With spring semester in full swing, you may looking for a new, toxic, fictional couple to obsess over. In the fall, fans had the weekly thrill of riding the emotional roller coaster of Belly Conklin and Conrad Fisher’s tumultuous relationship in The Summer I Turned Pretty. Now, college women and broader audiences alike are happy for the return of the addictively infuriating dynamic between Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) in Season 3 of Tell Me Lies. The kicker: The costars are dating in real life.
Van Patten and White first stepped out together hand-in-hand at the 2022 CFDA Fashion Awards following the premiere of Tell Me Lies Season 1, but they slyly teased their relationship in the months before that. “I have such a crush on her … I hope [us dating] happens. I don’t know,” White said on an episode of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast. “Our lives are built in together. It’s crazy, we have so much to do together.”
Several years and seasons later, the couple is going steady even after the release of Season 3 on Jan. 13. They even revealed that the toxicity of their fictional relationship has strengthened their dynamic off-screen. “It’s like, we get to fight and let it all out on camera and then we’re great. It’s our couple’s therapy,” Van Patten said in an interview with People.
With a happy couple comes adorable couple moments, and the Season 3 press tour has been full of them. Here are some of the highlights between Van Patten and White.
Nothing says steady relationship like coparenting a dog.
In an eerily similar tone and cadence as his character, Stephen DeMarco, White gushed over his co-star and partner.
In stark contrast to their onscreen performances, at the end of the day, Van Patten and White are just “simple creatures,” leaving work at work.
Not even the happy couple ships their character relationship.
Even though Tell Me Lies is full of messy relationship drama for Lucy and Stephen, White and Van Patten seem to be smitten. When their anxiety-inducing fictional relationship becomes too much to handle — and it will — at least we’ll have these real, endearing moments to relish.