Chris Evans got married on the weekend. When he announced his relationship, the backlash was extreme.

Pour one out for the Chris Evans fans in your life, because Captain America is officially married.

Evans and his partner of two-ish years, Alba Baptista, married in a small ceremony at a private estate in Cape Cod, Massachusetts on September 9, People confirmed.

Speculation began because several of their very famous pals, including Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, John Krasinski and Emily Blunt were spotted in nearby Boston.

The wedding itself was said to be locked down tight, with guests signing NDAs and handing over their phones according to Page Six. There have so far been no pictures released. 

Evans and Baptista's relationship was confirmed in November 2022 after he was named People's Sexiest Man Alive, with paparazzi pics of them holding hands surfacing at the same time a source said Evans had "never been happier" and "his family and friends all adore her".

Baptista, fyi, is a 26-year-old Portuguese actor who starred in Netflix's Warrior Nun and 2022 film Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.

News of a Hollywood heartthrob finding love usually causes a stir among their fandom, so on the surface, this is pretty standard. But quickly after the news of Evans and Baptista hit the press, the backlash became something a little more concerning.

There was, as you'd expect, some classic hatred towards Baptista's very existence. She was a woman dating someone's celebrity crush, after all. But the reports also included the detail that the couple had been together for more than a year – which became the catalyst for the spiralling of some very intense Evans fan feelings.

Throughout 2022, Evans, 42, had spoken in interviews about wanting to 'settle down'. At the time, it was thought that he was talking about someone he had not met yet, but the timeline means he was already with Baptista.

And fans did not appreciate this little white lie.

First came messages to Deuxmoi, the infamous anonymous gossip Instagram account. One said fans had demanded "honesty and respect" from him and he had not played his part.

"You disrespected us because you lie, not because you are dating, and now you are on your own," they concluded.

Image: Instagram.

Next came an open letter from an Evans fan account, tagging him and various media outlets, which truly read like satire but was... not.

"We feel betrayed by the Chris you lead us to believe is you," the letter stated.

"If you could volunteer up lies about something so trivial, what about you is actual[sic] real? It's like a kid finding out Santa isn't real."

Funnily enough, the writer then acknowledges that this seems dramatic, and says it is not the actual relationship he has with Baptista they have an issue with – however, "a side note: an average 41-year [sic] man looking to settle down, start a family and live a quiet life at home will probably not do so with a 25-year-old woman at the beginning of her career".

Today I saw the weirdest thing I have seen on the internet yet, and it is this letter written to Chris Evans by some of his fans. They should print this letter out and put it in a museum pic.twitter.com/0roBcYELkT

— Moniza Hossain (@moniza_hossain) November 17, 2022

Things escalated even further in January, when flyers calling for Baptista's cancellation were spotted across Los Angeles.

Photos shared by a member of the public on Reddit showed the flyers – which featured alleged racist tweets from someone Baptista followed, not her herself – on the ground, in stores and stuck to other signs, with "#cancelAlbaBaptista" and "Chris Evans 'Captain America's' super serious girlfriend is a racist who-".

Image: Reddit.

Yeah... yikes.

Unfortunately, despite the insistence that the backlash is not actually about Evans daring to date, Baptista is not the only one of his partners to face online abuse.

Jenny Slate, who he dated from 2016 to 2018, received her fair share of straight-up hate, and more disguised as praise that he was dating someone 'unexpected' (read: not a model).

Fandom can be a beautiful thing, but this is a truly stark example of when it turns toxic, overly parasocial and absurd.

In June, Evans announced he was taking a social media break.

"Hey, everyone. I'm treating myself to a summer with less screen time, so I'm taking a little break from Twitter and IG," Evans wrote on Twitter before deleting his accounts. "See you soon! Much love!"

The Northern Hemisphere summer is over and there's no sign of Evans' return just yet. Who could blame him for staying away?

Feature image: Instagram.