On Heartstopper, Sebastian Croft played Ben Hope, the closeted boy in a secret relationship with Charlie Spring, played by Joe Locke. Now The Sun claims the two actors had one of their own off screen, and that Sebastian’s debut EP is about how it ended.
According to the tabloid’s insiders, Sebastian and Joe were together for almost three years. They never went public. And it ended when Joe broke up with him over the phone.
Neither actor has confirmed any of it. But Sebastian has spent the past few weeks telling the story of that breakup in his own words. He has just never said who it was with.
He picked a loud moment to do it. His EP, The Great Forever, is due later this month, and he’s currently on BBC One’s The Celebrity Traitors, whose premiere drew nearly nine million viewers.
What The Sun’s Insiders Are Claiming
The claim comes from The Sun’s showbiz column, which says Sebastian (who goes by Bash in his personal life and his music) has used the record to go through the highs and lows of the relationship.
“Bash and Joe never made their relationship public, although Heartstopper fans had guessed they were dating,” a source told the paper. “In fact they were in a loving relationship for almost three years.”
The same source says even the EP’s title comes from Joe: “The Great Forever is something Joe would say to Bash when they were in a relationship.”
According to the insider, the split hit him hard. “When Joe left him, Bash was heartbroken. Joe was his first great love.”
Fans have wondered about the two for years. They were photographed together constantly, but in public they were only ever known as close friends.
Sebastian’s Own Account Of The Breakup
What makes the report hard to wave away is how closely it matches what Sebastian has said himself.
In an interview with Rolling Stone UK published on October 5, he explained what finally pushed him to release the songs he’d been writing in secret for years.
“I was doing a play in Chichester, and I got broken up with over the phone,” he said. “This two-and-a-half-year relationship ended that I thought was gonna last forever, as lots of people’s first love did.”
“I was so devastated by it, and immediately the first thing I clung to was, ‘I need to buy a guitar. I need to write’.”
That play was almost certainly 4000 Miles. In 2023, in his first stage role in eight years, Sebastian starred opposite Eileen Atkins at the Chichester Festival Theatre, in a run that lasted from May to June. So the call came in the spring of 2023. (There is one small gap: the insiders say almost three years, while Sebastian puts it at two and a half.)
He has also explained the EP’s title, in comments carried by The Sun. “My ex used to say, ‘It’s going to be a Great Forever being together,'” he said. “But I kind of realised that The Great Forever is really that person who will forever be my first love.”
The Songs, And What He Says They’re Really About
According to Dork, The Great Forever has eight songs that recount that first heartbreak. The first single, Pretty People, came out on October 2. It’s about scrolling through photos of an ex who has moved on to a glossier crowd. The video was directed by Sebastian’s friend Connor Jessup, who co-founded the LGBTQ+ refugee fundraiser Queer Was Always Here with him.
His earlier single, Better Than Ever, released in March, is even more pointed. It’s sung to an ex who is thriving since the split and has turned into a movie star, the kind whose face keeps showing up on Sebastian’s TV.
Since 2023, Joe has joined the Marvel universe in Agatha All Along, won a Children’s and Family Emmy for Heartstopper and returned as Charlie in this summer’s Heartstopper Forever film. Fans will connect those dots themselves. Sebastian hasn’t named anyone.
If anything, he has pushed back on reading the record as a story about one person. “This isn’t really about anyone I dated, but who I was when I was dating those people or that person, and who I’m trying to become and what that feels like,” he told Dork.
He also admitted it isn’t entirely behind him. “You can wake up on a Tuesday morning and open Instagram and see something and feel all the same things. It’s never really over.”
Where That Leaves Ben And Charlie
On screen, Ben’s story ended in season two, when he asked Charlie for forgiveness and didn’t get it. Off screen, if The Sun is right, it was Joe who walked away.
Sebastian, at least, sounds like he’s in a better place. He told NME that Bash is what his “mum, friends and partner” call him. And his brother’s advice after the breakup, he told Dork, was that the only thing that would fix it was time.
Joe hasn’t commented on the report, and Sebastian is keeping the name to himself.
But The Great Forever is out later this month. If the insiders are right, Heartstopper fans are about to hear the other half of a love story they only ever saw play out on screen.