Who's Sexy?

Handicapping PEOPLE Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive 2024

(Ken McKay/ITV/Andrew H. Walker/Khoury/APA via ZUMA Press Wire/Anthony Harvey/C Flanigan/imageSPACE/James Veysey/MATSUO K/AFLO SPORT/Shutterstock)

Dear Squawkers,

If you’re looking for a distraction today, let’s focus on another American cultural tradition involving a list of candidates that will most definitely be contentious and perhaps controversial but won’t have an impact on democracy… at least I don’t think so? It’s time to predict PEOPLE Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive!

For those of you who’ve been reading LaineyGossip since our early years, you’re probably familiar with this annual post. Still, let’s briefly review the criteria. Remember, this is about who we predict will be the Sexiest Man Alive, not who you want to be the Sexiest Man Alive. Yes, there is a difference. Because the SMA has to represent a wide range of people, specifically PEOPLE subscribers; so the person who will be crowned a week today, on November 12, will not be niche. They’re trying to sell magazines, they’re banking on recognisability, the SMA has to be as household of a name as we can get in these times of fractured media. And, in particular, a household name for the MiniVan Majority. PEOPLE isn’t trying to appeal to whoever it is your tween or teen has plastered all over their bedroom. Or the star of that obscure show that you watched and you think is so sexy. Like, if it were up to me, Gong Yoo would be the Sexiest Man Alive. But probably more than half of you reading this have no idea who the fuck he is. Which makes me mad. Can you please start watching K-dramas?

Beyond popularity, there’s also age, background, timing, and willingness to consider. Willingness is vital here because the Sexiest Man Alive has to be willing to participate – in an interview and a photo shoot. The Sexiest Man Alive must accept PEOPLE’s proposal and play along. This is why Leonardo DiCaprio, who easily could have been the SMA over a decade ago or more, has never held the title: because he has and will never want it. Same goes, at least so far, for Ryan Gosling. I’ll remind you of the rumour that I always repeat at this time of year: Ryan was invited to be the SMA more than ten years back, around the time of Crazy, Stupid, Love, and he turned it down. That was the year the SMA was Bradley Cooper. Given what we’ve seen from Ryan lately, would he be more open to it now? Sure. This is why he’s always a contender. But the point is, the Sexiest Man Alive is an active process. That is, the magazine isn’t just going to bestow the crown on a person who won’t work for it, at least a little. This is a big issue for them annually, they market the shit out of it, they’re going to want an exclusive out of their efforts.

Speaking of marketing though, at the start of the year, after the success of Anyone But You and then leading into the success of Twisters, it seemed like Glen Powell was the most obvious choice for the SMA. However, something interesting happened last week that significantly dropped the likelihood of him being named Sexiest Man Alive this year.

In their advance promo to build anticipation for the SMA announcement, PEOPLE posted the results of the series of polls that they’ve been running to engage the audience and Glen showed up as the winner of the “Sexiest Summer Action Star” category. I can’t see the magazine blowing their load like this if Glen is actually the overall Sexiest Man Alive. In fact, I feel pretty confident in saying that if he’s already “Sexiest Action Star”, he won’t be doubling up as THE Sexiest Man Alive. Glen is out.

And for those of you playing along, it’s worth going to look at that list because all the names you see on it, including probably the runners-up, now also have a very low to non-existent probability of being the SMA.