This mess in not her PR’s fault, they only have whatever material they have to work with. I’m sure they have their professional opinion, but if G chooses to be with that guy, do the reveal this way, not look happy in pics with him, etc. it’s all her. I’m sure after 25 years in the industry she knows what the right things to do are, but clearly she’s making her stand with some recklessness and a whole lot of FU. It’s a cluster waiting to happen with fandom as crazy as this and she knows it.

I don’t agree with you, anon. I know the demagogy here tends to make us say “she doesn’t owe us anything, it’s our fault if we are so invested in her private life”, but guess what? She is not a private person. She is not for 25 years. So yes, she doesn’t owe us to be with who we want her to be with, or to fulfill fans’ fantasies, but this is totally a PR fault, in my opinion.
In both cases, if she’s dating him or not, it could have been handled so much better. It lasts since October. We’re in late February. How many occasions did they miss to properly confirm or deny, to explain if they were linked professionally or personally? For 5 months, how many contradictory messages did they send to the fandom, probably expecting us to understand what was going on, to believe this or that, but actually only being more confusing?
They’ve decided to ignore everything, to let it flow. As you said, Gillian isn’t a beginner, nor is her team. They know what’s going on, but they’ve decided to not to say anything, to not address the rumor, on purpose, hoping for the best. But now the worst is happening, now it’s damaging her image for real, now it can even impact her work, the sales of her book, xfiles(!), Viceroy’s House, (which by the way is supposed to be an important movie on a heavy subject lead by Gillian who is supposed to bring viewers, but that everyone ignored yesterday and focused on her private life).
All of that is the result of Gillian’s silence on the last five months. So I don’t blame her, because we all know in situations like this, she kept living her life and did at she was told because she has PR, publicists, lawyers around her who are supposed to work this out for her. But I think they did it the wrong way, and fixing it is going to be impossible now.

I’m trying to think, but I can’t even start to find one other example of situation like this with another celebrity.
I feel for Gillian who is going to wake up with that. I feel for David, because he was dragged into this to the point of cancelling a tv appearance. But it’s time to stop and start to answer question now.