Not even a month into 2023, Selena Gomez and The Chainsmokers’ Drew Taggart have struck up the year’s first surprise romance. Shortly after Taggart shared photographs of his New Year’s Eve vacation with ex-girlfriend Eve Jobs, Gomez and Taggart were reported to be dating casually. The two were allegedly seen making out at a Lower East Side bowling alley on January 14.
They were photographed out on a bowling date at The Gutter on January 15 in their first public sighting together. Page Six ran photos on January 17. Two days later, Gomez posted briefly then deleted an Instagram Story claiming that she was single. On January 21, she and Taggart were photographed holding hands while leaving dinner.
While Taggart is known for being one half of The Chainsmokers along with bandmate Alex Pall, Gomez marks one of his highest-profile romantic flings—though far from the only. Here, what to know about Taggart and his history with Gomez.
Drew Taggart and Selena Gomez.
Taggart is a 33-year-old musician who grew up in Maine.
Andrew “Drew” Taggart was born on Dec. 31, 1989, making him a Capricorn. (Capricorns and Cancers, Selena Gomez’s star sign, are actually a good astrological pairing.) He was born in Maine and grew up in Freeport before going to college at Syracuse University. News Center Maine reported that his high school teachers remembered him as “a kind, smart student” with a pronounced interest in music. During his senior year, he even did “an independent study project where he immersed himself in techno music and presented his music-making skills to teachers and students,” the outlet wrote.
His mom Laura Girr described him as first becoming interested in music when he was just five years old and got a drum set. “He was always super musical, music was always the thing he went to when he was happy and sad. He was passionate about music and had an insatiable appetite for music of all kinds,” she said.
Taggart and Pall created their group The Chainsmokers when Taggart was just 22. They’re now the world’s highest-paid DJs.
Taggart got his bachelor’s degree in music and entertainment industries at Syracuse University in 2012, per his LinkedIn. That same year, he and Pall formed their group in New York City. The two became the world’s highest-paid DJs in 2019, according to Forbes, bringing in $46 million from June 2018 to June 2019.
Hits like the viral satirical track “#Selfie” (2014), “Roses,” (2015), and the Halsey collab “Closer” (2016) gave the boys mainstream, Billboard chart-topping success as musicians.“Closer” and “Don’t Let Me Down” (both from 2016) even got Grammy nominations, and the boys ultimately won a Grammy for Best Dance Record for “Don’t Let Me Down” at the 2017 ceremony.
Per Billboard, Taggart and Pall had toured every year from 2014 to 2019 before announcing they were taking a pause in 2020, right before the pandemic started. They released their fourth album, So Far So Good, in May 2022. The two also manage a VC fund, Mantis, and according to Billboard, “count billionaire private equity CEO Jim Coulter among their mentors.”
Drew Taggart performing in June 2022.
Taggart and Pall are aware the world views them as the “hard-partying, EDM-bro” type, and have repeatedly said in interviews that they’re different in real life.
The duo first spoke to NME in 2017 about trying to prove they aren’t, in fact, those people.
“People are like, ‘Oh my God, they’re such bros,’” Taggart said. “And we’re like, ‘No! We’re making fun of bros!’”
Pall added, “I hope people can walk away from this article with a deeper sense of our purpose as artists and our true characters. We’re in this gray area where people are like, ‘I don’t get it, are these guys assholes or not?’ I promise you, we’re not assholes.”
Taggart and Pall reiterated that point in May 2022 to Billboard when reflecting on early coverage of them and their portrayal of being bro-y partiers.
“I remember reading that and thinking, ‘I can’t believe this is what people are going to think of us,’ and ‘Do we come off this way? I don’t want to be this person, you know?’” Taggart said of their 2016 Billboard cover story, which included a snippet of them taking tequila shots backstage and talking about “raging” every night. “That was the biggest thing. The guys we read about there, I was like, ‘I don’t like these guys.’”
Billboard wrote that Pall and Taggart read a lot of the stories about their image, including some with headlines like “Get Used To Hating The Chainsmokers.” They did admit to “having some bro in them,” the outlet wrote, but not quite as extreme as they’re portrayed.
Taggart spoke about his mental health struggles in a May 2022 interview with Billboard.
Taggart has spent some time in therapy and opened up to Billboard in May about a particularly hard mental health moment he went through shortly before the coronavirus pandemic began.
“I was in a dark place at the end of 2019,” he said. “I was on antidepressants. We were on this massive tour, we had an album that needed to be finished, and I went through this really tough time of waking up and not wanting to do anything that day. And there was so much to get done.” The two ultimately found their musical stride again, which helped him through that moment.
Taggart and Pall made headlines in early January 2023 for talking about having threesomes with fans on the Call Her Daddy podcast.
Just days before Taggart’s Selena Gomez romance became public, he and Pall went viral for discussing their past having threesomes with fans while on tour on the Call Her Daddy podcast.
“It’s been a long time,” Pall said, via Consequence of Sound, “but in the early days—it was also the days when we—we used to have to share the hotel rooms. We’d be in Europe, they have the two beds, they don’t even split them apart. They literally have two singles. So it’s almost like we were forced. By the European government because they don’t separate their beds.”
Pall said that the encounters “were never planned.”
Taggart added, “I feel like that’s how threesomes happen though.” He also specified that those threesomes never happened with “die-hard” fans.
News of Gomez and Taggart casually dating broke on Jan. 16, 2023.
Us Weekly broke the news of Gomez and Taggart’s romance on January 16. A source told the outlet that they were dating, but their relationship was “very casual and low-key.”
“They aren’t trying to hide their romance by sneaking around at members-only clubs,” the source said, adding they had gone on public dates like “go[ing] bowling and to the movies.”
Users told unverified celebrity gossip outlet DeuxMoi that Gomez and Taggart were seen making out at a Lower East Side bowling alley on Saturday, January 14.
Us Weekly’s source said that Gomez has no reservations about showing PDA with Taggart. “[She is] so affectionate [with him],” the source said. “Selena can hardly keep her hands off him. [They’re] having a lot of fun together.”
Taggart and Gomez were first photographed together during a Jan. 15 date.
Page Six ran the first photos of Gomez and Taggart together on a bowling date. The two played at The Gutter in New York City on January 15, 2023. An eyewitness told the outlet that Gomez and Taggart were “making out” like teenagers while there. Photos just show them bowling; no shots of their PDA came out. Both Gomez and Taggart’s reps were contacted by Page Six for comment on the relationship; Gomez’s rep never responded, and Taggart’s rep said, “no comment.”
Neither Gomez nor Taggart follow each other on Instagram. They also didn’t comment on their romance when news broke.
Gomez and Taggart are keeping their romance private online for now. Neither followed the other on Instagram the day news of their relationship came out. While the two were active on social media that day, they did not acknowledge the romance headlines either.
Selena Gomez not following Drew Taggart’s Instagram on January 16, when news of their relationship broke.
Drew Taggart not following Selena Gomez’s Instagram on January 16, when news of their relationship broke.
Taggart’s most recent ex before Gomez, Eve Jobs, disabled her Instagram when news of his and Gomez’s romance went public.
Taggart last dated 24-year-old model Eve Jobs, Steve Jobs’ daughter. The two were first reported to be dating in September by Us Weekly. The outlet described their relationship as a “casual summer fling” that became more.
When that same outlet broke news of Taggart dating Gomez, it also revealed that Taggart and Jobs had ended their romantic relationship beforehand. A source told Us that Taggart and Jobs’ split was “totally amicable,” and that they remain “friends [who are both] very mature and cool about going [their] separate ways.”
Reality may be a little more complicated, given the split was seemingly was very, very recent. Jobs disabled her Instagram when news of Gomez and Taggart’s relationship broke. Jobs and Taggart had just gone on a New Year’s Eve trip together (she appears in the carousel of photos he shared from it), and she was reported to have shared a birthday tribute to him, which was captioned “happy birthday lover.”
Eve Jobs with Drew Taggart in an Instagram he shared on Dec. 31, 2022.
Gomez posted then deleted an IG Story claiming she was still single on Jan. 19, days after dating reports first broke.
Gomez seemingly commented on Taggart romance reports when she briefly shared an Instagram Story clarifying her relationship status on Jan. 19. The post contained a photo of a man looking down with the text “I like being alone too much,” written on it. She added in her own text box, “#iamsingle.”
Two days later, she and Taggart were photographed holding hands after getting dinner out.
In early February, sources spoke to Us Weekly and Entertainment Tonight about the two’s ongoing relationship.
Us‘ source characterized it as romantic. “Selena and Drew have an amazing connection,” the source said. “They’re so happy to have gone with their guts and jumped in to give this a try.” The source added that they’re “both very into each other.”
Entertainment Tonight was more vague, just speaking on their connection: “Selena and Drew are having a lot of fun together,” the source said. “Drew is really happy around Selena, and Selena is into Drew too. They have connected over their love of music, being in the same industry, and their strong work ethic.”
“Drew appreciates that Selena understands his life,” the source added. “Things are going well between them.”
On January 18, Entertainment Tonight reported they were romantically involved, with a source telling the outlet that Gomez and Taggart were “dating and things are still new.”
Entertainment Tonight was told Gomez and Taggart met through friends.
A source shared how Gomez and Taggart were connected on Jan. 18, telling the outlet, “[They] met through mutual friends in a friendly, low-key way, but had an instant connection and liked each other as people.”
“[They’ve] have been talking ever since [their introduction], and they’re into each other,” the source added. “[They’re] having so much fun getting to know one another.”
Taggart has dated a string of other famous models prior to Jobs and Gomez.
Taggart’s history is full of—you guessed it—It-girl models. Us Weekly reported that Taggart was linked to Meredith Mickelson and Haley Rowe and also dated Chantel Jeffries for a year. His rep told the outlet at the time of their March 2021 breakup news that he and Jeffries remained friendly. “They broke up a month ago,” Taggart’s rep said then. “It was an amicable breakup, and they remain friends.”
Senior News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.