Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this column, we’ll be examining the celebrity couples that give us hope for our own romantic futures and trying to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.
It’s time for me to admit publicly that I suffer from a little-known affliction known as Romantic Lead Syndrome. It can be explained thusly: When I really fall for a romantic lead in a movie or TV series the way I did for Meghann Fahy’s down-to-earth, hardworking Sutton Brady on The Bold Type, I tend to conflate the actor with the character in a way that doesn’t completely make sense. I know that Fahy isn’t Brady, and yet I want only the best for her in the same way I rooted for Sutton while The Bold Type was on the air. Maybe that’s why, when I heard that Fahy was officially dating her White Lotus costar Leo Woodall, I felt like I had just bagged my handsome, famous crush. (To be clear, said crush is Fahy, 100%, but I did clock while watching the first episode of One Day that Woodall has very dreamy eyes.)
To be honest, I originally assumed that the White Lotus cast member Fahy was dating was her philandering onscreen husband, Cameron (Theo James), or even her weird buddy Ethan (Will Sharpe), but learning that she’s actually dating the guy who, um, has intimate relationships with his uncle (or so we’re led to believe) is weirdly even more satisfying to me. After all, Fahy and Woodall barely shared any screen time on the show’s second season, so I have to imagine that their love bloomed over sweaty tuna salad and hard-to-chew sandwiches at the craft services table. Romantic!
Like so many of my favorite celeb couples, Fahy and Woodall are pretty low-key with the whole relationship thing (especially given their growing fame). They’ve allegedly been dating since 2022, but it took until this week for them to become Instagram official, which, in 2024, is borderline elegant. The photo, which features Fahy and Woodall captured from behind, led Woodall to jokingly comment: “Who is he?!” (I love a man who can get a giggle out of his own relationship hard-launch.)
Fahy and Woodall aren’t really breaking any news, of course; they’ve appeared at award shows (including the the South Bank Sky Arts Awards) together, and Fahy was on hand when Woodall hit up Jimmy Kimmel Live to talk about One Day earlier this year. An Instagram post, though, is different than being papped holding hands (or so I must assume, not having much experience with the whole paparazzi thing myself). It’s an active choice, not an accident of geography, and personally, I choose to believe that this is the first of many Fahy-Woodall snapshots we’ll be treated to over the course of their relationship. Or maybe they’re just not that into the whole relationship-as-dual-social-media-brand-slay thing, which is also fine!
