A few weeks ago, Sabrina Carpenter released a new song and music video starring her boyfriend, actor and Irish lad Barry Keoghan. In “Please Please Please,” Keoghan plays a tight-polo-wearing miscreant who can’t stop getting into trouble despite Carpenter’s pleas for him to give up his life of crime — a big ask, considering she met him while getting bailed out of jail herself.
This is a transformative role for Keoghan, considering his real-life boyfriend duties appear to mostly involve drinking espresso and listening to his girlfriend’s song “Espresso.” Carpenter, it seems, was more than happy to cast him — she told Vogue that she was “sooo lucky to get Barry Keoghan in the video ’cause he is just magic on screen.” Since the video is far from autobiographical, here’s what we know about the real contours of their relationship.
December 2023: Carpenter and Keoghan are seen together for the first time, looking a little bit lost in a Brentwood parking lot after what the Daily Mail referred to as a “romantic dinner date.” They’d reportedly met a few months earlier at the Givenchy show during Paris Fashion Week.
January 2024: People claims Carpenter and Keoghan “shared a little kiss” during a date at Luna Luna, an L.A. pop-up inspired by the 1987 German theme park designed by contemporary artists like Salvador Dalí and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Do you think they paid a visit to the André Heller Wedding Chapel?
February 2024: After popping up at W magazine’s Grammys after-party together, the duo is seen on a string of romantic outings: first on a Friday night at Nobu before apparently heading to Hotel Bel-Air, and then the following morning kissing each other good-bye outside Carpenter’s home. A few days later — and one night before Valentine’s Day — People published images of the two of them leaving Delilah in West Hollywood before grabbing cocktails at Ysabel, where they looked absolutely over the moon.
March 2024: Carpenter opens for Taylor Swift on the Singapore leg of her Eras tour, where Keoghan is seen in the crowd looking appropriately rapt at her improvised “Nonsense” outro:
A few days later, he was seen wearing a Swiftian friendship bracelet with Sabrina’s name on it.
April 2024: Keoghan continues his Carpenter groupie tour, commenting “Tuuuuunnnnne M’darlin!!” when she announces the release of “Espresso” on Instagram. (He also dutifully tossed some horny emojis into the comments section of her Skims campaign post.) That week, he whipped out his best silk Burberry scarf to block out the desert dust during her Coachella set. (Don’t worry, his pants matched the pattern.) Carpenter returned the favor during another outro, where she used a lyric to reference Keoghan’s Saltburn scene: “He’s drinking my bathwater like it’s red wine.” The next morning, she admitted to Vanity Fair she hadn’t even thought to warn Keoghan the line was coming.
May 6, 2024: Keoghan swings by Carpenter’s Met Gala BTS video, looking like a proper little lad. The two of them make their red-carpet debut as a couple later that evening.
May 27, 2024: Our boy is at it again! Decked out in a sheer violet shorts set, he took in yet another rendition of “Espresso” during BBC’s Big Weekend Luton. If loving his girlfriend’s music is a crime, lock this man up immediately.
June 6, 2024: Carpenter releases “Please Please Please,” along with the music video starring Keoghan as her ne’er-do-well boyfriend. Keoghan, of course, dedicated an Instagram post to the video, and Carpenter commented on it with a winking lyric from the song, writing, “I heard that you’re an actor!”
This post has been updated.
