Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images

Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan have broken up again, though this time they’re calling it “taking a break.” Shortly before their split was public, a cheating rumor appeared on Deuxmoi. Then, once the breakup was confirmed, people tried putting the puzzle pieces together. Had Keoghan stepped out on Carpenter with an influencer? Was that influencer an OnlyFans model named Breckie Hill? Did Hill herself confirm the rumor? What a mess. Here, what to know so you can converse with your younger cousins about this whole situation.

On December 3, People published the news that the on-again, off-again couple were taking some time apart. “They are both young and career-focused, so they’ve decided to take a break,” a source told the tabloid. We’ll always have Coachella …

She’s an influencer and OnlyFans creator with just over 6 million followers on TikTok and Instagram. On TikTok, she makes videos in which she looks good and dances around, harkening back to a different era on the app.

@breckiehillforgot the sound

♬ original sound – Breckie Hill

Earlier this year, she was dating a streamer who goes by the name Jynxzi, but they broke up in September.

A day before their “break” was announced, Deuxmoi posted a blind item about Carpenter and Keoghan titled “The cute boy with the thick accent proved them right.” (That’s a nod to Carpenter’s songs “Bed Chem” and “Please Please Please.”) In it, the tipster shared that the “A-list singer” and “her foreign actor boyfriend” had broken up. According to the source, they broke up in November after she discovered he had been exchanging “not-innocent-at-all” messages with an influencer.

UNCONFIRMED reports are circulating that Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan have broken up after Barry allegedly cheated on Sabrina. pic.twitter.com/F9addTGS8d

— Pop Flop (@PopFlopHQ) December 3, 2024

Now, where does Hill fit into all of this? Well, she reposted two TikToks that claimed she was the mysterious influencer whom Keoghan was messaging.

Some people took her reposts to mean she was outing herself as a home-wrecker. On her most recent video, the comments are tearing her to shreds, most of them with some sort of play on Carpenter’s hit “Espresso.” “This ain’t Espresso it’s Nesquick,” reads the top comment. “U are NOT me espresso >:(,” reads another.

I kind of think that’s what’s going on here. They say all press is good press, but perhaps we should update that expression for our current media landscape: All engagement is good engagement. Hill certainly makes money off her TikTok videos (to say nothing of the fact that it’s a funnel to her OnlyFans page), and riling up the Carpenter stans is a good way to push her videos to a new part of the algorithm. Did you know who she was before yesterday? She saw an opportunity to up her brand awareness, and she took it. I kind of doubt that if she were actually the other woman in an A-list cheating scandal that she would just be sharing TikToks about it. That being said, I don’t totally understand Gen Z’s cavalier relationship to posting, so maybe I’m wrong. Whatever the case may be, Hill is making money off of it.