Anna Sitar Explains What It’s Really Like To Be In A TikTok-Famous Romance

With 12 million followers, Anna Sitar might just be TikTok royalty. Whether she’s reviewing Starbucks drinks, doling out life advice, or sharing sweet montages of her relationship with Josh “Bru” Brubaker, fans can’t get enough of Sitar... or her videos (which have racked up a total of 1.5 billion likes, NBD).

Since rising to fame on TikTok, Anna has candidly shared many aspects of her love life. From sharing post-breakup healing TikToks dubbed “Anna’s Guide to Feeling Better After a Breakup” in spring 2021 to opening up about her new romance with Bru a few months later in December 2021, Anna hasn’t held back. (It’s probably why her followers love her so much.)

But how does sharing so much of your relationship online affect the romance offscreen? “It can be tough when you open a relationship to the public eye,” she explains. “But at the core, we know who we are as a couple. We get to sit together just on our own and be our funny, weird selves around each other, no matter what the internet might know about us.”

All in all, according to Anna, sharing her and Bru’s love story — and being able to bond over their shared passion for content creation — is actually pretty great. “It’s nice to have somebody who just understands the line of work and social media, somebody that you can really bounce ideas off of and who understands your creative energy.”

Sitar’s romance with Bru has been a-Bru-ing (sorry, had to!) since fall 2021. The duo started out as good friends — like, they even cheersed to friendship on their first actual date. But it sounds like they were always fated for something more romantic. According to Anna, when the radio host moved to LA from Michigan, he happened to pick an apartment just three blocks from her. “In LA, that’s unheard of,” she explains, before joking, “I’m convinced he was stalking me.”‌

Bru and Anna quietly started dating that autumn before publicly announcing their romance in December 2021. These days, Bru is a regular co-star on Anna’s page and their love is definitely in the spotlight. The only potential source of tension? Harry Styles — yes, that’s right, the Harry Styles. Apparently, the singer thinks Bru has a “nice face,” and he said so in the first few seconds of Bru interviewing him for his radio show in April 2022. “I never thought that I would say in my life that I’m competing with Harry Styles for my boyfriend,” Anna laughs. “It’s an honor. I mean, who gets to say that Harry Styles gave your boyfriend the stamp of approval?”

In Elite Daily’s Q&A series Everything I’ve Learned About Love (So Far), celebrities share their most heartfelt and heartbreaking lessons about dating, relationships, and breakups, and offer their best advice. This time, TikTok megastar Anna Sitar spills all the sweet deets about her relationship with Josh “Bru” Brubaker.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What is your most memorable first date story, good or bad?

I don’t think anything will match my first time hanging out with Bru, going to Lollapalooza together. We had never hung out one-on-one before that, so it was a little spontaneous. He called me and asked if I would hop on a flight and meet him in Chicago for a weekend. And I don’t know what was going through my head, but I thought it was a good idea.

I got the “OK” because he FaceTimed my mom, actually. Nobody really knows that, but my mom was like, “I don’t know, Anna. I don’t know if you should go running with a boy to Chicago.” And he offered to call her to convince her that it was going to be safe and he would fight off anybody for me. We spent the whole weekend together, and it was great. It was sweet.

What is one misconception that people might have about your love life?

I think people only see our TikToks and might think that we get together, make a TikTok, and then don’t see each other. A TikTok is 15 seconds. There’s a lot that happens off screen, but it’s all good things. A lot of it is quiet time and just getting to be around each other.

What we film and share online is honestly spontaneous. I love capturing moments. I got it from my mom. We were on vacation with my family recently, and she AirDropped random videos and pictures. She filmed Bru and me literally eating a sandwich, and I was like, “This is so random.” But also, this is such a candid moment that neither of us knew existed. Now, I get to hold onto it, and hopefully show it to our kids or our friends one day, and be like, “Oh my gosh, we sat and shared a sandwich in Italy together, who would’ve thought?” So we love having those moments to look back on.

Is there a fear you used to have about dating or relationships that you’ve overcome now?

I used to focus on being a good person for someone instead of focusing on us working well together. It ends up being this game of trying to please somebody. You learn as you grow older that there’s no way a relationship will really work if you can’t be 100% yourself.

What is your best piece of relationship advice?

Your value as an individual is not dependent on your relationship. You are fully capable of everything on your own. Just keep in mind that you can pour yourself wholeheartedly into somebody, while still knowing that you’re going to be OK if anything ever were to happen.

What is your best piece of breakup advice?

Going through a breakup isn’t a failure. It’s part of the process. It’s not saying that you’re a bad person, or that they’re a bad person. (I mean, unless they did bad things.) It’s saying that you weren’t meant to be together.

The right person will come along, and it won’t feel like this huge struggle. It will just work, and it’ll make sense.

After my breakup, it was so exciting that I had a summer where I could wake up and travel if I wanted to. I could go for a drive. I could hang out with my girlfriends. I just really enjoyed that independence. The world was my oyster. It was this moment where I was like, I am going to stop searching. I’m going to start focusing on what I want to do.

What’s one song that’s gotten you through a breakup?

Probably “Driver’s License.” I feel like that was hitting. Breakups are such an emotional growth moment where you’re sad, then you’re kind of mad, and then you’re kind of a powerhouse of a woman. You’re like, “I can take on the world.” Doja Cat got me through the end of the breakup. She brought back my confidence. She made me feel alive again.

What does love mean to you?

Seeing people’s faces when you show them love, that’s love within itself. There aren’t even words to describe it. It’s euphoric, it’s happiness, it’s lighthearted. It makes you feel safe.