"The Idea Of You" Author Robinne Lee Regrets Saying Harry Styles Was The Inspiration For Her Male Lead
The Idea of You was a big hit in print and on-screen, but some people have the wrong idea about its origin story, and now author Robinne Lee is setting the record straight.
Robinne released her best-selling romance novel The Idea of You in 2017, and this year, fans got to see that story brought to life with the help of Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine as her lead actors.
The story focuses on Solène Marchand — a 40-year-old LA art gallery owner and divorced mom who takes her daughter to see her favorite boy band, August Moon, at a music festival after her ex-husband bails at the last minute. Well, an unintentional run-in with British boy band member, Hayes Campbell, soon leads to an undeniable connection the two of them refuse to ignore. Despite their age gap — he's 24 — Soléne and August decide to explore the spark between them and embark on an epic love affair.
Robinne previously revealed that while she was writing the book, she was up late watching music videos and was inspired by Harry Styles. She began researching Harry and One Direction, and combined that info with the research she had already compiled about other men like Prince Harry, a few of her exes, Eddie Redmayne, and her husband, to ultimately create the character of Hayes.
Unfortunately, fans clung to her mention of Harry and deemed The Idea of You fanfiction, much to Robinne's dismay.
During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Robinne opened up about the label and clarified why her book nor the movie falls under that classification.
"I don't consider it fanfiction at all," Robinne said. "Harry was one of multiple people who went into creating Hayes Campbell — he was the only one in a British boy band that was current at the time, I guess."
"So that's what people have latched onto. It's unfortunate because it's being used as clickbait, and when I'm writing for Hayes, I'm not picturing Harry Styles."
She added that the Hayes she pictured is very much like JFK Jr. when he was dating Daryl Hannah, and they were spending time together in the Hamptons. In fact, the Hayes she imagined was an amalgamation of a bunch of celebrities.
"And then there's some Michael Hutchence sexiness when he was dating Helena Christensen. And I was obsessed with Duran Duran when I was young, so there's a lot of Simon, and there's a lot of John, and there's a lot of actual Duran Duran Easter eggs throughout the entire book."
Robinne, who starred in Deliver Us from Eva alongside Gabrielle Union, was raised by Jamaican parents before the island gained its independence from the British, so she always considered herself an anglophile (someone with great appreciation or admiration for England or Britain), with an "attraction to the wealthy British aristocracy and that lifestyle and posh people, especially posh boys."
"Just the accents and the way they dressed and the way they held themselves was so charming, and that's always been my thing, so I wanted Hayes to be this posh kid from this well-to-do family, from Kensington. So, to me, it wasn't anyone that's out there. It's picking and choosing what I wanted from different people."
Robinne said she understands that readers create their own image in their minds when they're picturing these characters for themselves, but she wants to reassure people that Hayes is not Harry.
"He feels very real to me, and I think Harry's just what people gravitated to," she added. "But he's not Harry in my head when I'm writing for him. He is not Harry and he's not living Harry's life. He's very much his own person to me."
To learn more about Robinne and The Idea of You, be sure to check out her full Entertainment Weekly interview.
The Idea of You is now streaming on Prime Video.
