The scene is a Manhattan street. It’s still close to 100F but record producer Jack Antonoff is dressed in an almost comically oversized tuxedo. His graying hair is missing – shaved clean off – and so is his actress wife.
Antonoff was, of course, headed to Madison Square Garden, to watch one of his closest friends and longtime musical collaborators, Taylor Swift, marry her NFL sweetheart, Travis Kelce.
He wasn’t alone. The 42-year-old Grammy-winning producer – the architect behind some of Swift’s biggest albums – took his sister Rachel as a plus-one to Friday’s glitzy wedding, host to some 1,000 guests.
But where was his wife of three years, Margaret Qualley?
Online sleuths rushed to explain the 31-year-old actress’s absence. She’s tied up filming, they proffered. Unwell, perhaps. Or, horror of horrors, she’s had a falling out with the bride.
Now, it seems, we know the truth, after news broke Wednesday that Qualley and Antonoff have reportedly split – and, sources say, things have been tricky for some time.
Jack Antonoff attended Taylor Swift’s wedding without his wife Margaret Qualley last week
After news broke Wednesday that Qualley and Antonoff have reportedly split, insiders tell the Daily Mail the warning signs had been quietly piling up for some time
Antonoff and Qualley tied the knot in a small ceremony in New Jersey in 2023
One guest at Swift’s nuptials tells the Daily Mail that Antonoff ‘didn’t look happy during most of the wedding, unless he was with Taylor.’ He was also overheard telling friends that he and Qualley ‘had a tiff’ before the ceremony.
Antonoff was still wearing his wedding ring at Swift’s wedding, as he was Wednesday when he was photographed outside their home in Brooklyn.
But then, not long after, news broke via People magazine that the couple have reportedly called it quits after just three years of marriage.
The split appears to have come as such a shock that even Antonoff’s own family seem blindsided.
Less than two hours before the news became public, the Daily Mail had spoken on the phone with Antonoff’s mother and asked her about rumors of marital strife.
‘I don’t know anything about this, sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, I really don’t have anything to say.’
Her apparent surprise is understandable. Antonoff and Qualley had looked like a successful Hollywood pairing.
They married in a small ceremony in August 2023. Swift was present, of course – and Qualley wore flats and a casual halter-neck dress.
As recently as February this year, the actress told Vanity Fair that she saw children in their future. ‘Yeah, for sure,’ she said. ‘I love my husband, my family. I love dancing and horses.’
One guest at Swift’s nuptials tells the Daily Mail that Antonoff ‘didn’t look happy during most of the wedding, unless he was with Taylor.’
He was also overheard telling friends that he and Qualley, 31, ‘had a tiff’ before Swift’s ceremony
Antonoff was still wearing his wedding ring at Swift’s wedding, as he was Wednesday when he was photographed (above) outside their home in Brooklyn
But according to a second source close to the couple, the cracks had been forming for some time.
‘Jack didn’t want to put up a facade at Taylor’s wedding when they’re having trouble,’ the insider told the Daily Mail.
‘It’s been weird with her [Qualley] working and him doing his own thing the last several months. They definitely have lost the spark they once had and it doesn’t look like they’ll fix it.
‘Which is crazy, because they were bonkers for each other at one point and people thought they had something unique.’
It is also claimed that the couple’s increasingly separate lives drove them apart.
Antonoff, who is also the frontman of the rock band Bleachers, has spent much of this year away on tour, while Qualley has thrown herself into filming. Her new movie Possession (a remake of the 1981 cult horror which will also feature Callum Turner) is anticipated for cinema release next year.
‘Margaret feels he has a tendency to prioritize his music career over their relationship,’ the insider said.
‘The disconnect between them has created significant tension, and despite the growing strain, Jack hasn’t shown much interest in repairing what’s been broken. The two are no longer on the same page.’
The source added that Qualley had finally reached ‘her breaking point’.
She has recently also been filming the supernatural thriller King Snake alongside Drew Starkey, the chiseled 32-year-old actor who made a name for himself starring opposite Daniel Craig in the 2024 gay romance movie, Queer.
Eagle-eyed fan have claimed that photographs making the rounds online show Starkey and Qualley at a minor league baseball game on May 30 in Arkansas during time off from filming in the area. Starkey’s brother was said to be present and the game was advertised online as ‘Faith & Family Night’.
One attendee told the Daily Mail the the trio kept a low profile and claimed Starkey in particular seemed to want people to ‘leave him alone.’
‘I think once he realized he was spotted on one side of the baseball field, he put a cap on and the three of them moved to the section next to where I was sitting,’ the attendee said. ‘You could tell he didn’t want to be bothered.’
Qualley has recently been filming the supernatural thriller King Snake alongside actor Drew Starkey (pictured)
Other photos shared by fans allegedly capturing Qualley and Starkey spending time together at a public swimming pool during another break from filming have only added fuel to the fire.
The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Antonoff, Qualley and Starkey for comment.
Qualley and Antonoff’s reported breakup has promoted something of a deep dive into the famed producer’s dating history, namely his relationship with Girls creator Lena Dunham, 40.
In her recently released memoir, Dunham reflected candidly on their five-year relationship, which ended in January 2018.
She recalled returning home one day to find an unnamed teenage pop star crying in Antonoff’s lap while he comforted her.
‘One day I returned home from a bone density test to find her sprawled across our sectional couch, weeping into Jack’s lap as he told her that “your teens are for experimenting” in a tone so comforting, it almost brought tears to my eyes,’ Dunham wrote.
In her recently released memoir, Girls creator Lena Dunham reflected candidly on her five-year relationship with Antonoff
‘It had been so long since he’d spoken to me with that kind of expansive generosity.’
Elsewhere, Dunham reflected on a period when the couple briefly separated and claimed that while she had carefully respected the boundaries they established, ‘if I wanted to look, perhaps I may have seen that Jack was not observing them as closely as I was.’
In April, Qualley changed her Instagram username from ‘isimostar’ – widely believed to be a nod to the Bleachers song, Isimo – to simply ‘sarahmargaretqualley23.’
Come Wednesday morning, Qualley seemed to briefly scrub her wedding photos from her Instagram. The missing photos have now reappeared – and the pair still follow each other on the social media platform.
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