In a scenario that’s so predictable it could have been scripted by ChatGPT, Harry Styles and Emily Ratajkowski were spotted kissing recently in Tokyo. Both have been tabloid obsessions lately, both are somewhat newly single, both are hot and tend to date other hot people—it was inevitable that their paths would cross.
Over the weekend, the Daily Mail published a video of the two making out next to—and, later, leaning against—a car, along with a clip of them dancing. The hookup itself is newsworthy—guess he’s moved on from Olivia Wilde, and she from Pete Davidson and Eric André, to the extent that they were ever really involved—but that’s not what everyone is talking about. Instead, the conversation around it has brought to the fore one of the most pressing questions of our time: Is Harry Styles a bad kisser?
Styles is one of the biggest sex symbols of his generation, an image he plays up in his music and concerts. He’s always singing thinly veiled libidinous metaphors and flirting mercilessly with whoever happens to be near him. So it would really damage his reputation if it were to get out that his kissing game is weak. Does the Daily Mail video offer proof that Styles’ heartthrob standing is unearned? Here is my unbiased assessment: It does look a little awkward.
In the clip, Styles at first holds one of Ratajkowski’s hands to his chest, as if the two were talking intently before kissing. It’s a weird way to stand, but it looks especially so when their mouths meet. It also forces him to gracelessly hunch down to her. Eventually, it looks as if it’s Ratajkowski who gets them out of this contortion by grabbing Styles’ neck with her other hand and then repositioning. She seems to be the less awkward one in the pair. He looks to be using an awful lot of tongue, and sloppily—at times his mouth is fully open, without having built up to it at all. It’s hard to tell from the video, but Styles also appears to open his eyes a few times midkiss, which is another big no-no. The video then cuts to him holding her against the car, giving her a tentative little pat on her hip, and the scene just seems too well lit, with too many people around, for it to be at all sexy. It’s very teenage PDA.
The kiss is made worse by Styles’ look in the video. He has a tiny ponytail sprouting out from his head like a stem coming out of an apple, but not in a cute way. Since many fans are used to seeing him in full performance glam complete with sequins and fringe, his outfit of a white shirt under a black shacket and matching pants is disappointingly mundane. If anything, he recalls the neckbearded incel version of himself he played in the movie Don’t Worry Darling. If I had to give it a score? Grade: C-
Is this ruinous for Styles? There’s always the chance that he was very drunk, or that he and Ratajkowski are just severely lacking in chemistry. To really be able to tell whether Styles is a good kisser, we’ll have to revisit some archival kisses. The man has kissed quite a few people in his day, so we’re going to have to limit this to select notable examples.
Styles most recently, and very messily, dated Wilde, whom he met on the Don’t Worry Darling set, when she was his either married or extremely recently separated boss. Despite the fact that the two were together for two years, there don’t seem to be any videos of them kissing, though there are some nice, and probably very invasively obtained, photos of them kissing on a yacht. The pictures were taken from too far away to get a real sense of their kiss smoothness, but you have to figure that any kiss that takes place on a yacht is going to be nicer than a kiss that doesn’t take place on a yacht. Grade: B+
During the press tour for Don’t Worry Darling, Styles planted a big kiss on one of his co-stars, Nick Kroll. It was the same night the whole (unrelated) spitting controversy happened. Styles looks premiere-ready and dapper, and he’s very confident when he grabs Kroll’s face. There is an appropriate amount of tongue for a public kiss with a co-worker, which is none, but that does mean it’s not very sexy. Grade: B
And how were the kisses in the film itself, in Styles’ scenes with Florence Pugh, who played his wife? Definitely better—as you might expect when you’re working with a director and cinematographer with professional lighting. But for all that, it’s not quite as hot as it should be. There’s not much urgency or lust, even as they move from the front door straight to the dining-room table for a sex scene. Was this an acting choice, or is it more evidence that Styles lacks kissing prowess? Grade: B+
Styles has also kissed James Corden not once but twice (that we know of). These were friendly, jokey kisses as well, but in the one that took place in a car, the two seemed very coordinated in their movements; way more in sync than Styles was with Emrata. Styles grabs Corden’s face with real self-assurance, locks eyes, and smiles as he leans in. Closed-mouth, of course. Grade: B+
There’s a semi-famous, very low-quality, decade-old clip of Styles kissing Taylor Swift, his girlfriend at the time, one New Year’s Eve. For the stroke-of-midnight kiss, it’s the two of them standing in a crowd in Times Square with his arms around her waist, and they look a bit too much like kids pretending to do what they think adults are supposed to do. Soon they part, hug, and say a few words to each other, but Styles seems distracted, looking everywhere but at her. It seems like they can’t hear each other well, which makes sense, but it’s still kind of weird that while Swift is talking, he leans in and interrupts her with a kiss. Overall, probably too chaotic a scene for romance. Grade: B
In My Policeman, Styles shares kisses with the actor David Dawson, who plays his lover. In one scene, Dawson pushes him up against a wall near a beach, and it’s a lot better than when Styles pushed Ratajkowski against that car. They are repressed and trying to be somewhat restrained, because homosexuality is illegal in 1950s England, when and where the movie is set, so the lack of tongue is understandable, though disappointing—a hint, without getting slobbery, would be nice. Grade: A-
On that note, all of Styles’ documented non-acting, real-life kisses with men appear to have been friendly rather than romantic (some have even called them queer-baiting), much to some One Direction fans’ dismay. It is a matter of much debate whether Styles ever kissed his former bandmate Louis Tomlinson, but most reliable sources say it never happened, alas. Grade: Incomplete
I feel a little bad for the Larry Stylinson fans, because it sometimes seems as if Styles will kiss any old guy except Louis. Another example is that Styles once kissed someone with a tragically similar first name, the singer Lewis Capaldi, at an awards show. It was preceded by Styles passionately pointing to Capaldi in the audience, which seemed promising, but it ended up being quite chaste. Grade: C
Speaking of awards shows, Styles once kissed a Grammy that he won. I so wish there were video footage. It looks very tender. Grade: Incomplete
But we do have video of Styles kissing another inanimate object, a camera, at the 2013 premiere of the One Direction documentary This Is Us. The camera is a stand-in for the viewer, so whoever’s watching it can imagine he’s kissing them—it was very kind of him to enable so many people’s fantasies like that. He locks eyes with the camera, does that pointing thing again, walks toward it as if to embrace, and then smooches the glass. There’s no tongue, because how could there be, but it’s very compelling, probably his best kissing work. Whether it means anything that his best kiss ever is with a camera and not a person is not for me to say. Grade: A
Overall, Styles has not distinguished himself as someone whose kisses look particularly tantalizing. Maybe the kiss energy doesn’t translate on camera and they feel a lot better than they look. Either way, I’m willing to bet that most people, if given the opportunity to kiss Styles, would still be willing to take one for the team. What if all he needs is a little practice?
