Since the news of their split, Outer Banks fans have had one question on their minds: Why did Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline break up? Long story short: Their relationship just wasn’t as strong as John B. and Sarah’s.
Stokes and Cline met on the set of Netflix’s Outer Banks—in which they played love interests John Booker Routledge and Sarah Cameron—in April 2019. The two also played small roles on Netflix’s Stranger Things. “I’ve heard a couple speculations out there that we met on Stranger Things,” Stokes told Life & Style in August 2021. “We actually never met. She did season 2, I did season 1. We didn’t meet until, like, a week and a half or two weeks before we started Outer Banks.”
Cline and Stokes sparked dating rumors in May 2020 when they started leaving flirty comments on each other’s Instagram accounts. “There were things that Chase and I specifically added to the script that felt personal,” Cline told Seventeen in 2020. “You have to sell it. It’s got to be compelling. Thankfully, the cast all clicked and we had such great chemistry, so we all had this friendship from the very beginning. So building on that and then projecting it on the screen felt very, very real.”
Stokes confirmed his relationship to Cline in June 2020 with an Instagram photo of them at the beach. “cats outta the bag,” he captioned the post, to which Cline commented, “Topper punching the air rn” and “I’ve fallen and I cant get up.” Their Outer Banks co-star Jonathan Daviss commented, “Well it’s about time.” Stokes opened up about his relationship with Cline in an interview with Today in July 2020. “It was cool to work with somebody you’re really good friends with,” he said. “To take the time to fall for each other after the show had wrapped was really cool. I was talking to my mom about it … it was cute and fun and it’s super cool to be a part of something with your partner and watch the success of it altogether.”
Cline revealed she was in love with Stokes in an interview with Entertainment Tonight in November 2020. “It’s really cool. Love is tight,” she said “It’s cool to share this experience with your favorite people and also your favorite person … I feel very happy.” She continued of working with her then-boyfriend on Outer Banks, “I think because we were friends before this, we understood how we worked as individuals before we were seeing each other. We knew how we worked professionally and we knew each other’s personal boundaries… As a rule, we never bring anything negative to set. If there’s a disagreement or a conversation that needs to be had that could potentially rain on the parade for that day, that’s never something that happens before work.”
A year later, Stokes and Cline broke up. So…why did Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline break up and what was the real reason for their split? Read on for what we know about why Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline broke up and where they stand with each other now.
Why did Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline break up?
Image: JACKSON LEE DAVIS/NETFLIX.
Why did Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline break up? Cline and Stokes broke up in November 2021 after more than a year of dating. “Madelyn and Chase are no longer together,” a source told People at the time. “They were trying to work things out privately but broke up a couple of months ago.” Another insider added, “They are definitely broken up.”
A source told Us Weekly at the time that Stokes and Cline broke up because of their “busy schedules.” “They’ve been trying to work it out for quite some time but decided going their separate ways was best,” the insider said. “They both have busy schedules, which made it hard for them to spend a lot of time together. They have no bad feelings toward each other and remain friends.” The source also claimed that Cline was “just kind of living her single girl moment.” Another source also told Us Weekly at the time that Stokes and Cline were “still friends” and that Stokes wanted “the best for her” amid rumors his ex-girlfriend was dating DJ Zack Bia after their breakup. The source also told the magazine that “all [was] good” between the exes and that Cline was “happy” with Bia. A source also told E! News at the time that Cline was “over” the breakup and had already started “talking” to other people. “[She] has been over it for a long time and talking to other people casually,” the insider said
Rumors of Cline and Stokes’ breakup sparked in September 2021 after they didn’t attend the Met Gala together, which fans assumed they would have because of the success of Outer Banks. The rumors continued that month when TMZ published a video of Cline and 13 Reasons Why alum Ross Butler dancing at the restaurant Cera in Milan, Italy, while they were both attending Milan Fashion Week. Butler responded to the rumors in an interview with TMZ in October 2021, where he claimed that he and Cline were “just friends.” “I dance with a lot of people,” he said. “Just friends.” The week Cline and Butler were photogrpahed dancing, Stokes was seen in Miami that same week with his Outer Banks co-star Jonathan Daviss.
Image: Kevin Mazur/2021 MTV Movie and TV Awards/Getty Images for MTV/ViacomCBS.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan in February 2023, Cline opened up about what it was like to work with Stokes after their breakup. “We always said that the job remains untouched. Nothing else, personal or negative, will touch the job. And while that’s not always easy, our job is to leave the show better than we found it, to leave the season better than we found it. And I’m really appreciative of that,” she said. She continued, “My thing is, I don’t owe anyone an explanation. I am a really private person. There’s a part of me that is for me and nobody else. But in hindsight, duh, making my relationship public made it everybody else’s business. And I realized the negative side effects of that while going through the breakup, realizing I had let people in and then felt like I couldn’t get anybody out. It just hit me like a freight train. I wanted us both to move on and be happy. People see the need for sides. There are no sides—there’s no winning or losing in a breakup.”
Stokes also confirmed to Entertainment Weekly in February 2023 that he and Cline were able to keep their personal and professional lives separate on Outer Banks. “Mads and I have been working together now for 30 episodes, and we made a promise to each other before we even started dating that the work was always going to come first,” he said. “And that no matter what happens in our personal lives, and the ways that life sometimes takes you in different directions, that we’re always going to honor the work. That stayed 100 percent truthful this season.”
Cline confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that she and Stokes have “always shown up for each other when it comes to work and this show.” “We had a working relationship before we had a personal relationship, and our job from day one has always been to leave the show better than we found it,” Cline said. “I’m really, really happy and I’m very proud of the work this season, and I’m incredibly grateful for my co-stars and their professionalism and just how talented each and every one of them are.” Stokes added of Cline, . “She’s an incredible person, a rockstar of an actress, and she’s having an incredible moment. Regardless of now not being together in a personal relationship, I’m still always going to be one of her biggest fans, and I’m super, super proud of all of her accomplishments inside the show and outside the show.”
Outer Banks co-creator Jonas Pates also told Entertainment Weekly about what it was like to work with Cline and Stokes after their breakup. “Honestly, and this isn’t just me: they’re pros,” he said. “They handled themselves unbelievably on set, and you would never know that they had an off-camera relationship. They were great. It’s a credit to Chase and to Maddie, they just put their heads down and did the work, so good for them.”
Co-creator Shannon Burke added, “Yeah, I was just thinking that the other day, they were so good. They were never once a problem. Whatever their off-screen stuff was, they didn’t bring it to set, as far as I could tell.”
Outer Banks is available to stream on Netflix.
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