Harry Styles' Forgotten Sitcom Was Canceled Before It Could Live Up To Its Potential

Harry Styles, as we all know, is a man of many talents. He performs for sold-out crowds at venues all over the world, recently released a brand-new studio album (titled "Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally"), has proven that he's a game and willing "Saturday Night Live" host, and he's starred in a handful of films. Did you know, though, that he executive produced a sitcom based partly on his own life, and it got canceled very quickly?

I didn't know that, either, but it definitely did happen! From October 2018 to January 2019, a series titled "Happy Together" aired on CBS and starred Damon Wayans Jr., Amber Stevens West, Chris Parnell, and Felix Mallard. Styles served as an executive producer alongside creators Tim McAuliffe and Austen Earl, as well as multi-Emmy Award winning producer Ben Winston. So, what does the show have to do with Styles' life?

Well, Styles was scouted as a young man to join the British boy group One Direction and was immediately catapulted to such overwhelming fame that his life, very quickly, became abnormal — and in "Happy Together," a pop star named Cooper James (Mallard), who's pretty clearly based on Styles, is desperate to escape that very fame. To do that, he begs his accountant Jake (Wayans Jr.) and Jake's wife Claire (West) to let him move into their house. They do, and hijinks, obviously, ensue.

"Happy Together" was canceled after one short, 13-episode season, and honestly? That's a shame. The cast this show assembled was great, and it likely didn't get enough time to grow into something good. After that, though, Styles started stepping in front of the camera ... with decidedly middling results.

To be absolutely fair to Harry Styles, his time as an actor began with a very promising role in director Christopher Nolan's 2017 war epic "Dunkirk" alongside Fionn Whitehead ("Black Mirror: Bandersnatch"), Tom Glynn-Carney ("House of the Dragon,"), Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh, and Tom Hardy, just to name a few of the film's actors. After that, though, things did start to take a noticeable downturn. 

In 2021, Styles appeared in Chloé Zhao's much-maligned Marvel Cinematic Universe movie "Eternals" as one of the titular Eternals, Eros, who also goes by "Starfox" — but a sequel to that film has yet to surface, and Styles hasn't returned to the MCU since (at least, as of this writing). After that, he starred in Olivia Wilde's beleaguered second feature film as a director, "Don't Worry Darling." There, Styles replaced Shia LaBeouf as the male lead Jack, appearing alongside Florence Pugh's troubled housewife Alice. Besides Styles's stilted performance and the movie's bizarre twist that, frankly, would have made a lot more sense had the role of Jack been played by LaBeouf, "Don't Worry Darling" had plenty of its own issues to boot. That movie came out in 2022, and that same year, Styles co-starred with Emma Corrin "My Policeman," which similarly received mediocre reviews.

Styles is a fashion icon, a pop superstar, and a genuinely great performer, singer, and songwriter. He is also, as I mentioned, really funny when he does silly stuff like "Saturday Night Live." His cinematic track record, though? Not so great, and unfortunately, his TV show never really got off the ground, either.