The "Aha!" moment has come for fans who always suspected there was a secret love affair between Heartstopper actors Joe Locke and his former co-star, Sebastian Croft.
But what a tabloid has also revealed is how badly their reported long-term relationship ended, in a turn that could easily have been ripped from an episode of their queer teen romance series on Netflix. According to a British outlet, Locke dumped Croft by phone.
"It was his first heartbreak and cut deep," reports The iPaper: "A three-year relationship was ended with a phone call while Croft was performing in a production of Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles in Chichester." That would have been sometime during the spring and summer of 2023.
"It hurts, but also the truth is there's not a good way to deliver news like that," Croft told The iPaper. "For a long time, I was angry about the how. But the truth is, the thing that hurts is the why, which is the reason. When they reach the point where 'I've decided my life is more interesting when I don’t have you in it,' that could not hurt more.”
In the interview, Croft also revealed he endured bullying at his private boarding school outside Oxford, quitting at 16 after being outed in what he calls “a weirdly old-school experience” by a classmate with whom he'd been secretly dating.
That experience, noted The iPaper, eerily mirrored his storyline in Heartstopper, in which his character, Ben, had a secret, deeply damaging relationship with Joe Locke’s character, Charlie.
All this real-life pain has provided inspiration for Croft, who has been releasing singles from his forthcoming debut album under the name Bash Croft, which is what he says on Instagram is what friends call him.
And one of those friends spilled some tea to another U.K. tabloid.
“Bash and Joe never made their relationship public, although Heartstopper fans had guessed they were dating,” that mutual friend told The Sun last week.
"In fact, they were in a loving relationship for almost three years," said the unnamed friend. "When Joe left him, Bash was heartbroken. Joe was his first great love. He’s channelled all those feelings into this new EP, the songs are incredibly emotional and give an insight into everything that happened."
And words Locke reportedly said to Croft during their time together will soon be heard around the world, as the title of Croft's pop album.
"The Great Forever is something Joe would say to Bash when they were in a relationship,” said the friend. "Bash is so proud of The Great Forever and when his fans hear it, they’ll understand what he’s been through.”
As Queerty reported, The Great Forever is a Chappell Roan-inspired EP of "queer heartbreak music."
In the three years since their break-up, Croft said he has been pouring his heartbreak and the emotions he felt into songs that he's tweaked, and released on social media. His goal was to find his own voice and a style that wasn't an imitation of what Croft named as his current favorite artists: Roan, Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo. “The EP has matured and found its footing as I have as an artist,” he said.
According to The iPaper, Croft has been secretly writing songs since he was nine years old. As school and acting dominated most of his time, he kept them to himself, but also because of how diary-like his lyrics were, he said. “I’d always thought of them as an outlet. They weren’t really for other people to hear. They were very much for me.” Croft wrote them, he said, as “an escape from school” during the period he “started figuring out my sexuality."
Croft came out as queer publicly in 2022 and co-runs the LGBTQ+ charity Queer Was Always Here. He is also currently appearing in The Celebrity Traitors UK on the BBC.
