Paul Mescal Should Not Let Himself Be Interviewed in a Park

He says he won’t run away. Photo: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

Look, every celebrity worth their salt has a few rumors about them running around. But in Paul Mescal’s case, the operative word in that sentence is “running.” The Irish hunk has apparently ended bad dates by bringing them to a park and then running away from them. He addresses the park lore in an October 15 GQ cover story set in Victoria Park, calling them “categorically untrue.” Still, if we were his publicist trying to keep the focus on Gladiator II, then we wouldn’t have let the interview get conducted in a park in the first place. Throughout the profile, the specter of Mescal’s park behavior hangs like the sword of Damocles over the writing — he even reveals that his current preferred mode of transportation is a Lime bike, which would be the operative way to get away from someone.

Eventually, Mescal addresses the rumors and how his family reacted to them. “We were looking at the videos and we were pissing ourselves at it,” he says. “And we were laughing, laughing, laughing, laughing.” He also notes that the allegations upset his mother. “I was like, Oh, it’s funny to us—my brother, me, my sister — because we know that this is the way the internet works,” he says. “It’s hilarious. If it was true, it’d be fucking bad, but as a rumor, it’s funny. Then I was like, Oh, if you’re a mother, her impulse is to come out and be like, ‘He wouldn’t do this.’” The next day, per the profile, Mescal became nervous that he could have “fanned the flames” of the issue further by addressing it. Babe, the fans were flamed the moment you agree to step foot in the park.