Vanity Fair today released its 2025 Hollywood Issue… early. Usually this issue comes out in February, the 2024 issue came out just nine months ago and this was the cover:

 

The timing of this is a bit unexpected and I haven’t had time to look into why they’ve changed their schedule or read the 2025 version so we’ll cover more of it tomorrow but for today, since the Hollywood Issue dropped on the same day as PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive, the conversation is about the person who was expected by many to be the Sexiest Man Alive and who instead showed up on the cover of Vanity Fair. 

 

That said, if you subscribe to our Substack, The Squawk, you would have already known that the Sexiest Man Alive was not going to be Glen Powell. I discounted him already in my Sexiest Man Alive preview post last week when I saw that PEOPLE, in their leadup coverage to the SMA feature, had Glen’s face in one of the fan voted categories, which means they wouldn’t blow their load on their pick.

But now there’s speculation online about why it’s not Glen, and there’s been some talk that Glen declined PEOPLE’s invitation and that John Krasinski was the runner-up, not unlike the rumour all those years ago about Ryan Gosling turning it down and Bradley Cooper getting the call. 

Has anything about the way Glen Powell moved indicated that he would decline being the Sexiest Man Alive, LOL!?!?! 

This, to me, isn’t so much of a decline than it is a deferral.

 

Because where publications are concerned, you can’t oversaturate the market. PEOPLE and Vanity Fair, sure, have different subscribers, but they overlap on enough of an audience that putting Glen on the cover of both is not ideal for any of their respective editorial teams. If I’m Glen and his people, OF COURSE you choose Vanity Fair over PEOPLE. Why? Let’s face it, PEOPLE’s invitation is wide open, it’ll still be there next year and the year after. Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue, though? There are very few actors who are guaranteed a spot on that cover, and Glen isn’t one of them. He only just in the last 18 months or so got the point where he made the list. Saying yes to Vanity Fair and passing, FOR NOW, on PEOPLE was the only move. 

 

So it’s not a “no”; it’s more like a “yes, but not now”.