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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Amy Francombe

Is Grimes dating whistleblower Chelsea Manning?

Grimes arrives for the 2021 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)

How do you rebound from a man trying to colonise Mars? By dating a former U.S Army intelligence analyst and whistleblower, apparently.

Or that’s at least how ethereal producer-songwriter Grimes, 33, real name Claire Boucher, does. Two days ago Page Six reported that the 33-year-old had moved on from former partner Elon Musk and has been dating Chelsea Manning, the former US soldier and activist who disclosed nearly 750,000 classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks.

Manning made headlines in the early 2010s for leaking the highly confidential documents and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. In 2017, her remaining sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama. She served seven years in total.

According to a mystery source, the two have been “getting serious” and have even “U-Hauled it” by moving in together in Austin. There’s not a lot of hard evidence to back up the claims, apart from some friendly Twitter interactions. Most notably, Manning commented “vouch” on several of Grimes’ tweets, as well as a more conspicuous tweet where Grimes proclaims that she’d been taking Manning’s “word as final these days”.

Chelsea Manning (AFP via Getty Images)

Regardless, the internet is losing its collective head over the news, with many questioning whether this is proof that we are living in a simulation.

Considering it’s not even the most surreal story to come out about Grimes this week, it’s easy to see why many are now debating the nature of reality. The day before the supposed relationship was revealed, Grimes accidentally let slip in her Vanity Fair cover that she and the Tesla billionaire had secretly welcomed a baby girl named Exa Dark Sideræl via a surrogate.

She also corrected fans that she and Elon Musk were no longer in a “fluid” relationship, but that she still sees him as her best friend and the love of her life.

Confused? We are, too.

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