Meryl Streep & Martin Short’s London Date Has Fans Swooning

Whatever the tabloids were saying about Meryl Streep and Martin Short, a candid photo from a London restaurant this weekend told a very different story.

A fan who stumbled into the same dining room as the pair on Sunday, May 17, posted a photo to X that immediately set the internet on fire. In it, Streep and Short — both 76 — are seated on the same side of the table, shoulders touching, both peering at something on her phone. Streep has her head tilted toward Short’s chest. It’s the kind of picture that doesn’t need a caption.

“Spending a few days in London, choosing a restaurant at random and ending up eating just a few meters from Meryl Streep and her husband,” the fan wrote on X — mistakenly calling Short Streep’s husband (Streep is single following her 2023 separation from Don Gummer, and Short has been a widower since his wife Nancy Dolman passed away in 2010). When someone asked if she’d gone over to say hello or snag a selfie, the fan shut that down immediately.

“No. They were having a great time. Full of laughs and tender gestures,” she wrote in a follow-up post. “No desire to impose myself in the middle of that.”

Honestly? Respect.

A Sighting That Comes at a Significant Moment

The timing of the photo matters. Just days before it surfaced, a source told RadarOnline.com that Short and Streep’s relationship had been under strain in the aftermath of a devastating loss — Short’s daughter Katherine died by suicide in February at age 42. “[Meryl] loves Martin unconditionally, and it’s just devastating to see him so broken,” the insider said. “They have never referred to each other as ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ per se, but they have been incredibly close.” The source added that “the hope is that once things start to calm down, they can find a way to reconnect.”

That London photo suggests the reconnection may already be underway.

Short has spoken publicly about Katherine’s death with remarkable openness. On a May episode of CBS News Sunday Morning, he drew a direct parallel to the loss of his wife. “Mental health and cancer, like my wife had, are both diseases,” he said. “Sometimes with diseases, they are terminal. My daughter fought for a long time with extreme mental health, borderline personality disorder, other things, and did the best she could until she couldn’t.” He’s since become an advocate for mental health awareness through the organization Bring Change to Mind, calling for people to stop hiding from the word “suicide” and treat it as what it is — the possible final stage of an illness.

It’s been an unimaginable stretch of grief. And seeing him out, laughing, leaning close to someone who clearly cares about him — it means something.

The Romance That Dares Not Speak Its Name

The Streep-Short will-they-won’t-they has been one of pop culture’s most beloved slow burns. It started heating up in January 2024 when they sat together at the Golden Globes — a moment that famously caught Selena Gomez’s attention and set off a thousand memes. A rep quickly issued the standard denial: “They are just very good friends, nothing more.” Short himself doubled down on the Club Random podcast that same month: “We’re not a couple. We are just very close friends.”

Then came the hand-holding at the Only Murders in the Building Season 4 premiere party in August 2024. Then repeat dinners at Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica. Then a backstage photo at Tom Hanks’ play This World of Tomorrow, the two of them tucked in alongside Steve Martin and Anne Stringfield, Hanks and Rita Wilson. Then Amy Schumer, never one to stay quiet, told People in February 2025 after spotting them at SNL’s 50th anniversary: “I think that the tea is, I think Marty might be off the market. That’s what I’m seeing.”

Short has also been openly smitten in interviews — just never quite in the way that would make it official. During a June 2025 appearance on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, he admitted that working with Streep made him nervous in a way he hadn’t felt in years. “I remember the first day working with Meryl and driving to the studio and thinking, ‘I’m nervous today,’” he said. “I [hadn’t] been nervous going to the set for a long time.”

He went on to describe their very first scene together on Only Murders — a flirtatious piano moment — and how Streep, sensing his nerves, simply said in the holding area: “OK, nerves to half.” Short’s response: “Wait a second, I was nervous. You can’t be nervous.”

On the show, their characters got married. In real life, they keep showing up together in cities around the world. You do the math.

Season 6 Takes the Gang to London

There’s also a practical reason the two are in the same city right now. Only Murders in the Building is currently shooting its sixth season in London — the first time the Netflix series has filmed outside the United States. Steve Martin has been posting cheerful tourist content from the city, including shots at Trafalgar Square and a gift shop selling “London” beanies. The whole gang is there.

Streep joined the show as Loretta Durkin in Season 3, and she’s been a recurring presence since. Last month, she and Short reportedly floated the idea of a Broadway return together — which, if it happens, would give fans even more reason to obsess over their chemistry.

For now, their reps aren’t saying anything new. But a fan who randomly picked a London restaurant and ended up two tables away from Meryl Streep and Martin Short, watching them laugh and lean into each other all night, already said everything that needed to be said.