Does Steven Die in The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3? Breaking Down the New Fan Theory

Warning: spoilers for The Summer I Turned Pretty season 1 and 2 and The Summer I Turned Pretty book series ahead.

If you have been shipping Steven and Taylor since season 1 of The Summer I Turned Pretty, season three might be a little bit of a rough ride, at least if a popular fan theory turns out to come true.

Brought to life by actors Sean Kaufman and Rain Spencer, Steven and Taylor ended season 2 with a bang by confirming their relationship and giving Team Staylor a reason to look forward to The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 beyond the main love triangle.

However, rather than painting everything through rose-tinted glasses, a new fan theory points out that the trailer seems to tease tragedy for Steven and Taylor, specifically in the form of a car accident.

Below, we break down what we know so far about Steven's apparent accident storyline and the new popular fan theory that believes Steven might not survive this season.

Fans began theorizing that Steven will have an accident in The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 after Prime Video released the official trailer for the series on June 12, 2025.

While the trailer mainly focuses on Belly's story, picking between Conrad and Jeremiah, we do get some peeks at Taylor and Steven's relationship, including a scene that seems to tease a car accident.

Towards the end of the trailer, when flashing scenes build up to a climax, we see Taylor walking away from Steven, who's driving his car away from her. As he turns the car around, we see a large honking vehicle approach him from the side with Steven caught in the headlights. The next scene cuts to Taylor crying.

Seeing as the trailer depicts the accident rather explicitly, fans took to Twitter to post multiple reactions and theories about the future of Staylor, and the general consensus seems to be: 1) We did not see this one coming, and 2) We are already devastated.

And then there's the big question: Will Steven die?! Seeing as the following line in the trailer is Belly saying, “Life's too short not to spend it with the person you love,” some fans are theorizing that it could mean another tragic death is on the horizon.

Now, of course, the most natural thing to do when you're scrambling for clues about Steven's accident storyline — and potential death — is to go back to the source material. The only problem is that Steven is not as important a character in Jenny Han's books as he is in the show.

Steven barely appears in The Summer I Turned Pretty and It's Not Summer Without You except for flashbacks and memories. Though he is a more important character in We'll Always Have Summer, he is not involved in any sort of accident, but then again, he is also not dating Taylor in the books.

Steven is alive and well by the end of the We'll Always Have Summer book, but Jenny Han has teased that the show's third season will keep introducing changes from the books.

"There are going to be surprises," Han told EW. “There are the things that they know and then there are things they think they know, and then there's going to be, hopefully, things that surprise them.”

This is the million-dollar question. While your guess is as good as ours, some scenes in the trailer do seem to hint at his future, and we have a feeling that it's likely Steven will not die in The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3.

After the scene of the accident featured in the trailer, we see Taylor crying in what appears to be the hospital, meaning that though we don't for sure know his condition, Steven likely survived the crash.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Sean Kaufman, who plays Steven, alluded to the fact that the two will have to deal with some hardships this season, saying: “If the final season was an ice cream flavor for Steven and Taylor, it'd be Rocky Road.”

It is also worth noting that The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 will feature a two-year time jump, so if the series was already notorious for its use of flashbacks, we can expect even more this season.

Jenny Han has already revealed that one of the first-look photos of The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3, where we see the Fishers with Belly, Taylor, and Steven, is a flashback.

By the end of season 2, Steven is about to begin at Pricenton, and, if the show sticks to this detail of the books, Taylor will most likely go to Finch with Belly and Jeremiah, and we'll likely get some insight into what their relationship looked like in those two years.

Also speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Rain Spencer, who plays Taylor, revealed that by the current timeline of season 3, her character and Steven “have broken up and gotten back together more times than anyone remembers, and their relationship status is so confusing." She added: “They don't even know what it is. But there will be romance. I'm rooting for them.”

So, when does the accident happen? We'll have to wait and see, but fans are already theorizing it could be towards the start of the season and, in a change from the books, part of the reason why Conrad comes back into Belly's life.

In the official synopsis for The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3, it's written that Belly's “future seems set, until some core-shaking events bring her first love Conrad back into her life.” And some fans on Reddit seem to think her brother, and Conrad's BFF, getting in a life-threatening accident, would definitely fit the bill.

Again, take everything with a grain of salt, as this is all speculation. Trailers are purposely edited to get us talking and tease even more drama than what we are likely in store for, but it does sure look like The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 will be a bumpy, 11-episode ride. For more on what could be in store, check out our guide on everything you need to know about the final season here.