Margaret and Jack: is it over?

Jack Antonoff was at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding. The surprise is that he was there with his sister and not his wife, Margaret Qualley. After all, Taylor was a guest at their wedding a few years ago, so Margaret’s absence has sparked days of online speculation over whether or not she and Jack are actually over, with people digging into her social media for clues about their marriage.

It could be as simple as… she was working, she’s busy. But according to social media detectives, Margaret has removed photos of herself and Jack at their wedding from her Instagram account. I don’t have the digital forensics on this, so I can’t verify if this is accurate but we’re dealing with a whole package of circumstantial evidence here that the online sleuths are fixated on. Like Margaret hanging out with Drew Starkey – who is HOT AF – after they wrapped on a movie. And also rumours supposedly floating around LA that she and Jack are often seen fighting in public.

On top of all this, there’s the public perception of Jack that’s been shaped by so much of Lena Dunham’s writing (on the page and onscreen) and the lore that’s followed their relationship. Example: the powerpoint,  IYKYK. In her book, Famesick, released in April, Lena writes in at times granular and uncomfortable detail about how she and Jack fell apart. And even if you don’t consider the, um, “teen popstar” who is mentioned, Jack comes off as someone who can be, as Taylor Swift might say, “casually cruel in the name of being honest”, and manipulatively insecure. For those leaning towards that read of it, that description can be further supported by the ex-boyfriend character in Too Much, “Zev”, who wasn’t just unfaithful but is also an emotional vulture, centering his own feelings while diminishing Jessica’s (played by Megan Stalter).

Is it fair to perceive Jack Antonoff only through the lens of his ex-partner? No. Aren’t we all perceived differently by the different people in our lives? Of course. On the internet, though, we are all assigned personalities without nuance, and celebrities even more so. I’m not here to defend Jack Antonoff, my point is that this is how he has now been characterised online, even with the formidable protection of Taylor Swift. So there’s some schadenfreude happening with all these rumours about his marriage and whether or not he and Margaret might be estranged.

As for Drew Starkey, who is the person I am most interested in in this equation, up to now the only famous person he’s been linked with is Odessa A’Zion and it’s been at least two years, with neither of them ever confirming that they were actually dating, even though the internet has been convinced. All of that has mellowed out and now he’s either in some kind of situation with Margaret or just catching strays from this alleged mess between Margaret and Jack.