Yes, Jean Smart and Harry Styles Are Actually “Thick as Thieves”

HAZZA

Photos by Phillip Faraone and Kevin Mazur via Getty Images

When Jean Smart joined Instagram late last year, she didn’t waste any time making it clear that she’s a fan of Harry Styles. Her second-ever post on the platform consisted of a dispatch from the Madison Square Garden stop of “Love on Tour” and visual proof that she’s the proud owner of two items of Hazza merch: a sweatshirt from Styles’s beauty line, Pleasing, and a baseball cap that reads “Harry is my friend.” Turns out, she wasn’t kidding with the latter. “Harry and I are thick as thieves,” the four-time Emmy Award winner revealed in a new interview with the Los Angeles Times.

It’s possible that the unlikely friendship began when Smart was filming Babylon, the upcoming Damien Chazelle film costarring Styles’s girlfriend Olivia Wilde. But the pair really hit it off when Styles (who is 42 years Smart’s junior) started watching Hacks, the HBO Max series starring Smart as the wise-cracking, delightfully malicious standup Deborah Vance. He enjoyed the episode in which Deborah tasks her hapless assistant Ava (Hannah Einbinder) with procuring a rare $10,000 pepper shaker so much, he sent Smart a bouquet of flowers and rare shaker of her own.

Jean Smart matching her son Forrest in Harry Styles merch.

Courtesy of @realjeansmart

When the Emmys roll around next month, you’d better believe that Styles will be among the many rooting for Hacks to take home at least some of the 17 awards it’s currently up for. Apparently, the pop star is such a fan of the show he’s turned his hotel alias into an homage to Smart’s role.