Olivia Wilde addresses backlash to her relationship with Harry Styles
22 August 2022, 17:13
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Olivia says backlash to her relationship with Harry Styles doesn't "defines his fan base at all"
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Olivia Wilde has spoken out about her experiences with Harry Styles’ fanbase.
Olivia and Harry’s relationship has been scrutinised by Harry’s fans on social media since they were first spotted holding hands in January 2021.
Harry and Olivia met when Harry joined the cast of Don’t Worry Darling and a small but vocal part of the fandom hasn’t held back since. From countless mentions of their age gap to viral TikTok videos criticising Olivia’s dance moves at his concerts, cruel comments often make the rounds on social media.
Now, Olivia has revealed what she really thinks about the scrutiny from some of Harry’s fans, and her experience dealing with them overall.
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Calling her boyfriend’s fans “deeply loving people,” Olivia knows that the nastiness only comes from a small group of what is an astronomical number of fans.
“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 told Rolling Stone. “I don’t personally believe the hateful energy defines his fan base at all. The majority of them are true champions of kindness.”
Harry is aware of some of the toxicity that comes with having such a large and devoted fandom. He explains to Rolling Stone that he only uses Instagram to look at architecture and pictures of plants, he’s never had TikTok and he thinks that Twitter is “a shitstorm of people trying to be awful to people”.
As a result, he has had to strike up some difficult conversations in the very early stages of a relationship. “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?’ ”
“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 adds. “I just wanted to sing. I didn’t want to get into it if I was going to hurt people like that.”
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