About two years ago, Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney promoted their high-profile romantic comedy, 2023’s Anyone but You. The press tour ultimately received a considerable amount of attention due to the pair’s flirtatious interactions in public. Dating rumors were eventually debunked and, by 2024, Powell, who had been dating Gigi Paris during a portion of that run, admitted that he and Sweeney only leaned into the affair rumors to promote the film. Now, Paris is sharing her side of the situation.
Gigi Paris shared her perspective on the situation while appearing on an episode of the Too Much Podcast (which is on YouTube). The actress and model never explicitly named either Glen Powell or Sydney Sweeney while speaking to host Emma Klipstein. Paris recalled feeling like she’d been put in a difficult situation as the rumors swirled around her then-boyfriend and his co-star. During the conversation, she opened up about the bevy of questions that were posed and how she chose to respond to the speculation:
It wasn’t crazy. It was just, this is what I have to do for my job. I had two options. I could either pretend like I was going along with everything and have everyone wonder, like, ‘Are they hooking up? Are they not hooking up? Is she okay with this? What the fuck?’ Or stand up for myself and say, ‘No, I’m actually not okay with this, and I’m walking away.’ So that’s what I decided to do. It wasn’t a way to like, monetize the breakup. It wasn’t a way to twist the story around. I was shattered.
Glen Powell and Gigi Paris were first romantically linked in 2020 and, in 2021, they went Instagram official with the relationship. When Powell and Sydney Sweeney began promoting their film in 2023, they turned heads when they appeared at CinemaCon that year. Not only was Powell with Paris at the time, but Sweeney was also engaged to Jonathan Davino. Speculation regarding a breakup between Paris and Powell began in earnest after the former unfollowed Sweeney on social media. Shortly after, Paris shared a cryptic IG post that seemed to signify the end of her relationship with Powell.
Paris went on to say during her podcast interview that she felt that the public’s perception of her at the time was negative. She apparently felt that she was made to look bad at that time ultimately she was “just fed to the dogs.” From there, Paris also recalled what happened when she chose to speak out:
I just wanted respect, especially if it’s gonna be public. Like, don’t make an ass out of me. Like, just don’t make a fool out of someone you’ve been with for over three years, talking about forever with. Just have some decency, you know? And, at the end of the day, it was like, well, work comes first. And, if that’s the case, power to you, that’s your priority. I gotta walk away. What sucked was how it was handled. I felt like I was just fed to the dogs. Like, good luck, you handle this. And, then as soon as I finally spoke up, there was a bunch of criticism around that.… The bare minimum of any relationship is to have your partner’s back. Period. Where are you when you just need to stand up and say, ‘No, I would never cheat on my girlfriend. I wouldn’t do that.’ That’s all that needed to be said. And that wasn’t said… never once.
Ultimately, Anyone but You became a box office hit, finishing its theatrical run with an over $200 million worldwide haul. It’s since been rumored that a sequel could happen at some point. Both of the film’s leads have played coy on the matter, with Sydney Sweeney gliding around the subject during an interview earlier this year. In the aftermath of the movie’s success, Gigi Paris still takes issue with the notion of the rom-com being promoted in a way that impacted her relationship:
It was serving them for their PR. Later on, it turned out that it was all… I don’t know if there was a relationship there or not, but then they came out to say it was all a PR scheme at the expense of our relationship. Like, it was just crazy.
Gigi Paris went on to say that she “honestly hoped” that Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney had ended up becoming an item, as it would have made all of the drama “worth it” for her. As of this writing, Powell is just friends with Sweeney, who ended her engagement to Jonathan Davino earlier this year.