Humanity finds itself at a low ebb. Years of entrenched division mean that we can no longer find a single thing to agree upon. We are happy to tear each other apart for the slightest ideological incursion, howling shrieks of outrage whenever anyone fails to slot into the narrow grid system of our increasingly binary worldview. It is a tragedy, but it doesn’t have to be this way. What if a brave shining knight came charging in on a golden steed, presenting us with a truth so simple and undeniable that it could reunite all of humanity as we know it? Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Well, stop dreaming. The actor, screenwriter and producer Paul Rudd has just been named as the sexiest man alive. We are saved.
People magazine, which has since 1985 compiled a forensically scrutinised sexiness ranking of all the world’s men, has announced that Paul Rudd has finally done it. Out of all the men who are currently alive, Rudd is objectively sexier than all of them. Sexier than Michael B Jordan, who was named as the sexiest man alive last year. Sexier than John Legend, who was named as the sexiest man alive in 2019. Sexier than Chris Hemsworth, Bradley Cooper, Jude Law, Nick Nolte or John F Kennedy Jr, who were named as the sexiest men alive in 2014, 2011, 2004, 1992 and 1988 respectively. Sexier even than Johnny Depp, who was named as the sexiest man alive on two different occasions despite, you know, everything. All those hunky bimbos can get in the bin, because Paul Rudd just out-sexied the whole damn lot of them with one hand tied behind his back.
In response to his new award, Rudd told People: “I’m going to lean into it hard. I’m going to own this. I’m not going to try to be like: ‘Oh, I’m so modest’. I’m getting business cards made … I’m hoping now that I’ll finally be invited to some of those sexy dinners with Clooney and Pitt and B Jordan. And I figure I’ll be on a lot more yachts”. Which might sound as if he’s exaggerating for comic effect. But he is not. Because Paul Rudd really is the sexiest man alive.
Rudd has always managed to be handsome in a manner that borders on the miraculous. Not only is there his seemingly supernatural inability to age – he is only five years younger than Nigel Farage, for instance, who has spent the last decade looking like the botched results of a scientific quest to fuse Crazy Frog with the concept of gout – but he also radiates dangerous levels of easygoing charm. There is no mysterious darkness to Paul Rudd. There is no hint that he would ever attempt to steal your wife even though everyone knows your wife would leave you for him in a second.
And ever since he joined the Marvel payroll, Rudd’s sexiness has only expanded. He’s still the same goofball he always was, except that now he is contractually obliged to briefly show a six-pack onscreen once per movie. This newly showcased physical fitness means that Rudd has now achieved the rarefied status of four-quadrant sexiness. He’s nice to look at. He has good hair. He’s funny. He’s weird enough to make an Ant-Man trailer that consists of nothing but he and Michael Douglas slapping their thighs and shouting the word “ants” over and over with increasingly deranged intensity. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the word sexy was created for.
Even his relatively advanced years no longer matter. Rudd isn’t the oldest sexiest man alive ever – Harrison Ford was 56 when he was awarded the title in 1998, and Sean Connery was 59 when he was crowned in 1989 – but who cares about the piffling matter of age? Rudd will be sexy when he’s 70, and when he’s 90. His body could be dug up by robots a thousand years from now and his ruined corpse would still be a thousand times sexier than you on your best day. Seriously, ask anyone if they have a crush on Paul Rudd, and the only people who will reply negatively are either liars or sociopaths.
Sure, you might find people who will claim that the entire notion of world’s sexiest man is a sham, a half-baked publicist-assisted con job designed to boost the circulation of a wilting publication while amplifying the winner’s latest project (Rudd’s new Ghostbusters movie is released a week from now, coincidentally). But this isn’t a time for cynicism. May we all swoon at his feet for ever.