Glen Powell on 'Very Real Breakup' with Ex Gigi Paris: 'I Really Loved and Cared About' Her

The actor says he was “kind of trying to find meaning in a lot of things” after the breakup

Glen Powell is reflecting on his breakup with ex-girlfriend Gigi Paris earlier this year.

While talking to Insider about his new film Anyone but you which stars Sydney Sweeney, the actor, 35, addressed the rumors after he and Sweeney, 26, touted their chemistry during a promotional appearance for the rom-com at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April.

“Well, look, the only reason it was harder for me to deal with that stuff was because I was going through a very real breakup in the middle of a promotional tour,” Powell said of his and Sweeney’s decision to “lean in” on their on-screen chemistry.

“I was with someone I really loved and cared about and I was trying to find meaning in a lot of things,” he said. “It was a lot easier for Sydney to lean into something like that because she’s in a very committed and wonderful relationship and she’s very happy. So it was a little harder for me.”

A source told PEOPLE shortly after the CinemaCon appearance that Powell and Paris had broken up a few weeks before. At the time, a source said the couple had “been in a bind ever since Top Gun out” in 2022 and has broken up several times in the past.

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Gigi Paris and Glen Powell. Emma McIntyre/WireImage

“Gigi was never satisfied with remote filming, and not even when she came to Australia [where Powell was filming Anyone But You] they both decided to break up for good,” the source said at the time.

Sweeney is engaged to Jonathan Davin; PEOPLE confirmed their engagement back in March 2022.

“For the most part, I’ll give Sydney all the credit for this. I don’t have the mental capacity to pull something like this off, but she’s very smart. She’s very smart,” Powell told Insider, when asked about the pair’s struggles with their characters’ dynamic during Anyone but youpress tour.

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Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney at the premiere of “Anyone But You” in New York on December 11, 2023.

Dia Dipasupil/Getty

“And look, Sydney and I have authentic chemistry—I’ve had such a wonderful journey with her on this thing. But in terms of actually dating and actually living together?” he added, as the outlet noted, laughing off the idea that he and Sweeney had an off-screen romance.

Powell, who said yes Entertainment Weekly that he grew up romantic “because of my parents,” he told Bustle about being single.

“I talked to some people in my life and they said, ‘Glen, you’re single. I know you’re trying to do all the right things in all the right ways, but you just have to accept that your failures are going to be a little more public, a little more painful than maybe most people, maybe a little more embarrassing, but that’s okay,” he said. “But when you will fall, and you want inevitably fall in love, it will work.’ ”

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Glen Powell and Gigi Paris on January 10, 2023. Kevin Mazur/Getty

Sweeney recently opened up about her businessman fiance in an interview with Glamor UKsaying that he is a co-producer on Anyone but you.

“I’ve been in a steady relationship for a very long time, which is not normal in this industry and not normal for my age,” she told the newspaper. “What I’ve noticed about celebrity is that people really like to build someone up and then tear them down.”

Anyone but you it’s in theaters now.

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Source: HIS Education