This past weekend, at a cosy East London boozer close to the Victoria Park fireworks, My Favourite Celebrity Couple Of All Time*, Alexa Chung and Alex Turner, were spotted ‘canoodling’. This sighting has prompted fans to speculate that the former mid-noughties cool-couple were back together, after splitting amicably back in 2011 after dating for four years.
On the other side of the Atlantic, specifically on the Pacific coast of America, another former couple were reuniting. On and off again millennial stars Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were seen on a trio of dates: firstly, enjoying breakfast at a vegetarian restaurant, secondly, riding bikes (she wore recent ex-boyfriend The Weeknd’s jacket though, curiously) and thirdly at an ice hockey game in which Bieber was playing, with Gomez leaving in his sweaty jersey.
WATCH: Prince William and Kate Middleton's Relationship Timeline
Other celebrity couples to have recently rekindled their romances include Brooklyn Beckham and Chloe Grace Moretz, who have been all over each other’s Instagram feeds in recent weeks after calling it quits last summer, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who are reportedly halting their divorce to try to work things out, and Louise and Jamie Redknapp, who are said to be ‘dating’, despite their separation.
Could it be that Hollywood is experiencing its very own cuffing season? For the uninitiated, cuffing season refers to the phenomenon of couples settling down to hibernate for the winter, after a summer of being single. It’s why you see so many people rushing to make it official before winter comes, and feeds into that whole ‘hygge’ obsession of last year, where people just want to be snuggling under a blanket watching Stranger Things 2 on Netflix while a Diptyque candle softly flickers in the corner (just us?).
Of course, on-again off-again couples are nothing new in Hollywood. Just look at Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who married twice in 1964 and 1975. Or Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth, who took a two and a half year-long break before coming back together in 2016, as well as our very own Prince William and Kate Middleton, who separated in 2007 for a few months before becoming engaged in November 2010. Then there’s Katy Perry and John Mayor (and Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom), plus Sienna Miller and Jude Law back in the late noughties, Chris Brown and Rihanna, the list goes on.
But this conscious recoupling is by no means unique to Hollywood. A study by Match.com last year found that half of Brits reunite with their exes after a break-up. The reason? Millennials are basically just bad at communication. According to Match’s dating expert Kate Taylor, ‘People wrongly assume their relationship is “bad”, end things, then miss all the good things. At that point, the couple will get back together, and work out their differences.’
A lot of the time, age is often cited as a factor in why couples split and reunite, as was the case with both Prince William and Kate Middleton and Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth. When Chung and Turner broke up in 2011, they had nothing but nice things to say about each other, despite Chung saying in her book 'It' that she had been left broken hearted over the split. They were spotted smoking together in 2014 in New York, when they were both newly single (oh to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation) and Chung was photographed wearing an Arctic Monkeys band T-shirt later that same summer.
But regardless of whether Chung and Turner's reunion is down to working things out after a lot of time apart, or it’s a cynical seasonal ploy for some cosy canoodling when the mercury drops, we couldn’t be happier that the noughties answer to Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull* are back together. Plus, with Turner reportedly working on the Arctic Monkeys’ sixth album at the minute, we can also probably expect a love song or two inspired by our favourite sarcastic style icon - we can but dream.
And as for 'Jelena'? The jury's still out on that pairing.
**Mick and Marianne are my second favourite celebrity couple ever, natch. *
READ MORE: Alexa Chung Reportedly Asked DJ To Turn Off Arctic Monkeys Song