Every millennial girl’s dream, Paul Rudd won 2021’s Sexiest Man Alive title and validated all of our middle school fan girl feelings. He may be best known for his role as “Josh” in Clueless, but recently he’s joined the MCU as Ant-Man.
Apparently, Paul’s wife, Julie Yaeger was shocked at the news that he won! Paul said, “She was Stupefied.” Paul and Julie have been married since 2003, so we’d say Julie locked him down for good. Sorry ladies!
Despite being crowned 2020s Sexiest Man Alive, this bachelor is shockingly single. Although he’s had his share of dates in the past few months, he hasn’t ever been linked to one or several ladies.
The woman behind this man— and his perfect date for the red carpet is his mama, as if that doesn’t make him just a bit sexier in all of our eyes… He even took her to the Oscars in 2019!
John Legend has been named People's 2019 Sexiest Man Alive, and in typical Chrissy Teigen form, she's having way too much fun cracking jokes at John's expense on Twitter. My personal favorite? "The sexiest man alive just made me a ham sandwich."
It's not the first time Chrissy's roasted her husband; in fact, she's just as famous for that as she is for being a supermodel and author of two best-selling cookbooks. She and John met on the set of one of his music videos, got married in September 2013, and now have two children together.
Idris met his now-wife, Sabrina Dhowre, at a party in Vancouver in the spring of 2017, and according to 2018's Sexiest Man Alive, "it was love at first sight" and he knew she was the one because "she makes me laugh, and we share common goals...she makes me celebrate my successes and when I'm not too sure about stuff, she makes me think."
Sabrina was crowned Miss Vancouver in 2014 and she's 16 years younger than the Thor actor (and just 13 years older than his daughter!). The couple wed in April 2019. On the morning of their wedding, Idris told Vogue UK that they've "literally been inseparable since we met. Inseparable."
The world was...confused, to say the least, when Blake Shelton nabbed the title of Sexiest Man Alive in 2017. Everyone but Gwen Stefani, that is; the singer told Access Hollywood, "Oh my god, well they got that right! Wow, I'm gonna look really good huh? I already had scored but now I really scored."
Blake and Gwen began dating shortly after she joined The Voice as a judge and also shortly after their individual divorces in July and August of 2015, respectively. They now live on Blake's ranch in Oklahoma. Gwen told Shape Magazine that "the way we live at the ranch is really simple. There are watermelons that Blake planted and all my wild owers. It's a nice contrast to L.A., although I do keep 20 chickens in the backyard here at home too."
The Rock is one of the few celebrities who seems to be universally liked; men wan to be him because he's seemingly the epitome of manliness, and women love him because he's such a devoted husband and father (and easy on the eyes, obviously). He's just...kind of perfect. His wife, Lauren Hashian, probably agrees. The couple has two children together and finally tied the knot in Hawaii in August 2019.
Dwayne told Essence that he loves taking care of his wife; "When I say I’m going to take care of a woman, I don’t just mean physically or sexually or romantically. I’m going to take care of her emotionally and spiritually. I’m going to take care of her in all ways.” And it seems like his statements hold up; Lauren wrote on Instagram in May 2019, "Every single day I wake up grateful... smiling, laughing at something you said, or something that’s happening in our now very busy home. Even the imperfections of life, the ups and the downs, make this all perfect somehow. Because you’re always aiming to grow, get better, gain wisdom from every situation, and genuinely learn from them. You never stop those things. You inspire me. You have the GREATEST heart (and the greatest vocabulary) of anyone I know And g*d damn do I love you."
David won the title of Sexiest Man Alive in 2015, although the world's been lusting after him since Bend it Like Beckham came out in 2002. He also won the heart of the most stylish Spice Girl in 1997 and the power couple has been married for 20 years. (Their wedding reportedly cost £500,000.) They have four children together and their godparents are Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley.
It was love at first sight for the stunning couple. David told W in 2007 that when he saw a Spice Girls music video in 2006, he told his teammate Gary Neville that "that one there, that's the girl I'm going to marry." And Victoria, in a letter to her 18-year-old self, wrote that "love at first sight does exist...although you will get a little drunk, so exact details are hazy."
Elsa Pataky's talent agent introduced her to Chris Hemsworth in 2010. Three months into dating, they decided to get married while on vacation. By 2014 they had four kids. "We did everything very quickly," Elsa told Vogue. "We were married and then a year after we had kids. It puts a lot of pressure on a marriage, but we came out good because there is a lot of love between us and we are very strong personalities but love each other so much. We make it work."
Pataky has a modeling background—she's been featured on the covers of Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Women's Health. She's also fluent in Spanish, Romanian, French, Portuguese, and Italian, in addition to English. Her career, however, has taken a background seat to her husband's; she told HOLA! USA that "I wanted to focus on my children because I had already worked a lot. My husband was starting his career; it was his moment, and I wanted him to take advantage to work more. We decided if we had children, I wanted to stay with them and enjoy them to the fullest—but it was my decision. It can be managed perfectly, as we see women do nowadays."
Although Levine is no stranger to performing at the Victoria's Secret runway, where Behati Prinsloo has stomped down with her angel wings quite a few times, the two actually fell in love via email, according to Behati. She told Porter magazine that they began emailing about a music video he wanted her to be in. "I ended up not doing it, but we kept emailing each other. It was such a natural correspondence that we kind of fell in love over email." And when they finally met in person, Behati claimed it was love at first sight.
The pair briefly split up in the Spring of 2013, they reunited and got engaged in July 2013—then married one year later. They welcomed their first child together in 2016 and their second in 2018. Behati then donned the Victoria's Secret runway again just nine months after giving birth for the second time!
Although he was married to Jenna Dewan when we won the title of Sexiest Man Alive in 2012, the two have since split and have been seeing other people. Channing has most recently been linked to actress Zoe Kraviz, who is also stunningly beautiful. We get why they started dating!
After Kravtiz's divorce in January 2021, several media outlets linked her with Tatum. However, it wasn't until August of that year that the two were spotted getting coffee and getting groceries together. That same month, they confirmed they were confirmed for being in a relationship.
Bradley's most public relationship to date was with supermodel Irina Shayk. They dated from Spring 2015 until 2019 and have one child together. All was well for the beautiful couple until rumors about Bradley's A Star is Born co-star, Lady Gaga, began to swirl...
Although Lady Gaga claims that the duo's chemistry is all acting, the movie was still seemingly to blame for Bradley and Irina's split. “Bradley was emotionally absent during the long time filming A Star Is Born,” a source told People. “They tried to save the relationship, but it had changed."
The two gorgeous actors met on the set of Green Lantern in 2010. They got married in September 2012, at the plantation where The Notebook was filmed, and now have two children together.
Blake told People that the secret to making their marriage work is prioritizing it over their careers. In fact, they take turns filming so they can all be together. "What fulfills both me and my husband is our family. Knowing that, everything else comes second. We’ve each given up stuff we loved in order to not work at the same time."
Between his run as the hot mess Captain Jack Sparrow (emphasis on "hot") and his carefree, mysterious persona off-screen, Johnny Depp has been lusted over for the last three decades. So much so that he scored the Sexiest Man Alive title not just once, but twice!
Since his high-profile divorce with actress Amber Heard in 2016, he's been quietly dating Polina Glen, a Russian dancer and choreographer. They reportedly met at a party in LA in 2018 and she had no idea who he was. They're also rumored to be living together, according to Daily Mail, and have plans to wed.
The Greatest Showman star has had one of the longest, most successful careers in Hollywood—but it turns out his marriage has been equally as long-lasting and successful. He met his wife, Deborra-lee Furness, on the set of his first job out of drama school, the TV series Correlli. He told People TV, “Deb and I were already best friends, and I realized, I’ve got a crush on my leading lady. This is the thing you do not do. It’s unprofessional and embarrassing.”
They tried to hide their romance, but after about three weeks they realized that "everybody knew the entire time." They married in 1996 and have since adopted two children together. And their age difference (Deobrra-lee is 13 years older than Hugh) doesn't affect their relationship the way you would think; Hugh told People TV that “I’m literally the adult in the relationship. She’s just like a little kid. I’m the [one saying], ‘Babe, this is not a legal parking spot.’ ‘Oh, come on, Mr. Goody- Goody.’ “
Matt Damon and his wife Lucy had quite the unconventional meet-cute.They met at a bar, where Lucy was working as a bartender. According to Matt, he knew she was "the one" instantly and began chatting her up. She told Vogue, “So I put him to work with me! I said: ‘you know, if you’re going to be back here, you can’t just be standing there!’ He had trained as a bartender for a film years before, so he started making drinks. And he made me a ton of money in tips that night, because of course everyone wanted to go and see him. So it turned into a really fun night and then 15 years later here we are!”
At the time, Lucy was a single mom of a little girl—and they've since added three more daughters into the mix! Lucy is Argentinian-born and is BFFs with Chris Hemsworth's wife Elsa Pataky—in fact, both couples live near each other and spend double dates surfing and riding horses together!
Although George Clooney was a notorious bachelor both times he won the title of Sexiest Man Alive, it's rare to hear his name nowadays without it being linked to his better half, Amal. They began dating in 2013, got engaged and tied the knot in Italy in 2014, and welcomed twins in 2017.
When we say she's his better half, we're not kidding. While George is quite the accomplished actor, Amal Alamuddin Clooney has had a very successful and important career as well. The Lebanese-British beauty studied at Oxford University, got her master's at NYU School of Law, and went on to become a lawyer and activist (otherwise known as a barrister), where she took on several high-profile criminal defense cases, such as WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief Julian Assange. She also represented Armenia in the European Court of Human Rights during its case against Turkey for the denial of the Armenian genocide.
McConaughey married Camila Alves in 2012. They already shared two children together at the time, Levi and Vida, who were flower girl and ring bearer at their wedding. (They've since had another child together.) But unlike some of the other couples on this list, Camila and Matthew didn't instantly know they would get married. Camila told People, “I think it’s something we evolved to. I was never the girl that grew up saying I want to get married. I actually told my parents to not expect me to get married.”
Camila moved from Brazil to New York at 19 to pursue a modeling career, but has since diversified her resume. She has a line of handbags called Muxo, launched a blog called Women of Today, and founded an organic food company called Yummy Spoonfuls.
Jude Law was another notorious bachelor when he was named Sexiest Man Alive in 2004, but he's since settled down with his wife, Phillipa Coan. The two were set up by mutual friends in 2015, got married in April 2019, and share a private, peaceful life together. Jude told Modern Living that their "relationship is a very private thing, and I think part of the fact it works so well is exactly because of that."
According to sources close to the couple, Jude fell for Phillipa because she's an academic and a Hollywood outsider. She's a self-described business psychologist with a PhD, and founded STRIDE, a consulting company that strives to help make organizations more environmentally friendly.
Ben Affleck's relationship with Lindsay Shookus is the most high-profile relationship he's had since his even-higher-profile divorce from Jennifer Garner in 2017. Ben and Lindsay began dating that same year (although according to Us Weekly, it's rumored that they had a "full-blown affair" since 2014). They split in August 2018 after a year of dating; Lindsay wasn't fond of being in the spotlight—she's a producer on Saturday Night Live and has spent her career behind the camera—and Ben was struggling with addiction. But they couldn't stay apart for too long...
They reunited six months later to give it another shot after Ben completed rehab. But despite their love for each other, they just couldn't overcome their differences and split again a couple of months later. Ben is apparently dating again and Lindsay has been romantically linked to Jon Hamm.
Pierce and his wife, Keely Shaye Smith, had the ultimate meet-cute. (Seriously, why hasn't there been a Hallmark movie made about it yet??) Keely was a TV journalist and met Pierce at a party in 1994 after an interview with Ted Danson fell through. They fell in love, got married seven years later, and now have two sons together.
Above all, Pierce admires his wife's strength. He told Independent in an interview that “she has this strength that I wouldn’t be able to live without. When Keely looks at me, I go weak.”
Brad has now been through two high-profile divorces, the latter of which is still being settled in court. Brad split from Angelina Jolie after nearly 14 years together, and they share six children.
A source told Us Weekly in September 2019 that Brad has "been dating—very, very casually," but that he is more focused on spending "as much time with the kids as possible.
Richard Gere married Alejandra Silva in April 2018, and they're currently expecting their second child together (just nine months after welcoming their first!). This makes Richard's third marriage, and both have children from previous marriages as well.
Alejandra is a publicist and activist. After their wedding, she told HELLO! that "I feel like I'm in a true fairytale. Without a doubt, I feel like the luckiest woman in the world."
Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart met at the 2002 Golden Globes, when she was wrapping up her TV show Ally McBeal and he was finalizing his divorce from his second wife. They kept things lowkey at first, and even had James Marsden accompany them on several dates. They got married in 2009, after eight years of dating.
And according to Calista, age doesn't mean a thing. She told Hello Magazine in 2003 that “It doesn’t faze me. Sometimes I even say, 'Wow, I keep forgetting that he’s 22 years older than me.' It doesn’t factor into our relationship at all. I like the way he looks first thing in the morning. It’s not handsome, it’s more cute. He looks like a little boy.”
Denzel has been married to his wife, Pauletta, for 36 years. The two met on the set of the TV movie Wilma. They began dating a year later, and according to a joint interview with Access Hollywood in 2013, Pauletta turned down Denzel's marriage proposal not once, but twice! They finally tied the knot in 1983. They also renewed their vows in South Africa in 1995.
Wilma appeared in several TV shows and movies, including the 2017 TV series She's Gotta Have It, but prioritized raising their four children so Denzel's career could take off—and he gives her all the credit for their successful marriage! He told People, "The difference between a house and a home, it’s a big difference. You can buy a house, but that doesn’t make it a home—and not to say a man can’t make a home a home, but my wife has made our house a home, and raised these beautiful kids, and protected them and sacrificed for them. She did the heavy lifting.”
In 1993, People decided to do something a little different and name a couple as the Sexiest Man Alive. The actor married the famous supermodel in 1991, when she was 26 and he was 42. They got married in Las Vegas, and because it was such a last-minute decision, Cindy donned a navy suit and the two exchanged matching aluminum foil rings.
Looks like they've learned their lesson though; Richard and Cindy broke up in 1995 and People hasn't given another couple the coveted title since. Cindy told People, “I think part of the problem in our relationship was that we were a lot of other things, but I don’t know if we were ever friends—like peers, because I was young, and he was Richard Gere."
Clytie Lane, a former actress, is Nick Nolte's fourth wife. They welcomed their daughter, Sophie, in 2007, and eventually tied the knot in 2016. He has one child from a previous marriage, and both children have starred alongside him in several films.
Although her performance in 2006's Coffee Date was met with good reviews by both audience and critics, Clytie never appeared in another movie or TV show again. In fact, acording to New York Post, it took four hours to convince Clytie to let their daughter to appear in Nick's latest movie, Head Full of Honey.
Patrick Swayze met Lisa Niemi in the '70s when they were both teenagers; she was taking dance lessons from his mother, Patsy, at the Houston Ballet Dance Company. She told Entertainment Tonight that the first time they danced together, "I looked in his eyes, it was like everything came alive." They were married for 34 years before he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer in 2009.
Lisa is an actress, director, dancer, and author. She wrote, directed, and co-starred with Patrick in the 2003 film One Last Dance. The couple also wrote The Time of My Life together toward the end of his life in 2009, and in 2012 she wrote Worth Fighting For: Love, Loss, and Moving Forward about losing him. She opened up to Entertainment Tonight about how she still loves him. "When you lose someone, you never stop loving them and it's ... I feel like I have a different relationship with him now. It's just, he's not physically present, you know what I mean?"
Although he's now living the bachelor life, Tom Cruise spent most of his adult life with two different women. He was married to Nicole Kidman for 11 years, and they adopted two children together. Nicole called being married to Tom at age 22 "protection" to CNN; "I married for love, but being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being sexually harassed. I would work, but I was still very much cocooned. So when I came out of it at 32, 33, it's almost like I had to grow up."
Then in 2005, he began dating and got engaged to Katie Holmes—who, a year earlier, confessed to Seventeen Magazine that "I used to think I was going to marry Tom Cruise." A month after they began dating, Tom Cruise gave his most famous interview to date and jumped on Oprah's couch to profess his love. They married in 2006 and Katie gave birth to Suri Cruise that same year, but in 2012 Katie filed for divorce. Rumor has it she wanted to get as far away from Scientology as possible (and who can blame her???)
Sean Connery and his wife, Micheline Roquebrune, have been married since 1975. It's his second marriage and her third, and they have admitted that they met and fell in love at a golf club in Morrocco while they were both married to other people; Micheline gave all the steamy details to Gala magazine...
According to Micheline, after they met, in "the four days that follow, we continue to play golf like strangers then we meet to make love like crazy people. The reality is even better than the fantasy. No man has ever had this effect on me.” But despite their "undeniable" chemistry, they went back to their spouses and didn't reunite for two years. The rest is history! Micheline is a painter and her work has been featured in Washington D.C's National Museum of Women in the Arts exhibit.
Although he won the title of Sexiest Man Alive while he was still a bachelor (and famously dating women like Daryl Hannah, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Madonna), JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's love story is still one of the most beloved in American history, even with all its famous ups and downs. When they met in 1994, Carolyn was working as Calvin Klein's publicist. She resisted his advances for a while because she wasn't a fan of the spotlight or his "clannish" family (per People Magazine), which of course, only made him want her more.
JFK Jr. and Carolyn had a famously tumultuous relationship, even being caught fighting in public on camera in 1996. They were going through a real rough patch when their plane went down in 1999, although the family had nothing but kind words at their funeral. Ted Kennedy delivered the eulogy..."For a thousand days, he was a husband who adored the wife who became his perfect soul mate. John's father taught us all to reach for the moon and the stars. John did that in all he did—and he found his shining star when he married Carolyn Bessette. How often our family will think of the two of them, cuddling affectionately on a boat, surrounded by family..."
Harry Hamlin met his third wife, Lisa Rinna, in 1992 at an eyeglass store. She was working and he was there to have dinner with the store's owner. He was married at the time to Nicollette Sheridan, who had coincidentally just left him for Michael Bolton. In an interview with Andy Cohen, Lisa admitted she thanks Michael whenever she can, telling him, "'I just have to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I would not have my beautiful girls. I would not have my husband.' Michael Bolton looked at me and said, ‘You are so welcome.'”
They married in 1997 and have two daughters together, plus a son from one of Harry's previous relationships. In addition to starring on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (which Harry admittedly calls "Desperate Housewives"), Lisa is an actress and the two have worked together on projects like Veronica Mars, Sex, Lies and Obsession, Movie Stars, and they even co-starred in the Broadway production of Chicago.
Mark Harmon married Pam Dawber in 1987, a year after he was crowned Sexiest Man Alive. Although the two have remained tight-lipped about their life together all these years, Mark did tell People in 2019 that “we were both in our thirties when we got married, so hopefully the stupid stuff we did earlier. That’s probably the closest I have to what the key is.”
If Pam looks familiar, it's because she starred alongside Robin Williams in the sitcom Mork & Mindy. But when Mark's career took off, Pam decided to leave Hollywood to raise their two sons. "I don't think two people can work all the time in show business and stay married," she said in an interview with ET. "I was in a number one show. I had my own deal. I got to do Broadway. I got to do musical theater. I got to do cartoon voices. I did everything you can do in this business, and then I had children and it's like, 'I'm not going to chase this fame thing ... I wanted to drive my kids to school. I wanted to be there for their birthdays and bring cupcakes and donuts and do the school festivals and all that, and I did. I got to teach in their art class and so it was a different life then and I was very happy to do it."
Mel Gibson was People's first-ever Sexiest Man Alive in 1985. He's had a successful career as an actor and director and he has almost as many children as he does awards. His current girlfriend, Rosalind Ross, gave birth to his ninth child in 2017.
Rosalind is a former vaulting champion; in fact, she's the most decorated American vaulter of all time. According to Radar Online, the two met when she applied for a job at his production company, Icon, in 2014. She reportedly left sports behind for a career as a screenwriter in Hollywood.
