As love fills the air this Valentine’s season, we start noticing beauty here and there, both in those around us as well as those out of reach. While celebrity crushes belong to the latter half, they are a fascinating subject in the Seabury community.
Seventh grader Kennedy Michael likes “Tom Holland” because “he’s cute and he’s funny, and he’s not rich-infected, like, he doesn’t show off his rich[ness].”
Another Spider-Man is also quite popular. Freshman Madilynn Walter’s celebrity crush is “Andrew Garfield … Not him now, but him from the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ movies.” Walter explains that “he’s really cute … and his version [of Spider-Man] was one of my favorite versions.”
Singers are also widely admired. Eighth grader Preston La Clair has a crush on “Olivia Rodrigo,” and his favorite song by her is “Good 4 U.”
Similarly, faculty member Amy Meyers says, “Lenny Kravitz has been my long-time crush since high school … I loved his music so much, and he was the image of it. The music was cool, and he was cool. He had songs like, ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way?’ And I was gonna go his way,” she adds.
Celebrity crushes can also often be attractive athletes. Senior Sebastian Borjas shares that he likes “Suni Lee, the gymnast, [because] she’s a winner, just like me. She’s gorgeous, and I think I’ve just talked about her so much at this point, I’ve just got to commit to the bit.” He also recalls when he first had the crush: “It was the summer of 2024 during the Olympics. Around two o’clock, we were watching the women’s team gymnastics final. We were watching them, and then Suni Lee went up, and she literally crushed her event, and I’m like, ‘That’s a winner. That’s my future wife right there,’” he says.
Some celebrity crushes are more unconventional. When asked which celebrity he likes, sophomore Jack Hazlett says, “Mansa Musa. He might be a coffin. He might be deceased. He might be dust. But let’s think about it; [he’s the] richest man in the world — extremely hot.” This obsession for historical figures started “as an inside joke with Ella, but now it’s scaled into a weird list of just people who are interesting to us, which I think that’s, when it comes down to it, what a celebrity crush is,” he says.
Borjas also gives his definition of a celebrity crush, saying, “If you’ve crushed on somebody and they’re a celebrity, … you understand you have literally no chance, but it’s just holding on to that 1% chance that maybe one day you’ll marry that celebrity.”
Likewise, Meyers used to joke that “if Lenny Kravitz came up to my door and knocked on it and said, ‘Run away with me,’ I’m done. I’m out, you won’t see me again. I’m leaving.”
Walter states that a celebrity crush is “somebody that’s famous that you either find their personality attractive or their looks attractive.”
Meyers agrees, pointing out Kravitz’s unique look: “He just acted like a rock star. He looked like a rock star. He acted like a rock star. At first, he had these really long dreads that went all the way down to his waist, which was super unique in the early 90s.”
Michael emphasizes her crush’s personality, praising Holland’s public conduct: “He just always has a smile on his face … and he is protective of Zendaya.” She also shares how she and her friends “all fangirl over him. We’re like, ‘Oh, he’s cute’ over a picture.”
Likewise, Meyers shares that when she was 16 or 17, “my friend bought me the album … and he was on the front cover, and she was like, ‘Look at this guy!’ And I’m like, ‘I’m looking.’” She also had “a big poster of [Kravitz] behind my bed when I was in high school and college.”
A dedicated fan, Hazlett claims to have “read through [Mansa Musa’s] blogs. I’ve read through every article. I’ve stolen gold from merchant ships just to have a slight connection with him.”
Similarly, Borjas says, “Whenever Gabe and I are playing a doubles match, we also [talk] in between points. If I do something good, it’s like, ‘That was for Suni Lee, shout out Suni Lee!’ and if Gabe does anything good, [he would] shout out LeBron.”
Finally, Meyers points out the importance of embracing celebrity crushes as a happy imagination: “It’s a fantasy. It’s not reality. And so, because in reality, I really wouldn’t be dating him … I think you have to like them just because they’re attractive, or you like the way they handle themselves, or I feel like it’s something almost superficial. It needs to be superficial, [and] that’s what makes it fun,” she adds.
