Sebastian traitors became personal when Sebastian Croft said a three-year relationship ended with a phone call while he was performing in Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles in Chichester. He was speaking while releasing music under Bash Croft, turning a private split into the backdrop for the next phase of his career.
Chichester and the phone call
Croft said, “It hurts, but also the truth is there's not a good way to deliver news like that.” He added, “For a long time, I was angry about the how,” and, “But the truth is, the thing that hurts is the why, which is the reason.”
He also said, “When they reach the point where 'I've decided my life is more interesting when I don’t have you in it,' that could not hurt more.” The timing puts the breakup in the spring and summer of 2023, while he was on stage in Chichester and before his music push under Bash Croft started to take shape.
Joe Locke and Sebastian Croft
The relationship was never made public, but Heartstopper fans had already guessed that Joe Locke and Sebastian Croft were dating. A mutual friend told The Sun that Bash and Joe never made their relationship public, that they were together for almost three years, and that Joe left Bash while Bash was heartbroken.
That same account said Joe was Bash’s first great love. Croft’s own timeline adds another layer: he attended Pride in London 2022 with Locke, then later said the breakup happened during a period when his work and private life were already colliding in public view.
Oxford, age 16
Croft also said he endured bullying at his private boarding school outside Oxford and quit school at 16 after being outed by a classmate he had been secretly dating. He called that “a weirdly old-school experience,” and the comment sits uncomfortably alongside the breakup account: both stories show how exposure, rather than the relationship itself, became the wound.
He has said he has been pouring heartbreak and emotion into songs for the last three years, which makes The Great Forever read less like a standard debut and more like a document of the same period that included the split. Croft has named Chappell Roan, Harry Styles, and Olivia Rodrigo as his current favorite artists, and he says the EP has matured and found its footing as he has as an artist.
Was Joe Locke the person who ended the relationship by phone, or did the story unfold differently behind the scenes? Croft has answered the emotional part, not the mechanics, and that leaves the music as the clearest place to watch for what he is ready to say next.
