Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this column, we examine the celebrity couples who give us hope for our own romantic futures as we try to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.
I know it’s objectively problematic to want a straight (as far as we know, anyway) person to simply “turn gay” for my own gratification, but I have to admit: when I first saw Teyana Taylor and her dazzling array of abdominal muscles in the music video for Ye’s 2016 song “Fade,” I promptly plotzed and prayed to Gay God™ that she existed somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. I mean, can you blame me? Nobody has ever been hotter! No, Ye’s career certainly hasn’t held up, but Taylor’s sweaty, sports-bra-clad performance in that video has.
In the years since “Fade” came out, I’ve reluctantly come to embrace the truth that some people are simply hetero (and that I should probably stop being parasocial about beautiful women). It’s a truth that Taylor only reinforced this week, when she stepped out to the premiere of her new film One Battle After Another in the company of her new boyfriend, English actor Aaron Pierre.
Taylor’s first marriage—to basketball player Iman Shumpert, with whom she shares two young daughters, Junie and Rue—ended in 2023, and while divorce is famously never fun, even in the best circumstances, I’m all about single moms getting to reinvent themselves and move on in the ways that work best for them. (There’s a reason I’m so amped about The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul being the next Bachelorette!) Taylor doing yet another ab reveal on the red carpet with her handsome new man by her side most definitely qualifies.
There was a fairly long lead-up to their hard launch in June of 2025. After being spotted together in February, at the Fifteen Percent Pledge Gala, and in March, at the Vanity Fair Oscar party, in April Pierre shared a wildly sexy shirtless selfie on his Instagram Stories (proving he’s well-matched with Taylor in the “insanely sculpted upper body” department), to which Taylor responded with the words “on di wey” and the exhaling emoji.
I don’t know if Taylor and Pierre are at the meeting-each-other’s-kids stage of their relationship (like his girlfriend, Pierre is a parent; he shared a photo of himself with his son on Instagram only recently), but I have to assume that step comes before your first red-carpet joint slay when you’re both famous, right? If the meeting is, indeed, still a ways off, though, I’d like to offer Pierre some advice, as the daughter of a divorced mom: Bring Taylor’s girls presents when you first meet them. I adore my stepdad and appreciate who he is as a person and all, but I’ve truly never forgotten the Swiss chocolates he brought over when I was first introduced to him at age 14. Familial love is beautiful and all, but material possessions are forever!
