American comedian Theresa Rowley returns to Ireland after going viral for sharing her heartbreak with an Irishman online
Last summer, American comedian Theresa Rowley had the internet enraptured with her tale of meeting an Irish man online and quickly falling for him. Theresa flew to Ireland to meet her romantic interest and, when it was confirmed to be love at first sight, she landed home in the US to interview requests and Irish brand partnerships lined up to share their love story.
However, just before Christmas last year -12 hours before she was supposed to fly to Ireland – Theresa received what she calls a ‘Hey girlie’ message on Instagram; another woman sharing details of her own intimate relationship with the man Theresa had been in a relationship with.
There was a huge outpouring of support when Theresa shared her story on TikTok, where she had documented the entire relationship, particularly from her new Irish audience. Now she is set to come back to Ireland this week for an entirely new reason. Collaborating with Centra for their new loyalty app, she is performing at their brand new singles event ahead of the launch later this month. We caught up with Theresa ahead of her return to Ireland.
When someone betrays your trust, it can be easy to start questioning yourself. What has this experience taught you about rebuilding confidence?
It was pretty destabilising for me in the beginning to realise that someone that I thought I knew – I didn’t quite know as well as I had hoped. It really set me back a little bit in the beginning, but then it strengthened my intuition, and it’s made me more aware of the things that I feel in my body in certain situations. It’s also strengthened my sense of community with people outside of romantic relationships. And I think that’s a massive part of this. Something beautiful that has come from it is specifically my connection with women, and how we support each other and take care of each other when the boys aren’t doing it for us.
People talk a lot about healing after betrayal, but not necessarily about empowerment. What are the ways you have experienced this?
Feeling like there’s a pool of women behind me, lifting me up, has meant so much to me. I felt empowered in my intimate friendships, in my connection with my family. I’ve also learned not to place so much of my worth in how a partner treats me or in how someone who might be going through their own things, how they see me. That doesn’t necessarily have to be how I see myself anymore. I think I used to mirror people’s opinions of me and really ingest it, and now I have a stronger sense of self worth having gone through something, a bit traumatic, and come out the other side stronger for it. I’m proud of myself in regards to that.
What is the best – and worst – piece of dating advice you’ve received since the breakup?
They come at me from all angles. Probably the best piece of information was to just take time for myself, because I think hopping back into anything serious is not usually the way to go. People say take time for yourself and then the next day, a new person says, “You got to get back out there”. And everyone has opinions on dating apps and all sorts of things. I think the best advice is to just focus on myself a little bit, and the worst advice might be, I don’t know, to give him another chance.
What advice do you have for people who have gone through something similar, but are open to love again?
I’ve had such an interesting experience with people. I think whenever women specifically go through things like this, so many people tell us, to just not give it a second thought to move on, that it’s a sign of strength to not feel it, essentially, and to not get angry about it. But I disagree. I think it’s stronger to allow yourself to go through the full range of emotions and to be honest about the fact that you cared about the situation and you care about the relationship and the person. And then to just process the emotions as they come and to truly take it day by day, that sounds so trite, but some days are much sunnier than others, but they get progressively brighter and brighter as time goes on, so face forward.
You seem to have a lot of love for Ireland despite everything that happened. What made you want to come back and to take on this new collaboration?
I’m very excited for it, the Centra people have been so sweet and kind. They’re launching their loyalty app My Centra that rewards you for purchases, and their whole messaging to me specifically was that Ireland is actually full of quite loyal people. Y’all enjoy your routines and your same coffee order! And so they’re determined to help me get a new perspective on the loyalty of Irish people. I am not kidding myself that one man’s faux pas should be applied to a country.
Did you have any interest in visiting Ireland before last year?
I’ve always thought it’s a beautiful place. I had never been until last year, but my dad’s side of my family is Irish, distantly, so that’s always been on my mind. That’s the only type of ancestry that I can really latch onto. When I first visited, I was like, “oh, my gosh, I think this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen”. The colours are different over there than they are here, it was so beautiful. And specifically, the music, too, was very moving to me.
What was it like seeing the reaction and the support of Irish people after everything happened?
It meant so much to me, honestly. Obviously this was uncharted territory for me, having any type of public relationship in general was uncharted territory. I never anticipated it becoming quite as large as it was. But then when everything happened and I was really grappling with whether to address it at all or how to address it. I was so anxious, and then to get the thousands of messages and comments from people, just expressing support. The thing that has meant the most to me are people who have reached out to say that they’ve gone through something similar and that me being vocal about my story has helped them through it. What’s the point of having a platform if it can’t help people a little bit?
As part of the campaign, My Centra is partnering with Your Friend, My Friend to host a major singles event on 11 June at Old Fashioned Sam’s, Dublin, with Theresa attending as guest of honour. The event will welcome approximately 250 singles for an evening focused on real-life connection, and face-to-face chemistry. Find tickets here.
