Sep 7, 2025 10:00 AM EDT
If you listen to Gracie Abrams’ music, you know she’s no stranger to heartbreak. (“Made it out alive, but I think I lost it / Said that I was fine, said it from the coffin,” she confesses on her most-streamed song, “That’s So True.”) But these days, more than a year into a relationship with her unconfirmed-but-obviously-official boyfriend Paul Mescal, her love life seems to be soaring.
“I find I’ve always learned so much through disappointing romantic situations,” the “Cool” singer told Glamour UK in August 2024, in support of her sophomore album, The Secret of Us. “To be heartbroken is totally necessary sometimes … So I am really grateful for every single instance that I’ve been let down by a relationship.”
Keep reading to learn more about Abrams’ romantic history, including who may have let her down in the past and why some fans think Mescal inspired The Secret of Us even though it was written before he and Abrams were even a couple.
Is Gracie Abrams in a relationship?
Yes, Abrams is currently dating Irish actor Paul Mescal, with whom she’s been linked since June 2024. Although the couple hasn’t spoken publicly about their relationship, they haven’t gone to any extraordinary lengths to keep it hidden, either. In November 2024, they appeared comfortably loved-up at the after-party for the premiere of Mescal’s film Gladiator 2, where they even posed for photos. And a month later, they rushed hand-in-hand into an after-party for Saturday Night Live, following Abrams’ debut performance on the show.
Cut to June 2025, around the one-year anniversary of when they were first spotted out on a date (at BRAT Restaurant in London), and they were seen having a blast at the Glastonbury Festival in England. In one video, which Abrams shared on her Instagram Stories, she’s seen singing to Olivia Rodrigo’s cover of “Friday I’m In Love” from the safe perch of Mescal’s (strong, broad) shoulders.
She also posted a sweet shot with her beau onto her main feed, although she tucked it into a carousel as if it wasn’t meant to be the lead.
Still, don’t expect Abrams or Mescal to start spilling intimate details about their relationship anytime soon. Realistically, Abrams is going to share something about their romance via her song lyrics eventually. But overall, Mescal — who previously dated Phoebe Bridgers — seems dead-set on keeping his private life private.
“I’m not comfortable inviting any access into that part of my life,” he told GQ in October 2024, the same month he attended the Eras Tour in support of his new girlfriend. “How I am in my private life is so precious to me because I get very little of it, and it might be public interest, but it’s not public-obligated information.”
Are Gracie Abrams and Paul Mescal still together?
There’s no reason to believe the couple has split; on the contrary, the artsy lovebirds seem to be thriving. In a February 2025 interview with Cosmopolitan UK, Abrams said, “What I love about a healthy relationship is that your life doesn’t radically change. You just fit into each other in a way that feels positively challenging and deeply supportive — it’s like a place to land.”
She also shared that she’s “more recently become proud of [her] sex life.”
“The best I’ve ever felt during sex is when I have been performing the least in the moment,” she explained. “I think that comes from being in relationships with people who see me for who I am and who respect, love, and cherish me. People who actually want to learn about me and my body. But this is newer for me, too.”
Related: Gracie Abrams Has the Ultimate Compliment for Taylor Swift During Concert Tour
When did Gracie Abrams and Paul Mescal start dating?
The pair was first linked in June 2024, when TMZ published photos of them dining out at a restaurant in London, but it’s unclear whether that was a first date or merely a first sighting. That said, a source told People in August that Mescal and Abrams were “still early stages,” so it would seem they weren’t serious at any point that summer.
Where their timeline gets, shall we say, curious is with respect to Abrams’ sophomore album, The Secret of Us, which some fans believe is about Mescal — despite the fact that it was written long before he and Abrams were a bonafide couple. Could it be, then, that they were entangled well before June 2024?
There were rumors to that effect on gossip account Deuxmoi. In October 2023, a source wrote in, “I’ve heard from two different people now that Paul Mescal and Gracie Abrams are hanging out/dating, but I haven’t seen it first hand.”
Then in May 2024, another sleuth said, “Word on the street is that Paul broke Gracie’s heart late last year. His fans think they met in London … This was around the time he was active on Raya and going on lots of dates.”
In that case, it’s possible that Mescal and Abrams go as far back as Fall 2023. (He and Bridgers called it quits in December 2022.)
Who did Gracie Abrams write The Secret of Us about?
Abrams has not named a specific person or people as the inspiration behind her second studio album, The Secret of Us, which came out June 21, 2024. But she has revealed that it was born out of an “insatiable” crush she had while touring. (In addition to intermittently opening for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour starting in April 2023, Abrams was on her Good Riddance Tour in 2023/2024).
“I felt so insane about this person and I felt so all over the place with touring in a way that was kind of conducive to writing the album because of the chaos of living a very peripatetic life,” she told Dazed magazine of her inspiration.
Similarly, in a conversation with Kaia Gerber for Interview magazine, she said, “This whole album I had a big crush. I felt like it was unrequited. It was embarrassingly the first time in my life I ever had that feeling. It spun me out. I was like, ‘What the f–k is going on? I don’t know myself. I’m awkward everywhere. How do I function?’ It made me nuts for a minute.”
Some fans have speculated that her intense crush was on Mr. Mescal himself, and there’s some compelling lyrical evidence to back up that theory. On the song “Normal Thing,” for instance, Abrams sings, “It’s a normal thing to fall in love with movie stars.” Not only is Mescal a movie star, he’s also the star of the limited Hulu series Normal People.
On the track “Risk,” Abrams writes, “Look at me now / Said I wouldn’t do it, but I hunted you down / Know you had a girl, but it didn’t work out / Know you bought a house, but you had to move out.” As many fans have pointed out, Mescal reportedly bought a home with Bridgers in August 2022, just before their winter split.
Overall, the theory supports the idea that Abrams was infatuated with Mescal but he was not yet over his ex. (“Would it have killed you to explain / That you weren’t ready?” Abrams asks on “Gave You I Gave You I.”) Still, there’s reason to believe that at least some of the tracks are about someone else — like, say, Dylan O’Brien (more on that in a sec) — or perhaps a composite of experiences.
Did Gracie Abrams date Dylan O’Brien?
Rumors of a possible romance surfaced in April 2022, when the pair was spotted together in New York City, but neither Abrams nor the Teen Wolf star, who also played the Jake Gyllenhaal character in Swift’s “All Too Well: The Short Film” opposite Sadie Sink, acknowledged a relationship.
Is Gracie Abrams’ song ‘Cool’ about Dylan O’Brien?
Abrams never confirmed as much, but it certainly seems to be: the lyrics reference several people (albeit by first name only) with whom O’Brien has connections, including Sadie (Sink), Dev (Hynes) and Elle (Fanning). If the song is, indeed, about O’Brien, it would appear Abrams is no longer much of a fan. “You run your hands through your hair, phony superstar,” she sings. “Then say you miss me, you’re sad, yeah, I bet you are.”
Who is the Gracie Abrams song ‘That’s So True’ about?
Universally speaking, “That’s So True” is about the feeling you might get when an ex moves on with someone else. But some of the lyrics suggest that it could be about O’Brien, who reportedly dated Sabrina Carpenter after he and Abrams parted ways. (He and the “Please Please Please” singer were linked in September 2022.) The main tip-off is the lyric “looking into big blue eyes / did it just to hurt me, make me cry,” which seems to reference Carpenter’s famously blue eyes. (Despite the, um, intensity of “That’s So True,” Abrams and Carpenter, who are both friends of Swift, appear to be friends with each other.)
Related: Inside Sabrina Carpenter’s Dating History: A Complete Guide to Her High-Profile Relationships
What happened with Gracie Abrams and Hayes Bradley?
Abrams and composer/producer Hayes Bradley were linked as of New Year’s Eve 2022, when a photo of them surfaced on Instagram (it’s since been deleted). Neither party has ever confirmed a relationship, so it’s unclear whether they were ever really romantically involved and, if so, how serious they got.
Who is Gracie Abrams’ ex-boyfriend Blake Slatkin?
Abrams’ longest relationship to date was with Blake Slatkin, whom she was with for five years, from 2017 to 2022, albeit with at least one break in between.
“We had broken up and I was writing these songs in response to our breakup, which we then made a project about,” she told RIFF magazine in 2021, referencing her debut EP, Minor. “He was obviously patient and very lovely and gracious, and not making it anything other than a super comforting professional space,” she added. “We’re together now, so I guess it worked out all right.”
She chronicled their final breakup in her debut studio album, Good Riddance, which was released in 2023 and produced by Aaron Dessner of The National. Interestingly, the album got a lot of plays on TikTok, over fan edits of TV shows like Normal People.
About the Author
Patti Greco
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source parade.com ’
