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Harry Styles became known worldwide in 2010 after being selected to be part of the famous boy band One Direction. The 16-year-old boy touched the heart of many fans all around the world. Throughout his career, his star image evolved significantly.  

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Harry Styles became known worldwide in 2010 after being selected to be part of the famous boy band One Direction. The 16-year-old boy touched the heart of many fans all around the world. Throughout his career, his star image evolved significantly.  

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Jared Padalecki Instagram Post about attending a Harry Styles concert (2022)

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Jared Padalecki Instagram Post about attending a Harry Styles concert (2022)

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Jared Padalecki sur Instagram: "Not for nothin, but, when your family (and your best friend @harrystyles) ask you to get properly dressed up,  you properly get dressed up…"

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375K likes, 1,778 comments - jaredpadalecki le  October 2, 2022: "Not for nothin, but, when your family (and your best friend @harrystyles) ask you to get properly..."

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A post shared by Jared Padalecki (@jaredpadalecki)

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"A Touch More" with Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird: authenticity, intimacy and women's sports celebrity on Instagram Live - Howell. C.E. (2021)

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"A Touch More" with Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird: authenticity, intimacy and women's sports celebrity on Instagram Live - Howell. C.E. (2021)

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Charlotte Howell explains here that Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird, two sportswomen, used to drink alcohol during their Instagram Live as a way to "signal authenticity", because it let the audience interpret the spontaneity that comes with alcohol as a "further degree of intimacy and authenticity". Besides, she said that drinking alcohol allowed to reinforce "relatability" to us, ordinary humans.

Therefore, when Harry Styles made his acceptance speech after drinking alcohol, the same effects were produced for us. Indeed, it gave us a glimpse of his authenticity and relatability.

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Harry Styles winning the Album Of The Year BRIT Award (2023)

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Harry Styles winning the Album Of The Year BRIT Award (2023)

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For this acceptance speech, Harry Styles lets us see what appears to be his real self. Indeed, here, he is cheering like a child, which makes him look more ordinary, more like us. He is truly happy, and you can see that in this video.

On top of that, he won the four awards he was nominated for this evening, and throughout the ceremony you could see him celebrate with his friends by taking shots. Therefore, the fact that he was probably slightly drunk here underlines his relatability to us and thus, his authenticity.

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Harry Styles wins Mastercard Album of the Year | The BRIT Awards 2023

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Harry Styles for the Zane Lowe interview (2019)

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Harry Styles for the Zane Lowe interview (2019)

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In this interview, Harry Styles shares a lot about himself, he seems really comfortable and genuine, which allows us feeling like we are learning about the real him. On top of that, there is an impression of intimacy linked to the tone and the setting of the video. During this interview, he addresses many topics. For example, (25:20), he explains that his status as a "sex symbol" makes him uncomfortable, which shows a certain vulnerability, and therefore authenticity.

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Harry Styles – Zane Lowe ‘Fine Line’ Interview

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Harry Styles at the premiere of his first movie, Dunkirk (2017)

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Harry Styles at the premiere of his first movie, Dunkirk (2017)

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2017 was an important year for Harry Styles in terms of his career. He released his first solo album, but he also had his first movie role, in "Dunkirk".

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Harry Styles at the TIFF for the release of My Policeman (2023)

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Harry Styles at the TIFF for the release of My Policeman (2023)

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Harry Styles' audition for X-Factor (2010)

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Harry Styles' audition for X-Factor (2010)

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Harry Styles' first audition for X-Factor in 2010, where he instantly caught the public and jury's attention for his humour, his "sweetness" and his presence on stage. Those elements highlight a certain innocence, and therefore authenticity.

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Harry Styles Audition: EXTENDED CUT | The X Factor UK

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One Direction - What makes you beautiful (2011)

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One Direction - What makes you beautiful (2011)

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The band's first single, that resulted in Harry Styles becoming the "leader" of the band, even though another member was supposed to be. His voice and personality directly attracted the public's attention. The PR team as well as the media took advantage of that and made him the "womanizer" of the band, the typical image of a boy band member.

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One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful (Official Video)

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The group's most famous single from the fifth album, where the image of Harry Styles promoted by the PR team and the media remains that of a "ladies' man" despite his young age (21 at the time).

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One Direction - Drag Me Down (Official Video)

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Harry Styles's first solo performance (2017)

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Harry Styles's first solo performance (2017)

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For his first solo performance, we can see that Harry Styles seems quite shy. He looks really focused on his professionalism.

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Harry Styles - Sign of the Times (Live on The Graham Norton Show)

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Watermelon Sugar was sort of a breakthrough for Harry Styles. This song made him really famous, but it also allowed people to see what the singer really stands for: freedom.

In this clip, he seems to be more confident and free. Even though the music video is scripted, it feels like we are getting more of Harry Styles' realness.

On top of that, the song being about normalizing female orgasm shows us how the singer approaches taboo subjects with a lot more confidence.

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Harry Styles - Watermelon Sugar (Official Video)

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Harry Styles on the cover of Vogue (2020)

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Harry Styles on the cover of Vogue (2020)

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Harry Styles was the first man in history to make the front cover of Vogue US solo. He took this opportunity to voice out that gendered clothes limited freedom of identity expression, by wearing a blue Gucci dress.

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Playtime With Harry Styles: “You Can Never Be Overdressed”

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Dressing up, making music, living in the moment: This is what matters to Harry Styles. Boundaries and labels? Not so much.

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Harry Styles on the Howard Stern Show (2020)

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Harry Styles on the Howard Stern Show (2020)

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Some interviewers, (like the radio host Howard Stern) are still very intrusive and make comments that clearly make the singer uncomfortable. (1:19:15)

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Harry Styles on the Howard Stern Show (FULL 2020 INTERVIEW)

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Fan made compilation of Harry Styles's last show of the Love on Tour (2023)

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Fan made compilation of Harry Styles's last show of the Love on Tour (2023)

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This video showing Harry Styles crying at the last show of his world tour exposes an aspect of his true personality. Him feeling comfortable crying, underlines his authenticity.

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Harry Styles CRYING on his LAST show | Mini Vlogs

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Harry Styles is also the face of Gucci. While wearing the brand's product for every show of his, he also made a collection in collaboration with the brand, called "HA HA HA". This collection is composed of all sorts of clothes defying the masculine clothing standards. This partnership is beneficial for the brand who appears more inclusive, as well as for the singer who can improve his star image with a luxury brand. What's also relevant is that even though, he is associated with a luxury brand, he still intends to appear close to his fans.

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GUCCI HA HA HA - The Harry Styles Collection | GUCCI®

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Discover the GUCCI HA HA HA collection in collaboration with Harry Styles, born from his friendship with creative director, Alessandro Michele. Free shipping.

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"Harry Styles: Womanizer?" - Hollywood life (2013)

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"Harry Styles: Womanizer?" - Hollywood life (2013)

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Image Credit: SplashNews

Harry Styles' Dating Tips

After shooting down reports that he is, in fact, a womanizer, Harry revealed to Tiger Beat what he believes to be the right way to romance a woman. His first bit of advice - be real! "If you like someone, you shouldn't play games. And you shouldn't NOT text someone back for days or do things like that! I love chasing a girl," he said.

For such a big star, you would think he would spend the big bucks to impress the girls, right? Not so! He insists that his skills in the kitchen are impressive enough, saying: "Cooking dinner for a girl would be a nice date." How sweet! Maybe Taylor was never, ever, a fan of his cooking.

How To Chase Girls Like Harry Styles: A Step-By-Step Guide

So, what has Harry taught us about the key to romancing a woman?

Step one: tell the girl you like her! (Duh?)
Step two: cook her dinner!
Step three: chase down as many ladies as possible (then repeat steps one and two?)

By the looks of recent reports of Harry's womanizing, we think step three is pretty on-point.

Harry's Rebound Dates, Post-Taylor Swift Split

Previously reported on HollywoodLife.com, Harry was seen partying and flirting with reality TV star, Hermione Way, and was also spotted out with a mystery blonde in London on Jan. 8. More recently, Harry was spotted with the sexy Welsh actress, Alexandra Roach, 25, on Jan. 9. All this running around, chasing girls sounds exhausting!

What do YOU think, HollywoodLifers? Is Harry really a hopeless romantic, or is he just playing the part?

- Tiffany Gagnon
More Haylor News:

1. One Direction's Harry Styles: Why He Loves Older Women

2. Harry Styles Kissed A New Older Woman

3. One Direction's Harry Styles Allegedly Seduced A Cougar

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Harry Styles: Womanizer? - Admits He Loves Chasing Girls

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From older women to fresh-faced pop icons, this One Direction hottie loves a good chase! Read, to find out what he has to say about his love life! As a self-proclaimed romantic, Harry Styles is confident in his abilities to reel in some cute companions.

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Harry Styles winning the "Album of the Year" Grammy Award (2023)

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Harry Styles winning the "Album of the Year" Grammy Award (2023)

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This footage of Harry Styles winning the Album Of The Year Grammy Award allows us to see another aspect of the artist's personality and authenticity. By rushing to hug the fan who announced his victory, he makes us understand that he has great respect for his fans and that he considers them almost as friends. Moreover, the way he compliments the other artists that were nominated highlights his great humility.

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HARRY STYLES Wins Album Of The Year For ‘HARRY'S HOUSE' | 2023 GRAMMYs Acceptance Speech

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As a response, Harry Styles posted a picture of himself on his social media wearing a blue suit with white lace, (which can be considered quite "feminine"), while eating a banana. In the caption, he wrote "Bring back manly men", which is a clear but humorous provocation. On the one hand, he suggested that he didn't care about the critics, and on the other hand, he implied that clothes shouldn't be gendered and that they don't define the level of masculinity, implying that everyone should be free to wear what they want.

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@harrystyles on Instagram: "Bring back manly men."

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9M likes, 306K comments - harrystyles on December 2, 2020: "Bring back manly men."

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @harrystyles

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Candace Owens criticizing Harry Styles (2020)

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Candace Owens criticizing Harry Styles (2020)

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After Harry Styles' Vogue Cover, Candace Owens, an American conservative political commentator, expressed her disapproval of the singer's styling choice. Indeed, she claimed that Harry Styles was destroying the image of "real masculinity", and that he basically encouraged men to leave their masculinity behind.

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Candace Owens Bashes Harry Styles' Vogue Cover

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Harry Styles Addresses Chris Pine Spitting Claims - ET (2023)

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Harry Styles Addresses Chris Pine Spitting Claims - ET (2023)

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By addressing the rumour that he had spat on Chris Pine, he wanted to make his fans laugh, which highlights his desire of proximity with his public. But on the other hand, he also implicitly mocked the tabloids that wanted to make him look disrespectful. Instead of simply denying those rumours, he chose to do so sarcastically. The fact that he laughs about it shows that he became less affected by this type of gossip. However, it also proves that he knows his fans won't hold unsubstantiated rumours against him. In other words, it shows a trusting relationship between him and his fans.

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Harry Styles Addresses Chris Pine Spitting Claims

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Harry Styles' interview for British QG (2013)

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Harry Styles' interview for British QG (2013)

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One Direction star Harry Styles has claimed that he has only slept with two people in that new issue of British GQ.

The Live While We're Young heartthrob was put under pressure by the magazine's interviewer, Jonathan Heaf, who demanded to know just how many people the 19-year-old hunk had bedded.

'It's definitely less than 100,' the pop singer responded when asked if he has slept with more than 100 individuals.

'Yes, lower than 50,' he went on as the interview tried to ascertain a more solid answer, before adding: 'I'm not doing this! You're cornering me!'
MORE: One Direction fans threaten GQ magazine staff after 1D interviews
But the singer eventually conceded when told he was a 'rock star' and asked if it would be less than ten people.

'Yes. Two people. I've only ever had sex with two people,' he said defiantly, adding: 'That's my answer. Read from it what you will!'

The star has been romantically linked in the past to Xtra Factor host Caroline Flack and country star Taylor Swift.

He has, however, denied he was in a romantic relationship with Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw.

The September issue of GQ is on stands from tomorrow, Thursday 1 August.

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Harry: I've only had sex with two people

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One Direction star Harry Styles has claimed that he has only slept with two people in that new issue of British GQ. The Live While We're Young heartthrob was put...

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Harry Styles on 60 Minutes Australia (2013)

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Harry Styles on 60 Minutes Australia (2013)

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In this interview, (2:42) you can see Harry Styles trying to defend himself very politely against the "womanizer" allegations, by implying that having female friends doesn't necessarily mean that he's dating them.

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On tour with One Direction (2013) | 60 Minutes Australia

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In this interview, (9:02) Harry Styles addresses the objectification of women by saying that he (as well as his bandmates), doesn't do that, and therefore criticizing people who do. However, the male interviewer retorts by saying that this is media training, which shows again how badly he was depicted in the media as a boy band member.

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Niall & Harry From One Direction Sit Down With The Bert Show

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Harry Styles for the Zane Lowe interview (2022)

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Harry Styles for the Zane Lowe interview (2022)

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In his most recent interview with Zane Lowe, he conveys again an intimate atmosphere, where he looks back at certain moments of his career with a more mature eye, and gives us advice about life in general. For instance, (44:52) he talks about the importance of being who you want to be and not what people want you to be. Once again, this shows a certain authenticity and realness.

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Harry Styles - Zane Lowe & Apple Music ‘Harry’s House’ Interview

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Harry Styles interview for Prime Video (2022)

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Harry Styles interview for Prime Video (2022)

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Harry Styles' co-star Linus Roache describes him as someone who is very natural, which coincides with the image that "we" have from him, whether the "we" is the public in general or his fans.

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In Discussion with Harry Styles and the Cast of My Policeman | Prime Video

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Harry Styles interview for Rolling Stone (2022)

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Harry Styles interview for Rolling Stone (2022)

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This interview for Rolling Stone shows us a very intimate side of Harry Styles. He addresses all sorts of topic, but overall he explains that he is grateful for everything he has accomplished so far and that his main wish is for people to treat each other with respect, and to be who they want to be. He also talks about the topic that every media is obsessed about: his sexuality. He claims that everyone should be free to explore their sexuality, in order to figure out who they are.

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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.

Read next

Vest and Skirt by Vivienne Westwood, Shoes by ERL (Picture: Amanda Fordyce)

Vest by Vivian Westwood. Styling by Harry Lambert for Bryant Artists; Stylist Assistants: Ryan Wohlgemut and Naomi Phillips; Fashion direction by Alex Badia; Production by James Warren for DMB Represents; Hair by Matt Mulhall for Streeters; Grooming by Laura Dominique for Streeters; Set design by David White for Streeters (Picture: Amanda Fordyce)

TOP by BOTTER, SHORTS BY JW ANDERSON, Shoes by ERL (Picture: Amanda Fordyce)

Tank by Loewe, braces, Stylist's Own, Trousers by Gucci (Picture: Amanda Fordyce)

Tank by Loewe. braces, Stylist's Own, Trousers by Gucci (Picture: Amanda Fordyce)

Tank by Loewe, braces, Stylist's Own, Trousers by Gucci (Picture: Amanda Fordyce)

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."

Tank by Loewe, braces, Stylist's Own, Trousers by Gucci

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.

TOPS, SHORTS AND SHOES BY ERL, TIGHTS BY CHARLES DE VILMORIN

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?

Tank by Loewe. braces, Stylist's Own, Trousers by Gucci

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."

Vest and Skirt by Vivienne Westwood, Shoes by ERL

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."

Tank by Loewe, braces, Stylist's Own, Trousers by Gucci

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.'"

Vest and Skirt by Vivienne Westwood, Shoes by ERL

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."

TOP by BOTTER, SHORTS BY JW ANDERSON, Shoes by ERL

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: the world's most wanted man

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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.

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Harry Styles interview for The Guardian (2019)

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Harry Styles interview for The Guardian (2019)

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Among all those queerbating accusations, Harry Styles opened up about this specific topic in an interview for The Guardian. He stated that his styling choices didn't have anything to do with his sexuality. On the contrary, he just finds it amusing. In parallel, he said that "sexuality’s something that’s fun", also implying that his sexuality was his own and no one else's.

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Here he comes, one of the planet's most conspicuous young men, stepping out of the London drizzle and into a dusty suburban pub. If there was an old vinyl record player in the place it would scratch quiet. Instead, the two-dozen punters turn hushed and intent, as if a unicorn has just trotted in off the street, and nobody wants to scare it off. "That's frickin' Harry frickin' Styles," whispers a young man at the bar, "in this pub." The pop star is asked what he wants to drink and in a voice already inclined to undertones, quietly orders a cup of tea.

A former teen star who is now 25, a happier and rockier solo artist since his boyband One Direction split a few years ago, Styles has hidden himself inside a large, swamp-green parka. He's tall, around the 6ft mark, and carries himself with a slight stoop. If Styles could only do something about his appearance from the neck up (elfin brow, wide Joker smile, a face that's recognisable across multiple continents) you sense he could drink in pubs like this anonymously enough. As it is, cover blown, he removes the parka. A woolly jumper beneath has a picture of the planet Saturn on it. Maybe they've heard of Styles there, too.

We take a seat in the corner. On nearby tables, conversations start to sputter as people try to keep their own talk ticking along on autopilot while straining to hear what Styles says. I ask him about the sheer strangeness of this and other aspects of fame. Full stadiums, swooning admirers, an excess of opportunity and cash. Why isn't Styles an absolute ordeal of a human being by now? Keith Richards, at a comparable stage, imagined himself the pirate leader of a travelling nation-state, unbound by international law. Elton John was on vast amounts of cocaine. Meanwhile, here's Harry, known in the music industry as a bit of a freak, medically, having maintained abnormally high levels of civility in his system.

Styles tilts his head, flattered. There are others, he promises. "People who are successful, and still nice. It's when you meet the people who are successful and aren't nice, you think: What's yer excuse? Cos I've met the other sort."

Styles read Keith Richards' autobiography a while back, and he recently finished Elton's, too. (" Soooo much cocaine," he marvels.) We talk for a bit about whether extreme dissolute behaviour and artistic greatness go hand in hand. Styles, who has just released his second solo album, Fine Line, the penultimate track of which is called Treat People With Kindness, has to hope not. "I just don't think you need to be a dick to be a good artist. But, then, there are also a lot of good artists who are dicks. So. Hmm. Maybe I need to start scaring babies in supermarkets?"

A couple of lads hustle over to offer drinks. A photo is requested; they say they'll wait. I'm weirdly anxious about Styles's phone, which is slung on the table in front of him. What must be the black-market value of that thing? If fans were to get hold of it, would they want to open Styles's music app first, to listen to tracks from the new album, or rush to see his messages and calls, to find out who Styles has been flirting with late at night? The interest in his music has always run at a ratio of about 50/50 with the interest in who he is dating.

It's a ratio Styles tries to adjust in favour of the music by being vague about his ex-partners, real and rumoured ( Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner, Parisian model Camille Rowe), diverting to discuss his songs about failed relationships. A year ago, when Styles was floating around near this pub in north London, where he lives, and California, where he tends to record, looking for inspiration for the new album, his close friend Tom Hull told him: "Just date amazing women, or men, or whatever, who are going to fuck you up... Let it affect you and write songs about it."

Styles, who writes in collaboration with Hull and producer Tyler Johnson, sounds as if he took the advice. The new album, Fine Line, is at its best when capturing late-hours moments, drunk calls, "wandering hands", kitchen snogs. A golden-haired lover recurs. There are up tracks, down tracks, some with the trippy delirium of harpsichord-era Stones, others with the angsty Britpop swell of strings. While I listened, I couldn't help scribbling down names, possible subjects. On the lyric "There's a piece of you in how I dress" I wrote: maybe Kendall? In a song about a lover "way too bright for me": surely Taylor.

Styles says he keeps to a general rule: write what comes and don't think about it too much afterwards. The only time he worries about an individual lyric is if it risks putting an ex in a difficult position. "If a song's about someone, is that fine? Or is that gonna get annoying for them, if people try to decipher it?" Has he ever got that judgment call wrong and taken a bollocking from an angry ex? Styles raises an eyebrow. "Maybe ask me in a month."

I quiz him on something I've often wondered about. Why are the very famous so inclined to hook up with the very famous? From the outside it looks twice the hassle, with twice the odds of ending badly. "Don't we all do that, though?" Styles asks. "Go into things that feel relatively doomed from the start?" I ask him why he doesn't date normals. He seems tickled: "Um. I mean, I do. I have a private life. You just don't know about it."

Styles doesn't particularly like being asked about his love life, but is amused all the same, as he is about most things. When I ask about the logistics of someone as well known as him dating someone anonymous ("Do you need to give them, like, some sort of primer?"), Styles snorts with laughter.

"Uh-h-h. Like any conversation, I guess, it's easier if you're honest. But I try to let it come up when it comes up. Cos that's a weird thing to talk about, y'know? If you've just started seeing someone, and you're, like: [he adopts a throaty, mission-briefing voice] So! This is what's gonna happen! " Styles holds out his hands: no, ta. "I don't wanna have that conversation, man. It would be fucking weird."

And not very sexy, I say.

"Not sexy," Styles says, "no."

A quick aside about his accent, which is hard to capture in print. (" Nat sexy, no.") After a workout in a hotel gym recently, Styles says he was taken aback ("taken abeck") to be asked by a stranger whether he was speaking in a fake voice. He was appalled. But after so long crossing borders and time zones, living and working between England and the US, the accent has undergone a jazzy remix, and tends to get farthest from its Cheshire roots when he's around strangers. Once Styles begins to get comfortable in the pub, the flatter, no-nonsense sounds of his youth return. Nowpe he says, for nope. Fook, for fuck.

"What the fook are they?" This was the response of his childhood pals, he remembers, back in the village of Holmes Chapel, when little Harry had the gumption to show up in the playground wearing Chelsea boots instead of the approved chunky trainers. Styles's parents had separated when he was very young, but there is no origin-story trauma: he has always stayed close to both. His mother, Anne, would praise his singing voice in the car, and when Styles was 16 it was agreed he could audition for a singing contest on TV.

For a long time I didn't try therapy - I wanted to be the guy who didn't need it. But I was only getting in my own way

"The craziest part about the whole X Factor thing," says Styles, who auditioned for the ITV reality show in 2010, "is that it's so instant. The day before, you've never been on telly. Then suddenly..." Suddenly you're a piece of national property. "You don't think at the time, 'Oh, maybe I should keep some of my personal stuff back for myself.' Partly because, if you're a 16-year-old who does that, you look like a jumped-up little shit. Can you imagine? 'Sorry, actually, I'd rather not comment...' You don't know what to be protective of."

By the winter of 2010, Styles was a fan favourite, a key member of One Direction, a five-piece that enjoyed enormous national exposure and gathered millions of fans before any music had been released. Cameras filmed every part of their rise. There wasn't any time in the dark to practise, test things out, mentally brace. "We didn't get to dip in a toe," Styles says. "But, listen, I was a kid, all I knew was: I didn't have to go to school any more. I thought it was fucking great." He remembers having a lot of fun, and being well taken care of. He jokes: "Maybe it's something I'll have to deal with a bit later. When I wake up in my 40s and think: Arrrggh."

In February 2012, One Direction were feted at the Brit Awards, hours before they were due to fly to the US for the first time. On TV that night they looked young, silly, chuffed - on the precipice of something huge, and with no clue at all. Their subsequent wonder-run (five platinum albums, four world tours) had its foundations in their ridiculous popularity in the States. Right away, Styles remembers, "We were fuelling a machine. Keeping the fire going." He remembers it as a stimulating time; maybe overstimulating. "Coming out of it, when the band stopped, I realised that the thing I'd been missing, because it was all so fast paced, was human connection."

I first met Styles in 2014, around the time the lack of human connection was starting to bite. One Direction were promoting their penultimate album and I'd been commissioned to write about them the Guardian. Management felt the boys were so exhausted that my minutes in their presence had to be strictly counted. Inside a circle of cripplingly hot lights, while someone ran the stopwatch, we interacted as humanly as we could.

I remember how jaded the best singer in the group, Zayn Malik, seemed. (Malik was weeks away from quitting.) I also remember how flattered and bewildered the others were to be asked a few grownup questions - and not what Louis Tomlinson would later describe to me as "who's-your-favourite-superhero... all that shit". Styles was watchful and quiet that day. By total chance, a week later, we were in the same London cafe and he tapped my shoulder. He was having lunch with friends. "Will ya join us?"

It struck me as a quietly classy move. I was fascinated to see him interact with mates he'd chosen for himself. Styles was dry and funny, older than his years. After lunch we said the usual things about keeping in touch, and followed each other on Twitter. I kept an eye on his updates, about leaving One Direction, releasing an impressive, self-titled debut album in 2017, playing for 36,000 people in Madison Square Garden in New York, acting in Christopher Nolan's Oscar-nominated war movie Dunkirk. Meanwhile, I did my best to manage the mess that had been made of my own account after Styles's Twitter follow ignited a small explosion of teenage longing in my mentions. For at least a year I received weekly, sometimes daily, pleas from people who wanted messages conveyed to "H". Still now, every few days, fans in America, Asia and Europe follow me to "see what H sees" in their timeline.

If I get told a nice shirt is for ladies, it doesn't make me want to wear it less. It's a very freeing time

He has around 50 million social media followers, and with that comes the ability to ripple the internet like somebody airing a bedsheet. I've noticed, though, how rarely Styles directs people to support specific causes, last doing so in 2018, when he encouraged people to join a march against gun violence. Why don't you use your influence more, I ask? "Because of dilution. Because I'd prefer, when I say something, for people to think I mean it." He runs his fingertips across the table. "To be honest, I'm still searching for that one thing, y'know. Something I can really stand up for, and get behind, and be like: This Is My Life Fight. There's a power to doing the one thing. You want your whole weight behind it."

It's one of the things that sets Styles apart, the way he puts his whole weight behind the different aspects of this strange job. If you watch footage of him as a guest host on Saturday Night Live last month, Styles plunges in, fully inhabiting the silliness of every sketch. He has good songs in his repertoire ( 2017's ballad Sign Of The Times stands out), and would probably admit to some middling songs that attest to his relative inexperience as a writer. But whichever of his songs Styles performs, he goes all-in, trusting that his zest and energy will hold an audience's attention. He approaches this interview in roughly the same spirit, not enjoying every question, fidgeting, pleading for clemency once or twice, but giving everything due consideration.

I bring up something Styles joked about earlier: the possibility of waking up in his 40s with deferred mental health problems.

"Mm," he says.

Have you thought about therapy, I ask, to get ahead of that?

"I go," he says. "Not every week. But whenever I feel I need it. For a really long time I didn't try therapy, because I wanted to be the guy who could say: 'I don't need it.' Now I realise I was only getting in my own way." He shrugs. "It helps."

Lately he's been reading a lot ( Lisa Taddeo's Three Women stood out). He's watched a lot of Netflix (crime thrillers and music docs). He recently cried through Slave Play on Broadway. I sense in Styles, at 25, a pent-up undergraduate hunger, maybe a desire to make up for lost time. "I've definitely been wanting to learn stuff, try stuff," he says. "Things I didn't grow up around. Things I'd always been a little bit sceptical about. Like therapy, like meditation. All I need to hear is someone saying, 'Apparently, it's amazing', and I'll try it. When I was in Los Angeles once, I heard about juice cleanses. I thought, yeah, I'll do a juice cleanse."

How messy were the results?

"You mean...?" Styles raises an eyebrow, recalling the poos. "They were all right. I was just hungry. And bored."

One notable feature of Styles's solo career has been his headlong embrace of unconventional clothing. A 2017-18 tour could have been sponsored by the Dulux colour wheel: mustard tones in Sydney, shocking pink in Dallas. In a more serious sense, some of Styles's choices have fed into an important political discussion about gendered fashion. In May, as a co-host at the Met Gala in New York, he stepped out in a sheer blouse and a pearl earring. One evening's work challenged a lot of stubborn preconceptions about who gets to wear what.

He says: "What women wear. What men wear. For me it's not a question of that. If I see a nice shirt and get told, 'But it's for ladies.' I think: 'Okaaaay? Doesn't make me want to wear it less though.' I think the moment you feel more comfortable with yourself, it all becomes a lot easier."

What do you mean, I ask?

Styles is leaning forward, hands folded around his cup of tea. "A part of it was having, like, a big moment of self-reflection. And self-acceptance." He has a habit, when he's made a definitive statement, of raising his chin and nodding a little, as if to decide whether he still agrees with himself. "I think it's a very free, and freeing, time. I think people are asking, 'Why not?' a lot more. Which excites me. It's not just clothes where lines have been blurred, it's going across so many things. I think you can relate it to music, and how genres are blurring..."

Sexuality, too, I say.

"Yep," says Styles. "Yep."

There's a popular perception, I say, that you don't define as straight. The lyrics to your songs, the clothes you choose to wear, even the sleeve of your new record - all of these things get picked apart for clues that you're bisexual. Has anyone ever asked you though?

"Um. I guess I haaaaave been asked? But, I dunno. Why?"

You mean, why ask the question?

"Yeah, I think I do mean that. It's not like I'm sitting on an answer, and protecting it, and holding it back. It's not a case of: I'm not telling you cos I don't want to tell you. It's not: ooh this is mine and it's not yours."

What is it then?

"It's: who cares? Does that make sense? It's just: who cares? "

I suppose my only question, then, is about the stuff that looks like clue dropping. Because if you don't want people to care, why hint? Take the album sleeve for Fine Line. With its horizontal pink and blue stripes, a splash of magenta, the design seems to gesture at the trans and bisexual pride flags. Which is great - unless the person behind it happens to be a straight dude, sprinkling LGBTQ crumbs that lead nowhere. Does that make sense?

Styles nods. "Am I sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting? No." As for the rest, he says, "in terms of how I wanna dress, and what the album sleeve's gonna be, I tend to make decisions in terms of collaborators I want to work with. I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool. And more than that, I dunno, I just think sexuality's something that's fun. Honestly? I can't say I've given it any more thought than that."

In our musty corner of the pub we've somehow passed a couple of hours in intense discussion. We'll lighten up, before Styles heads home, with some chat about clever films ( Marriage Story), stupider viral videos (the little boy who's just learned the word "apparently"), that favourite-superhero stuff that, after all, has its place. He talks about the curious double time scheme of a pop star's life - those crammed 18-hour days and then the sudden empty off-time when Styles might find himself walking miles across London to buy a book, afterwards congratulating himself: "Well, that's an hour filled."

Before we stand up I ask if he's minded any of my questions.

He pushes out his lips, possibly recalling them one by one, then shakes his head. "What I would say, about the whole being-asked-about-my-sexuality thing - this is a job where you might get asked. And to complain about it, to say you hate it, and still do the job, that's just silly. You respect that someone's gonna ask. And you hope that they respect they might not get an answer."

I tell him I do.

"Cool."

Styles has to find those lads who wanted a photo. He scoops his phone off the table and flicks his thumb around the screen. Lately, he says, when he messes around on his phone in an idle moment, it's mostly to look at videos - clips that his friends have sent him, in which their kids sing along to music he's made. "Never gets old," Styles says, beaming.

A few years ago, when he emerged from the boyband, blinking, shattered, he set himself three tasks: prioritise friends, learn how to be an adult, achieve a proper balance between the big and the small. Full stadiums, provocative outfits - Styles genuinely loves these things. "But I guess I've realised, as well," he says, "that the coolest things are not always the cool things. Do you know what I mean?" He grabs his parka and his phone and, a little stooped, heads for home.

Harry Styles's album Fine Line is out now.

If you would like your comment on this piece to be considered for Weekend magazine's letters page, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication).

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Harry Styles: 'I'm not just sprinkling in sexual ambiguity to be interesting'

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The former One Direction star talks about success at 16, dating 'normals' and his right to rock a dress

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"No you are not being queerbaited by Harry Styles" - British GQ (2022)

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"No you are not being queerbaited by Harry Styles" - British GQ (2022)

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Whereas Harry Styles constantly defends the LGBTQ+ cause, he never labelled himself about his sexual orientation. Nevertheless, because of this, he has been accused of queerbating multiple times by the public and the media. As a result, some journalists tried to defend him, by stating that he doesn't owe people any explanation about his sexuality. This last aspect shows a certain shift in his media representation.

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Vague accusations of queerbaiting have followed Harry Styles for much of his solo career, but the lion's share of naysayers would be hard pressed to define what that phrase actually means.

For the 28-year-old, now in a relationship with filmmaker Olivia Wilde, the argument typically follows: Styles, who has never publicly clarified his sexual orientation, leads on the LGBTQ+ contingent of his fanbase by wearing subversive, flamboyant outfits, demonstrating a playful relationship with his self-expression of gender. That he has often promoted queer solidarity on stage at his shows, hoisting pride flags and helping fans to come out, is by the by - these are all the acts of a greedy fraud, exploiting his fans for some sort of material gain, or so goes the read of the cynic.

In its own right, queerbaiting is a difficult enough beast to wrangle. It can be applied to the whole cornucopia of the arts, from literature to movies to video games - and yes, real people, like pop musicians. It often holds weight: the argument goes that creators will "bait" queer fans by hinting at LGBTQ+ characters or relationships without properly following through, something that might've been de facto in the '90s but is oft found under the magnifying glass in the progressive contemporary. Harry Potter has been accused, as have , Ariana Grande, James Franco, Darren Criss and Calvin Klein pants.

It tends to be a little more cut and dry in fiction. Take the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has frequently teased expressions of queerness - most recently Thor: Love and Thunder, touted in the preceding press tour to be "super gay" - but stopped short of anything substantial. Then there's something like Pixar's Luca, which drew comparisons to Call Me by Your Name as a sunkissed, apparently queer-coded coming-of-ager about two boys in Italy, but was claimed by the director not to be a gay allegory. Creators are shielded by the very flexible nature of queer identities: the lines of "queerness" itself are blurred, allowing for the one-step-in approach so frequently employed.

In the real world, however, we must demand much more nuance. The stakes are relatively low in the fictional realm, so the Twittersphere jostling over whether Captain America shags Bucky Barnes or Albus is Grindelwald's Dumblewhore can be taken as relatively innocuous. That there's pressure for more representation and visibility in media can never be a bad thing, too, knowing the impact that can have on the normalisation of LGBTQ+ identities - arguably never more important in the last couple of years than the present, as anti-queer backlash seemingly simmers.

But when we're talking about someone like Styles, we're speculating on a real-life public figure who, despite what his celebrity status may betray in the minds of stans, is not owned by anyone. Our parasocial relationship to a persona of his ilk means nowt relative to his right to privacy. That he's playing a gay character in Amazon's My Policeman isn't indicative of anything, either, nor does it demand more clarity: he's an actor taking on a role, and that is a reality distinct from his private life. And yes, this all applies regardless of his shit take on gay sex.

You might find it strange that the most famous man in the world declines to explicitly clarify who he enjoys fucking, but that isn't down to you: it is, fundamentally, his decision to make. Forcing toxic, publicly anti-queer legislators out of the closet as a show of their wanton hypocrisy is one thing; expecting Harry Styles to come out on a presumptive hunch, and denouncing him as a queerbaiter for not, is another.

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No, you are not being queerbaited by Harry Styles

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Pop superstar Harry Styles has come under fire for allegedly baiting queer fans, but the reality is much more nuanced

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Harry Styles' impression of Freddie Mercury (2022)

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Harry Styles' impression of Freddie Mercury (2022)

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Here, Harry Styles pays a tribute to Freddie Mercury at his first solo Wembley show, which shows the respect he has for the late artist. Moreover, he also lets us understand that he was inspired by him, whether stylistically or musically.

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Theresa Loves Michael Jackson And Harry Styles

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Harry Styles Freddie Mercury Impression (From His Wembley Concert)

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Fan made video of Harry Styles dancing on stage (2023)

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Fan made video of Harry Styles dancing on stage (2023)

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Dance is a really important feature of Harry Styles. Even though he's not a professional dancer, he loves to dance on stage, without following a real choreography. This aspect of him highlights his desire for freedom on the one hand, and breaks the "toxic masculinity" standards on the other hand.

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The Evolution of HARRY STYLES DANCING skills | 2011 - 2023

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Harry Styles helping a fan come out (2022)

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Harry Styles helping a fan come out (2022)

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Harry Styles Helps Lesbian Come Out 🥺😭 Follow for Gay News 🏳️‍🌈 #gaynews

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"Taylor Swift fans speculate Harry Styles is 'lying traitor' she sings about on new song as wild theories circulate about her and Dianna Agron" -Daily Mail (2023)

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"Taylor Swift fans speculate Harry Styles is 'lying traitor' she sings about on new song as wild theories circulate about her and Dianna Agron" -Daily Mail (2023)

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This is another example of the media still trying to depict Harry Styles as "heartbreaker", by talking about a cheating rumour from over a decade ago that surfaced after the release of a new Taylor Swift song called "Is It Over Now?".

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Taylor Swift has got fans talking after she branded an unnamed ex-boyfriend - thought to be Harry Styles - a 'lying traitor' in a new song.

The singer, 33, has dropped previously unreleased songs on the new version of her fifth album 1989 which took her career to new heights when it came out in 2014.

On one of the new songs, Is It Over Now, Taylor hits out at a former partner for being a 'lying traitor' and sleeping with a series of models after they broke up.

During the year she wrote 1989, Taylor famously dated Harry Styles along with Conor Kennedy, son of current US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy - with both them thought to have inspired the record.

Meanwhile, Taylor has also slammed rumours that she was romantically involved with any of her female friends on the new album after it was speculated she had a fling with Glee actress Dianna Agron.

On one new song, called 'S**t!', Taylor sings about the public backlash she received for dating an unnamed heartthrob, with many speculating it could be Harry.

She sings: 'I will pay the price you won't.

'And if they call me a s**t, you know it might be worth it for once.

'And if I'm going to be drunk I might as well be drunk in love.

'He's waiting there. The sticks and stones they throw froze midair.'

She continues: 'Everyone wants him, that was my crime.

'The wrong place at the right time . . . I break down and he's pulling me in.

'In a world of boys, he is a gentleman.'

Along with Harry, Taylor has also dated DJ Calvin Harris, guitarist John Mayer, film star Jake Gyllenhaal, actor Joe Alwyn and The 1975's Matty Healy. She is currently in a relationship with American footballer Travis Kelce.

On the prologue for 1989 (Taylor's Version), Taylor recalls how she tried to avoid publicly being seen with any man to avoid speculation she was dating them.

She wrote: 'It became clear that for me there was no such thing as casual dating or even having a male friend.

'If I was seen with him, it was assumed I was sleeping with him. And so I swore off hanging out with guys. Dating.

'Flirting or against anything that could be weaponised against me by a culture that claimed to believe in liberating women but constantly treated me with the harsh moral codes of the Victorian era.'

Several of Taylor's fans took to social media to react to her newly-released songs, with one writing on X, formerly Twitter: '22 year old Taylor Swift calling Harry Styles a lying traitor is my favourite thing in the world.'

Another wrote: 'I would like to thank Harry Styles for breaking up with Taylor Swift and giving us the 1989 vault tracks'.

A third added: 'Did Taylor Swift call Harry Styles before this and was like, "listen...ummmm"'.

A fourth penned: 'Taylor Swift actually devoured Harry Styles in the vault.'

In the mid 2010s, Taylor made headlines for hanging out with several female celebrities who became known as her 'girl squad'.

They included Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, the Haim sisters, Blake Lively, Cara Delevingne and Hailee Steinfeld.

But that didn't stop people from 'sexualising' those relationships either.

Taylor wrote: 'If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn't sensationalise or sexualise that, right? I would learn later on that people could and people would.'

Dianna Agron has previously addressed speculation about her relationship with Taylor after the Glee star denied being in a love triangle with her and former NFL star Tim Tebow.

Dianna denied there was any love triangle during a 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live and when the host asked her if there was a possibility of a romance with the singer, she replied: 'Wouldn't that be juicy?'

She then blew a kiss at the camera and said: 'Hi Taylor.'

Dianna was asked again about speculation over a relationship with Taylor during a 2023 Rolling Stone interview.

She said: 'That is so interesting. I... I mean, there have been many stories about my dating life that are so wildly untrue. That's funny.'

Taylor was also rumoured to be romancing her friend Karlie Kloss after a grainy picture emerged on social media that appeared to show them kissing at a concert by The 1975 in 2014.

At the time, a spokesperson for the performer was quick to nix the rumour to Gossip Cop, branding it 'hilarious'.

In 2019, Taylor explicitly told Vogue she was not a part of the LGTBQ+ community, but was passionate about speaking up for it, adding: 'I didn't realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I'm not a part of.

'It's hard to know how to do that without being so fearful of making a mistake that you just freeze. Because my mistakes are very loud.

'When I make a mistake, it echoes through the canyons of the world. It's clickbait, and it's a part of my life story, and it's a part of my career arc.'

The musician also addressed her reason for surrounding herself with friends in her mid-twenties as an attempt to 'make up for a lack of them in childhood' not to start a 'tyrannical hot girl cult'.

In the prologue for 1989 (Taylor's Version), she also praised listeners and fans for seeing 'the seeds of allyship and advocating for equality' in her track, Welcome To New York, in which she sings: 'Everybody here was someone else before/And you can want who you want/Boys and boys and girls and girls.'

Harry Styles's A-list love life! MailOnline charts his high-profile relationships

Summer 2023-present

Harry's relationship with his girlfriend, Taylor Russell, is getting pretty serious.

The 29-year-old Watermelon Sugar singer reportedly 'sees a future' with the Bones And All actress, 29, and their romance is heating up since the pair started dating over the summer.

'Harry is head over heels for Taylor,' a source revealed to Us Weekly, before noting that he 'loves spending as much time with her as he can'.

The insider claimed: 'Things are very serious, and Harry definitely sees a future with Taylor.'

The happy couple were first romantically linked just months earlier when they were spotted leaving London's White Cube art gallery together.

At the time, the pair were seen enjoying a romantic stroll through the city while holding hands.

The following month, Russell showed her support for her new beau at his Love On Tour concert stop in Vienna, Austria.

Olivia Wilde, 39

Autumn 2020-November 2022

Harry and Olivia Wilde met in September 2020 when he was cast in her film Don't Worry Darling. At the time, Wilde was engaged to her partner of around a decade, Jason Sudeikis, with whom she shares two children.

Two months after Harry was cast in the movie, Wilde and Sudeikis announced their engagement had ended. At the time the announcement was made, a source claimed the pair had been separated since the beginning of 2020.

People reported that the source said: '[The split has] been amicable and they've transitioned into a great co-parenting routine. The children are the priority and the heart of the family's relationship.'

As filming continued on set, Wilde heaped praise on to her lead actor in interviews, making note of his lack of 'toxic masculinity'.

She said: 'It's pretty powerful and kind of extraordinary to see someone in his position redefining what it can mean to be a man with confidence.'

By January 2021, the couple were spotted out and about holding hands for the first time, as they dressed in all their finery to attend the wedding of Styles's agent in Montecito, California.

The pair continued to date and grew closer over the next two years, with Styles reportedly meeting Wilde's children as the relationship became more serious.

But in November 2022, just a few months after Don't Worry Darling premiered in cinemas, the couple announced they were 'taking a break' from their relationship.

A source told People: 'He's still touring and is now going abroad. She is focusing on her kids and her work in LA. It's a very amicable decision.'

Camille Rowe, 33

Summer 2017-July 2018

Styles and Victoria's Secret model Camille Rowe dated for around a year between the summer of 2017 and July 2018.

Although the pair never publicly confirmed their romance, they were reported to have met through their mutual friend Alexa Chung.

After their romance came to light, Harry and Camille were spotted on a string of occasions together, including a sushi date.

The French beauty also turned out to lend her support at his concerts, including one she attended with her mother, Anne Twist.

Following the couple's split, Harry hinted during a promotional tour for his album Fine Line that some of the tracks on the record had been inspired by the romance.

Some fans suggested one of the lines in the song Falling hinted that Styles had been unfaithful to Rowe, referring to the lyrics: 'I'm in my bed and you're not here. And there's no one to blame but the drink and my wandering hands.'

In another song, dubbed Cherry, Harry appeared to mock Camille's new love interest art collector Theo Niarchos, whose father Philip owns an extensive art collection.

Harry sings, 'Don't you call him "baby", we're not talking lately. Don't you call him what you used to call me', before adding, 'Does he take you walking round his parents' gallery?'

Tess Ward, 33

2017

Styles and food blogger Tess Ward reportedly shared a 'whirlwind romance' in 2017, with rumours of the relationship flying when Ward was spotted wearing what appeared to be Styles's shirt.

Despite keeping their romance under wraps, it appeared to be over before it had even begun as the pair soon decided to spend time apart.

A source told The Sun at the time: 'Harry and Tess haven't seen each other for a number of weeks.'

The insider added: 'Tess realised she still had feelings for her ex after splitting from him to date Harry and has apologised to him for her romance with the singer.

'She was in London this week and met her ex straight away - they've been inseparable since.'

Speaking to The Times during the time the pair were rumoured to be dating, Ward revealed she had been forced to delete several of her social media accounts after receiving hate mail, leaving her solely with Instagram, although she admitted she was beginning to resent that, too.

She explained: 'At the moment, I'm getting a lot of direct messages there, but I respectfully chose not to reply to them, because they're all... interesting. I want a break!'

Dubbing the hate messages 'very bizarre', she reasoned: 'I'm not the kind of person who's interested in fame and if you're put in an environment which you don't understand and you can't control and you don't want, it's horrible.'

Refusing to stoke the flames, when asked outright if she was dating Harry, Tess sighed: 'I literally don't have anything to say about that.'

Sara Sampaio, 31

2015

Styles was rumoured to be dating Victoria's Secret model Sara Sampaio in 2015 after the pair were spotted partying in Manhattan one evening, and pictured saying goodbye outside Sampaio's hotel.

However, The Sun reported at the time that the Portuguese model later returned to the hotel, and emerged again the next morning around 11am, wearing the same clothes as the night before.

'There was definitely chemistry there as they hugged and kissed each other when she left but everyone thinks something was up as she came back and they left so soon after each other the next morning,' a source told the newspaper.

'Sara left at 11am dressed exactly the same. Then Harry walked out at 11.15am and it looked like he'd been partying pretty hard.'

Georgia Fowler, 30

2015

Another Victoria's Secret Angel rumoured to have shared a romance with Styles is New Zealand-born model Georgia Fowler.

Fowler first sparked romance rumours with the singer after posting a sweet photo on her Snapchat page of Styles playing Scrabble with her while dressed in a hoodie.

Little is known about the couple's reported romance as they remained tight-lipped in public about their relationship, however Fowler did her best to shut down rumours that one of the songs on Styles's debut solo album was about her.

After fans buzzed around the lyrics to the song Kiwi, she was asked on Australia's The Morning Show if the tune was about her.

The song features the curious lyric: 'I think she said, "I'm having your baby, it's none of your business".'

Presenter Kylie Gillies asked: 'Harry Styles, on his album has a song called Kiwi, can you confirm or deny that it was named after you?'

'Ah, don't really know anything about it,' said Georgia, shaking her head, after referring to Harry as a 'friend'.

She quickly added: 'Definitely don't have a baby... that's what the song is all about.'

Kendall Jenner, 27

2013, 2014, 2016

Another of Styles's whirlwind romances was with supermodel and member of the Kardashian family Kendall Jenner.

The pair reportedly got close when Styles was 21 and Jenner was 18, but the long-distance relationship did not last.

After about three months of dating, a source told The Sun the pair had called time on their relationship.

At the time, Styles had already had a string of high-profile relationships, however Kendall had reportedly only been involved with her high school boyfriend Julian Brooks.

A source told The Sun the pair had separated so they could focus on work and that there were no hard feelings between them.

They said: 'There's been no major fallout. They're definitely still friends ad haven't ruled anything out in the future.'

Despite calling time on their romance in 2014, the pair were spotted getting cosy on a yacht in St Barts early in 2016 after ringing in the new year together.

Photos showed the pair nuzzling into each other as they lay out on the sun deck surrounded by friends.

Shortly afterwards, the pair went their separate ways once again, but they appear to have remained friends as Jenner has been spotted at Styles's concerts supporting her ex in recent years.

Taylor Swift, 33

2012

Between 2012 and 2013, Styles and singer Taylor Swift had a three-month fling before the pair were reported to have split shortly after the new year following an 'almighty row'.

Little more than a week after a very public display of affection on New Year's Eve as the clock struck midnight to kick off 2013, a source confirmed to MailOnline that Styles and Swift had parted ways.

The source said: 'Yes, I can confirm they have split up. They were on holiday and had an almighty row. They are two young stars at the top of their game, so who knows what will happen in the future.'

Swift, who is known to write songs about past relationships, is thought to have penned at least three songs about Styles - I Knew You Were Trouble, Style and Out Of The Woods.

In 2015, the singer revealed her whirlwind romance with Styles had been an experience filled with anxiety.

During a performance at the Grammy Museum, she introduced Out Of The Woods by telling the audience about an anxiety-inducing relationship - although she didn't mention Styles by name.

'I'm going to play you a song that I wrote about a relationship that I was in that the number one feeling I felt in the whole relationship was anxiety,' she explained as she sat at her piano.

'Because it felt very fragile, it felt very tentative. And it always felt like, "Okay, what's the next road block? What's the next thing that's gonna deter this? How long do we have before this turns into just an awful mess and we break up? Is it a month? Is it three days?"'

Caroline Flack, died aged 41 in 2020

2011

The late TV presenter Caroline Flack met Styles when he was a contestant with One Direction on The X Factor and she was host of spin-off show The Xtra Factor.

With a 15-year age gap - as Styles was 17 and Flack was in her early 30s at the time - the couple saw their romance come under harsh criticism from outsiders, which no doubt added to the decision to call time on their relationship after only three months.

However, the pair only ever had good things to say about each other and defended their romance in the face of criticism.

Following their split, the pair remained full of praise for each other, with Styles pouring cold water on rumours about the break-up on Twitter.

He tweeted: 'Please know I didn't "dump" Caroline. This was a mutual decision. She is one of the kindest, sweetest people I know.'

Caroline Flack passed away in February 2020 after taking her own life.

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Taylor Swift fans speculate Harry Styles is 'traitor' she sings about

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The singer, 33, has dropped previously unreleased songs on the new version of her fifth album 1989 which took her career to new heights when it came out in 2014.

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Tik Tok about Harry Styles' "cheating" allegations (2023)

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Tik Tok about Harry Styles' "cheating" allegations (2023)

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On the other hand, some fans are making jokes about the situation, which shows the difference between the star image he receives from his fans and the one he receives from the media.

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and we thought we would get a collab😭 #taylorswift#harrystyles #1989taylorsversion 

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@morganisfun
and we thought we would get a collab😭 #taylorswift#harrystyles #1989taylorsversion
♬ IS IT OVER NOW TV - Avery

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"Harry Styles's VERY A-List girlfriends! From Taylor Swift to Olivia Wilde and Kendall Jenner, FEMAIL charts the singer's high profile relationships" - Daily Mail (2023)

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"Harry Styles's VERY A-List girlfriends! From Taylor Swift to Olivia Wilde and Kendall Jenner, FEMAIL charts the singer's high profile relationships" - Daily Mail (2023)

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Still today, tabloids are very interested in Harry Styles' love life, by making assumptions about his personal life, whenever he'seen with a woman. However, his image as a "womanizer" is less prominent than it used to be.

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Harry Styles is currently smitten with his girlfriend Taylor Russell - and things have certainly been heating up since they were first spotted at an art gallery in June.

The 29-year-old former One Directioner is said to be 'head over heels' for the Canadian actress, also 29, leading fans to question if this could be his last stop in a long line of A-list flames.

The star's dating résumé reads likes a who's who of Hollywood with the likes of Emily Ratajkowski, Olivia Wilde and Kendall Jenner making the list.

Perhaps his most talked about relationship was a three-month romance with megastar Taylor Swift back in 2012 - but it didn't appear to end amicably with fans even accusing the pop star of shading him in a new song.

Harry's eclectic love life has also seen him date his director, as he was cast in Wilde's film Don't Worry Darling, and Xtra Factor presenter, the late Caroline Flack.

Here, FEMAIL takes a look at Harry Styles's relationship with Taylor Russell and the famous flames before her...

Taylor Russell, 29

Harry all but confirmed his fiery new romance with Taylor Russell while the pair were spotted on a cosy night out in August earlier this year.

It was a special night for the actress, with the couple secretly attending the press night of her play The Effect at the National Theatre.

All eyes were on the duo who could barely keep their own eyes off each other, while the Bones And All star Taylor, placed a caring hand on her beau's shoulder.

While it's true that superfans have seen Harry flaunt similar PDA gestures with his former flings, this time a source says things are pretty serious.

Their months-long relationship began sizzling in the summer of this year and now the Watermelon Sugar singer reportedly 'sees a future' with Taylor.

'Harry is head over heels for Taylor,' a source revealed to Us Weekly on Thursday before noting that he 'loves spending as much time with her as he can'.

The insider claimed: 'Things are very serious, and Harry definitely sees a future with Taylor. Despite their busy schedules, they make time for each other as often as possible'.

The insider also said that the ex One Direction star 'accompanied Taylor to an after party last weekend' for the final night of her play, The Effect, at the National Theatre.

'Even though they're both busy with their careers, they support one another any chance they get,' the source told the outlet. The insider also revealed that 'Harry is always smiling when he's with her.'

Emily Ratajkowski, 32

Harry Styles and Emily Ratajkowski set tongues wagging when a passer-by spotted them kissing in Tokyo on March 25.

The passionate embrace sparked a media frenzy when the two were spotted after a gig on a leg of his aptly named Love On Tour concerts.

Setting the romantic scene was a downpour of rain, which they reportedly took cover from before engaging in a deep kiss.

The stunning model was sure to fan the flames when she later revealed she had been secretly dating Harry for two months - and even said he might be 'the one'.

She told all in a podcast interview recorded on March 9, where she sweetly gushed about how 'great' he is.

Emily said: 'I just started dating someone that I think I like, so that is different. I was like, 'He's kind of great'. But if you had been talking to me four weeks ago, absolutely. I would be seeing someone and then suddenly the way he would walk would be like, ugh.

'What do I look for in a partner? I like someone that is very independent. I think, for me, that's very important because I do have a full life. I'm hoping that dating someone that has more of their own life will prevent the issues I had before'.

Unfortunately the sentiment was shortly lived after the two called time on their romance, and Harry moved on to his current sweetheart Taylor.

Emily soon bounced back, sending a shock to fans worldwide when she was pictured in yet another public kiss - but this time with comedian Stéphane Bak.

They debuted their new romance in Paris earlier this week, where Stéphane was also seen grabbing the model's pert derriere.

The couple were seen gazing lovingly into one another's eyes before kissing each other's necks and enjoying a glass of wine and a cigarette in the street.

Autumn 2020-November 2022

Styles and Olivia Wilde met in September 2020 when he was cast in her film, Don't Worry Darling. At the time, Wilde was engaged to her partner of around a decade, Jason Sudeikis, with whom she shares two children.

Two months after Styles was cast in the movie, Wilde and Sudeikis announced their engagement had ended. At the time the announcement was made, a source claimed the pair had been separated since the beginning of 2020.

People reported the source said: '[The split has] been amicable and they've transitioned into a great co-parenting routine. The children are the priority and the heart of the family's relationship.'

As filming continued on set, Wilde heaped praise onto her lead actor in interviews, making note of his lack of 'toxic masculinity'.

She said: 'It's pretty powerful and kind of extraordinary to see someone in his position redefining what it can mean to be a man with confidence.'

By January 2021, the couple were spotted out and about holding hands for the first time, as they dressed in all their finery to attend the wedding of Styles's agent in Montecito, California.

The pair continued to date and grew closer over the next two years, with Styles reportedly meeting Wilde's children as the relationship became more serious.

But in November 2022, just a few months after Don't Worry Darling premiered in cinemas, the couple announced they were 'taking a break' from their relationship.

A source told People: 'He's still touring and is now going abroad. She is focusing on her kids and her work in L.A It's a very amicable decision.'

Camille Rowe, 33

Summer 2017-July 2018

Styles and Victoria's secret model Camille Rowe dated for around a year between the summer of 2017 and July 2018.

Although the pair never publicly confirmed their romance, they were reported to have met through their mutual friend, Alexa Chung.

After their romance came to light, Harry and Camille were spotted on a string of sightings together, including a sushi date.

The French beauty also turned out to lend her support at a slew of his concerts, including one which she attended with her mother Anne Twist.

Following the couple's split, Harry hinted during a promotional tour for his album Fine Line that some of the tracks on the record had been inspired by the romance.

Some fans suggested one of the lines in the song Falling hinted that Styles had been unfaithful to Rowe, referring to the lyrics: 'I'm in my bed and you're not here. And there's no one to blame but the drink and my wandering hands.'

In another song, dubbed Cherry, Harry appeared to mock Camille's new love interest art collector Theo Niarchos, whose father Philip owns an extensive collection.

Harry's words on the song say: ''Don't you call him 'baby', we're not talking lately. Don't you call him what you used to call me', before adding: 'Does he take you walking round his parents' gallery?'

Tess Ward, 33

2017

Styles and food blogger Tess Ward reportedly shared a 'whirlwind romance' in 2017, with rumours of the romance flying when Ward was spotted wearing what appeared to be Styles's shirt.

Despite keeping their romance under wraps, it appeared to be over before it had even begun as the pair soon decided to spend time apart.

A source told The Sun at the time: 'Harry and Tess haven't seen each other for a number of weeks.'

The insider added: 'Tess realised she still had feelings for her ex after splitting from him to date Harry and has apologised to him for her romance with the singer.

'She was in London this week and met her ex straight away - they've been inseparable since'.

Speaking to The Times during the time the pair were rumoured to be dating, Ward revealed she had been forced to delete several of her social media accounts, leaving her solely with Instagram, although she admitted she was beginning to resent that too.

She explained: 'At the moment, I'm getting a lot of direct messages there, but I respectfully chose not to reply to them, because they're all... interesting. I want a break!'

Dubbing the hate messages 'very bizarre', she reasoned: 'I'm not the kind of person who's interested in fame and if you're put in an environment which you don't understand and you can't control and you don't want, it's horrible.'

Refusing to stoke the flames, when asked outright if she was dating Harry, Tess sighed: 'I literally don't have anything to say about that.'

Sara Sampaio, 31

2015

Styles was rumoured to be dating Victoria's Secret model Sara Sampaio in 2015 after the pair were spotted partying in Manhattan one evening, and pictured saying goodbye outside Sampaio's hotel.

However, The Sun reported at the time that the Portuguese model later returned to the hotel, and emerged again the next morning around 11am, wearing the same clothes as the night before.

'There was definitely chemistry there as they hugged and kissed each other when she left but everyone thinks something was up as she came back and they left so soon after each other the next morning,' a source told the newspaper.

'Sara left at 11am dressed exactly the same. Then Harry walked out at 11.15am and it looked like he'd been partying pretty hard.'

Georgia Fowler, 30

2015

Another Victoria's Secret Angel rumoured to have shared a romance with Styles is New Zealand-born model Georgia Fowler.

Fowler first sparked romance rumours with the singer after posting a sweet photo on her Snapchat page of Styles playing Scrabble with her, while dressed in a hoodie.

Little is known about the couple's reported romance as they remained tight-lipped in public about their relationship, however Fowler did her best to shut down rumours one of the songs on Styles's debut solo album was about her.

After fans buzzed around the lyrics to the song 'Kiwi', she was asked on Australia's The Morning Show if the tune was about her.

The song features the curious lyric: 'I think she said 'I'm having your baby, it's none of your business'.'

Presenter Kylie Gillies asked: ' Harry Styles, on his album has a song called 'Kiwi', can you confirm or deny that it was named after you?'

'Ah, don't really know anything about it,' Georgia shook her head, after referring to Harry as a 'friend'. She quickly added: 'Definitely don't have a baby... that's what the song is all about.'

Kendall Jenner, 27

2013, 2014, 2016

Another of Styles's whirlwind romances was with supermodel and member of the Kardashian family, Kendall Jenner.

The pair reportedly got close when Styles was 21 and Jenner was 18, but the long-distance relationship did not last.

After about three months of dating, a source told The Sun the pair had called time on their relationship.

At the time, Styles had already had a string of high profile relationships, however Kendall had reportedly only been involved with her high school boyfriend Julian Brooks.

A source told The Sun the pair had separated so they could focus on work and that there were no hard feelings between them.

They said: 'There's been no major fallout. They're definitely still friends ad haven't ruled anything out in the future.'

Despite calling time on their romance in 2014, the pair were spotted getting cosy on a yacht in St Barts early in 2016 after ringing in the new year together.

Photos showed the pair nuzzling into each other as they lay out on the sun deck surrounded by friends, who just passed by and didn't distract them from each other for a second.

Shortly afterwards, the pair went their separate ways once again, but they appear to have remained friends as Jenner has been spotted at Styles's concerts supporting her ex in recent years.

Taylor Swift, 33

2012

Between 2012 and 2013, Styles and singer Taylor Swift had a three month fling before the pair were reported to have split shortly after the new year following an 'almighty row'.

Little more than a week after a very public display of affection on new year's eve as the clock struck midnight to kick off 2013, a source confirmed to MailOnline that Styles and Swift had parted ways.

The source said: 'Yes I can confirm they have split up. They were on holiday and had an almighty row. They are two young stars at the top of their game so who knows what will happen in the future.'

Swift, who is known to write songs about past relationships, is thought to have penned at least three songs about Styles - I Knew You Were Trouble, Style and Out of The Woods.

In 2015, the singer revealed her whirlwind romance with Styles had been an experience filled with anxiety.

During a performance at the Grammy Museum, she introduced Out of the Woods by telling the audience about her anxiety-inducing relationship - although she didn't mention Styles by name.

'I'm going to play you a song that I wrote about a relationship that I was in that the number one feeling I felt in the whole relationship was anxiety,' she explained as she sat at her piano.

'Because it felt very fragile, it felt very tentative. And it always felt like, "Okay, what's the next road block? What's the next thing that's gonna deter this? How long do we have before this turns into just an awful mess and we break up? Is it a month? Is it three days?"'

Caroline Flack, died aged 41 in 2020

2011

Late TV presenter Caroline Flack met Styles when he was a contestant with One Direction on The X Factor and she was host of spin-off show The Xtra Factor.

With a 15 year age gap, as Styles was 17 and Flack was in her early 30s at the time, the couple saw their romance come under harsh criticism from outsiders which no doubt added to the decision to call time on their relationship after only three months.

However, the pair only ever had good things to say about each other and defended their romance in the face of criticism.

Following their split, the pair remained full of praise for each other, with Styles pouring cold water on rumours about the break up on Twitter.

He tweeted: 'Please know I didn't "dump" Caroline. This was a mutual decision. She is one of the kindest, sweetest people I know.'

Caroline Flack sadly passed away in February 2020 after taking her own life.

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FEMAIL charts Harry Styles's high profile relationships

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The popstar and actor is currently smitten with Canadian actress Taylor Russell, 29, leading fans to question if this could be his last stop in a long line of A-list girlfriends.

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"Larry Stylinson, the One Direction conspiracy theory that rules the internet, explained" - Vox (2016)

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"Larry Stylinson, the One Direction conspiracy theory that rules the internet, explained" - Vox (2016)

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Among intrusive questions by the media, Harry Styles has been asked about his relationship with his ex bandmate Louis Tomlinson many times. After the rumour that the two friends were having a secret relationship was started by fans, the media jumped on the occasion. Indeed, there've always been an obtrusive desire by the media to assume Harry Styles' sexual orientation, even though he has stated that he didn't want to label himself multiple times.

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This summer, Courtney and Jorie are planning to get matching tattoos. A pair of 22-year-olds from Texas, the two met a few years ago at a concert, bonded over their love of the same bands, and have been best friends ever since. These days they go to shows together about three times a week.

The tattoos will commemorate their friendship - but they also carry a much deeper meaning, even though at first glance they're just a pair of cute little birds. In fact, here they are as seen on one incredibly famous chest: that of One Direction band member Harry Styles.

Sometimes called Haz, Styles isthe perpetually tousled hunky one, often inaccurately portrayed as the band's lead singer mainly by virtue of being deemed the hottest. (One Direction's other contender for "hottest," Zayn Malik, famously left the band in 2015 and recently released a record-breaking solo album.) Styles has covered his body with tattoos, but this one - at least to a large subsection of One Direction fans - has special significance.

"Jorie is getting what has been deemed the 'Harry' one and I am getting the one deemed 'Louis,'" Courtney tells Vox, "due to me calling her Tommo and her calling me Haz."

Courtney is referring to the slight differences in the two birds as they appear below Styles's collarbone. Look closely at the photo above: The bird on the right is slightly larger than the bird on the left, and if you squint, you'll notice it also has a straighter, slantier hood marking where its eyebrow might be.

For millions of Directioners, these two little birds are deeply symbolic. According to their theory, the bird on the right, the larger one, represents Styles. The smaller bird on the left represents his fellow band member Louis Tomlinson (sometimes called Tommo). The birds' size difference is said to represent the size difference between Styles and Tomlinson - and also, doesn't the bird on the right clearly have Styles's slanted eyebrows?

To fans like Courtney and Jorie, Styles's bird tattoo is crucial evidence in favor of one of the internet's most fascinating and convoluted conspiracy theories: the widespread belief among One Direction fans that Styles and Tomlinson are in love with each other.

What is Larry Stylinson?

To understand what's happening in the One Direction fandom, you have to understand what shipping is. In fandom terms, shipping generallymeans rooting for two fictional characters, or in some cases real people, to get together. "Ship" in this context can be both a verb and a noun. For instance, if I really wanted Mulder and Scully to kiss when I was watching The X-Files, I might say that I really ship Mulder and Scully, or I might say I love the Mulder/Scully ship.

In the post-'90s world of fandom, shippers usually label their favorite hypothetical relationships with a unique name, usually a portmanteau of some sort. If I ship Glee's Kurt and Blaine, I say I ship Klaine. The ship name is a huge part of how people self-identify in fandom. These days, you can be part of a fandom for a TV show, film, franchise, book, or band and never interact with people outside your ship. Which brings us to One Direction and Styles and Tomlinson.

If you combine the names "Harry" and "Louis," you get "Larry." If you combine the names "Styles" and "Tomlinson," you get "Stylinson."

Thus, the internet's biggest boy band ship name is "Larry Stylinson," or just Larry for short.

"Larry" has existed almost as long as the band itself

Styles and Tomlinson have, or at the least used to have, a very obvious friendship. One Direction's members have always enjoyed an easy physical intimacy, but fans decided soon after the band hit it big in 2010 that these two were special.

Indeed, the internet is teeming with Larries - as Directioners who ship Larry often refer to themselves - who've spent years chronicling every microgesture and millisecond of the way Styles and Tomlinson interact with each other:

In the band's early years, Styles spoke openly about the "Larry Stylinson" label and said that he and Tomlinson had talked about moving in together later in life due to their friendship. This 2011 tweet of endearment from Tomlinson to Styles is the second most retweeted post in Twitter history:

Some One Direction fans view this affection as an obvious sign of more than friendship. The anonymous blogger behind Sex at Oxbridge, a well-known tell-all blog run by a 20-something student in London, found herself drawn to the Larry ship in 2013, totally by chance and purely on the strength of Styles and Tomlinson's interactions with one another. Speaking to Vox via email, the blog's author - known on the web only as SAO - said she was shocked when she realized they weren't actually a couple:

I saw their video for "Best Song Ever" and really liked the song, so it was only by chance that after the video ended on YouTube one of the suggested videos was about Larry Stylinson and when I watched it I was like, "Oh, cute - two of them are together. I didn't know that!" I just thought it was common knowledge and that, from their behavior, they were clearly out as a couple.

THEN I realized that wasn't the case and basically that is when I began to look deeper into what was going on. I basically absorbed all the information about Larry and One Direction humanly possible in a weekend, including blogs and videos with arguments that Larry wasn't real and at the end of it all I just looked at things that were unexplainable for both outcomes and there was a lot more that couldn't be explained if you accept that Larry is not real.

Because the Larry ship is so huge within the One Direction fandom, the list of exhaustive, detailed manifestos full of signs that Styles and Tomlinson are in love is virtually endless. The following video in particular has long been known as the Larry "bible" - a compilation of evidence of their love for each other that's so compelling that many fans believe you can't come away from it unconvinced:

Styles and Tomlinson's tattoos, in particular, have been analyzed and decoded and interpreted as a breathtakingly detailed map of a years-long secret romance. Fans believe they often get matching tattoos or tattoos that symbolize the milestones of their relationship.

For Jorie and Courtney, the tattoos were the smoking gun. "I couldn't give you one defining moment, because for me there wasn't," Jorie saysregarding when she began shipping Larry. "But [for] Courtney ... it was all the matching tattoos the boys had. Because it is one thing to have a best friend tattoo, but they have multiple matching romantic tattoos ... the tattoos are definitely what got us both to not even question it."

The ship puts a new spin on an old fandom conspiracy practice called "tinhatting"

Most, but not all, ships concern fictional characters, and in many parts of fandom there's an understanding that if you're shipping real people, you're only shipping the idea of them being in a relationship. Often, however, a ship that's built on the idea of real people getting together quickly spawns a subgroup of truthers who firmly believe the couple has already gotten together - that the idealized relationship is being conducted in secret in their real private lives.

There have been many iterations of these subgroups in various fandoms over the years. For example, fans of The Lord of the Rings have theorized and speculated about clandestine relationships between cast members; the same is true for the TV series Supernatural. And it's a fairly common occurrence with ships involving touring bandmates and members of pop groups. (To give credit where it's due, sometimes the conspirators turn out to be entirely correct, such as when Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson revealed they were dating in secret after working together on the set of Twilight.)

The conspiracy theories put forth by these fandom subgroups employ nearly identical explanations for why we never hear about the theoretical relationship in public. They unfailingly involve the band's management, or the TV show's producers, or the agents in charge of managing the two people involved in the relationship. It's usually suggested that whoever controls the pairing's purse strings has embarked on a massive micromanagement conspiracy to prevent the couple from revealing their love to the world.

Their motivations usually involve a number of reasons based in reality - like a film studio or record label being reluctant to alienate fans by revealing that one of their idols is off the market. (This is actually a common practice among Asian idol groups, many of which have strict no-dating clauses in performers' contracts.) Another commonly cited motivation for secrecy is the potential for homophobic backlash; if the ship isn't heteronormative, studios and labels may fret about alienating less open-minded fans.

Because these shipping conspiracy theories tend to follow such similar patterns, the ways in which fans who subscribe to them respond to real-life events also wind up being very similar. If one or more members of a gay pairing has a girlfriend, fans will insist she's a beard - usually one who's been hired by the pairing's managers.

If the so-called relationship continues for a long time without anyone confessing to it, fans develop the belief that the silenced lovebirds are contractually obligated not to reveal their sexuality and/or relationship until their term of work ends. This belief is usually accompanied by the assumption that as soon as a major significant milestone (like a movie release or a successful world tour) has passed, the pairing will be free to come forth and declare their love - like an end-of-days prediction, but usually gayer.

Fandom has dubbed the practice of forming elaborate theories and then fitting news events and occurrences into them "tinhatting," a name meant to evoke tinfoil conspiracist hats. Like every other conspiracy group, fans who tinhat read and decode secret messages from the members of their ships to both each other and the public. Said fans are convinced that the couple is sending the messages as a way of affirming the love they can't express publicly.

Usually tinhatters comprise just a small portion of an otherwise diverse fandom. But the belief that Larry Stylinson is real has become such a popular and dominating theory among One Direction fans that it often dwarfs other branches of the One Direction community. For more than four years - that's at least as long as people have been quantifying Tumblr's tag usage and noting Twitter's frequently Larry-centric worldwide hashtag trends - the ship has been one of the largest elements of the One Direction fandom, which itself is one of the largest fandoms on the internet.

The result is that Larry fans have constructed an enormous echo chamber of belief around the Larry Stylinson "conspiracy." In fact, plenty of Larries use the term "tinhatting" for what they consider a really delusional idea, in order to bolster their assertions that they, by contrast, are just collecting evidence of the obvious, rationally observable fact that Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are queer and closeted together.

Larry Stylinson is bigger than any previous conspiracy theory of its kind

The scope of the Larry conspiracy theory is immense and features a number of regularly espoused beliefs, including the idea that One Direction's management company, Modest (which Larries usually refer to insidiously as just "Management"), is heavily controlling Styles and Tomlinson's social media images and public appearances at all times. Management's alleged perniciousness extends to securing beards for both Styles and Tomlinson, contractually forbidding the two to be gay, and regularly distributing fake pictures of their involvement in straight, heteronormative relationships.

In addition to all of these "typical" conspiracy tropes, Larry boasts its own set of uniquely weird particulars - starting with two rainbow-colored stuffed teddy bears that accompany the band on tours. The bears, dubbed Rainbow Bondage Bear and Sugar Baby Bear by the fandom, evidently belong to either a band member or a crew member.

Until recently the bears had their own (now-deleted) official Twitter accounts, which often featured humorous updates posted from the stage and on tour. Because rainbows are associated with gay pride, many Larries see the bears as yet another code for the progression of Styles and Tomlinson's relationship.

Indeed, after news broke in 2015 that Tomlinson's friend Briana Jungwirth was pregnant with his child, nine months of intense speculation followed that the pregnancy was fake. When the birth of Tomlinson and Jungwirth's baby was announced in January, fans switched to arguing that the baby itself was a surrogate, a doll, or a complete fabrication, going to staggeringly elaborate lengths to uphold the conspiracy.

Here's how aforementioned Sex at Oxbridge blogger SAO described the fake baby theory - what the One Direction fandom calls "Babygate" - on her Tumblr:

They would GENUINELY rather have you believe that Louis Tomlinson knocked up a girl he was cheating on his former girlfriend with whose name he has literally NEVER said out loud, ignored her for nine months, started dating someone else, took a couple faux artsy photos with the baby once it was born, but then generally went back to doing whatever the hell he wants whilst apparently in the midst of a custody battle, didn't get his mum any kind of cyber security after the last 3,847 times she was hacked thus allowing super private photos of this baby to emerge and be PRINTED IN NEWSPAPERS, lets the baby mama ride around with the baby in the backseat blasting music while her friend does "look mum no hands" Tokyo-drift style driving and simultaneously snapchatting, is so important that he gets papped every time he even looks at a supermarket or shopping centre, and now is rumoured to be pushing a doll around in a buggy?! ... They would have you believe all those things than just be like, "Look, that guy loves that guy. Sorry for the confusion. I'll leave you alone forever now."

For her part, SAO describes falling so deeply into the Larry ship that she created a BuzzFeed Community account and posted an infamous ship manifesto for the pairing, which BuzzFeed eventually took down, along with all of her previous contributions, after she wrote separate posts insinuating that Tomlinson's baby isn't real.SAO told Vox that the evidence of Styles and Tomlinson's relationship is so compelling that she's never seriously considered any other possibility:

I have never thought "Okay, well maybe this is all fake." There is too much evidence to the contrary and the fact that their bodies are literally littered with matching tattoos is enough to convince most. The stark contrast in public narrative vs actions is too disparaging to ignore. I'm a very literal and logical person and I have looked at this situation every which way and each time I do I come to the same conclusion, which is that Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are in love with each other.

Larry shippers want to save their fave band from homophobia, but the conspiracy theory linked to the ship has created its own problems

Any Larry shipper will tell you that homophobia is the main reason Styles and Tomlinson are still in the closet. And one of the main reasons Larry shippers are so vocal is that they hate the idea that these two men can't openly express their love. SAO told Vox she stays invested because "I feel it's a harsh injustice not only to them, but to their young followers, to make it seem like being gay is wrong or somehow makes you lesser."

SOA added that the One Direction fandom is full of younger queer and questioning individuals who have been alternately helped and hurt by the Larry phenomenon. "There are a lot of young fans and I constantly get messages on Tumblr and Twitter from people saying that Larry helped them come out or asking if it's that wrong to be gay considering the lengths they've gone to cover it up. ... That's a huge reason for why I stay active in the fandom."

But these good intentions have led to some unfortunate complications. Most of the support for Larry being real is rooted in the way fans interpret the physical intimacy between Styles and Tomlinson. But those who keep the closest eye on such things also note that there's been a sharp drop in their level of physical intimacy. Since 2011, Styles and Tomlinson have gone from joking about posing for photos "with our arms around each other" to rarely standing next to each other in public.

In a 2012 interview with Tumblr's now-defunct Storyboard, Tomlinson was blunt about blaming the Larry Stylinson phenomenon for changing his public behavior:

"This is a subject that was funny at first but now is actually hard to deal with, as I am in a relationship," he said. "Me and Harry are best friends. People look into our every move - it is actually affecting the way me and Harry are in public."

In other words, fandom's insistence that Styles and Tomlinson's ability to comfortably share physical intimacy with each other means they must be gay resulted in the sad but predictable drop-off of said physical intimacy between them. Ironically, the movement attempting to liberate them from the closet has essentially forced them to behave unnaturally - to conform to rigid standards of masculinity in order to quash the rumors.

The Larry ship also trades in perpetual misogyny: While Louis was dating longtime former girlfriend Eleanor Calder, she and her family were subject to constant backlash and harassment from fans convinced she was serving as a beard.

Some Directioners were so committed to the Larry cause that theyeven began harassing a record producer and his son who happened to share Calder's last name. The reason? They believed he was the key to unlocking proof that Eleanor had a secret identical twin that Management was using to help fake photos of her relationship with Tomlinson.

In the waning years of the One Direction fandom - Malik left the band last March; the remaining members kicked off a long hiatus last fall; Styles is starring in an upcoming Christopher Nolan World War II epic with more rumored movie roles on the way; Tomlinson is, however unwittingly, starting a family; and the idea of the other band members moving on has begun to seem inevitable - the misogyny accompanying Larry Stylinson has faded, though belief in Larry is still weirdly as strong as ever.

Neither Styles's many girlfriends nor Tomlinson's new girlfriend, Danielle Campbell, has suffered from the deep level of harassment that Calder and her family withstood for many years. But the belief in the conspiracy still overrides everything else.

Larry Stylinson is ultimately about One Direction fans and their relationship to media

Courtney and Jorie told Vox unequivocally that the Larry ship had brought them closer together and given them a community of friends. "Just because the band ends doesn't mean our friendships will," Courtney says. The two recently began making YouTube videos to document their concert-going life and explain the basics of Larry Stylinson, and they are totally unfazed when I ask them about some of the more problematic aspects of the One Direction fandom.

"We don't know [Styles and Tomlinson's] sexual orientations - we just don't," Jorie explains. "Just because we say they are in love, no one is denying them the ability to be pansexual, bi, or any number of different sexualities there are."

And she's quick to note the kicker that brings the entire conspiracy into sharp relief: "If these actions [by which she means Styles and Tomlinson's friendship, their physical intimacy, their tattoos, and many other so-called hints of their love]were happening between a boy and a girl, no one would ever question the legitimacy of their being in a relationship."

And maybe that's what Larry Stylinson is really about, beyond all the debates over whether the One Direction fandom is delusional or misogynistic, beyond the worry over whether Larry Stylinson has made it harder for Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson to simply be themselves as individuals and friends.

Prior to Larry Stylinson and perhaps the age of internet culture itself, the media could craft and carefully produce narratives about celebrities and boy band members; the popularity of the Larry Stylinson theory is, perhaps, a testament to the unprecedented agency that fans now have with regard to shaping those narratives. It's a byproduct of their ability to question and challenge the media they consume.

"[Styles and Tomlinson]have only ever denied Larry rumors in forms of type or text - never in person," Jorie insists. "We also know that Management has access to their social media accounts." For Jorie and Courtney and countless fans like them who believe that Management is "controlling" the two bandmates, every piece of information that One Direction's production team distributes is another piece of information to dissect, critique, and ultimately talk back to.

Jorie points to the recent news that Malik was forbidden to grow his beard or dye his hair while he was a member of One Direction,and that the bandwas prevented from experimenting with different musical styles and genres.

"If they could be controlling over that, of course they would be controlling over sexuality," she says.

It's almost enough to make you second-guess reality.

A song that could be about Harry Styles' past relationship with Taylor Swift

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Larry Stylinson, the One Direction conspiracy theory that rules the internet, explained

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Fake babies, fake girlfriends, and real gay soul mates: Larry Stylinson is the only boy band conspiracy you'll ever need.

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Jensen Ackles asking tickets for a Harry Styles concert - (2023)

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Jensen Ackles asking tickets for a Harry Styles concert - (2023)

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And there are other cases when celebrities show that they want to attend Harry Styles' concert. For example, during a fan convention, the actor Jensen Ackles indirectly asked the artist's mother if she could get him some tickets for one of his shows.

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jensen liking harry styles is EVERYTHING TO ME #spn #jensenackles #supernatural #spnfamily #deanwinchester #harrystyles #fyp 

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@thehufflepuffhunter
jensen liking harry styles is EVERYTHING TO ME #spn #jensenackles #supernatural #spnfamily #deanwinchester #harrystyles #fyp
♬ original sound - teagan

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David Beckham Instagram Post about attending a Harry Styles concert (2023)

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David Beckham Instagram Post about attending a Harry Styles concert (2023)

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David Beckham on Instagram: "Amazing night ❤️ LOVE ON TOUR 💙 @harrystyles #HarperSeven 💜"

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4M likes, 13K comments - davidbeckham on June 14, 2023: "Amazing night ❤️ LOVE ON TOUR 💙 @harrystyles #HarperSeven 💜"

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by David Beckham (@davidbeckham)

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"Harry Styles donates to arrested Black Lives Matter activists: 'Being not racist is not enough, we must be anti-racist'" - The Independent (2020)

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"Harry Styles donates to arrested Black Lives Matter activists: 'Being not racist is not enough, we must be anti-racist'" - The Independent (2020)

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Harry Styles' Tweet about supporting the #HeForShe movement

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Harry Styles' Tweet about supporting the #HeForShe movement

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I'm supporting @UN_Women and @EmWatson in #HeForShe 
As should you.. http://t.co/RYtM4SKkqN

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I'm supporting @UN_Women and @EmWatson in #HeForShe 
As should you.. http://t.co/RYtM4SKkqN

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I'm supporting @UN_Women and @EmWatson in #HeForShe
As should you.. pic.twitter.com/RYtM4SKkqN
— Harry Styles. (@Harry_Styles) September 25, 2014

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I'm supporting @UN_Women and @EmWatson in #HeForShe 
As should you.. http://t.co/RYtM4SKkqN

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I'm supporting @UN_Women and @EmWatson in #HeForShe 
As should you.. http://t.co/RYtM4SKkqN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
I'm supporting @UN_Women and @EmWatson in #HeForShe 
As should you.. http://t.co/RYtM4SKkqN

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Adored Pop Star or Freaky Artiste: The evolution of Harry Styles - Banks. H (2020)

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Adored Pop Star or Freaky Artiste: The evolution of Harry Styles - Banks. H (2020)

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In this paper, the author aims to show how Harry Styles managed to escape the media dragging him down in the 2010s, in order to be considered as a confident and serious artist nowadays who defends authenticity and quest for identity. She also points out that Harry Styles aims to educate people about the flaws that still exist in our society. In other words, his image revolves around embodying important values that are close to his and his fans' hearts, which makes him someone authentic and "human".

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Who is he now: David Bowie and the authentic self - Usher. B and Fremaux. S (2013)

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Who is he now: David Bowie and the authentic self - Usher. B and Fremaux. S (2013)

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The authors explain that David Bowie spent his career insisting on the importance of finding a "sense of authentic self", which is something that Harry Styles undeniably insists on too. In that way, we can see a sort of correlation between those two artists whose careers revolve around authenticity and not being afraid to be yourself.

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Like the majority of singers, Harry Styles has his own merch that is available all around the world thanks to his website. His image helps him sell products that usually promote kindness and respect, with sentences such as "Treat People with Kindness" printed on all sorts of items. We cannot but see that his merch is consistent with what he stands for.

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Official European store of Harry Styles. Fans can purchase official merchandise including t-shirts, sweatshirts, enamel pins, vinyl, CD's and more.

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The pop star owns his own beauty brand called Pleasing, where you can find makeup or nail polish, for example. Again, the products he sells perfectly align with the causes he supports. Indeed, he clearly wants to remove the standards of "toxic masculinity" by stating that makeup, as well as nail polish shouldn't be gendered.

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For Fancy Friends, we were captivated by the idea of bringing together an optimistic, imaginative daydream with an unsettling, anxious nightmare and displaying this in a doodle that might happen in a classroom. Find this now playfully reflected in the colors, motifs, characters, and animations throughout the collection

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Harry Styles - Music for a Sushi Restaurant (2022)

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Harry Styles - Music for a Sushi Restaurant (2022)

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This music video highlights the singer's vulnerability and fears, therefore his emotions. Indeed, in this clip, you can understand how Harry Styles feels about the music industry. He makes us understand that he is worried of being rejected if something were to happen to his voice. This underlines a certain objectification of his persona, a commodification. In the industry, he is considered like a product.

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Harry Styles - Music For a Sushi Restaurant (Official Video)

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Lyrics of the song She by Harry Styles (2019)

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Lyrics of the song She by Harry Styles (2019)

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Harry Styles writes all of his songs, which highlights his authenticity even more. Indeed, being the author of his compositions underlines his realness and genuineness because it also allows him to talk about himself. While looking at the lyrics of his songs, it makes us feel like we are learning about him.

"She" represents the singer's quest for identity, for the song is about him discovering and learning about his feminine side, which points out the singer's desire to let people discover their own identity.

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Sorry, we have to make sure you’re a human before we can show you this page.

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Harry Styles - Treat People With Kindness (2021)

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Harry Styles - Treat People With Kindness (2021)

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"Treat People With Kindness" is THE motto that Harry Styles promotes all the time. It represents a sense of togetherness and equality, which is something that the singer constantly addresses at his shows. He wants everyone to feel included and represented, which shows at the same time a certain desire of proximity to his fans.

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Harry Styles - Treat People With Kindness (Official Video)

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Harry Styles during his Coachella performance (2022)

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Harry Styles during his Coachella performance (2022)

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Harry Styles on the set of My Policeman - British Vogue (2021)

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Harry Styles on the set of My Policeman - British Vogue (2021)

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In 2022, Harry Styles starred in 2 films as the main character. In "My Policeman", he plays Tom, a gay policeman living in the UK in the 1950s, at a time when being gay wasn't allowed. On the one hand, this role allowed him to show his support to the LGBTQ+ community, but on the other hand, he received critics for playing a queer character as a straight man, even though he never confirmed his sexual orientation.

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Harry Styles promoting his beauty brand Pleasing - Vanity Fair (2021)

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Harry Styles promoting his beauty brand Pleasing - Vanity Fair (2021)

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This picture of Harry Styles' hands wearing nail polish, was used as a promoting picture for his brand, Pleasing. What's interesting here is that you can recognize him without even seeing his face, which asserts a certain commodification of his own person. While his image is being widely distributed and used, he found a way to be original, rare and unique (Morin. E., The Stars, 1957).

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As It Was broke all sorts of records in the music industry. While, this song has been a really successful move for the artist, musically speaking, it also allowed him to highlight again this quest for identity that seems to be really important for him.

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Harry Styles - As It Was (Official Video)

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Despite being only 19 at that time, the image of the "womanizer" followed him during his early career. Tabloids have been primarily focused on the young boy's sexual life, by asking him extremely intimate questions.

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Despite being only 19 at that time, the image of the "womanizer" followed him during his early career. Tabloids have been primarily focused on the young boy's sexual life, by asking him extremely intimate questions.

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Harry Styles interviewed with Chris Pine for the movie Don't Worry Darling (2022)

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Harry Styles interviewed with Chris Pine for the movie Don't Worry Darling (2022)

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This interview allows us to see the funny side of Harry Styles, as well as the "spontaneous" side of him. Indeed, when he is answering the questions, he looks unprepared and therefore makes funny comments, which makes him look even more authentic. His comment at 6:57 for example, received a lot of funny responses from fans.

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Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Gemma Chan - DON'T WORRY DARLING - #Venezia79

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Fan footage of Jennifer Aniston attending Harry Styles' concert (2023)

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Fan footage of Jennifer Aniston attending Harry Styles' concert (2023)

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Other times, fans like to share footage of other celebrities attending and enjoying a Harry Styles' concert. This was the case for Jennifer Aniston, for example.

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jennifer aniston at harry styles concert is the best thing we could’ve get. (january 26, 2023) #jenniferaniston #harrystyles #loveontour 

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@team_aniston
jennifer aniston at harry styles concert is the best thing we could’ve get. (january 26, 2023) #jenniferaniston #harrystyles #loveontour
♬ original sound - amber | TMS spoilers

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Harry Styles sympathizing with the French crowd in Paris (2023)

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Harry Styles sympathizing with the French crowd in Paris (2023)

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Here, the artist is really playful with the French crowd, in order to create a very joyful atmosphere. Besides, by trying to imitate his fans singing a French cheering song, he intends to interact with as many people as possible, because that way, everyone can participate and feel included.

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Harry Styles playing with the French crowd in Paris (July 2nd, 2023)

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Harry Styles walking tour created for fans visiting his home village - CheshireLive (2023) 

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Harry Styles walking tour created for fans visiting his home village - CheshireLive (2023) 

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Many fans from all around the world love to travel to Holmes Chapel, Harry Styles' hometown, in order to visit some landmarks linked to his life. For instance, you can see the wall where the singer supposedly had his first kiss. Now, this wall is filled with fans' inscriptions and drawings expressing their love and gratitude, which shows another degree of identification to him.

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(Image: MEN)

A Harry Styles walking route has been created for fans making the pilgrimage to the superstar's home village in Cheshire. The trail in Holmes Chapel, featuring landmarks connected to the singer, was recently drawn up by the Holmes Chapel Partnership.

It follows concerns that were raised about the growing number of fans walking along a dangerous road to access what's known as Harry's Wall at the Twemlow Viaduct - believed to be the site of his first kiss. It is covered with messages written by fans who have journeyed there from across the world.

Publishing the route in its March newsletter, Holmes Chapel Partnership said: "Now that Harry Styles is a global star there are even more fans making the pilgrimage to Holmes Chapel to see the sights of his teenage years.
READ MORE: The Cheshire village voted the best place to live in the county
"One of the attractions is Harry's Wall at the Twemlow Viaduct where allegedly Harry had his first kiss! The fans come from all over the world as you will see if you have ever stopped to read the messages there.

"These fans risk life and limb walking down the A535 on a narrow overgrown footpath to cross the road and climb over a stile with a steep drop on the other side.

(Image: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

"Holmes Chapel Partnership as part of their Safe Walking Routes campaign has produced a map to guide fans more safely to their destination."

The concerns for the legions of fans visiting the village were first raised by Dane Valley representative Cllr Andrew Kolker during a meeting of Cheshire East Council's economy and growth committee in September.

He said: "In Holmes Chapel we have a lot of teenagers, both girls and boys, coming to see the sights and sounds of Harry Styles, which is absolutely no problem. It's lovely to see them in Holmes Chapel," he said.

"However, we do have two sites that are a common site of pilgrimage for these kids and that is the viaduct [which] has Harry's name scrawled all over it apparently from when he was a young youth - and that site's a popular site for teenagers, as is the site of Harry's first kiss."

He went on to say: "This is fine except that the A535 is an extremely busy road and it's a very, very dangerous road to walk along... It's an extremely dangerous road with very, very limited parking and footpaths."

The partnership's new trail is takes fans from the train station to four landmarks around Holmes Chapel. In order they are Hermitage Bridge, Twemlow Viaduct, Harry's old employer Mandeville's bakery and his favourite restaurant Fortune City, before it ends back at the station.

Harry's Home Village walking route

1. Hermitage Bridge - Start at Holmes Chapel train station. Car parking is available. Turn right onto Station Road then take the first right turn into Sandiford Road. At the end of this road, cross Macclesfield Road at the pedestrian crossing and continue straight on through Picton Square. Turn right into Rees Crescent then left onto Hermitage Lane.

2. Twemlow Viaduct - follow Hermitage Lane through the gate onto the country lane then turn right after crossing the Hermitage Bridge into the field. The path can be muddy. Follow the public footpath alongside the River Dane towards the viaduct. Cross the stream via the footbridge and continue to the viaduct.

3. Mandeville's Bakery - After visiting Harry's Wall, retrace your route until you get to Macclesfield Road. Turn right after using the pedestrian crossing at the end of Picton Square. Mandeville's Bakery is on this road on your left. Use the footpath at the right of Mandeville's to turn left into The Square and walk round the back of St Lukes Church. Cross at the pedestrian crossing if you would like to visit the many options for shopping and refreshments in the village.

4. Fortune City Chinese restaurant - Continue south on the A50 past the precinct and library on your left towards the traffic lights. Cross carefully at the crossroads junction where the A50 and A54 meet. Fortune City Chinese restaurant is on your right. Take the footpath opposite the restaurant and to the right of the car garage into Bromley Drive. At the end of this road, cross over Station Road and head right towards the train station which will be on your left.

NEWSLETTER: READ NEXT: Get all the latest news from Crewe and Nantwich by subscribing to our dedicated newsletter here

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Harry Styles walking tour created for fans visiting his home village

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The trail has been published following safety fears that were raised as a result of fans 'risking life and limb'

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TikTok video of a fan getting a Harry Styles related tattoo (2023)

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TikTok video of a fan getting a Harry Styles related tattoo (2023)

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This video highlights the kind of relationship that there is between Harry Styles and his fans. Indeed, there is a strong sense of identification among his fans. His music being really focused on mental health and the expression of emotions, his fans often identify themselves to his work, and even to his personality from time to time. And sometimes, this identification goes to the point where they would even get tattoos related to him. In fact, many fans proudly claim that the artist saved them, which shows an even stronger sense of identification.

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absolutely in love with it🥹❤️‍🩹 #harrystyles #fineline #tattoo #edin2

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@billietpwkx
absolutely in love with it🥹❤️‍🩹 #harrystyles #fineline #tattoo #edin2
♬ sonido original - maya

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Harry Styles singing one of his songs to a fan suffering from cancer (2019)

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Harry Styles singing one of his songs to a fan suffering from cancer (2019)

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By singing a song to a fan suffering from cancer, the singer manages to weaken the barrier that usually exists between a celebrity and their fans.

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VIDEO OF HARRY SINGING ‘SWEET CREATURE’ TO EMMA 💗

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Harry Styles for "Spill your Guts" on the James Corden Show

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Harry Styles for "Spill your Guts" on the James Corden Show

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This video of Harry Styles playing "Spill your guts" with Kendall Jenner shows again an aspect of his personality. He makes jokes, laughs and interacts with the audience present there, as well as with the camera (therefore with us) for the entirety of the video, which allows us to see how close he is to the public and how comfortable he feels around it.

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Spill Your Guts: Harry Styles & Kendall Jenner

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Harry Styles for the Graham Norton Show (2017)

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Harry Styles for the Graham Norton Show (2017)

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In this interview, Harry Styles shows again his friendliness by making funny comments and jokes, which makes people like him more. He is not very serious, which makes him look more ordinary, more like us. There is an aspect of proximity, which therefore highlights authenticity.

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Harry Styles reveals whether rumours about him are true - The Graham Norton Show 2017: Preview

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Harry Styles - Falling Live From The BRIT Awards (2020)

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Harry Styles - Falling Live From The BRIT Awards (2020)

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This really emotional performance of his single "Falling" allows us to see his realness in many ways. Foremost, he is singing live, which shows us his desire to reveal his real voice. Besides, his eyes filled with tears highlights his vulnerability, for we can see his real emotions. At the same time, not hiding his sadness is a way for him to break the "toxic masculinity" standards. Indeed, he shows that men are allowed to cry. On top of that, he is breaking masculine clothing standards by wearing a flowery ensemble with gloves.

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Harry Styles - Falling (Live From The BRIT Awards, London 2020)

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Harry Styles' star image is also constructed by other celebrities, for whom he seems to appear as a star/celebrity himself. 

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Harry Styles' star image is also constructed by other celebrities, for whom he seems to appear as a star/celebrity himself. 

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Sometimes, celebrities like to share pictures and/or videos of them attending the pop star's concert. This was the case for David Beckham and Jared Padalecki, for example. In parallel, it's relevant to point out that both of them decided to wear feather boas, (the way Harry Styles does) which are considered "feminine" accessories. To an extent, this highlights Harry Styles' success in his desire to break the "toxic masculinity" standards and to encourage this quest for identity.

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If Harry Styles' fans love to do everything they can to build a certain proximity with him, he constantly tries to reinforce it himself in many different ways.

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If Harry Styles' fans love to do everything they can to build a certain proximity with him, he constantly tries to reinforce it himself in many different ways.

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This video came out on Harry Styles' platforms after his last tour "Love In Tour" ended. By including videos of his fans, he gives them a voice, and therefore creates a strong proximity with them. By explaining that this tour was about bringing people together and people learning to love themselves, this video highlights the singer's desire to be close to his public.

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Like every celebrity, Harry Styles is commodified. However, like Brian Moeran said, he is both a product and an intermediary, for he helps others to sell (Moeran. B, Celebrities, culture and a name economy, 2001)

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Like every celebrity, Harry Styles is commodified. However, like Brian Moeran said, he is both a product and an intermediary, for he helps others to sell (Moeran. B, Celebrities, culture and a name economy, 2001)

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Harry Styles donates $1 million to gun safety organisation after Texas school shooting - The Independent (2022)

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Harry Styles donates $1 million to gun safety organisation after Texas school shooting - The Independent (2022)

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Harry Styles often uses his notoriety to defend causes that are close to his and his fans' hearts.

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Harry Styles often uses his notoriety to defend causes that are close to his and his fans' hearts.

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Through his social media platforms, or even at his concerts, Harry Styles has denounced multiple times gun violence and racism.

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He has also repeatedly shown his support for feminism as well as for the LGBTQ+ community. Indeed, by posting pictures online, going on strikes, waving flags and signs on stage, or even helping fans to come out, he has gained the support of a countless number of fans.

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Throughout his solo career, Harry Styles' "quest" for freedom has become more and more prominent. Indeed, as time went on, he started to act more freely, in terms of his presence on stage, but also in terms of his styling. This search for identity is one of the causes the singer is intent upon defending. His image really revolves around finding oneself's identity.

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Throughout his solo career, Harry Styles' "quest" for freedom has become more and more prominent. Indeed, as time went on, he started to act more freely, in terms of his presence on stage, but also in terms of his styling. This search for identity is one of the causes the singer is intent upon defending. His image really revolves around finding oneself's identity.

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Breaking toxic masculinity as well as clothing standards seems to be a cause that Harry Styles defends repeatedly. Indeed, he promotes equality, togetherness, as well as the quest for identity thanks to his songs, movies, social media and interviews.

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An artist who is a model to other celebrities/ stars

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An artist who is a model to other celebrities/ stars