During the filming, release, and press tour of the movie Anyone But You, all anyone could talk about was the rumoured relationship between actors Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney. What seemed like a pretty evident marketing ploy stirred a lot of pots, with both stars leaving their subsequent partners by the time the film was rolled out. While many stories came out of the whole episode, one in particular painted a narrative that the filmmakers behind the film might have done a tad too much trying to sell Powell and Sweeney as a couple.
Powell had been dating girlfriend Gigi Paris since 2019, and a source close to the couple told People magazine that their relationship had been on the rocks since Top Gun: Maverick. During an appearance on the Too Much podcast, Paris said that she wasn’t “allowed anywhere close to the set” of Anyone But You and admitted that she travelled to Australia just to “look him (Glen) in the eye and break up with him.” She continued to criticise him for not putting an end to the rumours surrounding him and his co-star and actually playing into the whole plan to promote the film.
Gigi Paris and Glen Powell. (Photo: Instagram/Glen/Gigi)
Powell recently addressed these events and told GQ that, “I will always have nothing but love for her and respect for her. Everybody’s always going to have their own narrative on things and all that. And she’s welcome to it. Relationships are really hard. And when two people break up, they each go to their own brunch, and they will each tell their own narrative.” While talking about how things surrounding his personal and professional life got too much to handle during Anyone But You, Powell shared an important piece of advice that Tom Cruise gave during the filming of Top Gun: Maverick. “Tom told me, ‘Hey, it’s going to get really, really loud. It’s your job to just turn the volume down. Just remember you have your hand on that switch. You have your hand on the ability to turn up that noise or turn it down.’”
Glen Powell and Syndey Sweeney in a still from Anyone But You.
While Powell’s brief explanation of the controversy around Anyone But You makes it look like just another day in Hollywood, the whole industry was shaken by the way the two actors weaponised the rumours to work in their favour. During the same interview, Powell admitted that even though he had worked on a Cruise film, he felt like a true personality after Anyone But You. “When anything is new and out loud, if you walk into a rave out of bed, there’s some adjustment. All of a sudden you’re like, ‘What am I doing here? ‘What’s going on?’ But it’s just an adjustment. There’s an acclimation process, and soon enough you’re dancing; you’re figuring it out.”
