Social media was quick to spiral this week after a viral X (formerly Twitter) post claimed that Orlando Bloom’s “new girlfriend” dressed up as his ex, Katy Perry, for Halloween — but as it turns out, the internet got this one very wrong.
The post, shared by a Katy fan account, included a photo of Orlando sporting skull face paint while posing with a woman dressed in a blue spacesuit and black wig — an outfit that seemed to reference Katy’s real-life “trip to space” moment earlier this year. The caption read, “Orlando Bloom’s new gf dressing up as Katy Perry in her space costume,” and within hours, the picture had racked up thousands of likes, shares, and plenty of outrage.
Fans flooded the replies, slamming Orlando for allegedly being “okay with his new gf mocking the mother of his child.” One user wrote, “What an asshole move,” while another called the supposed costume choice “just tacky behaviour.”
But before the rumor mill goes any further, let’s set the record straight: the woman in the photo is not Orlando’s new girlfriend. She’s actually actor Rachel Lynn Matthews, who just happened to cross paths with him on Halloween night.
While Rachel did appear to be dressed like Perry, the context tells a completely different story. An uncropped version of the photo shows that Rachel posted it on her Instagram Story with a lighthearted caption — “will tell my kids about this one day” — clearly treating it as a fun celebrity encounter, not a romantic moment. She even shared another photo of herself “kissing the ground,” joking about the experience.
Rachel, who is reportedly dating musician Will Erwin, has since had to turn off her comments as the viral post blew up with false assumptions.
As for Orlando, there’s no evidence that he and Rachel are anything more than two celebrities who happened to be at the same event. And honestly, maybe he didn’t even realize who she was dressed as — someone joked that he might’ve thought she was channeling Lauren Sánchez Bezos!
The timing of all this internet chaos is curious, though. Perry just dropped her new single, “Bandaids,” on November 6 — her first release since reports surfaced over the summer that she and Orlando had quietly called it quits.