Manly Tears / Real Life

Manly Tears in real life.

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• George Washington
  • George Washington was chosen as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army by the Second Continental Congress. In private, he was said to have wept, terrified he that wouldn't be a good leader (ironically this humility was part of what would make him a great one).
  • Washington took his leave of his officer corps immediately after the Revolutionary War. He asked each and every one of them to take him by the hand as he left. Confronted with the realization that they probably wouldn't see their Commander-In-Chief again, practically nobody in this roomful of badasses was able to keep his composure. Manly Tears everywhere. Washington himself was said to have walked out of the room with tears running down his face.
  • Before he retired, Washington had to talk his officers out of mutinying over lack of pay. They refused to respond until he pulled out glasses to read a letter, saying "If you forgive me, gentlemen, but I have not only gone grey but blind in my nation's service." At that point the men wept and the coup ended.
• Andrew Jackson, the baddest of the badasses, was not immune to tears:
  • He wept after his victory at New Orleans as he recalled the final, guiding words of his mother (he'd been orphaned at 14).
  • According to Robert V. Remini, during the vicious mudslinging campaign of 1828, one newspaper stooped so low as to claim Jackson's mother a prostitute. Everyone expected Jackson to fly into a rage, but when he read the passage calling his mother a whore, Jackson wept.
    • On a side note, an equally ridiculous accusation was made about his father being a mulatto; meaning, in a dimension where this claim wasn't BS, Jackson was the actual first black president.
  • After his wife Rachel died, he wept so long and so hard that he lost his voice the next morning. He managed to compose himself up to her funeral, but upon giving a eulogy, he broke down and wept openly, apologizing to his guests for being "unmanly". After his presidency, he retired to the Hermitage where he'd visit Rachel’s tomb every night at sunset and "water her grave with his tears".
• Sam Houston had rushed to see Andrew Jackson upon hearing he was dying only to arrive a mere hour too late. He went to pay his respects and according to several accounts, “the towering Texan sank to his knees and openly wept over the body”.
• When Jean Lannes, one of Napoleon's finest marshalls and closest friends was fatally injured by a cannonball, Napoleon rushed to his side and wept openly as he embraced him, crying, "You shall live, my friend, you shall live!" to which Lannes replied, "I wish it so, if I can yet be of service to France and your Majesty".
• The Duke of Wellington, AKA the "Iron Duke", wept after hearing the number of casualties following the Battle of Waterloo.
• NFL running back Arian Foster talking about his past family hardships.
• Watch veterans attending ceremonies about the wars they fought in: you will see them shedding tears.
  • Also when their fellows are given awards by the government, or otherwise recognized for their service.
• This article from The Art of Manliness, outlines when it is okay for a man to cry and when it isn't okay.
  • Furthermore, read this AOM article and try not to cry.
    • A commenter on the above article rightly observes, "Not crying even a bit when you read such a letter is the real sign of weakness, mates."
• Among the most recognizable World War II photographs is this image of a Frenchman weeping◊ as the remaining French army leaves for Africa, about to become the expatriate Free French Forces. He was the first Parisian to be killed by the Nazis, two days before Christmas 1940, because he had refused to inform on the identity of people who had brawled with German soldiers.
• St. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuits and whose hobby was planning a military campaign to permanently retake the Holy Land, also cried so often his tear-ducts were damaged, which may have adversely affected his vision in his later years.
• A few American football players may shed a few tears while listening to the American National Anthem.
  • You can usually catch a baseball player or two wiping his eyes during the National Anthem too.
• Sam Taylor Wood created a series of photographs called "Crying Men" depicting Hollywood's leading men crying.
• Badass of the Week is a website which is pretty much guaranteed to invoke this with many of its articles, particularly the ones discussing Badass Pacifists.
• When Abraham Lincoln's body was lying in state in the White House, General Ulysses Grant, Commander of the Union Army and unequivocal badass, sat off to one side of the room, weeping unashamedly.
  • It was worse than that: Grant and his wife were meant to attend the play with Lincoln, but had been called away to care for a sick child. To his dying day, Grant believed if he had been there he could have stopped Booth.
  • Grant was a rather well-known manly crier. He was extremely traumatized by warfare and his PTSD would drive him to go into his tent and cry before battles. After which, he would clean himself up and do whatever it took to win the bloodiest war that the United States had ever seen.
• Speaker of the House John Boehner is well known for this. He drew national attention when he wept during the opening address for the 113th Congress and during a ''60 Minutes'' interview with Lesley Stahl.
• At the other end of the political spectrum, like Boehner, Senator (later VP and Senator again) Hubert Humphrey was well known to shed tears at almost any provocation. His eyes were also sensitive to bright lights, so sometimes he'd tear up without meaning to.
• Many viewers noticed that Walter Cronkite was valiantly trying not to cry when he reported the death of John F. Kennedy. NBC's Frank McGee, concluding his broadcast that day talking about how words couldn't really begin to describe how everyone felt, choked up when he said "I would suppose that the answer for that is — only to be found in the hearts of each of us." His voice was notably unsteady after that. Radio reporter Sid Davis, who'd been in the press car, recited part of Robert Frost's "miles to go before I sleep" poem as the President's body was brought back to the White House, then choked and nearly lost his voice as he signed off. And KRLD's Jay Hogan was crying when he gave his "one last goodnight" signoff at the same time and place.
• Mr. T says something about this as well. "Mama said never to trust a man who can't cry."
• George H.W. Bush speaking at the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, especially the last minute of the speech.
• Jong Tae Se cried while listening to the North Korean National Anthem before a match against Brazil in 2010 FIFA World Cup.
• When Dennis Eckersley retired in 1998, he gave one last press conference. A few minutes into it, he said "Now I'd like to tell you a little about what baseball means to me." He said nothing more. He was sobbing so hard he couldn't speak. He cried at his Hall of Fame induction, too.
• Dan Rather sobbing when he quoted lyrics from "America the Beautiful" on the first post-September 11 "Late Night With David Letterman".
• The Duke of Edinburgh when he opened the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey and laid a cross for unknown soldiers. He served as a naval officer in World War II.
• The picture of firefighter Firefighter Richard Scheidt weeping over and carrying the body of Our Lady of Angels student John Jajkowski◊ became a poster for fire safety afterwards.
• Firefighter Chris Fields weeping as he carried Baylee Almon◊ after the Oklahoma City bombing was a similar iconic moment.
• Keith Olbermann audibly choked up while announcing Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential victory. After his sheer (and very obvious) frustration throughout the Bush years, it's not surprising as to why.
  Chris Matthews: It is now eleven o'clock on the East Coast and Keith, we can report history.
  Keith Olbermann: Barack Obama is projected to be the next President of the United States of America. [hoarsely] NBC News calling for the Democratic candidate the states of California, 55 electoral votes; Washington, 11 electoral votes; Oregon, 7 electoral votes; and Hawaii, 4 electoral votes. Listen to the crowd at Grant Park in Chicago.
  • Olbermann also wept as he recited "The New Colossus" on his The Resistance program, reacting to President Trump's attitude on immigrants. His voice was so hoarse and strangled as he closed the program he could barely be heard.
• Anderson Cooper is famous for never giving in to tears on camera, even having reported from every major war and disaster area in the world for the best part of two decades. But after spending days in amongst the grief, death, and despair of an immediately post-Hurricane Katrina Louisiana and Mississippi, he caught sight, mid-report, of a young man in the back of a pickup truck proudly holding up a salvaged American flag — even as the government of that same country had catastrophically failed those who needed it most. His face twisted up in an agony of grief, he was only barely able to pull himself back together enough to go on. It's cited as one of the defining moments of both Katrina's coverage and Anderson's own career.
  • There are a few other times when his composure has slipped, such as when reading the names of the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, or remembering victims of the earthquake in Haiti when Donald Trump called it a "shithole country". And at the end of the voiceover for the obituary of his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, his voice noticeably cracks. And when he nearly lost composure talking about the high death rate after the 2020 election, in the context of Trump mainly talking about the election being "rigged" while ignoring the thousands that are dying a day.
• Ray Bourque couldn't hold his back on June 9th, 2001. After playing stellar hockey for 22 years, 1,612 regular season games, and 214 playoff games, he finally got to hold the Stanley Cup above his head.
• On the radio show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Tom Hanks revealed that he and Tim Allen watched an early screening of Toy Story 2 together. When they got to the scene with Emily, Jessie's original owner, Hanks revealed that both he and Allen had trouble fighting back tears.
• In 2014, LeVar Burton went on The Today Show to promote a Kickstarter campaign for an online version of Reading Rainbow. At the time, the campaign had two months to raise one million dollars. As Burton watched, the campaign met its goal in eleven hours. With tears in his eyes, an overwhelmed Burton thanked everyone who had contributed.
• In January 2016, President Barack Obama was delivering a speech about American gun violence when he started tearing up while recalling the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which stunned many people because it was unlike his calm/collected demeanor.
  • He tears up considerably when addressing the nation after the Sandy Hook shooting itself, even having to pause for a full ten seconds to compose himself and continue.
• When Obama surprised Joe Biden by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, Joe's first response was to suddenly turn his back on the room and reach for a hankie. He was clearly choked up during his acceptance speech.
• In medieval Europe, knights and soldiers often met in groups before battle to cry together in fear for their lives. Many bards mentioned this in their songs and how they still fought for their liege lord, thus showing their honor and bravery in the face of fear and danger.
• After Roger Ailes, the founder of the Fox News Channel, passed away in 2017, news anchor Shepard "Shep" Smith gave a heartbreaker of an eulogy for the man he considered a second father. Smith openly admitted that whatever he was, and whatever his flaws may have been, he loved the man who had changed his life — audibly and visibly crying as he did so, to the point of needing to pull out the Kleenex on-camera.
• Prince Harry was noted to be wiping away tears several times during his wedding to Meghan Markle, particularly during the singing of his mother's (the late Princess Diana) favorite hymn and according to both an op-ed written by Meghan and a chapter in his memoir Spare, he cried along with her after she miscarried their second child. He was also noted to be apparently wiping away tears at a service for his late grandmother, while his father also shed them upon the singing of the new national anthem —"God Save The King".
• Leader of the Australian Labor Party Bill Shorten managed to keep his cool during the 2019 election period despite fierce competition. During one interview he gave an anecdote of how his deceased mother put her personal ambitions to be a lawyer on hold to raise him. The Daily Telegraph tried to spin this against Shorten by digging up records showing that his mother did in fact become a barrister (albeit in her 50s when Bill Shorten was already an adult). The ensuing press conference showed Bill getting misty-eyed as he called out the Daily Telegraph for their attempted smear.
• During the closing seconds of the postgame show of the 1993 NFC Championship between the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys on January 23rd, 1994, Greg Gumbel the host of the NFL Today for the NFL on CBS could barley hold back tears while announcing goodbye to his colleagues and to the people who tuned into over the years to watch NFC Football on CBS as it was the last game of the original broadcast due to Fox Sports buying the NFC broadcasting rights from the Tiffany Network, leaving it without Football for the first time in 38 years. Even Terry Bradshaw who’s known for being a major goofball was very somber and calmer than usual and gave Gumbel a couple of pats on the shoulder to console him.
• According to the historian Polybius, Scipio Aemilianus, the commander of the Roman army in the Siege of Carthage, cried his eyes out when he witnessed the destruction, the slaughter and the looting his troops committed after they breached through the Carthaginians' defenses. Although it is worth mentioning that it was partly out of horror, but also because Scipio Aemilianus mused on the mortality of all nations. He basically thought "this will happen to Rome one day".
  • Similarly, the biographer Plutarch records that Marcellus, who commanded the Siege of Syracuse, also wept as he mused on how his own troops were about to loot the place. He also ordered his men to bring Greek mathematician Archimedes to him alive. Sadly, one of Marcellus' soldiers murdered Archimedes, which upset the Roman commander.
• Following the impeachment vote of Donald Trump, Mitt Romney gave a press conference on his reasons for voting to convict him. As he started talking about his vow to God, he audibly choked up, took a ten second pause, then continued with a clearly cracking voice.
• The videosharing site TikTok features various "crying challenges" in which professional and amateur actors tear up lip-syncing and monologuing; some are clearly Inelegantly Blubbering but quite a few simply let rivers of tears flow down their cheeks, so much so that their hands and shirt fronts are visibly wet from weeping.
• The area where figure skaters wait for their scores is called the "kiss and cry" - thanks to the fact that skaters and coaches would kiss to celebrate after a good performance, or cry at a poor one, gender notwithstanding. One funny/notable example is Yuzuru Hanyu (already more prone to Manly Tears than his colleagues/rivals) bursting into tears at the K&C for the 2015 Grand Prix Final and then incredulously asking his coach, "Why am I crying?"
• During an episode of Crime Watch Daily where he was interviewing the grieving father of a man who was brutally murdered, Chris Hansen was seen with his chin quivering and eventually wiping his eyes with a tissue as the father made an impassioned plea to him and others watching to both to get the story out accurately and to warn their children about the company they keep in the knowledge that Chris himself can empathize, as he has two sons around the same age as the victim. At the end of the interview, the two men shook hands and sobbed as they embraced.
• At the South Park 25th Anniversary concert, Trey Parker was visibly fighting back tears with a noticable waver in his voice as he expressed how amazed he was that a crude cartoon he and Matt Stone worked on would prove to be so iconic.
• Brendan Fraser openly wept when The Whale received a standing ovation. The same thing happened when he accepted the Academy Award for Best Actor for it.
• During a Thanksgiving service in Rome in December 2022, Pope Francis came to a mention of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the suffering it has caused. He slumped, gripped the arms of the chair behind him, and wept silently for half a minute before continuing with his homily.
• After the death of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins the remaining band members played a tribute concert in his honour. Frontman Dave Grohl was especially close to Hawkins and was noticeably struggling at several points during the concert. Eventually, he cracked midway through “Times Like These” and had to pause the song for a minute to compose himself and wipe away his tears before he could continue singing.

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