Harry Styles: Fans Just Discovered Who ‘Carolina’ Is About & It Will Blow Your Mind

One lucky Harry Styles fan had an entire SONG, 'Carolina,' written about her on his new album -- and now, her identity has been revealed! Here's how fans figured out the subject of the fan-favorite track.

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May 12, 2017 12:04PM EDT
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Harry Styles attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "Camp: Notes on Fashion" exhibition, in New York Costume Institute Benefit celebrating the opening of Camp: Notes on Fashion, Arrivals, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA - 06 May 2019
Los Angeles, CA - *EXCLUSIVE* - British crooner Harry Styles is pictured arriving for a workout after winning a grammy for album of the year. Harry Styles’ acceptance speech after he won the Grammy award for album of the year caused an uproar on social media Sunday night. “I think on nights like tonight it’s important for us to remember there is no such thing as ‘best’ in music. I don’t think any of us sit in the studio making decisions on what is going to get us one of these,” Styles said, referring to the award in his hands, which he won for the album “Harry’s House.” But it was the last sentence of his speech that riled up social media users, who took different interpretations of what he meant: “This doesn’t happen to people like me very often and this is so, so nice. Thank you very much,” Styles said, before handing the microphone off to his co-writers Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson. Pictured: Harry Styles BACKGRID USA 7 FEBRUARY 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients - Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
Harry Styles'Don't Worry Darling' premiere, 79th Venice International Film Festival, Italy - 05 Sep 2022
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When Harry Styles’ album tracklist was revealed, most people assumed the song “Carolina” would be about his ex, Caroline Flack. However, when he sang the song on the Today show May 9, it was revealed that the reference was to Carolina the place, not the name. Now, fans have done some digging and found out the subject of the song is actually a One Direction fan named Townes! She’s a girl from Carolina who Harry was photographed with once in 2016, which makes sense with the lyric in the song “I met her once and wrote a song about her.” Townes was reportedly 17 at the time.

The real lyric that gives the girl’s identity away, though, is in the first verse, where he sings, “She never saw herself as a west coaster, moved all the way cause her grandma told her, ‘Townes, better swim before you down.” Obviously, when listening to the song, one might just think he was saying ‘towns,’ but in the lyric booklet, the word is capitalized and includes the ‘E’ at the end, making it clear that the reference is to a person. Here’s a full explanation:

https://twitter.com/1DGATE/status/862912945361211392

Considering Harry only met the girl once, the lyrics like “How would I tell her that she’s all I think about? Well, I guess she just found out” and “I hope she hears me now,” all make perfect sense. Meanwhile, he admitted during a May 12 interview that the girl did find out about the song…and it was because of her DAD!

“So the person who it’s about found out — I found out about how they found out that it was [on the record],” he explained. “Their dad watches the Today Show and he, like, left her a voicemail saying, ‘Uh I think he just sang a song about you on the TV.” OMG, imagine waking up one morning and just finding out Harry Styles wrote a SONG ABOUT YOU?! It’s unclear exactly what happened when Harry and Townes hung out, but clearly, she had an affect on him!

HollywoodLifers, what do you think of Harry writing “Carolina” about a fan?