By Bridget Valls
Maybe you are in the movie theater watching Twisters…or Wicked. Maybe you are sitting in front of your TV watching Outer Banks…or a Lakers game. And you find yourself thinking, I want THAT person. Well, that means you have a celebrity crush.
I wanted to learn about what crushes students at Lovett have now, and have had in the past. Turns out, we’re not super creative (or original) when it comes to which celebrities get our hearts pounding.
On the survey, a few names were repeated many times. Sydney Sweeney was the most-voted female celebrity by a wide margin. William Holmes (11) is one of her fans. “Sydney Sweeney is my celebrity crush because of her internet personality,” he said. I think he saw my boredom from his response, So he quickly followed up with a different answer. “Wait, actually Ariana Grande because she was in that one movie…uh Wicked,” he told me.
Many students’ celebrity crush is from their favorite movie or series. Especially their childhood celebrity crush. Molly Rees (9) told me about her first celebrity crush. “I loved Cameron Boyce because I always watched Jessie,” she explained. This was also a common name I saw on the survey.
Another very popular, and again unoriginal, choice, was Ana de Armas. (Sorry, I can’t help being a little judgy.) She was very popular in the poll and in Jack Minutelli’s (10) heart. When asked about his celebrity crush during his free period he was eager to say her name. And he clearly is not the only one who likes her.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t some outliers. Wicked’s Jonathan Bailey got a nod. As did Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights. Other one-time picks included Megan Moroney and Hallie Steinfeld. Oh, and Nicholas Chavez from Monsters (we’ll assume the attraction is to the actor and not the character).
Some crushes stick with us for a long time. Cameron Kauffman (10) told me about her ongoing crush on Rudy Pankow. (Another common name on the survey.) Cameron has had a crush on Rudy Pankow ever since Outer Banks first came out when she was in fifth grade. She even had a cardboard cut out of him in her room. I was sad to hear she had thrown not just the cardboard cut out away but her crush for him in general. She has replaced him with a similar-looking celebrity, Glen Powell.
According to the survey Glen has A LOT of fans here at Lovett. Eloise Graber (10) and Siena Raponi (11)were eager to talk about Glen’s look in both Twisters and Anyone But You. At cheer practice, Abbey Roads(12) was eager to offer her two cents on the actor. “He looks really good in a cowboy hat,” she told me, laughing.
A few guys I interviewed were hesitant to give me their celebrity crush but gave me what they called their “Man Crush.” All of them had the same answer: Lebron James. “He is my king,” said Cameron Cannon (10). Ozzie Areu (10) and Cade Mckenzie (10) were quick to agree.
Finally, I took the risky route of asking a couple for their celebrity crushes. Sophomores Peter Casey and Louise Biggs both decided to answer my question. Peter told me that his current and childhood crush was Megan Fox ever since he saw her in Transformers. Louise then told me “Michael B. Jordan because he looked good in Creed.”They each reacted with a bit of humorous annoyance at each other’s picks.
Two weeks later, they’re still dating. That’s the thing with celebrity crushes. You can’t worry too much about anything happening with them. And if you’re dating someone, it’s going to be THAT person who will actually sit next to you in the movie theater while you’re watching all these stars on the screen.
