Harry Styles has explained how a former girlfriend helped him overcome his fear of being out in public. The 32-year-old singer made the comments in a conversation with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke for Rolling Stone’s Musicians on Musicians issue, published this week. The interview offers a rare personal reflection from a performer who usually keeps his private life out of view.
Yorke told Styles he was impressed that the singer had no security with him at the time, and asked whether that was a deliberate choice. Styles said that during his One Direction years, life in hotels was tightly controlled, and at home he did not feel it was safe to go outside. That changed when a very outgoing girlfriend came to visit him in London. He said those years left him wary of public spaces.
He said he did not want to spend three days indoors with her, because she would think he was strange, so the pair walked everywhere instead. That experience, he explained, showed him it was “fine to be outside”, and he said it broke the fear he had been carrying. Going out has since changed his life, he added, because it is how he stays connected to the wider world. The anecdote gives a new explanation for why he is now so often seen walking around the cities he visits.
Styles did not name the woman. He has publicly dated several well-known figures, and in 2012, while he was in a relationship with Taylor Swift, the two were often photographed walking together. In recent months he has been seen strolling around New York City on several occasions. On Friday 9 October he was photographed walking in Brooklyn in jeans, a navy T-shirt over a white long-sleeved top, white trainers and sunglasses, before performing at Madison Square Garden that night.
The singer is in the middle of a 30-show residency at the arena, which ends with a Harryween concert on Saturday 31 October. He then travels to Australia for dates in Melbourne and Sydney, and the first leg of the Together, Together residency tour finishes in December. A full world tour with multi-night stops in several cities begins in April 2027, giving fans plenty more chances to spot him out and about. Each date is likely to bring more sightings of the singer on the streets between shows.
