Phoebe Bridgers is gearing up to open for Taylor Swift on her 2023 The Eras Tour. Paul Mescal is generating praise for his leading-man turn in A24’s Aftersun. Will the power couple ever collaborate on music? Mescal said no, but it looks like they’ll have their whole lives to change their minds.
This morning (November 6), The Guardian published an interview with Mescal and casually slid in the news that Bridgers and Mescal are engaged to punctuate a passage about his breakthrough in Hulu’s Normal People in 2020:
“Although Mescal had anticipated the show’s success — ‘It was like the perfect storm for a young actor to get a shot at reaching a global audience’ — he wasn’t prepared for the level of scrutiny that came with it. Last year, he made the decision to quit social media. ‘I just don’t think it’s particularly useful for people to see, like, literally you,’ he says, making a box shape of his hands and framing his face. ‘I thought it’s either get off the bus now or stay on it, and I wanted to get off. In 10 years I might rue the day I threw out my social media, but look, it just is what it is.’ (Mescal did, however, stay on long enough to exchange charged messages on Twitter and Instagram with the musician Phoebe Bridgers; the pair are now engaged).”
Rumors flew in April that the couple had gotten engaged after Jezebel relayed reports Bridgers was referring to Mescal as her fiancé at a Coachella party, which predictably set off an internet meltdown. In June, Bridgers was asked about it by The Guardian and responded, “F*ck the f*cking tabloids to hell, that’s what I’ll say about that!”
Bridgers and Mescal were first linked in May 2020, when Bridgers sent a tweet about watching Normal People.
I’m officially dead.
— Paul Mescal (@mescal_paul) May 12, 2020
nooo don’t die your so talented aha
— traitor joe (@phoebe_bridgers) May 12, 2020
Mescal starred in Bridgers’ “Savior Complex” video in December 2020 but didn’t go Instagram official until December 2021.