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Back in November, after the news of Sutton Foster’s impending divorce broke, I predicted that she and Hugh Jackman would launch their relationship in the new year. They wasted no time. During the first week in January, they were photographed on a date night at a Santa Monica restaurant called Father’s Office Pub. It was a classic old school hard launch, with People getting the exclusive photos. Well, now that the cat’s out of the bag, Hugh and Sutton are free to publicly hold hands and make out wherever and whenever they want, and that’s exactly what they’re going to do, damnit! In fact, just last week, they were spotted making out in the parking lot of an In-N-Out in San Fernando.
Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster got hot and heavy during a low-key dinner date at In-N-Out last week.
In photos obtained by Page Six, the new couple could be seen passionately kissing outside the chain burger joint in San Fernando, Calif.
At first, the smitten “Music Man” co-stars laughed and repeatedly kissed inside the parked Range Rover.
After exiting the car, Jackman walked to the passenger side and opened the door for the “Psych” alum before embracing her.
In response, Foster placed her hands on her beau’s face before they shared another smooch and walked into the fast food restaurant.
The two Broadway stars kept things casual for the outing with the “Wolverine” actor, 56, wearing a black polo and chinos while Foster, 49, opted for brown joggers and a yellow blouse.
Alright, you two, we see you. A little bit of hand-holding in Santa Monica, a whole lot of mackin’ it at an In-N-Out… what, are they playing Hollywood relationship bingo? What’s next? Lunch at the Grove? Frolicking in the sun in Turks and Caicos? Too bad they just missed the Eras Tour because I bet the VIP section would be a stop on the relationship launch tour too. In all seriousness, though, I do hope that whatever they do next, it’s respectful to their exes. I know everyone involved is an adult and they’re all free to do whatever they want now, but still. Even if all is amicable, it still has to suck for their ex-spouses to see pictures of them making out with each other in public.
Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster spotted passionately making out at In-N-Out drive-thru https://t.co/eTmK9JkDuN pic.twitter.com/tHf4gQeCUK
— Page Six (@PageSix) January 14, 2025
Well, they are skilled performers….ofcourse they will perform for the cameras.
This feels like the best explanation and it’s tacky AF. Hugh is 56 years old and Foster is 49. They are not hormonal teenagers. The relationship, by all accounts, is not new (so they aren’t in a honeymoon phase). This is a relationship that developed over a professional collaboration years old now and has existed through his separation and the ending of his decades-long marriage. Making out in a fast food parking lot is a CHOICE and making that choice when you are famous and know the public will recognize you and paparazzi will want shoot pics of you is an even more deliberate one…a performance, indeed.
Not that PDA is ever really particularly classy (though affection is good and some PDA can certainly be harmless) but this is particularly tasteless, given this relationship DID play a part in breaking up a decades long marriage. Even if you believe your newfound love and happiness is SO great and SO profound that risking it all and hurting others to be together is your ONLY option, nothing says you have to further disrespect or publicly remind your former partner and the family you broke up (there are kids, remember) of that belief, just to make a point or score some sort of PR win.
If you hurt other people to be together, a little discretion and courtesy is the least you can do. It’s just decent and it costs you nothing.
Cringey AF as the kids these days say….and sure seems like they are overcompensating to prove a point, ew just ew.
@Mario…BRAVO to EVERYTHANG YOU SAID!
Agree they are actors doing a job
Do they have a movie to promote or something? Tasteless behavior.
It really is tacky.
It feels like they are trying the “we are so in love” plot line to distract from being in the wrong. Not to mention that the big PR move usually means there is trouble in “paradise’
Her series Younger just popped up on Netflix, but that could be a coincidence. I really loved the show, btw. It was my comfort watch during a really hard point in my life. It’s a few years old now, but it’s a fun, low stakes series with pretty people in pretty clothes doing glamorous things in NYC. When I watched Emily in Paris I immediately thought of Younger, which makes sense because they were both created by Darren Star.
I loved Younger when it first came out.
But at some point s3 maybe? it just started pissing me off. IIRC they started writing all the characters as awful people and the guy who was SF’s boss/crush/love interest became an AH as did SF but the show was acting like it was hunky dory twoo luv (which is very Darren Star I suppose – it’s like ‘tell me your show runner is an awful human without telling me your show runner is an awful human’)
I wasn’t quite as put off as I’dbeen at Sleepy Hollow and HIMYM when they became awful but it was still yucky
This seems very extra. I find this very disturbing for their exes. Lack of sensitivity. HJ doesn’t have a nice dude aura that he had in my opinion.
This is the kind of cringey stuff teenagers do to get attention. They’re way too grown for this.
Something about smooching at the In-N-Out is kind of icky. Smooching — fine, In-N-Out –love their burgers, but the combo doesn’t sit well.
Yeah, that joint does not really suggest romance. Seems a weird place for famous people to put on a show.
Tasteless and tacky, just like throwing over your long marriage for your coworker.
I had a different expectation of “making out” when I saw the headline. These are kisses/hugs. Perfectly normal affectionate behavior and nothing I would be embarrassed to have my kids see. Marriages do break up and people do move on. I don’t get the hate.
I don’t think I’d consider it making out either. But since their last date was such an obviously arranged pap show for people magazine it just makes me feel like these were pre-arranged pap photos too. And that’s cringe. Maybe they weren’t but bc the last ones sooooo obviously were it’s hard to imagine these aren’t either.
They look alike.
Yeah my respect for Hugh is waning by the day. I don’t know Sutton other than she’s a big Broadway star. Get a damn room and keep your mid-life crisis romance to yourselves.
Oddly enough, I know her (not personally) from her crocheting book as well as her Broadway work. She is so successful in a tough field, I find it interesting that she suffers from anxiety—and the crocheting helps her deal. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/07/books/hooked-sutton-foster.html
The pearl clutching in these comments is super interesting to me. Making out with your partner is fun and they weren’t dry humping in the backseat or anything y’all. It was a kiss. Could they be more cognizant of their exes? Sure. But I don’t think we should put an age limit on being horned up for your babe.
Meh. I ain’t pearl-clutching. I said above I don’t think they’re making out and their pda is fine. But for me, there’s a whole layer of cringe after that obvious date pre arranged pap walk for people mag. I just can’t look at any pics of them now without finding them cringe, pda or not.
Haha, yeah. I hate PDA with a passion, but I always felt that this was because I’m such a horrible prude combined with being intensely private. I just can’t understand people being that free to show that side of themselves to the world. But reading these comments it seems I’m not alone in disliking PDA 🙃
Ive been in hospital for a few months so im quite out of the loop on celebrity gossip, but everyone on the ward was saying he broke up with Deborah to pursue male relationships. Is that just a wild rumour because he is a seasoned stage performer?
There were A LOT OF rumors about him hooking up with men with the consent of his wife for years. So, he might be bi, not necessarily gay. People really think bi people don’t exist.
I always thought that the gay rumours were just an extension of people thinking he was too hot for Deb, so it must be a bearding situation. Which is mean.
@Smart&Messy, I didn’t wanna say that, but I agree. People didn’t wanna believe a man like him would go for an older woman and especially after getting famous wouldn’t dump her for a younger woman. So, he must be gay 🙄
@sevenblue ironically when they first got together. People thought he was using her as she was the more famous and established actress. She was too hot for him!
Basically a wild rumour that fits the preferred narrative of some people (many of the related blind items flowed from a site that literally notes in their disclaimer that they write a bunch of fiction in between the occasional real rumour).
People would rather put belief in some decades-long complicated conspiracy than…guy leaves longtime wife for other woman. I don’t know who he hooked up with in the past (male or female) but guy leaves wife after long marriage for other woman is not exactly uncommon and is the likeliest explanation.
It reminds me of when Ewan McGreggor cheated and left his longtime wife. I had heard for years the “oh they have an open marriage” rumours/blind items to justify his alleged cheating. Likelier? No they didn’t and he was a sleazy unfaithful cheater. But fans preferred the other story. 🤷♀️ Gossip is weird.
Eh, I think it’s tacky be it make out session or not considering they were in a public parking lot at an LA In and Out and oh, neither are actually divorced yet. Also wondering if someone on one of their teams is setting up these photo ops?
Also remember 2 long marriages ended over this…everyone mentions Hugh’s which yes, was longer, but Sutton’s was a decade and she still has a young, elementary aged child.
I swore for years that Hugh was gay…tons of blind items about him…this has thrown me for a loop, honestly.
I hope his ex wife finds peace and happiness.
Normally this would not be a big deal. But didn’t they both recently separate from their spouses and each have children? I really hope those family members aren’t hurt by this. Celebrate your love, when and where it doesn’t cause pain for others.
I just hope that whenever the inevitable first interview or q&a comes out that neither of them go on and on about how this is the greatest/truest/deepest/most amazing/etc. love they’ve ever had, experienced, lived. I can’t stand when celebs or anyone do that as it’s so hurtful and dismissive of their former relationship, and especially hurtful when kids are in the mix.
They should slow their roll on this rollout. I agree it’s cringy and sus.
Hot take: I’ve never seen Hugh Jackman look this happy. He always seemed to be forcing it for the longest time with his ex Mrs.
Of course he’s happy. They are in the new sex phase.
They have visible chemistry, and if they were trapped in marriages without that for a long time it’s probably a lot of physicality going on with them right now. That and the fires are making everyone in LA feel emotional right now — lots of people feeling their mortality and thinking about who was the live of their lives and reaching out. It’s normal in a post disaster scenario.
i do think the rumors were true that Hugh and Deb’s marriage died long before the affair started. That the pandemic made them realize the marriage was over. But they kept it together until the youngest went off to college. The timing fits to me. Both of their children are legal adults now. Not that it makes it any easier to learn your parents split up. At any age.
What’s Sutton story besides a husband and minor child. IDK, but this whole they bonded over the failed marriages. Sounds way too PRish to me. Though they are both middle aged adults and it happens. Sometimes people fall in love working together. It happens in every corner of the world. My current boss met his wife at work. They are happily married with kids now. Not that either was married first. But office romance / on set romance. It just happens.
My guess, this was all set up by their PR team as a soft launch. To roll out the world’s worst kept secret they are together. If the Oscars do happen. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them show up together as a couple. Or at least the Vanity Fair party. For the hard launch of “Hughtton”.
Do they not homes that they can go to? Are they in high school?
but at home no one would see them… no one would take “completely accidental” photos of them.
This.
They are literal drama queens.
Well, apparently even Netflix is riding this launch wave, because her series Younger has suddenly been popping up at the top of my queue as a popular series, and that shit’s old!
These 2 are reminding me of those morning tv show hosts who blew up their marriages to be together and then kept showing up everywhere publicly performing their special best-romance eva relationship. TJ and someone?
And that’s after only 2 pap outings.
Dear HJ/SF, please please don’t launch a podcast.
…at least Ariana and Spongebob had the good sense to lay low in the wake of their scandal!
I also thought Hugh was into men (definitely could be bi) — but that was mostly due to his ties to Bryan Singer.
And the John Palermo / Seed Productions / all three wearing rings thing. So weird.
They’re so contrived. He’s so desperate to tell the world he’s straight and she is getting a career boost.
They don’t care to be seen as cheaters, which any other HW high-profile actor like Hugh would be worried about. Anyone else on Hugh’s level of fame would be cautious.
Instead, they’re doing these set-ups for the media. Deduce what you will from that.