Paul Mescal Talked About Getting Groped By A Fan
I have a friend who’s totally sexually obsessed with Irish actor Paul Mescal. She fell in love with him from that show Normal People, which has been on my “to watch” list the entire length of the pandemic. And my pal ain’t the only one. 27-year-old Paul’s star is on the rise, thanks to his Best Actor Oscar nomination for Aftersun and recent split with musician Phoebe Bridgers (word on the street is she left him for Bo Burnam). Unfortunately for Paul, there are actually drawbacks to being a young, famous heartthrob, and not just “nobody takes me seriously cuz I’m too beautiful” bullshit. In a recent interview with ES Magazine, Paul talked about how angry he was after being groped by a female fan.
Paul is currently starring as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire at London’s Almeida Theatre. Recently, a woman stopped him outside the theatre to ask if she could have her photo taken with him. Paul obliged, but then the fan got inappropriate. He tells ES:
‘As we posed for it, she put her hand on my ass,’ he says with a frown. ‘I thought it was an accident, so I like…’ he gets up from his chair and shimmies awkwardly away from an imaginary hand, ‘but the hand followed. I remember tensing up and feeling just, like, fury.’ So what did he do? ‘I turned to her and said, “What’re you doing? Take your hand off my ass.”’
Paul explains that the last thing he wanted to do was call the woman out in front of the theatre; “it’s uncomfortable for everyone involved.” But he says the groping “was really not okay. It was so gross, creepy.” So far, Paul says 97% of being famous is “really nice”, but “3% is somebody, like, grabbing your ass.” Taylor Swift can relate.
There were a lot of sex scenes (with full frontal!) in Normal People, and when it became a hit, Paul became an instant sex symbol. He says, at first, it was kind of interesting, but then it “got weird”:
‘Like I had this woman who said she had a naked picture of me, a screenshot from the show, as the wallpaper on her phone. And it was mad to me — like, she wasn’t doing it to be incendiary, I think she was genuinely trying to tell me she was a big fan but it just felt very weird. I didn’t like it.
Paul says the attention was “a bit affronting” but now he’s getting used to it:
‘It was like, “This is f***ing crazy.” Now I’m a bit more comfortable with it. I realised, like, this can consume me and I can be pissed off with every person who has a naked picture of me stashed somewhere or I can just let it go. It’s the internet. The internet is this evil f***ing entity and it has so much power but it’s an exhausting hill to try and die on because you’re not going to win.’ Plus, he says, women have it so much worse: ‘Women have been objectified by men throughout history — and still are.
Here are some pics and video from Paul’s interview with ES magazine. A reminder: you are welcome enjoy looking at Paul with your horny little eyes, but PAWS OFF. Capiche, groper outside the Almeida Theatre??
OK. I officially get it. It’s the accent. And the armpit hair. Sorry, my current go-to Pedro Pascal (mmmm), you got some competition!
Pic: ES