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Harry Styles hearts Lizzo: Charting the rise of pop's ultimate platonic power couple

Rex Features
Rex Features

Once upon a time, Harry Styles was part of a supergroup that could reduce a generation of tweens to a collective howl; later, he did it by striking out alone, snakehipped in Alessandro Michele’s Gucci — gaining some more mature fans in the process (guilty).

You ain’t seen nothing yet: his third iteration is as part of pop’s most potent platonic power couple. Arise, Hizzo: a pairing of inimitable charisma and chemistry.

Last night at the Brit Awards the pair stole the show — definitely from the host Jack Whitehall, who looked deathly pale in the glow of their megawatt flirting, and even from Dave, who won album of the year, and whose political performance read the riot act to the elites, going viral in the process.

But whichever social alchemist put Lizzo and Harry on neighbouring tables — there is no award worthy. In the course of the ceremony, Lizzo clutched Harry to her bountiful chest for selfies, he gazing up at her in moon-eyed adoration.

When they were not literally entwined, they held hands across the space between the tables, like a hormone-drunk new couple who just can’t not be touching at all times.

At one point, she proprietorially necked an entire glass of his tequila, and then, when Whitehall spoke to Harry, Lizzo demanded of Styles, “Are you cheating on me?”. No chance: by the end of the evening, #Hizzo was trending.

It even looked a bit like they’d coordinated their outfits: for the red carpet, she was in brown custom-made Moschino by Jeremy Scott, and he wore his own brown tailored suit — Gucci, obviously.

(PA)
(PA)

He accessorised with a set of pearls slung around his neck and a pair of polished Mary Janes that remind you of being dragged to Clarks by your mum in the school holidays to measure the width of your foot (obviously, they made the whole outfit).

After a quick change, Styles emerged in banana-yellow Marc Jacobs tailoring and a frothy purple bowtie (the designer christened him a “BAD BITCH”, approvingly) — which offset Lizzo’s blue sequinned high camp beautifully. Whether it was planned or just kismet, the coordination has #Hizzo watchers — whose frenzy could in time reach the stakes set sky-high by the Directioners of yore — in paroxysms.

But despite the swoons from the audience, this was not a meet-cute. In fact, the two are well acquainted. From whence did their holy alliance emerge? Heaven, obviously, but in secular terms, it started with a song — when Styles covered Lizzo’s Juice in Radio 1’s Live Lounge in December.

Wearing a pair of beige dungarees, a string of pearls (fast becoming his signature) and a red sparkly manicure, Styles nails Lizzo’s honeyed Detroit drawl in a video that has been viewed more than 11 million times. No one can say “Heard you say I’m not the baddest, bitch, you lied” like Lizzo, except Harry Styles — making his own bid for bad-bitch status.

The OG agreed. In the aftermath, as the world reeled, Lizzo tweeted, sweetly, “*melts*”, and later — once she’d had a lie down in an isolation tank, one presumes — shared a clip of Styles’s performance, with the enigmatic teaser, “You know what this means right...?”

No? Well, what it meant was a duet, last month, in Miami, where the pair sang Juice — he wearing a shrunken sweater vest, she in a denim bikini, studded with diamante gems, both vibing off the high from their mutual excellence. Sharing the video on Instagram later, she called him a “human Hershey’s Kiss”, which translates into English, roughly, as “cute as a button”.

The post has been liked almost 1.5 million times — and caused voluble fans of both singers to lovebomb the pair of them in the comments.

It’s a tale for our times. The next act was a reciprocal Live Lounge performance: this week, Lizzo covered Styles’s Adore You (subtle). Resplendent — is she ever anything but? — in liquid leather and talons that could maim, she upped the ante of her tribute about 52 seconds in, by adding, “Oh Harry” to the line “I’d walk through fire for you, just let me adore you”. Hun, join the queue.

The intrigue continues: at 2.23, Lizzo whips out Sasha, her infamous flute complete a lilting solo. On Monday, @sashabefluting shared a clip on her Instagram account, staking her own quirky claim to Styles.

“After my recent split with Harry Styles, I was reluctant to perform this song. As y’all know his whole album is about me. Tbh I haven’t brought myself to listen to it yet. FYI in order to learn this solo I had to be blindfolded and played the track in reverse...even sheet music would be a painful reminder of our love.”

Don’t think about it too much in case it starts to make your head hurt — the topline is: What’s better than a power couple? A power throuple. Hizzasha? (we’ll work on the brand.)

Sasha or no Sasha, the sky’s the limit for #Hizzo: the combined fame, fandom and cultural cachet is explosive, as last night’s epic performance at the Brit Awards proved. For what is better than one colossal fan base? Two colossal fan bases combined.

The size of their armies is enough to make a superpower that dominates pop culture. Harry will be at the Electric Ballroom doing a secret set, the screams from NW1 echoing around the capital, while his partner-in-crime Lizzo is on the cover of Rolling Stone (coverline: “How She Conquered The World”), shot by President of High Camp Pop Culture, David LaChapelle. World domination surely follows.

Not that this is some cynical bid for viral fame. No, they are clearly soul siblings, charismatic ambassadors for a generation that champions individualism and inclusivity — which is, incidentally, not a paradox.

The chameleonic Styles has become a poster boy for Gen Z, a post-gender generation that rejects binary sexuality and embraces the freedom to dress however you like. He is partial to a voluminous trouser and an exaggerated neckline. His flamboyant, self-consciously Bowie/Jagger aesthetic is — in Gen Z parlance — “very extra”.

Soul siblings indeed: “extra” is Lizzo’s raison d’etre; her Twitter name is Feelin Good As Hell. Like Styles, she is a feminist (all heroes are) who is also an advocate for body positivity. She speaks eloquently about race, class and mental health.

Philosphically, they’re singing from the same hymn sheet — the hymn in question being Juice. Could a joint tour follow? Hizzo: your people need you.

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