There is a certain type of person for whom Gracie Abrams has it all: a friendship with Taylor Swift, a sensible cardigan, and a reported dalliance with Paul Mescal. The 24-year-old musician was last month spotted sharing small plates with the Irish man at east London’s Brat restaurant. He at one point grazed her cheek with the back of his hand, and so people went online and started posting things like: “Me when I realize I’m not an indie singer songwriter so Paul Mescal won’t give me a chance,” in reference to his erstwhile relationship with Phoebe Bridgers, and, “If I had a nickel for every time Paul Mescal dated an American singer who opened for Taylor Swift, I would have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice,” also in reference to his relationship with Bridgers.
Abrams, who is the daughter of Star Wars director J. J. Abrams, signed with Interscope in 2020 after a brief stint studying international relations at Barnard College in New York. She then released two confessional EPs—Minor and This Is What It Feels Like—before supporting fellow diaristic sad girls Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift on their respective tours in 2022 and 2023. Her debut album, Good Riddance, earned her a nomination for best new artist at the 66th Grammys and was quickly followed by a second, The Secret of Us, which has been out for a little more than a month and is baked in all the bedroom melancholy of her artistic inspirations: Joni Mitchell, Elliott Smith, James Blake, and, erm, Phoebe Bridgers. There have been front-row appearances at Valentino, the Met Gala, and visible Instagram likes given to photos of a ruddily tanned Mescal dressing up as a gladiator.
Much of the details surrounding Abrams and Mescal’s alleged courtship can, of course, be found in the annals of Deux Moi. In October 2023, an “exclusive source” wrote in to the gossip mill suggesting the duo had begun “hanging out” before a separate email was submitted in May 2024, claiming that Mescal had “broke Gracie’s heart” not long afterwards. “This was around the time he was active on Raya and going on lots of dates,” the “anonymous source” said. “So, my guess is he wasn’t ready to commit, and she fell hard.” Fans of Abrams’s music also believe her song “Normal Thing” to be a reference to Normal People—the 2020 television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s 2018 novel that first launched Mescal’s career in the depths of lockdown—with one lyric reading: “It’s a normal thing to fall in love with movie stars / When the lights are low and red at all their favorite bars / And the story you want is the story you get / Are you special or was this all scripted in his head?” (Abrams is clearly schooled in the Swiftian songbook.)