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"It's an age gap but certainly not grooming. Every1 wanting to push that false narrative is gross & I don’t know why you WANT it to be a grooming story," Simpson's girlfriend, Kyra Gardner, wrote in the comments of the now-viral video.
Westworld actor, Jimmi Simpson's girlfriend, Kyra Gardner, is setting the record straight on their relationship.
After a TikTok video about the night they met went viral, the 27-year-old took to the comments to defend their age gap and deny rumors that the 49-year-old actor "groomed her."
In the video, Kyra is seen standing on a red carpet while preparing to interview celebrities at a movie premiere.
She captioned the clip, "She doesn't know it yet, but she'll meet the love of her life that night, and is actually looking at a photo of him on the paper she's holding."
While Kyra deleted the bulk of offensive comments on the post, fans questioned the relationship, with one writing, "The love of your life is 2 decades older than you?," before calling the coupling "gross."
"Wow this blew up overnight.. I WILL be deleting any false comments. There are flaws accusatory Reddit pages of a STALKER of mine that are FALSE. Jimmi and I started dating when I was 26. Our stalker is weirdly claiming I've known him since I was 16 and he was friends with my dad," Kyra began, addressing allegations that she knew Jimmi when she was just a teen. "FALSE. My dad didn't even know who he was and I had to introduce THEM while at work."
As for how they actually met, Kyra said it went down when she was "briefly" interviewing Jimmi for a job on a film. She was 22 at the time, but didn't start dating the Dark Matter actor until she was 26.
"I met him BRIEFLY interviewing him for my job on this film. I was 22. Never interacted again until re-meeting this night. Didn't start dating til I was 26. It's an age gap but certainly not grooming," she continued. "Every1 wanting to push that false narrative is gross & I don't know why you WANT it to be a grooming story."
"Please read more than the 2 minutes of REDDIT gossip before making assumptions about people," Kyra advised.
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View StoryJimmi, who is best known for playing William on the HBO series Westworld, and Kyra have been dating for over a year, often sharing photos together on both his feed and hers, with the pair most recently teaming up to film their very own horror movie.
Jimmi was previously married to Sophia Del Pizzo, but the pair's marriage was short-lived, with Jimmi filing for divorce from Del Pizzo in July 2021 after just 19 months of marriage.
Prior to that, he was married to Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey. The pair met in 2001 while working on the miniseries, Rose Red. They dated for six years and then got married in April 2007, but ended up going their separate ways after just five years, with Lynskey filing for divorce in 2012, citing irreconcilable differences.
Kyra did receive some love on the post amid the hateful quips, with one commenter calling the relationship "destined."
"Destiny is a sweet and tricky thing sometimes 🥰🥰🥰," the commenter wrote.
"Thank you for the kindness ❤️," Kyra told the fan in response.
