On Friday, the Independent published an interview with Angel Haze that featured some very strong quotes about media coverage of her relationship with Ireland Baldwin. In it, Haze is quoted as saying that she doesn’t get why publications have referred to her and Baldwin as “best friends” instead of dating. “I have never fucked one of my friends,” she said.
Ella Alexander interviewed Haze, who is currently in Britain preparing to perform at the Glastonbury Festival this weekend:
“I don’t know if there’s like some confirm or deny thing with the way relationships work in the media, but everyone just calls us best friends, best friends for life, like we’re just friends hanging out,” she told The Independent. “It’s funny. It’s rad in some ways, it sucks in others.”
“An interracial gay couple, I mean that’s just weird for America right now. We f**k and friends don’t f**k. I have never f**ked one of my friends. Once I see you in that way, it doesn’t happen.
“But we do f**k and it’s crazy and that’s weird to say because I think about it in terms of an audience reading it and them thinking, ‘What the hell?’ But it happens.”
The interview in question has spurred endless headlines about the “true” state of Haze and Baldwin’s relationship. Haze certainly has a point; as we’ve noted before, there have been a lot of references in media sources to the pairs “rumored” relationship, even though they’re all over each other on social media and in real life. In recent weeks its been pretty much taken as fact that they are not just “best friends,” but there are still sources who refer to them as “pals,” “good friends” or “BFF.”
Part of this hesitant coverage might be because Baldwin has spoken about Haze in the same vein as their friend Gigi Hadid, and also because the pair seemed to be friends before they starting posting romantic photos. But if the two were in straight relationship, photos of them kissing wouldn’t make their relationship still seem “rumored” – it would confirm it as fact, even if one or both of them hadn’t yet called the other their girlfriend in an interview. In the New York Post last week, Andrea Peyser wrote about their relationship, going as far to suggest that Ireland might be posting these photos to mess with her father, the possible homophobe Alec Baldwin:
I haven’t a clue if Ireland and Angel are just friends, in love or messing with Alec’s head. None of my business. But on June 4, the gals were spotted by paparazzi after eating brunch with friends in Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Haze calls bullshit on this kind of stuff and the way it weighs on male-male and male-female relationships differently. “There are still certain limitations for women,” she told the Independent. “If we were two guys, it’d be insane, negatively insane with the attention. With us it’s all being very positive, the media are like, ‘Oh they’re so cute, they’re best friends.'”
Since the publication of the piece, Haze has seemingly called the veracity of her quotes or the way they’ve been used by others into question:
Regardless, her relationship with Baldwin certainly seems strong. A few days ago, Haze posted an Instagram response to a fan who said she “missed” seeing Baldwin with her ex-boyfriend, writing “idc if ur with us or against us or indifferent. keep it to urself.” And in response to a tweet about the Independent article that reads “Can’t wait to see the meltdown @AngelHaze will have when she realises @IrelandBBaldwin is just in a phase..”, Baldwin quoted an edited version of the person’s bio back to them, only to be retweeted by Haze:
Images via Angel Haze and Ireland Baldwin/Instagram and Twitter