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I was not a fan of Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell’s romantic comedy Anyone but You, and even though it made a gazillion dollars without my support, I stand by that. But maybe there was something to that pairing—because I am quickly becoming a fan of whatever it is they’re doing now.

For those in need of a summary, in March, celebrity news outlets began to run with rumors that Sweeney’s engagement to Jonathan Davino, with whom she’d been in a relationship for seven years, might be off. It was an easy leap from there for anyone who’s been paying attention to fantasize that this might create an opening for Sweeney to finally get together with Powell, after years of speculation about their romantic status going back to the filming of their movie. But that was mostly just wishful thinking—until Sweeney showed up at Powell’s sister’s wedding and related events over the weekend and sent the rumor mill into overdrive.

A report in TMZ clarified that Sweeney didn’t attend the wedding as Powell’s date. Sweeney reportedly brought a friend as her date, which was the plan when she RSVP’d months ago, before anyone knew anything was up with her relationship with Davino. Sweeney also apparently is good enough friends with the bride, Leslie, to have been invited on her own—Leslie worked on music for Anyone but You. So the official story is that Sweeney and Powell are not together. That’s the party line that even his mom is pushing in an interview with the Daily Mail. (Oh no, Mama Powell, why did you talk to the Daily Mail?) But the official story is almost beside the point. Sweeney and Powell had to know that it would set tongues wagging for them to be spotted at a wedding together amid a gossip firestorm about her potentially breaking things off with her fiancé. And they had to decide that they didn’t mind that happening.

We’ve been here before. When Anyone but You was shooting in 2023, tabloid speculation that Sweeney and Powell were more than friends was rampant, and was helped along by the timing of Powell’s breakup with then-girlfriend Gigi Paris. (Sweeney remained engaged to Davino, a businessman who also served as a producer on several of her movies; she was first spotted with a ring in 2022.) Last year, after the movie came out and outperformed expectations, the pair admitted that they “leaned into” the speculation for marketing purposes, knowing the intrigue might help sell their film. They were given frankly too much credit for doing what stars have done to sell movies since time immemorial, but then again, their movie did earn $220 million at the global box office, so you can’t say they didn’t do something right.

And now, arguably, they’re doing it again. I’m not saying this is explicit promo for any specific movie, though they did tease that they want to make more together. But they know that the public likes this subplot, so they’re giving us more of it. The parallels to their (dumb and bad, I’m sorry) movie with its whole fake-relationship-at-a-wedding device only make it more appealing. At a time when celebrities are more uptight and less fun than ever, you have to applaud it: This is old-fashioned tabloid gossip, the kind that’s in regrettably short supply these days. Yup, these two are movie stars.

But as much as I appreciate what Powell and Sweeney are giving us here, is this a safe space to admit that I don’t really see the two of them together? Given how serious she is about her career and her many, many business pursuits, I picture Sweeney partnering with another accomplished non-actor next, preferably a billionaire. (Could she steal Jeff Bezos from Lauren Sanchez before they’re scheduled to tie the knot this summer? I mean, I wouldn’t want to go up against her.) Powell hasn’t publicly dated anyone since he and Paris broke up; at 36, he’s closer to Sweeney’s age than Davino, but still potentially in a different life phase than she is. I remember finding it a little weird how enthusiastically he was parading his dog around last summer on the Twisters press tour, almost like he was using the animal as a shield so no one would ask about his love life. Maybe this was all part of the saga of covering up that he was still pining for Sweeney. More likely we have no idea what’s really going on with these two. But what’s really going on almost doesn’t matter. There’s no way it’s as fun as the storyline fans have invented, and Powell and Sweeney know it.