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There were a lot of things that Chloe did that turned Beca into a confused pile of frustrated annoyance and uncontrollable love. Like, for example, waking Beca up before her runs to tell her she looked beautiful when she slept ( “And you couldn’t have left that sleeping beauty, oh, I don’t know, sleeping for a little longer before telling her that?!” she’d grumble when Chloe nipped at her shoulder and whispered the words in her ear). Or the way that she obnoxiously over-pronounced her position in Beca’s life when they were out in public - running into someone in line at the grocery store and throwing out a quick, “I’m so sorry, my giirrllfriiiendmust’ve pushed me” or flagging down the waiter at a restaurant because her “wiiifeeeee wants another glass of wine”. So, Beca considered Chloe’s drawer full of magazine clippings to be just another one of those quirks. The clippings were useless - there were new tabloids about them on the daily anyway - but Chloe started saving them before they were even dating, when Beca jetpacked off to LA and shrunk her industry stories down during their weekly skype calls to increase her air of humility.
Those articles were closer to the bottom of the drawer, bent at the edges like they’d been folded and unfolded several times. Chloe told her, later on, that she kept the first one in her pocket for four months, just to keep Beca nearby.
There is no picture on it, and it’s slumped in the corner of “Summer Songs to Keep an Eye Out For”, but at the time, it was enough.
Who To Watch: Beca Mitchell Slips On the Scene with an “I Don’t Care” Kind of Glare and Music That Says Otherwise
“It’s a good feeling. Sitting in the car with your friends, hearing the words, ‘Oh, who’s this?’ at the song you’ve blasted through your speakers. Beca Mitchell, 22, maintains the kind of sound that holds a taste of the untouched…like the industry has yet to twist her voice into something that ‘one girl’ in your high school would listen to not stop. Hop on her bandwagon now, because in a few months, she’ll be everywhere. Trust me, you don’t want to miss out on that ‘I Found Her First’ title. Her EP dropped last week and is available on iTunes.”
There are a lot like those, proclaiming Beca’s prolificness and demanding people get attached before it would be considered unoriginal to do so. She wasn’t exactly sure why that’s the route her manager went with the publicity of her first album - she assumed it was a means of allowing Beca to get away with the awkward smiles she couldn’t break during photoshoots and the disjointed way she talked at press circuits. If she was a relative unknown, too cool for the industry itself, then the “act” of anxiousness would be chalked up to just how hip she was.
The articles made way into full-page spreads, with Beca looking only slightly less uncomfortable, and the media turning the story from an awkward I-Don’t-Care singer/producer to an endearingly grumpy, down to Earth, always-the-best-friend-in-a-John-Hughes-movie. She could see the stages within in the articles. Once you broke out, it was time to break-up, as magazines turned from “Who are You” questions to “Who are You Dating” questions quickly.
She remembered the article that she was running her finger over - remembered it because it was the first time she felt violated in some way, like the cameras peeked out from behind the glass of the mirror she was looking in. There were three photos, jambed together like a jigsaw puzzle, and all too fuzzy to see any details. One with them at the grocery store, Beca tucked between the cart’s handles and Chloe’s arms as the redhead steered them down the aisle. Another with them leaving a Taco Bell, Chloe donning the perfect outfit despite the sky’s 3am glow (Beca, of course, was wearing over-sized sweatpants and a flannel she stole from her manager’s suitcase two years ago), her nose nudged into the side of Beca’s collarbone and her hand on her hip. The final was they money-shot, she was sure, which was almost comical because it was brought into the public of her own accord. The photo was taken from instagram, the night of Beca’s 23rd birthday, with a dab of frosting on her nose and Chloe’s finger caught between her teeth - faux panic in her eyes.
How Close is Too Close? These Mega-Star Best Friends Seem to Be Getting Quite Comfy in Mitchell’s LA Home. I Guess College - Friends - are Good For Experimenting.
And, though the next few articles (and by “few” she means the next fifty articles) made her shake with rage at the time, she remembered the way her manager sat them down for dinner, laying his hands on the table and explaining that if they were serious, they’d have to seal the deal. She remembered how Chloe scoffed casually, her hand squeezing Beca’s knee when she said, “My, that’s not the most romantic way to propose, I have to say”, and she remembered the relief she felt that Chloe seemed to care about coming out just as much as she did. Which was to say, not at all.
Beca Mitchell and Girlfriend Chloe Beale Clear Up Rumors Once and For All
“It’s not a big thing,” says Mitchell, 23, “It’s not a dark secret.” Beale’s reps chimed in, saying, “Chloe’s very happy where she’s at right now, and Beca has a lot to do with that. Of course, their private life is most important, but they didn’t want to hide it anymore.”
Not that they hid it in the first place, exactly, as photos from March show the two fondling each other at a music festival in London - but apparently the relationship has been going on for much longer than that. “They always went back and forth in college,” says a source, “They made it official about a year after Beca moved out to LA, and have been inseparable ever since.”
What this might mean for Mitchell’s place in the spotlight? We’re not sure. But she seems certain about one thing. “I love who I love, and, frankly, don’t care if you care.”
There were smatterings of other articles here and there that made Beca roll her eyes, as it became a sort of tradition for Chloe to run to the store for “milk” or “butter” and come back with another edition of “Look What Bechloe’s Doing This Time” filled with secret affairs (always with whatever was the male equivalent of her at the time), unplanned pregnancies (which…did reporters know how biology worked?), and quite detailed theories about how Chloe - the preschool teacher with innocent eyes - was in it for the money. Not to mention the one where “Ms. Beale” was “having a breakdown”, spotted on a pole in New Orleans and demanding people call her “Big Red” (attached to that rumor was the small detail of the redhead “calling Mitchell on the phone at obscene hours of the morning, concocting crazy dreams of the possible pole-dancing duo. Reports say she suggest Mitchell go by the name ‘Juicy Fruit’).
Then, the photo of them in the bread aisle of their near-by market, Beca on her knee and Chloe’s tears just barely being caught by the camera. When Beca reached the article in the pile, she heard the crappy 90s music that was playing over the loudspeaker, remembering how somewhere in the back of her brain she thought she heard the flicker of a camera.
Bechloe Wedding In the Works…The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread?
The grocery store might not be the ideal location for a celebrity proposal, but the photo’s undeniable - and long-time girlfriend of Beca Mitchell, Chloe Beale, doesn’t look too upset.
“Beca’s a low-maintenance kind of of girl,” says an inside source, “She isn’t one to plan a proposal with flying doves and fireworks.”
Witnesses at the grocery store report that after Beale slipped the ring on her finger, the couple continued shopping, smiling sheepishly at the loudspeaker’s call for applause.
Later that night, Beale posted on her Instagram a photo of herself holding the ring to her face with the singer pressing a kiss to her cheek. “As part of her never-ending quest to make even the boring pieces of my day extraordinary, she succeeded in turning the bread aisle of a Whole Foods into Our Special Spot. I’ve no doubt the rest of forever will continue to be this interesting”.
Mitchell responded immediately with, “And by ‘Our Special Spot’, she doesn’t mean we had sex there. That’s what the frozen food section was for.”
Filing her way closer to the top, the articles between the engagement announcement and the white dressed wedding shoot were filled with paparazzi shots of them filing out of wedding stores and dress boutiques, complete with sketches of magazines’ suspicions for what they would wear - including a hilarious article wherein people weighed in on the fear (because, honestly, Beca couldn’t call it anything but fear) that they’d both show up to the big day donning suits. Chloe squeezed her hand the first day of the honeymoon, pulling out a whine deserving of a small dog, and begging Beca to let them send one photo in. “We spent all that time, all that money, you think I just want no one to see it?”
Beca, of course, responding by reminding Chloe that they had a completely ridiculous number of “friends” and family at the wedding who had seen it, but, being incapable of resisting Chloe’s puppy-dog eyes, endured two hours of photo viewing to find just the right one to send in.
The reports were good, both TV and magazines approving of their dresses - to the point where there was a segment on E! giving various ways to find (or make) knock-off versions - and constantly repeating the one story the couple was willing to share. It involved Fat Amy ( “She calls herself fat Amy, a tribute to her big-boned appearance), a bounty hunter, and a very drunk rendition of ‘Gold Digger’.
Then, finally, at the top where photos chronicling the growth of Beca’s stomach, as it went from media suspicions (she - later blaming the effect of hormones - came home crying with that magazine in her hands, because had she “really gotten that big?” and “Oh, God, I’m going to be a planet by the end of this”), into confirmations, into downright ridiculous press events where her stomach was bulging beneath whatever dress they decided to sic her in.
She traced the line of her belly in the picture with one hand while still holding the cold baby monitor in the other, smiling to herself.
Mitchell’s Pregnancy Fashion Makes Us Green With Envy
Though she looks like she might pop any second, don’t be fooled. With a month left until the big day, sources close to the couple say that Beca hasn’t slowed down a bit - much to Mrs. Beale-Mitchell’s disdain.
While Chloe might not be too pleased by Beca’s business bustle, we’re certainly not complaining! The more she goes out, the more we get a taste of her pregnancy style - and we just can’t get enough!
The couple, who were married in October of last year, are expecting a girl. Name prospects are being kept under wraps. Any guesses, dear readers?
Beca reached into her back pocket, pulling out another scrap of paper, which was rough around the edges (Chloe always put the scissors in a different place, goddammit). It was a picture of Beca, flannel pajama pants and all, being wheeled across the parking lot of the hospital by Chloe, who was leaning over her the whole time, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue at the pink bundle in Beca’s arm. They looked tired, though Beca had enough time to braid her hair, and Chloe, of course, tended to look better with a clean face than whenever she strategically placed makeup on it. The only caption was, “A New Addition to the Beale-Mitchell Family!”, and Beca barely had enough time to stuff it in the drawer before she heard the stirrings of a cry crackle over the monitor in her hand, jolting her from her haze and sending her straight to the baby room nearby.