Maxton Hall Season 2 just premiered on the 2025 TV schedule, and with it came some tense and romantic moments as Ruby and James again navigated a world that would hope to keep them apart. In real life, rumors have swirled about the show’s two leads, Harriet Herbig-Matten and Damian Hardung, and now the new season is out, those rumors are ramping up again.
If you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you may have encountered Maxton Hall when the series originally aired in 2024. At the time, Harriet Herbig-Matten and Damian Hardung were thrown together for a lot of photo opps that made them look more than a little chummy.
This then led to rumors (and fan hopes) that both actors were maybe seeing one another outside of the context of work. Of course, we know this is the oldest trick in the Hollywood book. Stateside, Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney made headlines when they were flirty onstage at Cinema Con ahead of the release of Anyone But You. With little effort on their part, rumors began swirling. While both actors later admitted they leaned into the rumors and it wasn’t “duplicitious,” it did have real-life ramifications when Powell and his girlfriend Gigi Paris broke up.
In the case of Herbig-Matten and Hardung, however, the actress was very candid after the release of the first season that she and her co-star were just friends. She told US Magazine early in 2025 that the process of people tying the two together was actually extremely “difficult,” noting,
It was difficult. We are not together and we weren’t together either. … I also didn’t know how big it was going to get. I didn’t know that people believed it so much and that it was such a thing.
She later said she wasn’t ready when fans got so enthusiastic about Maxton Hall, as well as got invested in her and her personal life. She said she had to find “space” between her authentic self, the version of herself playing Ruby, and the version of herself she showed the public.
It was a crazy experience and it is also clearly such a love story [on the show] and you promote that. But I think I really underestimated it and I think I was also a bit naive. Because I didn’t really know where it was going.
So, why am I bringing all this up? Well, the rumor mill is swirling… again.
With Maxton Hall Season 2, The Rumor Mill Is On Fire Again
Previously, Herbig-Matten and Hardung admitted they did have a lot of “chemistry” during the audition process. They amped up the emotion between scenes and would ice one another out when they knew they had to film something angry the next day. This ability to play off one another so closely is doubtless what got the rumor mill going, and is also probably why those watching the show are so interested in hearing more. The chemistry really is there with those two.
Now, I’m a fan of Maxton Hall, and I would totally love it if the two young co-stars were to date, but given this is a blind item, I highly recommend you take it with a grain of salt. Maybe not even a grain, maybe like a whole pinch.
Celebrity gossip page Deux Moi posted an item indicating that both Harriet Herbig-Matten and Damian Hardung allegedly broke up with their respective real-life partners back in June. The item went on to note they’ve been seen doing activities together a lot around Berlin — and cozy things like going to the gym together — but that because Herbig-Matten is so candid about separating her personal and professional life, we may never know if the rumors are true or not.
Still, there’s something here. Going back to the US interview, Herbig-Matten also indicated she was going to be holding her cards closer to the vest moving forward, and the Deux Moi alleged scoop does tie in nicely with these comments:
There’s Ruby and there’s Harriet who is promoted. So you know that this person who is me and has my name is not the real Harriet that I am in my private life. I first had to learn that this doesn’t correspond to reality and that was difficult.
From all of this I think we can take a few things. First, Herbig-Matten is interested in setting boundaries around her personal life. Second, fans are deeply invested in the world of Maxton Hall and the characters in the same way they have been in the past for major fandoms like Twilight. It’s not a real surprise they’d ship the two leads together, with commenters on the post writing things like “it’d be perfect” and “I am rooting for them 🙌❤️.” Whether the two actually ship each other as more than friends remains to be seen.
Still, it’s not bad for business. Season 2 is currently sitting at No. 2 on Amazon’s most-watched TV list, falling behind people presumably rewatching Fallout ahead of Season 2 (which returns to the schedule next month).