Harry Styles' New Song May Reference Olivia Wilde & Liam Payne

In between all his kissing and discoing, Harry Styles found some time to get reflective on important figures in his past on his new album. At least, that’s how fans are interpreting the record’s most emotional song. On “Paint By Numbers,” Styles contends with his own fame, lamenting that it’s impossible for him to fully control his public image: “It’s a lifetime of learning to paint by numbers / And watching the colors run.”

But the lyrics get more specific in the second verse, which is what has really caught listeners’ attention. Two lines in particular have fueled theories about the track’s inspiration: “Holding the weight of the American children whose hearts you break / Was it a tragedy when you told her ‘I'm not even 33?’”

One interpretation of this couplet is that Styles is reflecting on his past relationship with Olivia Wilde, whom he dated throughout 2021 and 2022. The romance was infamously private, but dating a woman with children would have been a new experience for Styles. Wilde’s son Otis would have been around 7 or 8 when Styles was dating Wilde, and her daughter Daisy would have been 5 or 6. As Styles points out in the lyrics, he was in his late 20s during this time — “not even 33.”

But there’s also another way to read those lines. Some fans believe that the verse is inspired by his former bandmate Liam Payne. Payne tragically died at age 31 in 2024 (“not even 33”), and the “American children whose hearts you break” could be about the disappointment young One Direction fans felt when the band broke up in the mid-2010s.

The standout lyric that supports this theory comes in the bridge, when Styles sings: “Kids with water guns, watch them run.” Fans think this may be a reference to the water fights the One Direction boys would often have on stage at their concerts.

Styles has spoken about “Paint By Numbers,” but hasn’t revealed what inspired the song. He told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that it’s a deeply personal track that he struggled to release. “Some of my favorite moments of artists that I love is when I feel like I’m listening to them discover themselves,” Styles said. “I think in terms of being vulnerable and what it means to be an artist in that way, I think it’s like, those are the bits where choosing the song that kind of is meant just for me…it becomes something important when you choose to let people look at that.”