How did Lily Allen and Austin Butler’s random friendship pairing even happen?

Sundance is happening this week, the last Sundance to occur in its long-time home of Park City, Utah, but I feel like all the celebrities are in Paris for fashion week, instead. Case in point, here’s a totally random celebrity pairing, Lily Allen and Austin Butler went shopping together in Paris. I did not have Lily Allen + Austin Butler on my 2026 bingo card.

To be clear, they are not dating. Allen is rumored to be dealing with Jonah Freud, who is on this shopping excursion with them, he’s just not famous so no one is really clocking him. (Freud is a trust fund baby and nephew of artist Lucian Freud, his mother was The Countess Spencer in the early 2000s.) But Lily Allen + Austin Butler is such a random pairing, it’s like someone shook a Yahtzee cup and then they had to spend an evening together.

Lily’s West End Girl tour launches in March, while Austin is keeping a relatively low profile these days. He only has one project in the offing, a film called Enemies costarring Jeremy Allen White and Anna Sawai, but it doesn’t have a release date. It shot here in Chicago last summer—Austin’s movements were tracked and people kept crashing whatever restaurant or hot spot he was at, it was really annoying for the rest of us—so I expect it will be out later this year, based on that timing.

For now, though, we’ll settle for this truly random pairing enjoying a night out in Paris. I would love to know how this came about. Did their publicists set this up? Were they headed in the same direction and decided to share a cab? They literally arrived together, how did this happen?!

These are the mysteries I want to solve. That, and how does Austin Butler manage to make double denim look that good. That’s a trait pretty much exclusive to him and Ryan Gosling.

Are there other random celebrity pairings you’d like to see in 2026? Join us at The Squawk! (App link here)