Harry Styles Morning After: Brunson Jab, Pizza Rat

Harry Styles MSG Banner: Brunson’s Third-Show Jab

Brunson walked out on Saturday night wearing a hat he announced he had borrowed from Styles, printed with the words “TECHNO IS MY BOYFRIEND,” and the crowd greeted the Knicks captain with loud MVP chants before he could speak. What he said, in full, was a banner presentation built like a return favour. “What’s up, everybody? My name is Jalen Brunson, and welcome to Madison Square Garden,” he said. “Just wanted to be here and congratulate you on your 30th night. A couple weeks ago, Harry was so kind to join me and my team on our banner night. I thought I, on behalf of MSG and the Knicks, would do the same.” Styles had attended the Knicks’ Opening Night game against Philadelphia, when the team raised its own championship banner, and Brunson kept the receipt. “This is my third show. Yes, my third show. He’s only been to one game, so he has some catching up to do,” Brunson said. “But without further ado, let’s pay attention to this man. This is the actual winner.”

The exchange closed a loop that had been running all fall. Brunson first attended a Styles show on September 12, and Styles blew his cover from the stage: “Madison Square Garden, home of the world champion New York Knicks. We may or may not have the King of New York in the house tonight, Mr. Jalen Brunson. He’s just trying to have a quiet night out, not a chance. Not in this city. It’s like Mickey Mouse going to Disneyland.” Brunson came back for a second show and was seen singing along to As It Was from his seat, which made Saturday his third. Styles, standing next to the 2026 Finals MVP as the banner rose, answered the height question nobody had asked out loud: “Can you just, can you just make a note? We’re almost as tall as each other. Professional basketball players. Mr. Jalen Brunson, everybody.” Two banners in two weeks, one for the team that plays in the building and one for the singer who moved into it for ten weeks, and the building’s two 2026 stories now hang side by side.

Pizza Rat, Elvis And The Thank-You From Age 18

The banner moment landed inside the second of two Harryween shows, and a day later the costume record is complete. On Friday night Styles played the first Harryween show dressed as 1970s-era Elvis Presley, then changed into the outfit he wore for his X Factor audition as a 16-year-old and sang Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely, the song he auditioned with. On Saturday he closed the residency as Pizza Rat, the New York subway rat from the viral 2015 video, in a full furry suit with pink ears, a long tail, black sunglasses and a giant foam pizza slice. “I thought I’d use this momentous point in my career to dress like a rodent. Feels fitting, really,” he told the crowd, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. PAPER’s inside report on the night adds the working detail: the suit was hot enough that the ice packs built into it fell out, the opening songs Dance No More and Carolina were performed in it anyway, and Styles finished the show in shorts, rat ears, a tail and a T-shirt reading I’M A RAT, while his band dressed as New York icons from the Statue of Liberty to Anna Wintour. His own explanation for the rat, shouted to the crowd for his therapist, was simpler: “We’ll unpack the rat thing Monday.” The finale set also carried the Talking Heads cover Psycho Killer, a Halloween fit, and newer songs from the residency’s own album cycle, among them Ready, Steady, Go!:

Then Styles said the part that turns a banner into a biography. “I played in this room for the first time when I was 18 years old. It really means a lot to me,” he said. “I want to thank you all, the people of New York, for the support over the years that I’ve been through.” To the fans who had travelled from every American state and 79 countries, he added: “These moments are incredibly special to me, and these achievements marked by things like this are made up of the single moments, and I’ve enjoyed every moment with you in this room every night.” The line has a bookend from his last banner: in 2022, when a 15-night run earned him a banner presented by Gayle King, he told that crowd, “Any time that you come to Madison Square Garden and you see that, remember it’s because of you. That is ours.” The 2026 version of the sentiment is the same, doubled: 30 nights, two banners, one room he first played at 18.

What Comes Next: Melbourne, A Documentary, Then Stadiums

The practical news on the morning after is a countdown. The Together, Together tour resumes in Australia this month: four shows at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne on November 27 and 28 and December 2 and 4, then two at Accor Stadium in Sydney on December 12 and 13, per Ticketmaster Australia’s listing for the tour. The residency is also being preserved on film: Consequence reported in October that filmmaker John Wilson is documenting Styles’ record-setting MSG run for a tour documentary, with no release date announced yet. After Australia, the tour returns in 2027 as a stadium show, playing 12 cities and opening with back-to-back shows at State Farm Stadium in Phoenix on April 2, with guests across the run including Tinashe, Kylie Minogue, Lainey Wilson, Caroline Polachek, LCD Soundsystem, Tears For Fears and Canada’s own Feist, before closing at Wembley Stadium in London on August 28, 2027.

Back in New York, what the run leaves behind is physical. The banner hangs in the rafters, and MSG’s new Defining Moments exhibit, built from memorabilia of the 30 nights, is now on display on the arena’s sixth-floor concourse for every fan who walks into the building, a few feet from the matching exhibit for the Knicks’ championship run. Styles arrived at the Garden in August for a run of shows, played Elvis, played a rat, played the room he first entered at 18, and left on Halloween night with his name over the floor. On Monday the room belongs to basketball again, and Brunson, by his own count, is still owed two games.