Harry Styles Surfing Adventure: One Direction Fans React

One Direction star Harry Styles seems pretty adept at anything he turns his hand to. Harry made his mark on history as a singer with One Direction and with the band on hiatus, Styles is now spreading his creative wings. As any Harry fan is well aware, the 22-year-old star has recently been in England’s west country filming for Christopher Nolan’s World War Two epic, Dunkirk. Last week, the Daily Mail reported that Styles had swapped his trademark skinny jeans for army fatigues while filming in Weymouth and Swanage in Dorset.

On the face of it, claims that Harry had popped off to nearby Cornwall for some rest and recreation would not stretch the bounds of possibility. The Herald reported that Styles had hopped across to Newquay on Cornwall’s north coast to try his hand at surfing. The area around Newquay is a huge attraction for U.K. surfers as the huge Atlantic swells and offshore reefs create great waves. As a result, surf schools proliferate in the area, and yesterday, West Country Surf tweeted a picture claiming that they had been teaching Styles to surf.

We had a great time coaching @harrystyles from one direction today. Stood up on his first wave! ???? #Cornwall pic.twitter.com/4zfzgxwkN6

— Westcountrysurf (@Newquaylessons) July 31, 2016

The surf school even claimed that Harry had managed to ride his first ever wave. The picture shows two surfers overlooking a beautiful beach and claimed that the school “had a great time” coaching Harry Styles. Admittedly, the young man in the yellow wetsuit does bear a passing resemblance to Harry, but no One Direction fan is likely to be caught out by such an elementary ruse.

The surf school obviously don’t keep a close eye on Harry Styles news or they would have known that heartthrob Harry lopped off his luscious locks months ago. The lack of tattoo’s on the surfer was another sure sign that the surf school had a Harry lookalike on their hands. The detectives in the One Direction fandom are rarely fooled for long, and fans were quick to point out the case of mistaken, or misrepresented, identity.

One fan tweeted a picture of Harry on the set of Dunkirk last week to clear up any ambiguity. Others were quick to tell the school that the surfer was not Styles and commented that they hoped that the school had not given him free lessons thinking he was Harry. Most of all, Styles fans reacted with amusement, while commenting that even though the surfer was not Harry, he was cute.

This is hardly the first time that Styles lookalikes have been reported in the news. Back in June, the Mirror reported that 15-year-old Texan, Bailey Davila, was often stopped in the street by One Direction fans who think they have bumped into Styles. Last year, MTV reported that public communications student Jori Schiraldi admitted he got a lot of attention from women because he looks like Styles.

Buzzfeed even reported that Harry has a four-year-old “mini me” in a handsome, youngster named Michael Rangamiz, who totally rocks a man-bun. Incredibly, the tiny Harry lookalike already has over 125,000 followers on his Instagram account where his mother posts photographs of him in typical Styles poses.

Styles’ fans are pretty forgiving when it comes to Harry lookalikes as they certainly enjoy a joke about the issue. They are much less amused when someone tries to use Harry or any One Direction member to boost their own profile. It was reported by the Inquisitr recently that British comedian Dan Walton had subjected One Direction fans to a cruel hoax. Walton used social media to claim that One Direction’s hiatus was over after he attended a TV event where Niall Horan was present. Walton later claimed that he had subjected One Direction fans to a social experiment. Needless to say, fans were furious.

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia]