I've had a lot of people ask me to elaborate on my stance as a 'no breakup' Larrie, so this is that effort.
To start with, I’m a no-stunt, adult Larrie. I arrived in the fandom in early fall 2020, and have watched countless interviews, concert footage, Larry proof videos, FIMQ crack videos, read archival Tumblr blogs and timelines, watched Cosmic Leeds timelines (go do that right now if you haven’t, I’ll wait), read primary source tweets. And of course, listened to song lyrics.
I say all that to show you that I’m coming at this with a lot of visual and auditory information.
There are many Larries who, though they believe Larry is together today, think that at some point the boys broke up. I’m not trying to convince anyone otherwise—believe what makes sense to you. I’m just putting out my own opinion. You are free to make yours.
TW: I will be mentioning stunts here, and also parental death, so beware if those are triggers for you.
I can’t stress enough that a long-term, monogamous relationship takes effort. I’m not saying they’ve never fought or had miscommunications. It had to have been hard. Not only as they grew up together, but fighting against industry abuse and homophobia, societal homophobia, contractual closets, and just real-life struggles of couple hood.
What I’m suggesting is that they worked through those things and never broke up.
I also want to stress that they are still closeted today, and they lie. Louis, in particular, is not above lying to protect the people he loves—we’ve seen it in interviews where he’s forced to deny Larry. I don’t think either of them WANT to lie, but they will if they have to in order to protect the closet (either by choice or by contract).
Lastly, I want to point out that we don’t know anything definitively. I could be 100% wrong here. All we have is some pretty strong circumstantial evidence. What I’m including here is also only a fraction of what’s out there. I won’t be going through all of twitter, clothing cues at the time, but rest assured they are out there.
This is going to get long...more under the cut.
Most people who think Larry broke up at some point believe it was after 2015, between 2016 & 2017, so I’ll focus on that time. After all, before that you could see them together and affirm their affection by their body language. I get it, I totally do. Without being able to put eyes on them and see them interact, it’s really hard. Here’s the thing, though. If you piece things together, there’s not a timeline that makes sense for them to have been broken up. Ever. They did as much coding and messaging then as they are doing now in 2022. You just have to search to find it.
Before I really dive in, I have to give a nod to the tattoos. You simply do not get tattoos that matchy matchy all over your body, if you’re not in this for the absolute long haul. For more on tattoos, see this great video by Cosmic Leeds on YouTube.
Without further ado—here are the reasons I don’t think Larry broke up in 2016.
1. BBG. (If you don’t know about BabyGate, let me know and I’ll provide resources—basically, a stunt was pushed on Louis to make the public believe he’d fathered a child with a one-night stand). Here’s an introductory twitter thread about BBG from @endbbgnow: https://twitter.com/endbbgnow/status/1522287565621149696?s=20&t=pvera1l1_gCzzML7pPOFtQ
The baby was born in January 2016. Just after the band went on hiatus officially. You can no longer see H&L sitting on a couch thigh to knee pushing against each other. You have to imagine. Two days after the baby was born (on 1/23/16), Harry tweeted “Flowers all round”—lyrics from a country song called Watching His Son Go Down, written by Danny Shirley and sung by Jeff Bates.
(retrieved from Harry Styles twitter feed on 5/29/22)
It's a VERY sad song about a man losing his son to addiction. Weird way to congratulate your friend, if he really was having a kid. Keep in mind through ALL of 2016, Louis was bearding with Danielle Campbell, and he was papped a lot pushing a baby carriage to underscore the baby narrative.
On July 29, 2015, Harry had posted on Instagram a black and white picture of Jack Nicholson, who found out in his 30s that the woman he thought was his sister his while life was actually his mother.
2. Kiwi – there is photographic evidence of Harry (with long hair) writing Kiwi and other songs for HS1 in the spring of 2016. Kiwi of “I’m having your baby” fame is definitely about BBG. Harry at his most pissed off and angry song writing phase, singing about BBG, and wearing the peace ring (iconic engagement ring). I would assert that he’s not wearing his engagement ring and singing “having your baby” if they broke up in the early months of 2016.
- LHH singing Kiwi
3. Dunkirk. According to IMDB, the filming dates for Dunkirk were 23 May 2016 - 2 September 2016. So that puts Harry cutting his hair before 5/23/16. Which means a long hair Harry wrote Kiwi before then. This video of Harry having his hair cut was before 5/23/16
a. There is photographic evidence of Louis on the set of Dunkirk in the summer of 2016. Pictures of Louis on the set of Dunkirk from @genuinemusic on Tumblr.
4. Jamaica—Harry recorded HS1 in Jamaica in 2016. I can’t find exact dates, but between Dunkirk and HS1, he was a busy person that summer. And they must have received the terminal diagnosis of his mother-in-law at some point. According to people who were keeping track of those things back then, there were DAYS when H&L were MIA at the same time. I agree with @sslarrysettingsail that it’s likely they were in Jamaica. There is no disguise which can hide love. - September 2016-Jamaica - September 2016-Jamaica (tumblr.com)
5. In August 2016, the rainbow bears made an appearance at a Little Mix concert. Again, not proof, but strong circumstantial evidence. The bears had been a constant presence at 1D shows with little known nods to LGBT history.
6. As young adults, L&H both lost a parent. Louis lost his mother in December 2016, and Harry lost his step-dad in July 2017. (see my post here on grief and long-term relationships). It’s not mentioned a lot due to people not wanting to be disrespectful, but loss of a parent takes a toll on a person, and a couple. They lost two people inside of six months. There are pictures of H bringing a shaving kit to the hospital.
7. Two days after his mother died in December 2016, Louis performed on the X-Factor with Steve Aoki. All the 1D boys (minus Zayn) were in attendance. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/nope2101/170398322311?source=share
There it is.
8. Just Hold On getting to #1 on iTunes and Harry’s voice in the back of the recording—mid-December, 2016. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/skepticalarrie/649690593813987328?source=share
9. The Just Hold On video is all Larry cues. It dropped in March 2017. Green blue, two characters who have similarities to H&L: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/mychampagne-mybubbles/684532011296292864?source=share
10. Song lyrics—a lot of people use song lyrics as proofs of break ups. I mean, song lyrics CAN be autobiographical. Of course they can. But all I can say is that you have to look at context. Almost all their songs have co-writers which by default adds a second or third perspective. Songs are not inherently proofs—a writer can use different words to convey an emotion they want to express, in other words two weeks become two years. I strongly believe break up songs allude to having to be separated by their closet or contracts. They have to be apart for work. This makes them sad. The sad is expressed in a song as being apart…and that can sound like a break up to people. Sometimes a breakup song matches perfectly with a stunt. As a closeted queer man who has public relationships with women, some of the songs are going to feel like het break ups. I cannot use song lyrics as proof of a break up when I have so much else pointing to them staying together.
11. I would also submit as far as song lyrics go, along with the so-called break up songs, we have the most adoring love songs. For example, Sweet Creature on the same album as Falling.
12. Xander Ritz – some people point to Xander as a reason why the boys might have broken up. ::cries:: NO! Xander was a friend of Harry’s he met through Jeff Azoff. There is some evidence that they seeded him as a male stunt for Harry. See this link: https://twitter.com/kiwi28cake/status/1516037079075115011?s=20&t=pvera1l1_gCzzML7pPOFtQ
Stepping into 2017
1. we have these two pictures still live on Louis Instagram. On January 1, 2017, he posted a selfie in the boyfriend jacket (famed shared Larry jacket), and January 18 he posted a picture of a possible “going to the club” fit, and you can see H’s reflection in the glass behind him.
a. January 1, 2017 – Louis in boyfriend jacket
b. January 18, 2017 – picture of Louis w/ reflection of H taking photo:
2. Pixie Geldof’s Wedding—June 17, 2017. (Literally days before Robin died). The Daily Mail reported H&L together at the wedding, though there are no pictures of them together.
Pixie Geldof arrives at her Mallorca wedding in a BUS | Daily Mail Online
3. Dunkirk came out July 21, 2017, just a few weeks after Robin Twist (Harry’s step-dad died). Through all of Dunkirk promo, H wore the peace ring. The promo interviews for Dunkirk hit a bit harder knowing what was happening behind the scenes. The peace ring is a big deal to me--H started wearing it in 2013, and it's strongly connected to Louis.
4. Jump forward a bit to this interview when Harry talks about Fine Line being about having sex and feeling sad, I would submit that he was writing those songs just after the loss of people close to him (including in March 2019, Felicite Tomlinson, Louis’ sister). And that the sadness isn’t about a breakup, but about grief of losing people.
In conclusion, yes there are songs that can be analyzed as breakup songs. To me, though, in context of everything else going on in their lives, there is no time in 2016 that fits a breakup narrative.
I'd love to hear from you--please ask respectful questions in my asks or on Twitter (@flywishing), and let me know if I've left out something or if you want me to elaborate.
So we all know how Louis tells the fans to sing louder when he performs "Always You"
Example:
or here
https://youtu.be/k0yWEbtw6p0
And then I asked myself: Why does he do that?
Maybe bc he thinks if the fans scream loud enough, Harry will be able to hear them. He wants the whole world to scream out his love to Harry. He wants everyone to know. He wants his love to be loud and to be heard.
Harry's lyrics: y'all call louis 'the sun' so im going to write an entire song about how golden the sun is and how 'it browns my skin just right', and how im so open, but the metaphorical sun isn't! The word golden will be repeated exactly 28 times consecutively so that will make your job easier larries :D
Louis' lyrics: IM FUCKING GAY AND I LOVE MY HUSBAND AND IM GOING TO SHOUT IT OUT IN MY LYRICS AND IF YOU DONT GET THAT YOU'RE FUCKING DUMB.
Harry denying Sweet Creature is about Louis: a visual representation by me.
Harry: “I…um…yeah…uh….i mean…right okay so uh ppl can think what they want but um if you really uh listen to the lyrics u can work out if it’s about that or not… but actually no kthxbye”
i sometimes think about how liam was suppose to sit next to harry during this segment but sneaky louis here decides he wants to sit next to his husband. and louis’ smirk while switching liam‘s cup with his just says EVERYTHING.
