The year’s biggest dating rumor might’ve just been a mere exercise in public relations, it seems.
Back in May, the story emerging from this year’s Cannes Film Festival that attracted the most amount of eyes wasn’t about a film that screened in the prestigious Un Certain Regard section or even one that collected the coveted Palme d’Or prize. But rather about a series of interactions between an unlikely pair as any – Selena Gomez and Bill Murray.
Murray, 68, could be seen leaning near Gomez, 26, to whisper something in her ear on various occasions, something that the masses present upon the internet made much out of, only for the powder keg to be truly lit when the singer took it upon herself to address it.
In an Instagram post commemorating her first ever visit the festival, Gomez wrote in her caption that ‘My first time in Cannes! I’m so honored to have been part of this movie with Jim and the whole cast. By the way, Bill Murray and I are getting married.’
Needless to say, it was the last part that made headlines the world over.
Almost instantaneously, what seemed a simple, perhaps comedic, the statement was proliferated through the media, and became the topic of debate due to varying reasons, with some observers even taking it upon themselves to deride the supposed couple’s age difference, only to invite backlash.
But, the story has since fizzled out. Both, Murray and Gomez, have been part of multiple interviews in the aftermath of the post and its subsequent fallout, neither denying nor accepting questions about it, instead merely asserting their respect for one another, making fans sure it might’ve just been a joke all along.
And there’s the reason for it, too. The pair were together at Cannes as part of The Dead Don’t Die, a zombie-comedy film directed by Jim Jarmusch and co-starring Adam Driver, and rumors were perhaps concocted to market the project, though one can’t say it worked.
The film has grossed merely $8.7 million globally as of yet, after having been in theaters for nearly two weeks already, meaning that the controversial Murray-Gomez dating brouhaha was futile after all.