Harry Styles Parking Fail: Rome Video

Harry Styles is in full “normal person” mode this summer. We have seen him shopping in Rome, chatting in bars with strangers with the natural ease of someone born and raised in Italy, and he was even spotted in the crowd at St. Peter’s during the Papal Conclave.

Now, true to his song title, “Treat People With Kindness,” Styles was seen in June helping a desperate fan parallel park a car in a somewhat cramped space.

The intention was all there, the result…a little less so. In video posted to TikTok, Harry approaches the task with an air of “don’t worry, I got this.” After a few attempts to maneuver the vehicle, it became clear that he did not, in fact, got this.

Social media went wild in response to the clip: Some claimed that the footage is AI-generated, while others joked that Harry has spent too much time riding green bicycles and no longer remembers how to drive a car, despite the fact that one of his songs is actually titled “Keep Driving.” Will his next single be called Keep Parking?

When in doubt, ask the Swifties, who have been quick to point out that Taylor Swift already dropped some hints about Styles’ (alleged) clumsiness behind the wheel on her album 1989.

On the song “Style,” she sang, “Come and get me, no headlights on” and “He can’t keep his wild eyes on the road”; “Out of the Woods” recalled “Remember when you hit the brakes too soon, twenty stitches in the hospital room”; “All You Had to Do Was Stay” contained the cutting line “All I know is you drove us off the road.”

Coincidence? Maybe. But it may also be that Miss Americana’s emotional GPS already knew what the video demonstrated.

There is no shortage of those who point out that the “As It Was” performer seems to be literally everywhere these days—except in the recording studio. In short, Harry is showing us a new version of himself: fewer stages, more parking lots. Fewer Grammys, more wandering the world.

And even if he can’t conquer a parking space with textbook perfection, well, at least he can give us a good dinner party story.

But maybe that’s the point: Harry Styles just wants to be normal.

Published in VF Italia.