Jack Antonoff Was ‘Worried’ About Performing Songs He Wrote for Margaret Qualley After Their Split

Jack Antonoff says he will keep performing songs about his ex-wife-to-be Margaret Qualley on tour, even though they are painful to sing. The Bleachers frontman discussed his plans in an interview with The Guardian published Sunday (Oct. 25), his first extended comments on the subject since the split.

Asked whether recent events in his personal life have tempted him to change the setlist on his ongoing Bleachers Forever Tour, Antonoff began, “Oh, I can imagine what you’re going to say: It’s bizarre.”

“I obviously was really worried about this specific thing,” he continued. “I sat long and hard with it and thought: ‘If I change the setlist …,’ and in my gut there was a unanimous jury that said, ‘No, this is the deal.’ The deal I’ve made with my audience is that I’m going to tell you honestly how I feel and I’m going to risk at any moment having to stand behind it for f–king ever.”

Antonoff added that “it’s actually been really beautiful” to perform songs about his past relationship for fans who know about his change in circumstances. “For people to come together, to know what I write a song about, to know how that must feel for me now, to know what that song means to you as an audience member, to just hold it all and sort of celebrate … I would rather live through something publicly than even escape it privately.”

It was first reported in July that Antonoff and Qualley had split after about three years of marriage. They dated for about a year and reportedly got engaged in the first half of 2022. They later married in New Jersey, with a number of celebrities, Taylor Swift among them, in attendance.

At press time, neither Antonoff nor Qualley, who starred in The Substance, appeared to have filed to legally end the marriage. “There was no infidelity or anything outside of respect and partnership in this relationship,” a representative for Qualley told E! News after news of the separation. The representative added that the pair still “have deep love and care for one another.”

Antonoff did not name specific songs to The Guardian. Tracks such as “You and Forever,” whose music video starred Qualley, and “Tiny Moves” are likely to carry new meaning for him when he plays them at Bleachers shows. At a Los Angeles show in September, he joked with a fan who had requested the 2017 love song “Let’s Get Married,” telling him, “Read the news, brother.”

Antonoff also addressed online commentary about his relationship and other subjects. “I don’t give a f–k any more,” he said. “It’s like, the very act of engaging negatively on the internet is inarguably such a f–king low-vibrational joke, and I think artists for too long over the past decade have read into it and there’s less than nothing there.”