Glen Powell Addressed His & Sydney Sweeney’s Flirty Press Tour

Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney’s Anyone But You press tour has been full of flirty moments, whether the actors were telling each other their cheesiest pickup lines or reading thirst tweets about themselves. The two leads’ chemistry sparked some serious dating rumors, harkening back to the rom-coms of yore (ahem, The Notebook and The Last Song). According to Powell, this strategically coy press tour was on purpose, and Sweeney deserves “all the credit.”

“I don’t have the mental capacity to pull anything like this off, but she’s very smart. She’s very smart,” Powell told Business Insider in December. “And look, Sydney and I do have authentic chemistry.”

Apparently, the Set It Up actor struggled to put on a show for the press tour due to a personal heartbreak. “The only reason it made things harder for me to lean into that stuff was that I was going through a very real breakup amidst a promotional tour,” he told the outlet.

“I was with someone that I really loved and cared about and was trying to kind of make sense of a lot of stuff,” he said. (ICYMI, Powell and his girlfriend Gigi Paris broke up in April, per People.)

Powell clarified that there was no truth to the rumors that he and Sweeney were together IRL. “It was a lot easier for Sydney to lean into something like that because she’s in a very committed and wonderful relationship and she’s very happy. So it was a little harder for me,” he added.

In a December interview with Glamour UK, Sweeney shared her perspective on the romance rumors: “It was really hard on Glen, which made me sad… because [otherwise] it was such a beautiful experience for the both of us. I care for him so much.”

She also thought the speculation arose from her rarely stepping out with her fiancé Jonathan Davino. “Also, I’ve never really shared that much [about my relationship], so the press loves to create drama in stories,” she told the outlet.

Previously, Sweeney said she didn’t mind the speculation. “It’s a rom-com,” she told Variety in August. “That’s what people want! Glen and I don’t really care. We have so much fun together, and we respect each other so much; he’s such a hard worker, and I’m a hard worker. We’re excited for the press tour, and I literally just left ADR [automated dialogue replacement] with him. We talk all the time like, ‘That’s really funny.’”

“They want it,” Sweeney added at the time, referencing the romance rumors. “It’s fun to give it to ‘em.”