Stranger Things stars Gaten Matarazzo and Finn Wolfhard spotted holding hands: ‘Friendship goals’
Finn Wolfhard and Gaten Matarazzo have been close friends since 2016. (Getty)
Stranger Things co-star stars Gaten Matarazzo and Finn Wolfhard have been spotted holding hands in public.
The two actors were seen walking around New York City alongside May December star Elizabeth Yu on 17 July.
In the photo captured by paparazzi, Wolfhard and Matarazzo are both wearing baseball caps and smiling, with their hands clasped.
Matarazzo, who plays Dustin Henderson in the hit Netflix series, is seen holding what appears to be an iced coffee and pointing at something above him.
The photo went viral, with loads of people on the internet praising the pair for being “friendship goals”.
Several people called them “besties”, saying it was sweet to see them holding hands.
One person said: “Nothing wrong here, this is adorable.” Another wrote: “This is the friendship I need.”
And a third person added: “I love this.”
Of course, not everyone interpreted the photo in the same way. Some people questioned whether the two were secretly dating and speculated on their sexuality.
One person asked whether they were hard launching their relationship, which refers to when people post a photo of their significant other for the first time on social media.
There were also some homophobic comments underneath the photos, with some said it was “disgusting” to see two men holding hands, while others wrote slurs, questioning why they would be pictured holding hands if they are just friends.
One person responded by saying it made them “mad” to see the speculation because it suggested that men couldn’t hold hands with each other without anything going on between them.
“Y’all need to allow men to be normal and show affection to their friends,” they wrote. “It’s not that serious and y’all gotta stop complaining about toxic social norms and go back and enforce them for fun.”
Others pointed out that true “homies” were affectionate with each other all the time, and that affection shouldn’t necessarily be interpreted as romantic or sexual.
The paparazzi photo closely follows a viral “fake news” story that claimed that Gaten Matarazzo had come out as trans
A false Facebook post shared by a group called The Critical Drinker on 4 July claimed that Stranger Things actor Matarazzo is transgender and that’s the reason that season five filming has been delayed, when in fact the delay was caused by the Hollywood writers’ strikes in 2023.
The photos shared on Facebook were actually images of Hereditary actress Milly Shapiro, not Gaten Matarazzo.
Wolfhard plays Mike Wheeler in the show, which also stars Noah Schnapp, who came out as gay at the start of last year.
