Grace Van Patten and Jackson White have never played it safe when talking about their Tell Me Lies alter egos, Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco. Their latest round of interviews, where they double down on understanding and even defending their characters’ worst impulses, has turned a simmering fandom conversation into a full‑blown online argument about toxicity, accountability, and what it means to “root” for a couple like this. Fans are now dissecting every quote almost as closely as they analyze the show itself, and the divide is getting sharper.
At the center of the debate is a simple tension: Van Patten and White insist they have to empathize with Lucy and Stephen to play them honestly, while a chunk of the audience hears those comments as softening behavior they see as unforgivable. The result is a messy, very internet‑era clash between artistic process and viewer ethics, unfolding in real time across TikTok, Instagram, and fan threads.
The toxic love story that set the stage
Tell Me Lies built its reputation on a relationship that is less “will they, won’t they” and more “why can’t they stop.” The Hulu drama follows Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco through years of manipulation, cheating, and emotional whiplash, a dynamic that has turned the show into a cult obsession for viewers who gravitate toward messy, morally gray storytelling. Anyone who has fallen down a rabbit hole of fan edits or character essays knows this is not a casual watch, and the show’s popularity is reflected in the way Tell Me Lies trends whenever a new season drops.
On screen, the pattern is brutal. After giving things a go for what feels like the hundredth time, Lucy and Stephen’s relationship ends in flames yet again, with Stephen (played by Jackson White) leaving a trail of emotional wreckage behind him. That cycle, described in detail in coverage of the show’s “super dark” confessional scenes, has become shorthand for why some fans see Stephen as irredeemable and Lucy as trapped in a trauma loop, especially as the story heads into a new chapter of Stephen and Lucy’s story.
“Justifying” toxic decisions and going “super villain”
The spark for the latest backlash came when Grace Van Patten and Jackson White openly explained how they “justify” their characters’ worst choices. In one interview, Tell Me Lies’ Grace Van Patten and Jackson White explain how they justify their characters’ toxic decisions by focusing on what Lucy and Stephen are trying to protect, rather than judging them from the outside. They describe it as a kind of emotional math they have to do so that every lie, betrayal, or cruel line delivery feels grounded in a real, if deeply flawed, motivation, a process laid out when Grace Van Patten approach those toxic decisions.
White has also leaned into the darkness of Stephen’s arc, admitting that he goes full “super villain” in season 3 and relishes the chance to push the character into even more morally bankrupt territory. That framing, teased in coverage of Tell Me Lies season 3, thrilled fans who love a charismatic antihero but frustrated others who feel the show risks glamorizing emotional abuse. The tension is baked into the way White talks about Stephen: he is both the villain of Lucy’s life and, in the actors’ words, part of what makes them “messed‑up soulmates,” a phrase they have used while stressing that their job is to be as honest as possible and let the characters speak organically as they create them, an approach detailed when they said it is all about that honesty and the choices that made them “messed‑up soulmates” in their comments.
Grace Van Patten’s “two‑faced” line and the astrology detour
Then came the quote that really lit up social feeds. In a recent sit‑down, Grace Van Patten gave a controversial opinion on Lucy, saying of her character’s sign, “I just know that they’re two‑faced,” a line that instantly pinged around stan Twitter and TikTok. White laughed along, clearly aware of the reputation his character has earned among fans, and the moment was captured in coverage that highlighted how he leaned into Stephen’s image as someone who is charming on the surface and “quite cold” underneath, a dynamic unpacked when White reacted to that “two‑faced” comment.
The astrology talk did not stop there. Van Patten has said she is “on the cusp” and does not fully resonate with her own zodiac sign, explaining that when she has heard more about her rising and moon, she sees traits of all of them but still feels some distance from the label. That nuance, shared in an interview that also touched on how she and White think about their onscreen characters Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco, was recapped in a piece noting that she said “I am on the cusp” and unpacked how When she hears about those placements she relates to different traits. Another breakdown framed it as a “need to know” tidbit from an interview with Teen Vogue, where it was noted that during that conversation Grace Van Patten revealed she does not fully resonate with her zodiac sign while also talking about Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco, a detail highlighted under a “NEED TO KNOW” banner that emphasized what she said During that Teen Vogue chat.
Fans, TikTok, and the “run to therapy” chorus
Online, the reaction has been loud and split. On TikTok, one clip from a Harper’s Bazaar‑branded video jokes that “#JacksonWhite looks cool and powerful” while “#GraceVanPatten looks… like a puppet,” before shrugging that “Art is subjective,” a caption that captures how some viewers see the power imbalance between Stephen and Lucy as baked into the show’s aesthetic. That video, tagged with #TellMeLies and the show’s official handle, has been shared widely enough that the phrase “Art is subjective” itself, as used in the caption, has become shorthand for fans debating whether the series is stylishly honest or just glamorizing pain, a debate visible in the comments under the Art caption.
In another fan‑favorite moment, Van Patten and White are asked what someone should do if they met a Stephen in real life, and the answer is blunt: “run far away, maybe run to therapy, but also run away from him.” The exchange, captured in a “Spill The Tea” video where they joke that Tell Me Lies is not exactly a set full of lighthearted stories, has been clipped and memed as proof that the actors know just how bad Stephen is, even as they defend his inner logic, a contradiction that plays out in the YouTube segment where they say to run far away. A separate TikTok from Page Six, which has 14.5K Likes, shows Grace Van Patten emphasizing that she and boyfriend Jackson White are not like Lucy and Stephen in real life, inviting viewers to “discover more about their real‑life dynamics” and tagging #TellMeLies, a reminder that the couple is constantly trying to draw a line between their offscreen relationship and the chaos they portray, a point underscored in the clip shared by Likes.
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