like Mick Jagger and David Bowie before him, and has repeatedly pointed out how backward it feels to require labels and boxes for everyone’s identity. Critics of his approach have accused him of “queerbaiting” or profiting off queer aesthetics without explicitly claiming the community. Defenders feel it’s unfair to force anyone to label themselves as one thing in order to validate their gender or creative expression.

Styles, without prompting, points out how silly he finds some of the arguments about how he may identify to be: “Sometimes people say, ‘You’ve only publicly been with women,’ and I don’t think I’ve publicly been with anyone. If someone takes a picture of you with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re choosing to have a public relationship or something.” 

Of late, this can be contested. While he is everywhere, so is Olivia Wilde. The pair met on the set of Don’t Worry Darling , which she directed (more on that in a moment), then made a splash when paparazzi snapped them holding hands at his manager and close friend Jeffrey Azoff’s wedding in January 2021.

Wilde and Styles have said little about the relationship, and rumours have filled the space. Anonymous tweeters acted appalled at their age difference (as if a 28-year-old man dating a 38-year-old woman isn’t completely normal) and criticised the director-actor dating dynamic (as if there isn’t a long history of beloved Hollywood couples meeting the same way).

More intense and jarring was a corner of Styles’s fandom that has made fun of Wilde’s dancing or made lengthy Twitter threads and TikTok videos cancelling her for bad or insensitive jokes made a decade ago. If Styles is already held up to a high standard, his potential partners are held to an unreachable one for some of his fans. 

Styles is not the most online person — he uses Instagram to look at plants and architecture posts, has never had the TikTok app, and calls Twitter “a shitstorm of people trying to be awful to people” — but he’s still aware of how those small, toxic corners of the internet are treating the people closest to him. “That obviously doesn’t make me feel good,” he says, carefully. It’s a tightrope he’s treading in discussing this. He wants to — and does! — see the good in his fans, but there’s no denying that like every large online community, this one has a faction that runs on hate and anonymity. 

Even with the boundaries he’s set between his public and private lives, sometimes “other people blur the lines for you”, he says. There’s a conversation he has to have early in a relationship, no matter how weird or premature it may feel. “Can you imagine,” he says, “going on a second date with someone and being like, ‘OK, there’s this corner of the thing, and they’re going to say this, and it’s going to be really crazy, and they’re going to be really mean, and it’s not real…. But anyway, what do you want to eat?’”

“Everyone, including myself, has your own journey with figuring out sexuality and getting more comfortable with it” — Harry Styles

While Styles takes comfort in knowing his whole fandom is not like that, he still wonders about how to respond when the noise gets too loud. “It’s obviously a difficult feeling to feel like being close to me means you’re at the ransom of a corner of Twitter or something,” he says. “I just wanted to sing. I didn’t want to get into it if I was going to hurt people like that.”

When asked about her experience with his fans, Wilde is diplomatic. Like Styles, she believes in what they stand for as a collective, calling them “deeply loving people” who have fostered an accepting community. “What I don’t understand about the cruelty you’re referencing is that that kind of toxic negativity is the antithesis of Harry, and everything he puts out there,” she tells me. “I don’t personally believe the hateful energy defines his fan base at all. The majority of them are true champions of kindness.”

Styles became a leading man when he was four years old, starring in a play called Barney the Church Man. Later, he transformed into Buzz Lightyear in a production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang “because Buzz Lightyear was in the toy shop for some reason”. His other early theatre credits include: Razamatazz in Bugsy Malone (“the band leader”) and the Elvis-inspired Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. (He would later audition for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, but was deemed too iconic by the director.)

Other than that, acting wasn’t really part of his life plan. He liked it, but he found a new rush when he started performing with his band White Eskimo. When they debuted at — and won — a Battle of the Bands competition, it was the first time he felt “the switch”: his teachers looking up at him, instead of vice versa. “I think I was just a show-off,” he says, with a hint of cheekiness. “I say that like it’s past tense.”

But as Styles was preparing the release of his solo debut in 2017, he took his first foray back into acting, with a supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s war epic, Dunkirk. (The director said he had no idea how famous Styles was when he cast him.) By the time Marvel recruited him to become Eros, director Chloé Zhao had no one else but Styles in mind for the role. Thanos’s more heroic brother is portrayed in the comics as an intergalactic playboy of sorts, with superhuman strength and the ability to control people’s emotions (a fitting role for the planet’s hottest pop star). MCU boss Kevin Feige recently teased more from Styles, though so far, his only appearance has been the Eternals’ post-credits scene, alongside the Patton Oswalt-voiced Pip. “It’d be funny if that was it, wouldn’t it?” he jokes of his cameo.

Styles’s role in Dunkirk grabbed Wilde’s attention as she was beginning to map out Don’t Worry Darling. He was an early contender for the role of Jack, a charming but secretive husband to Florence Pugh’s increasingly troubled Alice. And Styles had plenty of reasons to be interested in Don’t Worry Darling. Wilde’s second feature film as a director reportedly started a bidding war among 18 studios, following the success of her directorial debut, Booksmart.

Pre-pandemic talks between Styles and the Darling team didn’t make it far; he was, after all, due on a global tour for most of 2020. Instead, Shia LaBeouf won the role, but by the end of that summer, Wilde had reportedly booted the actor for poor on-set behaviour. 

“I’d wanted to act again,” Styles says. He spent a lot of the pandemic watching movies with his quarantine set of friends and collaborators: he rescreened favourites like the 2012 Belgian drama The Broken Circle Breakdown. Some nights, he and his friends would put a bunch of titles in a hat and choose. (“There was a couple different tastes in the house, so it was between, like, Parasite and Coyote Ugly. ”)

Styles was announced as LaBeouf’s replacement a month before filming began. He proved perfect for the role of Jack, who’s brought Alice to the remote, fictional American town of Victory to work on a secret project the men at the company won’t tell their wives about. Jack’s become a star employee and is desperate for his boss’s approval. “We were looking for someone with innate warmth and palpable charm,” Wilde says. “The entire story depended on the audience believing in Jack.”

Styles shot Don’t Worry Darling between September 2020 and February 2021 in LA and Palm Springs. Those months were the longest Styles had lived in one place in 11 years. He thought about going completely off the grid while making it: maybe get a flip phone, stop making music. “The reality is you get there on the first day and wait around for 75 per cent of it,” he says. “And it’s like, ‘Actually, I’m going to text my mate.’”

At the start, he was understandably anxious about taking on such a large role alongside stars like Pugh, Chris Pine, Gemma Chan and Nick Kroll. “In music, there’s such an immediate response to what you do. You finish a song and people clap,” he says. “When you’re filming and they say ‘Cut,’ there’s maybe part of you that expects everyone to start clapping, [but] they don’t. Everyone, obviously, goes back to doing their jobs, and you’re like, ‘Oh, shit, was it that bad?’” (Being an actor reminded him of session musicians: “You get called in to do your bit, and then someone else puts it all together and makes it.”)

The risk may pay off: he and Pugh are already getting awards season buzz. Wilde says one moment “left us all in tears” — Jack’s promotion scene during a big company gala. “It’s a strange scene, full of fascist references, and a disturbing amount of male rage,” Wilde says. “The scene called for him to stand onstage with Frank (Chris Pine) and chant their creepy slogan, ‘Whose world is it? Ours!’ over and over again. Dark as hell. But Harry took it to another level. He was so fully in the moment, he began screaming the lines to the crowd, in this primal roar, that was way more intense than anything we expected from the scene.”

According to Wilde, Pine backed away, understanding this was Harry’s moment. “The camera operator followed him as he paced around the stage like a kind of wild animal,” Wilde remembers. “We were all gobsmacked at the monitor. I think even Harry was surprised by it. Those are the best moments for an actor — when you’re completely outside your body.”

Within weeks, Styles went from the set of Darling to shooting the more intimate My Policeman. He had read the script the year prior, moved by the story enough to have contacted director Michael Grandage and request a meeting. Styles showed up with every line memorised.

Styles plays Tom, a policeman who develops feelings for a museum curator named Patrick (David Dawson). Set in the 50s, when it was still illegal to be in a same-sex relationship in the UK, the pair move in secret while Tom pursues a marriage with a schoolteacher named Marion (Emma Corrin). The film shifts between the past and the present, when the three reunite under dire circumstances. “It’s obviously pretty unfathomable now to think, ‘Oh, you couldn’t be gay. That was illegal,’” Styles says. “I think everyone, including myself, has your own journey with figuring out sexuality and getting more comfortable with it.” To him, My Policeman is a very human story. “It’s not like, ‘This is a gay story about these guys being gay.’ It’s about love and about wasted time to me.”

According to Styles, Grandage wanted to highlight what sex is really like between two men in the scenes between Tom and Patrick. “So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it,” Styles continues. “There will be, I would imagine, some people who watch it who were very much alive during this time when it was illegal to be gay, and [Michael] wanted to show that it’s tender and loving and sensitive.”

Darling and Policeman make their big premieres at prestigious film festivals in Venice and Toronto late this summer, but Styles isn’t sure his pivot to the silver screen will be permanent. “I don’t imagine I’d do a movie for a while,” he says. There are rumours about how many Marvel movies he’s signed on for and other franchises he might be secretly in talks to do. (In response to a rumour he’ll be starring in a future Star Wars series, he says, “That’s the first I’ve heard of that. I’d imagine… false.”) 

He doesn’t rule out taking on new roles. “I think there’ll be a time again when I’ll crave it,” he says. “But when you’re making music, something’s happening. It feels really creative, and it feeds stuff. A large part of acting is the doing nothing, waiting thing. Which if that’s the worst part, then it’s a pretty good job. But I don’t find that section of it to be that fulfilling. I like doing it in the moment, but I don’t think I’ll do it a lot.”

Like a true tousled-haired prince, Styles invites me to attend a concert with him by the philharmonic in Hamburg, eight hours before his own show.

On past tours, he says, “I was getting to a lot of cities and feeling like ‘I’ve been here six times and I’ve never seen any of it.’” This tour, he’s been taking in a lot of architecture. “It’s something I can do on my own, just sit somewhere and look at stuff,” he says.

Studying the finer points of buildings fits the regimented, disciplined and distinctly grown-up tour life he’s created. Styles has found himself enamoured with routine on the road: 10 hours of sleep a night, IV injections pumping him with nutrients and vitamins, a strict acid-reflux-conscious diet that cuts out coffee, alcohol and certain foods that affect the throat 50,000 fans are depending on. Last night, he slept with two humidifiers that apparently made it look like he was stepping out of a steam room when he opened his hotel room door.

The Elbphilharmonie Hamburg — “Elphi” for short — is a striking structure, looking something like a gorgeous sail. Styles is wearing the same outfit as when I met him in the hotel the day before, only with shorts swapped out for pinstripe pants and a surgical mask covering his face. He and I are both late and can’t be let into the show until intermission, so instead we comb through the backstage hallways and elevators to see rooms built for incredible acoustics and sweeping views of Hamburg. He marvels at all of it. In a temperature controlled room full of pianos, he asks our tour guide which is the best (“Is there a shining star?”) before sitting down at one and playing for a couple of dreamy, Beatlesque minutes. (He’d mentioned earlier that he spent last summer playing piano every day with his morning coffee.) He has questions about panelling. And like a true tourist, he takes pictures of everything.

The first time I ever met Styles was a lot like this. On his first headlining tour, in San Francisco in 2017, I went backstage to interview Kid Harpoon. Styles stumbled into the room where I was waiting, strolling around less like a headliner with fans lined up around the block and more like the lighting guy. Here was someone who is inexplicably difficult to casually enjoy (you watch one video of One Direction’s funniest interview moments on YouTube and suddenly you’re contemplating how many of their cardboard cutouts you can fit in your dorm) acting so casually. He greeted me then like an old friend, not someone who was still refusing to let go of a One Direction keychain at the time. He asked me how I had been, what I was up to in San Francisco, and if I was excited for the show. Of course I remember every second of it. 

Styles has a gift for making those in his presence feel seen. Just ask fans who bump into him on walks through Central Park or Hampstead Heath, then detail those moments as if they had met the pope (granted, the pope could never pull off a hair claw). 

Before the second half of the concert at the Elphi, the crowd mingles and grabs drinks. As we walk through, Styles goes unnoticed. (The mask helps.) It’s funny to watch one of the world’s biggest pop stars move through space with such ease, as if he’s blissfully unaware of how well-known he is.

“If you make your life about the fact that you can’t go anywhere and everything has to be a big deal, then that’s what your life becomes,” he says. “Now, in London, I walk everywhere. It’s hard to stumble across things and restaurants and places and stuff if you’re just driving everywhere, and it’s just not that fun.”

Styles outlines his upcoming months for me: in August, after he wraps his European tour in Lisbon, he’ll go on holiday with some friends, maybe catch up on the Love Island season he was “gutted” to miss, or see if The Bear is as good as everyone tells him it is. The next leg of his tour includes stops in LA, New York, Austin and Chicago as extended residencies, a decision that meets his personal need for a less strenuous touring schedule and a professional need to be able to attend film festivals and rent studios to write and record music for his fourth album. “I’m always writing,” he says. He and his collaborators are already throwing around ideas. “I think all of us are so excited to get back to it, which feels insane because we’ve just put an album out.” 

“What I value the most from my friends is I’m reminded that it’s OK to be flawed. I’m pretty messy and make mistakes sometimes”  — Harry Styles

More than ever, he is thinking about the future. He wants to take meaningful time off at some point — from touring at least, he’s always writing — and ensure he’s a more present figure for his family and friends. In turn, he’s learned to define what real love looks like to him. “The fantasy, or the vision, or the version of you that people can build you up to be feels like a person that isn’t flawed,” he explains. “What I value the most from my friends is I feel like I’m constantly reminded that it’s OK to be flawed. I think I’m pretty messy and make mistakes sometimes. I think that’s the most loving thing: you can see someone’s imperfections, and it’s not [that you] love them in spite of that, but it’s [that you] love them with that.”

He’s thinking about what it would be like if he had children one day: “Well, if I have kids at some point, I will encourage them to be themselves and be vulnerable and share.” 

He’s thinking about what he wants to say, too. Styles admits he was uninterested in politics as a teenager, oblivious to things that didn’t personally affect him. But as he grew more famous, he worried about that, too. “I took a massive look at myself,” he says, “and was like, ‘Oh, I don’t do enough… or anything.” When conversations around anti-Blackness and inaction reached a fever pitch in 2020, Styles marched in the streets and read books like How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi, and The Will to Change, by bell hooks. He started thinking about racial and gender equity, especially as someone who employs many people on the road. “Pretending as a white person you don’t get a head start just isn’t true,” he says.

We were hanging out right after Roe v. Wade had been overturned in America. “I can’t begin to imagine how terrifying it is to be a woman in America at the moment,” he says. He’ll grab a fan’s sign that reads “My Body, My Choice” at the Hamburg show, displaying it proudly onstage. There’s an energy in the crowds that fills him with careful optimism. “I feel lucky to see a group of people, even just on this tour, who come together in a way,” he says. “I think that group of people is so much less afraid of opening the wound, talking about it, and doing the work, than the generation before us.”

As we wait for the philharmonic’s packed show to restart, I notice a few young girls with their families in the audience and ask Styles what he thinks the crossover between this crowd and his show tonight will be. He looks around at the mostly older faces and goes, “Less than one per cent… I know I’ll be at both.”

Styles watches the orchestra studiously. When the conductor leaves and then returns to a standing ovation, Styles whispers, “He’s about to play his big hit.” Even when he’s not peacocking in front of 50,000, he’s still trying to entertain the one person he’s with.

We walk out before the crowd fully disperses. Styles lingers a second to take some photos of the room before he heads out to get ready for his concert, where he’ll bounce around the stage, lifted by the wails of young fans who have been waiting years for this moment.

His fans will linger tonight, too, crowding in the hundreds outside Volksparkstadion. They’ll take photos of their outfits, their tear- and sweat-stained glittery faces, the piles of abandoned boa feathers. They’ll play his big hits back to him, holding a phone light vigil as they sing One Direction’s ‘Night Changes’ or the Fine Line ballad ‘Falling’. As the city echoes as much of him as it can take, he’ll probably be washing it all away.

Taken from the October/November 2022 issue of Rolling Stone UK.  Buy it online now.  Available on UK newsstands from 24 August.

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Harry Styles turns 30: One Direction’s great survivor triumphs beyond music

World-famous since he was 16, the artist has successfully managed to break away from his teen idol image. with a solo career backed up by three grammys, he has explored the world of acting, owns a unisex cosmetics brand and is now building an arena in manchester, england.

“I’m sorry, by the way. I’m never going back now,” apologizes Harry Styles (Cheshire; United Kingdom, 1994) in his song Lights Up (2019). He meant it. The British artist has been one of the few stars able to rid themselves of the boy band curse, and has evolved into a more personal artistic phase, a transition that has resulted in his being crowned one of the most influential artists of the 21st century . The music industry’s great critics and icons have compared him with figures like John Lennon and Mick Jagger. But Styles’s multifaceted personality (he moonlights as an actor, model and business mogul) has allowed him to shine as a one-of-a-kind artist. One Direction’s beautiful boy turned 30 years old on February 1, and the expectations his public has regarding him and his career are many. In May, The Idea of You , starring Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway and inspired by Styles and the band that brought him to fame’s pinnacle, is scheduled for release.

Perhaps you’re wondering how this angel-faced boy, who snuck in his first appearance on a TV set at the age of 16, while he was still working on Saturdays at a bakery in his small town in northern England, has been able to rise to the upper echelons of show business. Styles grew up in a suburb of Manchester, ground zero for some of the most important British bands of the 1980s and ‘90s, including The Smiths and Oasis — the latter of whom broke up the same year that Styles was born. His parents were music lovers, and Styles’s father fed him a balanced diet of the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and Queen, while his mother was a Shania Twain, Norah Jones and Savage Garden fan. “They’re all great songwriters,” Styles said in an interview with Variety . The melodies left a mark on his consciousness, and his early musical education has helped him to win three Grammy awards since he launched his solo career. Those honors have only contributed to his reputation as one of the greatest artists of the century. The British edition of Rolling Stone even referred to Styles as the Mick Jagger of our time, based on his gender-fluid megastar aura, and ability to move seamlessly from rock to soul to ballads with charm in excess.

Aside from these contemporary honors, it is impossible to understand Styles’s career without examining his One Direction era. At just 16 years old, he was the frontman for White Eskimo, a punk band that Styles formed with his classmates from Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School. The young singer could hardly have suspected that, just one year later, he would become one of the most recognized faces in music throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. His stratospheric rise took place alongside his group mates Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson, their fame having ignited during their time on The X Factor television program. In the United Kingdom, during the seven years the group was active, four of their songs and every single album they released hit number one on the charts, selling more than 200 million copies. “It was like the Beatles in the ‘60s. Even if you tend to think otherwise, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr were a boy band because they fulfilled a fundamental requirement: a teenaged, and especially, female, fan base that swooned over every wink,” Craig Williams, a music promoter and journalists for outlets such as The Guardian , described One Direction to EL PAÍS in 2022.

In April 2023, Styles provided a clear answer when he was asked whether One Direction would ever get back together (the group announced its separation in 2015, but he still gets asked the question on a regular basis). “I fear that it’s not a yes or no question. I think I would never say never to that. If there was a time when we wanted to do it, I don’t see why we wouldn’t.” In fact, the boy band’s members have never wanted to publicly rule out the idea of the group’s reunion. But it wouldn’t be a reconciliation — according to Styles, there was never a falling out to begin with. “I think there’s a want to pit people against each other. And I think it’s never been about that for us. It’s about a next step in evolution. The fact that we’ve all achieved different things outside of the band says a lot about how hard we worked in it,” the artist told Variety . Be that as it may, the Brit has clearly become the most successful One Directioner in the wake of the group’s dissolution.

His subsequent prominence has hardly come as a surprise, given that he was already the star in One Direction. His first solo song, Sign of the Times , took a while to arrive (it came out in April 2017), but it when it finally hit, it made a big entrance, climbing to the top spots on the sales charts. This was a promising start, and from the beginning, the artist signaled that his solo music would be closely linked to his own feelings and ideas. A certain maturity became noticeable in his albums. Years later, Styles said that the coronavirus pandemic shifted his outlook on his career: “I think it’s been pretty good for me to have a kind of stop, to look and think about what it actually means to be an artist, what it means to do what we do and why we do it. I lean into moments like this — moments of uncertainty.” His artistic evolution can heard on his latest albums Fine Line (2019) and Harry’s House (2022). Contemporary studio effects and trendy beat patterns rarely influence Styles’s artistic acumen. He likes to focus on feelings, his own and those of his fans, and to envision himself on the dance floor, rather than a stage. “People within [the industry] feel like they operate on a higher level of listening, and I like to make music from the point of being a fan of music,” the artist told Variety .

On his latest album, his most personal to date, Styles’s introspection makes use of the concept of a house as a metaphor for “the rooms of his mind.” He also wanted to reflect the important role that therapy has come to play in his personal life. “I thought it meant that you were broken. I wanted to be the one who could say I didn’t need it,” he told Better Homes and Gardens . But therapy has allowed him to “open up rooms in himself” of whose existence he wasn’t previously aware, whereas before he had a tendency to “emotionally coast […] I think that accepting living, being happy, hurting in the extremes, that is the most alive you can be. Losing it crying, losing it laughing — there’s no way, I don’t think, to feel more alive than that.” Harry’s House won Album of the Year at the 2023 Grammys, snatching the victory from both Adele and Beyoncé. The win was highly criticized. The bulk of the controversy didn’t swirl around the question of whether he had earned the award, but rather, on Styles’s acceptance speech, which was ferociously attacked for its perceived racism on social media: “This doesn’t happen to people like me very often and this is so, so nice. Thank you very much.” The words were considered a mis-step coming from a white man. In 10 years, only one Black artist has won in the category; Jon Batiste in 2022.

If there is one thing that makes Styles unique, a quality that seems custom-tailored for this era’s listeners, it is that he is an iconoclastic icon. He completely rejects typical stereotypes of masculinity, breaks with imposed gender norms. And does it without breaking a sweat. The man’s habit of smashing such barriers has been unprecedented . In December 2020, he became the first man to appear solo on the cover of the U.S. edition of Vogue . It was a milestone in the history of fashion journalism, as Styles appeared wearing a voluminous baby blue dress paired with a black Gucci tuxedo jacket — the latter garment from a brand for which he has modeled on numerous occasions. He was definitively anointed as a fashion icon when all-powerful Vogue editor Anna Wintour named him one of the hosts of the 2019 Met Gala.

Last July, the artist put an end to a two-year tour that had traveled the world , with 173 concerts and multimillion dollar earnings, finally landing in Reggio Emilia, Italy. “It’s been the greatest experience of my entire life,” wrote the artist on social media — he has more than 48 million followers on Instagram alone. From the tour’s paychecks, he donated $6.5 million to more than 30 non-profits, a generous gesture to cap such a wildly successful ride. In addition, he announced plans to build his own arena in Manchester to “celebrate music,” a project that is scheduled to open its doors in April of this year. “It’s about bringing more music to Manchester, wanting to bring more artists there, to use this building as a reminder of why it’s such a great music city, not trying to wipe out other venues,” he said in an interview with the quintessential British business daily the Financial Times . “I think that Manchester deserves it. It feels like a full circle, a homecoming, to be able to do this and give this kind of support. I’m incredibly proud. Hopefully they’ll let me play there at some point.”

But he’s also proven keen to explore beyond the world of music. In 2017, the year that he released his first album, Styles took a role as one of the protagonists of Dunkirk , a film by director Christopher Nolan, who is nominated for an Oscar this year for his work on Oppenheimer . In 2022, Styles walked red carpets as one of the stars of Don’t Worry Darling . In between the two, he became an entrepreneur as the owner of Pleasing, a unisex cosmetics brand. It celebrates “the multitude of unique identities in our community,” according to a press statement. “I’m blessed to have fans who are so supportive of me, who believe in freedom and who have created this safe space for each other. Pleasing is really for them,” he told Dazed .

In addition to his talent and artistic ability, his romantic life has been in the media’s spotlight since the start of his career. It was then, when he was still a part of his iconic boy band, that Styles’s romance with singer Taylor Swift went public, grabbing the attention of, and creating massive neurosis among, the two’s massive fanbases. It seems unbelievable that, a full decade after the publication of those earth-shattering images of the couple, both are at the peak of their artistic careers. Another high-profile Styles coupling hit the headlines during the filming of Don’t Worry Darling , when he apparently felt a special connection with his director, Olivia Wilde. Their relationship came to a close at the end of 2022, after two years.

After a nearly 15-year career, Styles has yet to find a stage that doesn’t feel like home. The artist is now enjoying some downtime at his family villa in Tuscany, after more than two years of touring. But it is clear to his fans that not too much time will pass before their idol announces his next artistic undertaking. As One Direction’s chosen one likes to say, “I’m always writing.”

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Album Review

Harry Styles Is Still a Dreamy Cipher on His Third LP, ‘Harry’s House’

The title of the pop star’s latest album suggests open-door intimacy, but instead pairs more vivid sonic landscapes with less revealing lyrics.

By Lindsay Zoladz

On “Harry’s House,” the third solo album from the colossally charismatic former member of the British boy band One Direction, 28-year-old Harry Styles often sings from a perspective that is a combination of a prematurely wise elder, a personal cheerleader and a pro bono therapist.

“You can throw a party full of everyone you know and not invite your family, ’cause they never showed you love,” he sings on the acoustic ballad “Matilda,” a tender character study addressing a woman who carries the burden of past traumas — at least until the narrator gives her permission to lay them down. “Boyfriends,” he croons later on a song of the same name, “They take you for granted, they don’t know that they’re just misunderstanding you.” That song, which features some agile fingerpicking by the singer-songwriter Ben Harper, regards its male specimen from a bemused distance, as if it is a category of mere mortal from which someone as empathic as Styles is automatically exempt.

While “Harry’s House” is more sonically adventurous and eclectically influenced than most of the music Styles made with One Direction — the title itself is an obscure nod to the Japanese singer-songwriter Haruomi Hosono’s 1973 album “Hosono House” — it shares his former group’s sense of generosity and devotion to the female subject and, by extension, listener. As the journalist Kaitlyn Tiffany writes in her forthcoming and highly entertaining book “Everything I Need I Get From You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It,” One Direction was “a group of boys whose commercial proposition is that they would never hurt you.”

When Styles — who was active in 1D from age 16 until his early twenties — branched out on his own, his most successful songs paid more mature but still unselfish tribute to women. The beachy hit “Watermelon Sugar,” from his 2019 album “Fine Line,” was a winkingly euphemistic but sensually serious ode to giving female pleasure. Another swoony highlight from that record was called, even more succinctly, “Adore You.”

Such devotion to the feminine certainly makes Styles’s music go down smoother than the many pop songs pockmarked with outright misogyny. But this other-oriented perspective has also made Styles himself feel, on his records, like something of a cipher. This problem was less apparent on the superior “Fine Line,” which partially chronicled a breakup and allowed space for Styles to wallow, transgress and occasionally get a revealing jab in at his ex’s new partner (“Does he take you walking round his parents’ gallery?”). Despite the open-door intimacy suggested by its title, “Harry’s House” doesn’t have much in the way of furniture.

It is certainly the most distinct- sounding album Styles has made yet, and his production team of Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson (with whom Styles has worked closely on all his solo albums) concoct some vivid sonic landscapes. The album opens with the bright and playful “Music for a Sushi Restaurant,” replete with horns, a gummy bass line and surprising bursts of stacked vocals. The dreamy “Daylight” has a psychedelic weightlessness and sudden crunches of electric guitar that recall Tame Impala, while the highlight “Grapejuice” frames a spryly ascending melody with a kind of jaunty piano and compressed vocal effect reminiscent of “Ram”-era Paul McCartney. Styles’s voice is sleek and nimble throughout, favoring a looser delivery — he actually scats on one song — than the flashy, belt-it-out pyrotechnics of his boy band days.

There is something sky-like about the whole album, and its 41 minutes unfurl with an air of pleasantly stoned contentment, occasionally overcast by some gentle melancholy that passes like a fleeting cloud. Styles’s current hit single “As It Was” is the closest he comes to sounding genuinely troubled, and part of what makes that song work is the tension between his muttered, slumped-shouldered vocals and the synth hook’s sprightly urgings to carry on.

The wedding-band funk of “Daydreaming” and the lyrically inane “Cinema” feel comparatively frictionless, and display Styles’s unfortunate tendency to write lyrics that feel more like precisely posed Instagram carousels than conjurings of specific emotional states. “Black-and-white film camera/Yellow sunglasses/Ashtray/Swimming pool,” he sings on the understated “Keep Driving,” the lyrics playing out like a stylish but stilted movie montage that takes the place of actual character development.

Styles is such a magnetic onstage performer, provocative interview subject and fearlessly androgynous fashion plate that his records have come to feel like missed opportunities — the least personality-driven expressions of his otherwise compelling celebrity. “Harry’s House” is a light, fun, summery pop record, but there is a gaping void as its center; by its end, the listener is inclined to feel more intimately acquainted with the objects of his affections than the internal world of the titular character himself.

Harry Styles “Harry’s House” (Columbia)

An earlier version of this article misstated Harry Styles’s age when One Direction went on hiatus. He was in his early twenties, not 24.

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While her husband leaves home everyday to work in a top secret facility, a young 1950s housewife begins to question her life when she notices strange behavior from the other wives in the nei... Read all While her husband leaves home everyday to work in a top secret facility, a young 1950s housewife begins to question her life when she notices strange behavior from the other wives in the neighborhood. While her husband leaves home everyday to work in a top secret facility, a young 1950s housewife begins to question her life when she notices strange behavior from the other wives in the neighborhood.

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Harry styles, 'as it was'.

Cat Sposato

Harry Styles ' "As It Was" bottles sunshine in a song, but with a dreary melancholy. The synth-heavy intro is perfect for racing down Pacific Coast Highway with the top down. The groovy electric guitar licks inject the song with an infectious energy. If you are sorely missing the reign of Tumblr music — think The XX , Passion Pit — then this is absolutely the song for you.

But take a closer listen to the first single from Harry's House (out May 20) and you'll find a poignant lyrical exploration of loss and loneliness: "Answer the phone / Harry, you're no good alone / Why are you sitting at home on the floor / What kind of pills are you on?" Styles slips in autobiography, too, perhaps the closest he's ever been to directly addressing his love life. Whereas Fine Line was coy in its references to heavy themes like loss, depression and drug use, this single seems to signal Styles' willingness to confront those topics head on, pretty unapologetically.

"As It Was" feels both risky and vulnerable in a way that's different from his solo work so far. If this is Harry Styles inviting us into his metaphorical home, it seems like it's a lot messier and more complicated than he's ever let on.

◈ Stream "As It Was" by Harry Styles ▶ Watch Harry Styles' Tiny Desk concert

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Harry Styles Unveils ‘Love on Tour 2022’ Dates, With 10 Nights in New York and Los Angeles

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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Just two weeks before the release of his “Harry’s House” third solo album, Harry Styles has announced the dates for “Love on Tour 2022.”

Coming off of a sold out 42-date arena tour in 2021 and two special “ One Night Only” shows in New York and London , the 2022 tour works the “Harry’s House” theme by turning arenas in New York, Los Angeles (10 nights each), Chicago, Austin (5 nights each) and Toronto (2 nights) into Harry’s de facto house.

Produced by Live Nation, the tour kicks off on Monday, August 15th and Tuesday, August 16th at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, ON. Styles will continue his residencies in New York City for ten nights at Madison Square Garden, Austin for five nights at Moody Center, and Chicago for five nights at United Center, before wrapping up at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum for 10 night run concluding on Tuesday, November 15th.

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PRESALES:  To ensure tickets get into the hands of fans, the tour has partnered with Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform . American Express Card Members can get first access to Harry Styles tickets for his North American tour by registering for American Express Early Access powered by Ticketmaster Verified Fan*. US registration begins Thursday, May 5th at 3pm ET/ 12pm PT through Thursday, May 19th at 10pm ET. Verified Card Members who are selected for the presale, can purchase tickets starting Tuesday, May 24th.

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General on sale for tickets will begin Thursday, May 26th at 12pm local time at hstyles.co.uk/tour.

HARRY STYLES LOVE ON TOUR 2022 DATES: Mon Aug 15 –Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena is Harry’s House^ Tue Aug 16 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena is Harry’s House^ Sun Aug 28 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Thu Sep 01 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Fri Sep 02 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Sat Sep 03 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Wed Sep 07 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Thu Sep 08 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Sat Sep 10 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Wed Sep 14 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Thu Sep 15 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Wed Sep 21 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House* Sun Sep 25 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House~ Mon Sep 26 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House~ Wed Sep 28 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House~ Thu Sep 29 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House~ Sun Oct 02 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House~ Thu Oct 06 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House# Sat Oct 08 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House# Sun Oct 09 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House# Thu Oct 13 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House# Fri Oct 14 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House# Mon Oct 31 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+ Wed Nov 02 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+ Fri Nov 04 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+ Sat Nov 05 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+ Mon Nov 07 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+ Wed Nov 09 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+ Fri Nov 11 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+ Sat Nov 12 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+ Mon Nov 14 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+ Tue Nov 15 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House+

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2022 Was the Year of Harry Styles 

By Michelle Ruiz

Every year is, for me personally , the year of Harry Styles —but even unbiased observers confirm that the singer, fledgling actor , and consummate showman dominated the cultural landscape of 2022. From his blockbuster Love on Tour and the release of his third album, Harry’s House, to decidedly not spitting on Chris Pine and one very scandalous salad dressing... Mr. Styles was simply ubiquitous in 2022. So ubiquitous that, if not for his preternatural charm and a long-standing restraint with respect to granting interviews, he might have even treaded on overexposure—but no. Below, find a comprehensive-ish look back at the Year in Harry Styles.

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Harry’s House

Styles laid the foundation for an ascendant 2022 with Harry’s House , his third solo album. Released in March, its cover, on which he wears a smocked Molly Goddard baby-doll blouse and wide-leg jeans in an upside-down room, spoke to the upended pandemic clime in which the record was created.

April brought its first single— “As It Was” —a bona fide bop mixed with synth-twinged sadness that went on to be Spotify’s most streamed song of the year with 1.6 billion plays. While lyrically Fine Line has my heart, the release of Harry’s House in May revealed Styles’s most interesting and layered sonic approach yet, a roller coaster of horn-y (truly, horn-forward!) dance-party hits like “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” and emo singer-songwriter expressions like “Matilda” and “Little Freak.” It all earned Styles his first Grammy nominations for album, record, and song of the year (for “As It Was”). Lest there was any doubt, Harry’s House confirmed that the release of a new Styles album is a time-stopping cultural event.

Styles during a Coachella set in April.

Harry x Coachella

On the eve of the Harry’s House release, Styles took to the desert and made like a rhinestone Gucci-clad cowboy for his first-ever headlining sets at Coachella in April. He was accompanied on his first weekend by special guest Shania Twain—whom he grew up listening to with his mom, Anne Twist—and, on weekend two, by his good friend Lizzo. (Together, they make for a duo that can’t not spark joy.) Coachella x HS was, of course, a rainbow- and glitter-dusted blast and a glimpse at the album to come, but it also began to solidify Styles as both an upper-echelon solo artist and one of music’s most magnetic acts, fit for entertaining an audience of more than 100,000.

Styles performing on Long Island, New York, last May.

All the Love on Tour

There was arguably no bigger party in 2022 than Styles’s world tour, grounded by residencies in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Austin and two very special “One Night Only” performances on Long Island and in London in which Styles played Harry’s House front to back. This was the year that Styles established himself as one of the most in-demand performers working, with the 15-night New York residency breaking Phish’s record for most consecutive shows played by a single artist at Madison Square Garden—and culminating in an emotional banner-raising .

Styles created an easy intimacy in even the biggest and most iconic venues, airplane-arming around in playful ringer tees and custom Adidas x Gucci Gazelles and interacting with fans—whether by singing them “Happy Birthday,” helping them to come out, or talking through their breakups—during interludes. He’s also been known to gleefully torment his guitarist and close friend, Mitch Rowland.

By Emma Specter

By Marie Bladt

By Hannah Jackson

The cast of Don’t Worry Darling in Venice.

We did worry, darling

Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Styles’s former girlfriend Olivia Wilde, will go down in the annals of film history for its offscreen, intra-cast drama. Not even Styles—returning to acting as company man Jack Chambers, his most substantive role yet—was immune. At the Venice Film Festival premiere of DWD in September, a psychological thriller itself , Styles was accused (by Twitter, primarily) of spitting on costar Chris Pine as he entered the theater. 

While the footage in question was plenty deceptive, and Styles’s fans knew from go that the man whose totally earnest life motto is “treat people with kindness” would never, the conspiracy theory escalated so feverishly that Styles himself commented (a rare occurrence), treating the to-do with the level of seriousness it deserved. “I just popped very quickly to Venice to spit on Chris Pine,” Styles told the crowd at one of his New York shows. (Predictably, everyone went wild.)

Wilde and Styles’s relationship was the subtext of the DWD press tour, even if they gave fans little to nothing in the way of body language or direct contact. (By year’s end, they were reportedly on a break.) Styles notably did not comment in October when he was referenced in a sordid Daily Mail account from a nanny who worked for Wilde and her ex-partner Jason Sudeikis. In her telling of the couple’s unraveling, the nanny emphasized that Wilde had brought Styles her “special salad”—the deepest of cuts, apparently. Said salad’s dressing recipe gripped the internet until Wilde herself revealed —quite anticlimactically—that it was a simple mustard vinaigrette from Nora Ephron’s novel Heartburn .

These “scandals” largely usurped discussions of Styles’s actual performance in DWD , but the question remained: Could Styles the pop star transition into a movie star? In my absolutely biased review, I wrote that the camera loves him and his charms translate to the big screen, although he was underused in oversold sex scenes and given a role that asked a bit much of a new actor. 

Styles and costar David Dawson at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of My Policeman.

Our Policeman

Styles’s next foray into acting—Prime Video’s My Policeman —quickly followed in October. Styles played the closeted, dutiful policeman Tom Burgess (first depicted in the novel by Bethan Roberts ) and did a delicate dance with costar David Dawson in sex scenes that—unlike those in DWD —did not hold back. In discussing said scenes with Rolling Stone , however, Styles misstepped. “So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it,” he said, eliciting critiques that his comments were inaccurate and lacking in context.

Playing a queer character inevitably fueled the already ongoing discourse about Styles’s own identity, which he consistently declines to define for the public. In his Better Homes & Gardens cover story in April (a shelter magazine to promote Harry’s House? Sheer brilliance!) he said: “I’ve been really open with it with my friends, but that’s my personal experience; it’s mine… The whole point of where we should be heading, which is toward accepting everybody and being more open, is that it doesn’t matter, and it’s about not having to label everything, not having to clarify what boxes you’re checking.”

Harry’s House of Gucci

Styles’s creative partnership with Gucci and the fashion house’s outgoing creative director Alessandro Michele was foundational in his evolution from boy-band member to modern pop star. It was only fitting, then, that after Gucci outfitted Styles for everything from his historic Vogue cover to the Met Gala and the Grammys, Styles would collaborate with his friend Michele on a capsule collection: Gucci HA HA HA, a characteristically playful collection of cherry-print suiting and teddy-bear tees, released in November. Harry’s House ? In 2022, it was Harry’s world. 

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Harry Styles Announces 2022 North American Tour Dates

By Matthew Strauss

Harry Styles has announced his 2022 North American tour dates in support of the new album Harry’s House . He’ll be performing at just five venues: Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, New York’s Madison Square Garden, Austin’s Moody Center, Chicago’s United Center, and Los Angeles’ Kia Forum. Support at the Toronto shows will come from Madi Diaz; Blood Orange will open for Styles at Madison Square Garden; and Jessie Ware is the opener for the Chicago concerts. Find Styles’ schedule below.

At the 2021 Grammy Awards , Styles played “ Watermelon Sugar ” with a band that included Blood Orange’s Devonté Hynes. Hynes also musically directed the performance.

This spring and summer, Styles is performing in the United Kingdom and Europe . Support on the UK and European legs of the tour include Mitski, Arlo Parks, and Wolf Alice.

Harry’s House is out May 20. The lead single is “ As It Was .”

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Harry Styles:

05-20 Elmont, NY - UBS Arena 05-24 London, England - O2 Academy Brixton 06-11 Glasgow, Scotland - Ibrox Stadium * 06-15 Manchester, England - Emirates Old Trafford * 06-16 Manchester, England - Emirates Old Trafford * 06-18 London, England - Wembley Stadium * 06-19 London, England - Wembley Stadium 06-22 Dublin, Ireland - Aviva Stadium ^ 06-26 Hamburg, Germany - Volksparkstadion & 06-29 Stockholm, Sweden - Tele2 Arena & 07-01 Oslo, Norway - Telenor Arena & 07-03 Copenhagen, Denmark -Royal Arena 07-05 Paris, France - Accor Arena & 07-07 Antwerp, Belgium - Sportpaleis & 07-09 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Ziggo Dome & 07-11 Munich, Germany - Olympiahalle & 07-13 Budapest, Hungary - Budapest Arena & 07-15 Prague, Czech Republic - O2 Arena & 07-16 Vienna, Austria - Stadthalle & 07-18 Krakow, Poland - Tauron Arena Krakow & 07-20 Berlin, Germany - Mercedes-Benz Arena & 07-22 Cologne, Germany - Lanxess Arena & 07-25 Bologna, Italy - Unipol Arena & 07-26 Turin, Italy - Pala Alpitour & 07-29 Madrid, Spain - Wizink Center & 07-31 Lisbon, Portugal - Altice Arena & 08-15 Toronto, Ontario - Scotiabank Arena ! 08-16 Toronto, Ontario - Scotiabank Arena ! 08-20 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 08-21 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 08-22 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 08-26 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 08-27 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 08-28 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-01 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-02 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-03 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-07 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-08 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-10 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-14 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-15 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-21 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden @ 09-25 Austin, TX - Moody Center # 09-26 Austin, TX - Moody Center # 09-28 Austin, TX - Moody Center # 09-29 Austin, TX - Moody Center # 10-02 Austin, TX - Moody Center # 10-06 Chicago, IL - United Center $ 10-08 Chicago, IL - United Center $ 10-09 Chicago, IL - United Center $ 10-13 Chicago, IL - United Center $ 10-14 Chicago, IL - United Center $ 10-23 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 10-24 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 10-26 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 10-28 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 10-29 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 10-31 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 11-02 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 11-04 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 11-05 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 11-07 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 11-09 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 11-12 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 11-14 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 11-15 Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum % 11-20 Guadalajara, Mexico - Arena VFG + 11-22 Monterrey, Mexico - Arena Monterrey + 11-24 Mexico City, Mexico - Foro Sol + 11-25 Mexico City, Mexico - Foro Sol + 11-27 Bogotá, Colombia - Salitre Mágico + 11-29 Lima, Peru - Jockey Club + 12-01 Santiago, Chile - Estadio Bicentenario de la Florida + 12-03 Buenos Aires, Argentina - Estadio River Plate + 12-04 Buenos Aires, Argentina - Estadio River Plate + 12-06 São Paulo, Brazil - Allianz Parque + 12-08 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Area Externa da Jeunesse Arena + 12-10 Curitiba, Brazil - Pedreira Paulo Leminski + 02-20 Perth, Australia - HBF Park = 02-24 Melbourne, Australia - Marvel Stadium = 02-25 Melbourne, Australia - Marvel Stadium = 02-28 Gold Coast, Australia - Metricon Stadium = 03-03 Sydney, Australia - Accor Stadium = 03-04 Sydney, Australia - Accor Stadium = 03-07 Auckland, New Zealand - MT Smart Stadium =

* with Mitski ^ with Arlo Parks & with Wolf Alice ! with Madi Diaz @ with Blood Orange # with Gabriels $ with Jessie Ware % with Ben Harper + with Koffee = with Wet Leg

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By Jazz Monroe

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Harry Styles Announces North American Tour With 10 Dates in New York City & Los Angeles

Harry Styles revealed the 2022 dates for his North American tour in support of his upcoming album, Harry's House.

By Rania Aniftos

Rania Aniftos

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Harry Styles ‘ Love on Tour continues!

The singer revealed the 2022 dates on Thursday (May 5) for his North American tour in support of his upcoming album,  Harry’s House , and unlike his past tours, the 2022 edition looks more like extended residencies in fewer cities, turning iconic venues into Harry’s House for the run of shows.

Styles will be kicking off the tour with two dates at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena before heading to New York for 10 dates at Madison Square Garden. He will then fly to Austin, Texas for five shows at Moody Center and then five more shows at Chicago’s United Center. Styles will wrap things up in Los Angeles at the Kia Forum for 10 nights.

Harry Styles

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Love On Tour 2022. North America. pic.twitter.com/ikK7lgYEfF — Harry Styles. (@Harry_Styles) May 5, 2022

Tans can register for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform now here through Thursday, May 19 at 10 p.m. ET for the presale. Registered fans who receive a code will have access to purchase tickets before the general public Wednesday, May 25 starting at 12 p.m. local time. Only fans that have received a unique code will have the chance to purchase tickets for performances on a first come, first served basis.

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American Express card members can also get first access to tickets by registering for American Express Early Access powered by Ticketmaster Verified Fan here. US registration begins Thursday, May 5 at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT through Thursday, May 19 at 10 p.m. ET. Verified card members who are selected for the presale can purchase tickets starting Tuesday, May 24.

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American Express card members in Canada have access to Harry Styles Front of Line presale tickets for his Toronto dates starting Tuesday, May 24 at 12 p.m. local time to 10 p.m. local time.

General on sale for tickets will begin Thursday, May 26 at 12 p.m. local time here.

See the full list of Styles’ North American tour dates and opening acts below.

Harry Styles Love on Tour 2022 

Mon Aug 15 –Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena is Harry’s House (with Madi Diaz) Tue Aug 16 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena is Harry’s House (with Madi Diaz) Sun Aug 28 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Thu Sep 01 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Fri Sep 02 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Sat Sep 03 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Wed Sep 07 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Thu Sep 08 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Sat Sep 10 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Wed Sep 14 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Thu Sep 15 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Wed Sep 21 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House (with Blood Orange) Sun Sep 25 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House (with Gabriels) Mon Sep 26 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House (with Gabriels) Wed Sep 28 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House (with Gabriels) Thu Sep 29 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House (with Gabriels) Sun Oct 02 – Austin, TX – Moody Center is Harry’s House (with Gabriels) Thu Oct 06 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House (with Jessie Ware) Sat Oct 08 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House (with Jessie Ware) Sun Oct 09 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House (with Jessie Ware) Thu Oct 13 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House (with Jessie Ware) Fri Oct 14 – Chicago, IL – United Center is Harry’s House (with Jessie Ware) Mon Oct 31 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper) Wed Nov 02 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper) Fri Nov 04 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper) Sat Nov 05 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper) Mon Nov 07 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper) Wed Nov 09 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper) Fri Nov 11 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper) Sat Nov 12 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper) Mon Nov 14 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper) Tue Nov 15 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum is Harry’s House (with Ben Harper)

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How Harry Styles Became the World’s Most Wanted Man

By Brittany Spanos

Brittany Spanos

O n a Friday night in New York, Harry Styles put on a show. It wasn’t just any show; it was the first time he performed his third and soon-to-be-biggest album, Harry’s House, in its entirety. The crowd that May night covered Long Island’s UBS Arena in feathers and glitter and tears — a ritualistic skin shedding of sorts whenever Styles comes to town.  

Fans noticed something different about the encore: Styles didn’t end with his usual closer, “Kiwi”; instead, he opted to finish the night with a second performance of his new single “As It Was,” his dance-through-the-tears pandemic reflection on isolation and change. When he played it, the crowd exploded in a way even Styles had never experienced. It left him a bit shaken.

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Before his headlining set at Coachella in April, I caught Harry backstage, surrounded by James Corden, Styles’ onstage guest Shania Twain, and his girlfriend, Olivia Wilde . Later, I took in sold-out shows in New York and at London’s Wembley Stadium. The immense love showering Styles was impossible to ignore — you see it in the faces of every fan, whether they’ve been supporting him for “one year, two years, five years, 12 years,” as he says in nearly every end-of-show thank-you speech. Along the way I heard him everywhere, even when I wasn’t trying. “As It Was” played in every cab. “Watermelon Sugar” soundtracked breakfast. “Golden” lurked quietly at a London drugstore. “Late Night Talking” blasted at a Brooklyn bar, leading one man to proclaim, “I like Harry Styles. I can admit it,” like it was a radical act of self-acceptance.

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Styles is a kind of millennial anomaly: He plugs his phone in across the room, never once sneaking a glance for a rogue notification. He maintains eye contact as his thoughts unfurl in his often slow, British drawl. He’s a bit more Zen, even stoic, than he once was; that goofy, class-clown energy he exuded when the world first fell in love with him in One Direction 12 years ago has naturally diminished. But he’s still as affable and charming as ever, remembering details from small talk we had in all the other cities where I had been (professionally) stalking him, and proving earnestly curious about how I was going to spend my time in Hamburg and how magazine deadlines work. (Back in New York, after surprising fans at a Spotify event for his new album, he asked me my thoughts on David Crosby’s most recent album, which he loved.)

“My great uncle lives here,” Styles says of Hamburg. “He married a German lady, so I have a German cousin. They always used to come and visit when I was a kid, and the only word in English [the cousin] knew was ‘lemonade.’ I didn’t know if she actually wanted lemonade or was trying to say ‘Give me some water please!’ ”  

Of course it wasn’t meant to take him this long to get back to places like Hamburg, where he’ll play for more than 50,000 fans tomorrow night at Volksparkstadion, a local football stadium. Love on Tour, the name for his current trek, was supposed to launch in the spring of 2020, a few months after Styles released his second album, Fine Line. We all know what happened next.  

As the pandemic deepened, Styles ended up back in Los Angeles, where he keeps a home, and moved in with three friends. They’d “go for walks, cook dinner, wash the lettuce, all that kind of stuff,” he says, until he decided to use his downtime productively and began writing new material. Rick Rubin’s Malibu studio, Shangri-La, was available, so Styles moved in with longtime producers and co-writers Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson. “We didn’t really know what we were going in for,” he says. “It just felt like sitting at home doing nothing might feel better if we all move in together and try to make some music.” Before they knew it, they were making Harry’s House , a revelatory statement that happens to be his most radio-friendly album to date. He took inspiration from Haruomi Hosono’s 1973 LP, Hosono House, which he first heard when he lived in Japan years ago, and treated the songs like they were an internal monologue, traversing a day in his life.

When flying became an option, Styles came home to London. Later, he drove down to Italy in his late stepdad’s car with a friend, listening to the jazz CDs left behind. He visited the Trevi Fountain one day, likely wearing his short-lived pandemic mustache, and was greeted with just four other people instead of the usual throngs that surround the historic site: “I felt like every day you’d say, ‘Weird time, isn’t it?’ Then go, ‘Yeah, it’s fucking insane!’ ”

He credits his stream of roommates — friends, collaborators — with keeping him together during this time. “I really would’ve struggled if I’d done the whole thing by myself,” he says, mirroring the “Harry, you’re no good alone” lyric from “As It Was.” After Italy, Styles visited friends in France, then returned to work, eventually posting up at Real World Studios near Bath, England. By the time he set off across the U.S. to finally tour behind Fine Line last fall, Harry’s House was secretly finished.

“‘As It Was’ is definitely the highest volume of men that I would get stopping me to say something about it,” he notes casually.

But today, in a Hamburg hotel, Styles is still trying to make sense of it all. He thinks hard about love, shame, honesty, and the importance of kindness and therapy. And he worries. He worries about how he can be one of the biggest pop stars in the world, the kind who can be everything for his fans while also being a great son, brother, friend, and partner to the people standing beside him. As everything gets bigger, Styles imagines a life that is smaller. How does the world’s most wanted man save the best parts for himself?

WHEN STYLES PLAYED two sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium in June, the first thing he did after stepping offstage each night was take a shower. The post-show shower has become a ritual: a hygienic necessity, sure, but also a crucial moment of clarity and reflection. He washes away the screams full of love and desire to just be in his presence. Anyone would be overwhelmed by that. “It’s really unnatural to stand in front of that many people and have that experience,” he says. “Washing it off, you’re just a naked person, in your most vulnerable, human form. Just like a naked baby, basically.”

Those post-Wembley showers were especially gratifying. When One Direction, which Styles casually refers to as “the band,” played the stadium in 2014, he ended up with tonsillitis on the day of the show. “I was miserable,” he recalls. “We played the first one, and I remember I came off, got in the car, and just started crying because I was so disappointed.”

Styles’ solo shows at Wembley were a reunion of sorts: He had friends and family from all parts of his life and career in the audience on both nights. His mom, Anne Twist, sister Gemma, friends, and his team all danced in the stands next to Wilde and her two young children. Even former bandmate Niall Horan swung by, smiling through “What Makes You Beautiful.”

As he’s become one of the world’s biggest pop stars, Styles’ need for privacy — for keeping that “naked baby” self out of the public eye — seems to have grown. Secrecy has helped to fend off constant questions about his sex life, the kind that were tossed his way as soon as he was of legal age.  

Through it, he started to process parts of himself he hadn’t figured out before. “So many of your emotions are so foreign before you start analyzing them properly. I like to really lean into [an emotion] and look at it in the face. Not like, ‘I don’t want to feel like this,’ but more like, ‘What is it that makes me feel this way?’ ”

One feeling he needed to shed was shame, the kind of shame that comes from having your sex life scrutinized while you’re still just trying to make sense of it. Over the years, he learned to stop apologizing for it. He learned he could be vulnerable in private while still protecting it from the public.

Sometimes, though, he worried he was a “hypocrite” for being so closed off. His shows have become empowering safe spaces for his fans, so many of whom want to share who they are with him. Onstage, he’s helped people come out to their parents and facilitated everything from marriage proposals to gender reveals. Separating his personal life from his public one hasn’t been a choice he takes lightly. “When I’m working, I work really hard, and I think I’m really professional,” he says. “Then when I’m not, I’m not. I’d like to think I’m open, and probably quite stubborn, too, and willing to be vulnerable. I can be selfish sometimes, but I’d like to think that I’m a caring person.”  

He’s found a vague balance through compartmentalization. “I’ve never talked about my life away from work publicly and found that it’s benefited me positively,” he explains, perhaps preemptively. “There’s always going to be a version of a narrative, and I think I just decided I wasn’t going to spend the time trying to correct it or redirect it in some way.”

Drawing the curtain over his life has only made everyone who’s not behind it more curious. His sexuality, for example, has been a topic of near-obsession for years. He has embraced gender fluidity in his fashion, like Mick Jagger and David Bowie before him, and has repeatedly pointed out how backward it feels to require labels and boxes for everyone’s identity. Critics of his approach have accused him of “queerbaiting,” or profiting off queer aesthetics without explicitly claiming the community. Defenders feel it’s unfair to force anyone to label themselves as one thing in order to validate their gender or creative expression.

Of late, this can be contested. While he is everywhere, so is Olivia Wilde. The pair met on the set of Don’t Worry Darling, which she directed (more on that in a moment), then made a splash when paparazzi snapped them holding hands at his manager and close friend Jeffrey Azoff’s wedding in January 2021.  

Wilde and Styles have said little about the relationship, and rumors have filled the space. Anonymous tweeters acted appalled at their age difference (as if a 28-year-old man dating a 38-year-old woman isn’t completely normal) and criticized the director-actor dating dynamic (as if there isn’t a long history of beloved Hollywood couples meeting the same way).

More intense and jarring was a corner of Styles’ fandom that has made fun of Wilde’s dancing or made lengthy Twitter threads and TikTok videos canceling her for bad or insensitive jokes made a decade ago. If Styles is already held up to a high standard, his potential partners are held to an unreachable one for some of his fans.  

Styles is not the most online person — he uses Instagram to look at plants and architecture posts, has never had the TikTok app, and calls Twitter “a shitstorm of people trying to be awful to people” — but he’s still aware of how those small, toxic corners of the internet are treating the people closest to him. “That obviously doesn’t make me feel good,” he says, carefully. It’s a tightrope he’s treading in discussing this. He wants to — and does! — see the good in his fans, but there’s no denying that like every large online community, this one has a faction that runs on hate and anonymity.  

Even with the boundaries he’s set between his public and private lives, sometimes “other people blur the lines for you,” he says. There’s a conversation he has to have early in a relationship, no matter how weird or premature it may feel. “Can you imagine,” he says, “going on a second date with someone and being like, ‘OK, there’s this corner of the thing, and they’re going to say this, and it’s going to be really crazy, and they’re going to be really mean, and it’s not real.… But anyway, what do you want to eat?’ ”

When asked about her experience with his fans, Wilde is diplomatic. Like Styles, she believes in what they stand for as a collective, calling them “deeply loving people” who have fostered an accepting community. “What I don’t understand about the cruelty you’re referencing is that that kind of toxic negativity is the antithesis of Harry, and everything he puts out there,” she tells me. “I don’t personally believe the hate ful energy defines his fan base at all. The majority of them are true champions of kindness.”

STYLES BECAME A leading man when he was four years old, starring in a play called Barney the Church Man. Later, he transformed into Buzz Lightyear in a production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang “because Buzz Lightyear was in the toy shop for some reason.” His other early theater credits include: Razamatazz in Bugsy Malone (“the band leader”) and the Elvis-inspired Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. (He would later audition for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, but was deemed too iconic by the director.)

Acting reminded him of session musicians: “You get called in to do a bit, then someone else puts it all together.”

Other than that, acting wasn’t really part of his life plan. He liked it, but he found a new rush when he started performing with his band White Eskimo. When they debuted at — and won — a Battle of the Bands competition, it was the first time he felt “the switch”: his teachers looking up at him, instead of vice versa. “I think I was just a showoff,” he says, with a hint of cheekiness. “I say that like it’s past tense.”

But as Styles was preparing the release of his solo debut in 2017, he took his first foray back into acting, with a supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s war epic Dunkirk. (The director said he had no idea how famous Styles was when he cast him.) By the time Marvel recruited him to become Eros, director Chloé Zhao had no one else but Styles in mind for the role. Thanos’ more heroic brother is portrayed in the comics as an intergalactic playboy of sorts, with superhuman strength and the ability to control people’s emotions (a fitting role for the planet’s hottest pop star). MCU boss Kevin Feige recently teased more from Styles, though so far, his only appearance has been the Eternals’ post-credits scene, alongside the Patton Oswalt-voiced Pip. “It’d be funny if that was it, wouldn’t it?” he jokes of his cameo.

Pre-pandemic talks between Styles and the Darling team didn’t make it far; he was, after all, due on a global tour for most of 2020. Instead, Shia LaBeouf won the role, but by the end of that summer, Wilde had reportedly booted the actor for poor on-set behavior.  

“I’d wanted to act again,” Styles says. He spent a lot of the pandemic watching movies with his quarantine set of friends and collaborators: He rescreened favorites like the 2012 Belgian drama The Broken Circle Breakdown. Some nights, he and his friends would put a bunch of titles in a hat and choose. (“There was a couple different tastes in the house, so it was between, like, Parasite and Coyote Ugly. ”)

Styles was announced as LaBeouf’s replacement a month before filming began. He proved perfect for the role of Jack, who’s brought Alice to the remote, fictional American town of Victory to work on a secret project the men at the company won’t tell their wives about. Jack’s become a star employee and is desperate for his boss’s approval. “We were looking for someone with innate warmth and palpable charm,” Wilde says. “The entire story depended on the audience believing in Jack.”

Styles shot Don’t Worry Darling between September 2020 and February 2021 in L.A. and Palm Springs. Those months were the longest Styles had lived in one place in 11 years. He thought about going completely off the grid while making it: maybe get a flip phone, stop making music. “The reality is you get there on the first day and wait around for 75 percent of it,” he says. “And it’s like, ‘Actually I’m going to text my mate.’ ”

The risk may pay off: He and Pugh are already getting awards-season buzz. Wilde says one moment “left us all in tears” — Jack’s promotion scene during a big company gala. “It’s a strange scene, full of fascist references, and a disturbing amount of male rage,” Wilde says. “The scene called for him to stand onstage with Frank (Chris Pine) and chant their creepy slogan, ‘Whose world is it? Ours!’ over and over again. Dark as hell. But Harry took it to another level. He was so fully in the moment, he began screaming the lines to the crowd, in this primal roar, that was way more intense than anything we expected from the scene.”

According to Wilde, Pine backed away, understanding this was Harry’s moment. “The camera operator followed him as he paced around the stage like a kind of wild animal,” Wilde remembers. “We were all gobsmacked at the monitor. I think even Harry was surprised by it. Those are the best moments for an actor — when you’re completely outside your body.”

Within weeks, Styles went from the set of Darling to shooting the more intimate My Policeman. He had read the script the year prior, moved by the story enough to have contacted director Michael Grandage and request a meeting. Styles showed up with every line memorized.

According to Styles, Grandage wanted to highlight what sex is really like between two men in the scenes between Tom and Patrick. “So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it,” Styles continues. “There will be, I would imagine, some people who watch it who were very much alive during this time when it was illegal to be gay, and [Michael] wanted to show that it’s tender and loving and sensitive.”

Darling and Policeman make their big premieres at prestigious film festivals in Venice and Toronto late this summer, but Styles isn’t sure his pivot to the silver screen will be permanent. “I don’t imagine I’d do a movie for a while,” he says. There are rumors about how many Marvel movies he’s signed on for and other franchises he might be secretly in talks to do. (In response to a rumor he’ll be starring in a future Star Wars series, he says, “That’s the first I’ve heard of that. I’d imagine … false.”)  

He doesn’t rule out taking on new roles. “I think there’ll be a time again when I’ll crave it,” he says. “But when you’re making music, something’s happening. It feels really creative, and it feeds stuff. A large part of acting is the doing-nothing, waiting thing. Which if that’s the worst part, then it’s a pretty good job. But I don’t find that section of it to be that fulfilling. I like doing it in the moment, but I don’t think I’ll do it a lot.”

On past tours, he says, “I was getting to a lot of cities and feeling like ‘I’ve been here six times and I’ve never seen any of it.’ ” This tour, he’s been taking in a lot of architecture. “It’s something I can do on my own, just sit somewhere and look at stuff,” he says.

Studying the finer points of buildings fits the regimented, disciplined, and distinctly grown-up tour life he’s created. Styles has found himself enamored with routine on the road: 10 hours of sleep a night, IV injections pumping him with nutrients and vitamins, a strict acid-reflux-conscious diet that cuts out coffee, alcohol, and certain foods that affect the throat 50,000 fans are depending on. Last night, he slept with two humidifiers that apparently made it look like he was stepping out of a steam room when he opened his hotel-room door.

The Elbphilharmonie Hamburg — “Elphi” for short — is a striking structure, looking something like a gorgeous sail. Styles is wearing the same outfit as when I met him in the hotel the day before, only with shorts swapped out for pinstripe pants and a surgical mask covering his face. He and I are both late and can’t be let into the show until intermission, so instead we comb through the backstage hallways and elevators to see rooms built for incredible acoustics and sweeping views of Hamburg. He marvels at all of it. In a temperature-controlled room full of pianos, he asks our tour guide which is the best (“Is there a shining star?”) before sitting down at one and playing for a couple of dreamy, Beatlesque minutes. (He’d mentioned earlier that he spent last summer playing piano every day with his morning coffee.) He has questions about paneling. And like a true tourist, he takes pictures of everything.

The first time I ever met Styles was a lot like this. On his first headlining tour, in San Francisco in 2017, I went backstage to interview Kid Harpoon. Styles stumbled into the room where I was waiting, strolling around less like a headliner with fans lined up around the block and more like the lighting guy. Here was someone who is inexplicably difficult to casually enjoy (you watch one video of One Direction’s funniest interview moments on YouTube and suddenly you’re contemplating how many of their cardboard cutouts you can fit in your dorm) acting so casually. He greeted me then like an old friend, not someone who was still refusing to let go of a One Direction keychain at the time. He asked me how I had been, what I was up to in San Francisco, and if I was excited for the show. Of course I remember every second of it.  

Before the second half of the concert at the Elphi, the crowd mingles and grabs drinks. As we walk through, Styles goes unnoticed. (The mask helps.) It’s funny to watch one of the world’s biggest pop stars move through space with such ease, as if he’s blissfully unaware of how well-known he is.

“If you make your life about the fact that you can’t go anywhere and everything has to be a big deal, then that’s what your life becomes,” he says. “Now, in London, I walk everywhere. It’s hard to stumble across things and restaurants and places and stuff if you’re just driving everywhere, and it’s just not that fun.”

Styles outlines his upcoming months for me: In August, after he wraps his European tour in Lisbon, he’ll go on vacation with some friends, maybe catch up on the Love Island season he was “gutted” to miss, or see if The Bear is as good as everyone tells him it is. The next leg of his tour includes stops in L.A., New York, Austin, and Chicago as extended residencies, a decision that meets his personal need for a less strenuous touring schedule and a professional need to be able to attend film festivals and rent studios to write and record music for his fourth album. “I’m always writing,” he says. He and his collaborators are already throwing around ideas. “I think all of us are so excited to get back to it, which feels insane because we’ve just put an album out.”  

More than ever, he is thinking about the future. He wants to take meaningful time off at some point — from touring at least, he’s always writing — and ensure he’s a more present figure for his family and friends. In turn, he’s learned to define what real love looks like to him. “The fantasy, or the vision, or the version of you that people can build you up to be feels like a person that isn’t flawed,” he explains. “What I value the most from my friends is I feel like I’m constantly reminded that it’s OK to be flawed. I think I’m pretty messy and make mistakes sometimes. I think that’s the most loving thing: You can see someone’s imperfections, and it’s not [that you] love them in spite of that, but it’s [that you] love them with that.”

He’s thinking about what he wants to say, too. Styles admits he was uninterested in politics as a teenager, oblivious to things that didn’t personally affect him. But as he grew more famous, he worried about that, too. “I took a massive look at myself,” he says, “and was like, ‘Oh, I don’t do enough . . . or anything.” When conversations around anti-Blackness and inaction reached a fever pitch in 2020, Styles marched in the streets and read books like How to Be an Anti-Racist, by Ibram X. Kendi, and The Will to Change, by bell hooks. He started thinking about racial and gender equity, especially as someone who employs many people on the road. “Pretending as a white person you don’t get a head start just isn’t true,” he says.

We were hanging out right after Roe v. Wade had been overturned in America. “I can’t begin to imagine how terrifying it is to be a woman in America at the moment,” he says. He’ll grab a fan’s sign that reads “My Body, My Choice” at the Hamburg show, displaying it proudly onstage. There’s an energy in the crowds that fills him with careful optimism. “I feel lucky to see a group of people, even just on this tour, who come together in a way,” he says. “I think that group of people is so much less afraid of opening the wound, talking about it, and doing the work, than the generation before us.”  

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As we wait for the philharmonic’s packed show to restart, I notice a few young girls with their families in the audience and ask Styles what he thinks the crossover between this crowd and his show tonight will be. He looks around at the mostly older faces and goes, “Less than one percent … I know I’ll be at both.”

Styles watches the orchestra studiously. When the conductor leaves and then returns to a standing ovation, Styles whispers, “He’s about to play his big hit.” Even when he’s not peacocking in front of 50,000, he’s still trying to entertain the one person he’s with.

His fans will linger tonight, too, crowding in the hundreds outside Volksparkstadion. They’ll take photos of their outfits, their tear- and sweat-stained glittery faces, the piles of abandoned boa feathers. They’ll play his big hits back to him, holding a phone-light vigil as they sing One Direction’s “Night Changes” or the Fine Line ballad “Falling.” As the city echoes as much of him as it can take, he’ll probably be washing it all away.  

Fashion direction by u003cstrongu003eu003cspan class=u0022lrv-u-text-transform-uppercaseu0022u003eAlex Badiau003c/spanu003eu003c/strongu003e. Stylist Assistants: u003cstrongu003eu003cspan class=u0022lrv-u-text-transform-uppercaseu0022u003eRyan Wohlgemutu003c/spanu003eu003c/strongu003e and u003cspan class=u0022lrv-u-text-transform-uppercaseu0022u003eu003cstrongu003eNaomi Phillipsu003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e. Production by u003cspan class=u0022lrv-u-text-transform-uppercaseu0022u003eu003cstrongu003eJames Warrenu003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e for DMB Represents. Hair by u003cspan class=u0022lrv-u-text-transform-uppercaseu0022u003eu003cstrongu003eMatt Mulhallu003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e for Streeters. Grooming by u003cspan class=u0022lrv-u-text-transform-uppercaseu0022u003eu003cstrongu003eLaura Dominiqueu003c/strongu003eu003c/spanu003e for Streeters. Set design by u003cstrongu003eu003cspan class=u0022lrv-u-text-transform-uppercaseu0022u003eDavid Whiteu003c/spanu003eu003c/strongu003e for Streeters.

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Harry Styles Focused on Music After ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Experience Made Him Extremely ‘Gun-Shy’

Harry Styles is passing on Hollywood roles left and right, according to an insider who exclusively tells Life & Style that the One Direction heartthrob is still stinging from the bad experience he had with mega bomb Don’t Worry Darling – and cooling his jets on acting as a result.

“Harry’s number one love is absolutely music,” a source tells Life & Style . “Technically he’s still open for business for acting, meaning he wants to see all offers and look at all scripts if they’re interesting. But he’s not saying yes to anything and not seeking out the kind of meetings that could lead to future films.”

The insider notes that “it’s more than just a money thing” when it comes to the U.K. native’s acting future as “prestige matters.”

“It’s hard to believe but he still hasn’t done a true leading man turn in a big American film yet: Dunkirk and Don’t Worry Darling were ensemble movies and his role in Eternals was merely a small cameo,” the insider adds, noting that Harry has “unfinished business on the acting side.”

“Harry seems to be holding out for something really special to fall into his lap, and a filmmaker to come along that he can’t say no to, like he had with Christopher Nolan and Dunkirk .”

Harry’s priority remains “writing and recording new music” as the “pain and drama” of his Don’t Worry Darling experience made him “gun shy in the extreme.”

“And showed him how fragile acting success can really be,” the insider concludes. “There’s no question music is a much safer space for Harry at the moment, and it pays a heck of a lot better too!”

Don’t Worry Darling was one of the most anticipated films of 2022, yet behind-the-scenes drama surrounding director Olivia Wilde and her romance with the “Watermelon Sugar” singer, 30, soon took center stage. The pair, who share a 10-year age gap, faced major online criticism from a portion of the former 1D singer’s fans amid the movie’s debut.

Deal of the Day

“That obviously doesn’t make me feel good,” Harry told Rolling Stone in August 2022, referring to the apparent attacks against Olivia. “It’s obviously a difficult feeling to feel like being close to me means you’re at the ransom of a corner of Twitter or something.”

In addition, Olivia, 40, was rumored to be feuding with Harry’s Don’t Worry Darling costar, Florence Pugh , after it was alleged the Oppenheimer actress was dating him first. The O.C. alum later responded to the backlash surrounding the movie and alleged feud, calling it “clickbait.”

“There has been a lot out there that I largely don’t pay attention to,” Olivia told Variety in August 2022. “I’m a woman who has been in this business for over 20 years, and it’s something that I have fought for myself and others, especially being a director. There is absolutely no validity to those claims.”

• Harry Styles
• Olivia Wilde

Screen Rant

Harry styles' marvel character returns in new mcu multiverse project played by a different actor.

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Eternals' Deleted Scene Would've Made Harry Styles' Starfox Role Better

Dwayne johnson's dream marvel role just became more possible after mcu actor's uncertain comments, 10 best wolverine popcorn bucket memes so far.

• What If…? – An Immersive Story features Starfox's return three years after his introduction in Eternals ' post-credits scene, this time not played by Harry Styles.
• Harry Styles appears to be taking a break from acting, but that doesn't mean he won't play Starfox if the MCU ever brings the character back.
• What If...? seasons 1 and 2 have recast multiple characters exclusively for their animated appearances.

Three years after Eternals , Harry Styles' Eros a.k.a. Starfox appears for the first time in an MCU project, but this time played by a new actor. Eternals introduced more than a dozen characters early in the MCU's Multiverse Saga, including the ten titular heroes, the Deviants, and the Celestials. Eternals' post-credits scene also featured the MCU debut of two eccentric heroes: Harry Styles' Eternal hero Starfox and Patton Oswalt's mystical creature Pip the Troll, who meet Makkari, Druig, and Thena as they leave Earth in their mothership.

Starfox confessed to his fellow Eternals that he knows where the rest of their kind are located, teasing the eventual introduction of many more Eternals. However, none of the projects in the MCU's Multiverse Saga slate seem to be continuing Eternals ' story. If Marvel Studios plans to reveal what happened to any of the Eternals, it seems like Avengers: Secret Wars will be the soonest any of them can return — at least six years after their debut. In the meantime, Marvel's What If...? is bringing back Starfox, though not like audiences remember him.

Marvel's: What If Experience Has Starfox's First MCU Appearance Since Eternals

Starfox has been recast for what if… – an immersive story.

Marvel's What If…? – An Immersive Story , exclusively released on Apple Vision Pro, features Starfox's return in an alternate universe where Thanos is captured before he can attack Xandar . In this alternate timeline, Thanos seeks to steal the Reality Stone instead of the Power Stone, but he's stopped by and judged by the Xandarian authorities, including a Carol Danvers variant who works for the Nova Corps. During Thanos' trial, his brother Eros a.k.a. Starfox seemingly tries to use his psychic influence abilities while representing him, but Thanos escapes before a decision is made.

Why Starfox Isn't Played By Harry Styles In Marvel's: What If Experience

What if...'s voice cast isn't expected to replace their characters' live-action counterparts.

Harry Styles began building his filmography in 2017 with Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk , which opened the doors for high-profile acting credits in Chloé Zhao's Eternals in 2021, as well as Olivia Wilde's Don't Worry Darling and Michael Grandage's My Policeman in 2022. However, Don't Worry Darling 's mixed reception and various behind-the-scenes controversies during its production may have turned Styles off acting for a while, as the award-winning musician hasn't participated in any film production since then. Harry Styles may be taking a break from artistic projects from now, including any possible involvement in MCU projects .

An Eternals deleted scene would have made Harry Styles' role as Eros/Starfox a lot better and bigger than just a cameo in the mid-credits scene.

Although the wait for another Starfox appearance has been long, Harry Styles' absence in What If…? – An Immersive Story isn't too surprising. Marvel's What If...? seasons 1 and 2 have recast several actors exclusively for the anthology series. For instance, Mick Wingert voiced Tony Stark, Josh Keaton voiced Steve Rogers, and Lake Bell voiced Natasha Romanoff. If Starfox ever returns in live-action, Marvel Studios will likely get in touch with Harry Styles. Until then, Thanos' brother could keep popping up in animated projects like What If...? season 3 and Marvel Zombies .

What If...?

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Kendall Jenner’s Complete Dating History, From Harry Styles to Bad Bunny

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“For me, a lot of things are very special and very sacred, like my friends and relationships,” she said. “I personally think that bringing things into the public makes everything so much messier.”

That being said, Jenner’s dating history is pretty well-documented because she tends to date other celebs, especially athletes. Here’s what we know about who Jenner has dated so far.

Nick Jonas: 2015

Jordan clarkson: 2016, a$ap rocky: 2016-2017, blake griffin: 2017-2018, ben simmons: 2018-2019, devin booker: 2020-2022, bad bunny: 2023 to present, harry styles: 2013 and 2016.

In November 2013, shortly after splitting up with Taylor Swift, Harry Styles was seen out with Jenner. However, they denied they were seeing one another romantically, maintaining that they were “just friends.”

By early January, the pair was traveling together, taking a New Year’s ski trip with some other celeb friends. The singer and The Kardashians star seemed to share a friendship and an on-and-off romantic relationship for several years. They were seen on another New Year’s trip to ring in 2016, this time in St. Barts on a private yacht.

“There has been a lot of flirting, touching and snuggling going on. They have acted like a couple. They look very cozy and happy,” a source told People at the time.

With interest in their connection renewed, Jenner’s older sister Khloé Kardashian weighed in on the seriousness of their romance.

“They were hanging out together. Do I think they’re dating? Yes. I don’t know if they’re like boyfriend-girlfriend. Nowadays, I don’t know, people are weird with stuff. So I don’t know their ‘title,’” Kardashian told Entertainment Tonight . “But I mean, they were in St. Barts together hanging out, so to me that’s dating. I would call that dating.”

She added, “I don’t know if they’ve had that talk yet.”

In November 2016, Styles was at Jenner’s birthday party, as was NBA star Jordan Clarkson, whom she had been rumored to be dating since March of that year. Years later, she and Styles seem to still be friends, but both have moved on.

“Harry was her first real relationship, so there is a lot of history there,” a source told People . “But they’re just friends.”

In 2017, Styles released his debut album. Fans believed he was talking about Jenner in a Rolling Stone interview when he spoke about a past partner inspiring his music.

“She’s a huge part of the album,” he said of the mystery muse. “Sometimes you want to tip the hat, and sometimes you just want to give them the whole cap … and hope they know it’s just for them.”

In 2019, the pair seemed to be on good terms when they met on The Late Late Show and played “Fill Your Guts or Spill Your Guts.”

After reading one of the questions to herself, Jenner said, “I’m dying to know this: Which songs on your last album were about me?”

Rather than answer, Styles ate cod sperm.

In 2022, Jenner was seen at one of his concerts, enjoying some of the music that may be about her with sister Kylie Jenner and friend Hailey Bieber.

During the years she was on-off with Styles, it was rumored Jenner was casually seeing singer Nick Jonas as well. She met the Jonas Brothers star in August 2015 through his brother Joe Jonas, who was then dating model Gigi Hadid.

“Gigi wants Kendall around all the time,” a source told Us Weekly at the time. “She thinks it would be fun for all of them to hang out.”

Nick had recently split with girlfriend Olivia Culpo, and the insider claimed his texting with Jenner “had a flirty chemistry from the start.”

“Nick was single and looking to date, and there was an obvious attraction. He absolutely thinks she’s hot,” they continued. “When they’re ready, and it turns official, we’ll start seeing photos.”

That day did not come. He soon denied his connection with Jenner was romantic.

“We’re not dating,” he told E! . “Kendall is great, and naturally, her being good friends with Gigi, and with Joe and Gigi dating, there are times we’ll be in the same place, and we all hang out.”

In March 2016, Jenner was seen with Cleveland Cavaliers star Jordan Clarkson, sparking rumors she was dating the basketball player. They made appearances all around Hollywood and eventually attended Coachella together.

“They keep things low-key when they’re in public, but in private, they’re very much together and affectionate,” a source said in April 2016. “He’s really into her.”

A few months later, another insider said, “He’s become really close friends with her group, and they’re still seeing each other, but it’s not a serious situation. Jordan’s been seeing other girls too.”

Like Styles, he was at Jenner’s 21st birthday in November of that year, but things fizzled out soon after.

Before A$AP Rocky started dating Rihanna and welcomed two sons with her, Riot and RZA, he and Jenner were rumored to be a couple. The pair had been friends for some time and were first connected romantically in June 2016 when they were seen enjoying dinner in Paris at L’Avenue. That October, they both arrived at a hotel in Los Angeles together.

In December 2016, they attended Art Basel in Miami. In March 2017, things were seemingly getting more serious, and a friend of Jenner told People that they had been “spending more time” together, and she was “open to seeing where it goes.”

That year at Coachella, Jenner was in the audience of Rocky’s show. They were allegedly “ all over each other ” afterward, an eyewitness told People . In May that year, they were standing cheek-to-cheek in Jenner’s famous bathroom photo taken at the Met Gala. But they grew apart. Eventually, a source claimed to Us Weekly that they “weren’t seeing each other a lot. They weren’t really official but were obviously dating. Their schedules are really hard.”

A few months after her Met Gala night with the rapper, Jenner was seen with another NBA player: Blake Griffin. They went on dates throughout the summer.

Things seemed a little more serious in the fall as cuffing season came into full effect. A source told Us Weekly in October 2017 that they had defined their relationship.

“They’re legit. They’re a full-on couple,” a source close to Jenner said. “Kendall has been going to a lot of his games, and they have been enjoying time at home when Blake is in town. They’re good.”

She attended Halloween Horror Nights with Griffin, her sister Kylie, and Kylie’s then-boyfriend, Travis Scott. She was also seen in public cheering him on at a Clippers game.

“Kendall is very happy with Blake,” an insider told People at the time. “They started out more like friends, and then it was very casual. But it seems more serious lately. When they are not together, they keep in touch over the phone. Her family has accepted Blake. They are spending time getting to know him.”

In March 2018, she was interviewed by Vogue and seemed to deny they were dating. The original interview took place just after Valentine’s Day, and Jenner was coy on the phone, saying she was visiting “a friend.”

“I like my private life,” she added. “Yeah… no. I’m happy. He’s very nice. I have someone being very nice to me.”

But things didn’t last after Griffin moved teams from the L.A. Clippers to the Detroit Pistons. A source later told People , “He got traded and isn’t local anymore, so they’ve grown apart a bit just because of distance.”

In May 2018, Jenner was dating a new NBA star, player Ben Simmons. They were seen on a lunch date together at the Beverly Hills Hotel and dated off-and-on throughout the year. Jenner finally made things public and official in February 2019 while on The Ellen DeGeneres Show .

“So obviously you’re dating this guy who’s on the 76ers. How long have you been dating him?” DeGeneres asked.

Jenner smiled and replied, “For a bit now.”

Talking to Vogue Australia in May 2019, Jenner sounded pretty serious about Simmons when she was asked about marriage.

“Definitely not now, but maybe one day,” she said. “I got a glimpse of how my sisters dealt with [the attention] and it’s cool to learn from that.”

However, later that same month the couple were “on a break,” according to a People source.

“The relationship ran its course,” said the insider. “She’s spending time with her friends and back to being in fun mode.”

In April 2020, Jenner was road tripping with Phoenix Suns player Devin Booker through Arizona. In September that year, they were on a lake trip with Jenner’s friends Justin and Hailey Bieber.

“Kendall seems very happy,” an insider told People . “Devin is very sweet to her. He spends a lot of time with Kendall’s family and friends too. They both seem to enjoy the quiet time together.”

In February 2021, Jenner went Instagram official in a rare move, posting about him for Valentine’s Day.

“What first seemed like a fun hookup is now a relationship,” a source told People . “They are exclusive, and Kendall is very happy with Devin.”

She posted more pics of him for their one-year anniversary in June 2021. They continued on for another year, before briefly splitting in summer 2022. At the time, Entertainment Tonight said, “Kendall feels like they’re on different paths,” adding that they “have had discussions about their future but they are not on the same page.”

Only a month later, she was celebrating him on Instagram again, and they were vacationing. In September, they attended the U.S. Open.

But in October 2022, they’d broken up again, with a source telling E! , “Their schedules weren’t lining up...and eventually the relationship really took its course.”

However, when Jenner and rapper Bad Bunny split in late 2023, it was rumored she might be spending quality time with Booker yet again. On May 30, 2024, a People source acknowledged Jenner’s brief flirtation with reconciling with Booker before ultimately getting back together with Bunny.

Jenner and rapper Bad Bunny were seen leaving a restaurant in Los Angeles together in February 2023 after reportedly enjoying a double date with the Biebers at Wally’s. A source told Entertainment Tonigh t , “Kendall and Bad Bunny are attracted to each other and definitely have a flirty vibe. It is still new, but they’re enjoying each other’s company and like each other. They have mutual friends and had dinner with Hailey, Justin and friends at Wally’s in Beverly Hills on Saturday night. It’s been fun for both of them so far.”

The insider added, “Bad Bunny recently bought a new home in Los Angeles and has spent a lot more time there. Kendall met him through a mutual friend, and they hit it off. As of now, it’s not serious and the two are having fun.”

A month later, Bad Bunny was already singing about her, with some lyrics on his track “Coco Chanel” sounding like references to her ex, Booker. In one lyric he says that the “sun in Puerto Rico is hotter than in Phoenix,” and “she knows it.”

He also mentioned Scorpios, which is Jenner’s birth sign. The couple spent the summer together before going public in September and even starring in a Gucci luggage ad.

Then, in December 2023, they split. An insider told Us Weekly , “Friends aren’t surprised that Kendall and Bad Bunny have broken up. They never really saw their relationship going the distance anyway. Of course, they want the best for their friend, but they really didn’t feel like Kendall was as compatible with Bad Bunny as she was in past relationships with other people. At the same time, Kendall has had a few on-off relationships in the past, so they wouldn’t be totally surprised if she got back together with him at some point.”

As predicted, it doesn’t seem like things have entirely come to a close—the former couple spent the New Year together with friends and were seen getting cozy at a Met Gala after-party in May. She then attended his Orlando concert a few weeks later and was seen dancing to the music in the VIP section while wearing his merch.

At the end of May, People confirmed Bunny and Jenner were back together. “It’s going well, and they’re prioritizing spending time together as they figure it out,” a source said. “There wasn’t ever any drama in their breakup, and they missed each other.”

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