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Celeb Crush
aka: Celebrity Crush

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Image from Blueballsnote 
"CATHERINE ZZZZZZZEEEEETA JOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNZZZZZ!... One day you will be mine."
— The Nostalgia Critic

Celebrities are The Beautiful Elite. Even the ugly ones are usually just Beautiful All Along. In addition to their attractiveness, style and glamor, their talent — be it acting, singing, or something more strange and out there — is what gets the attention of the media, who then brings it to the hungry viewing world.

Take a gorgeous person, inundate the world with their image and charisma from their interviews and public appearances and fans get the illusion of closeness and attainability, developing an imaginary parasocial relationship with the celebrity. Never mind that you're Loving a Shadow or that you're at the potential risk of a Broken Pedestal.

Thus people are prone to fall victim to the celeb crush, which can vary from hopeless, depressive mooning to innocent fantasizing to crazy schemes to meet and woo the object of their affections. Taken to the dark extreme, you get Stalker with a Crush on their celebrity.

Teenagers everywhere of both sexes (and no small number of adults) will fall prey to the charms of the hottie du jour or favorite hunk.

Happens in Real Life as well as in fiction, and in a combination (in the case of Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity). Fictional examples can include Yandere, Loony Fan, or Stalker with a Crush, though those can also be Ripped from the Headlines too. They may even be benign crushes, but where's the story in that? The opposite of this trope is Perverse Sexual Lust, where people (somehow) are attracted to fictional characters instead (though it can overlap if a person likes both the character and the person portraying them).

More than a roomful of fans crushing on a celebrity could be a fan mob, which is sort of the inverse of an Angry Mob. Fan mobs tend to want to pepper their crush with kisses while simultaneously ripping off clothing or props for souvenirs. It may also include Starstruck Speechless, if the fan(s) instead become very awkward around the object of their fandom. Frequently overlaps with "Meet the Celebrity" Contest, where a character wins the chance to meet their favorite celebrity in person.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Gintama, Gintoki have a crush on the weather anchor Ketsuno Ana.
  • Gundam:
    • Quess Paraya from Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack aggressively throws herself at Amuro Ray, only to take his rejection poorly and immediately jump ship to join Char Aznable. Both men are Earthsphere-famous war heroes from their actions in the previous wars.
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny Lunamaria Hawke, Meyrin Hawke, and Meer Campbell all have major hero crushes on Ace Pilot Athrun Zala, one of the protagonists of the previous series. They're all a little dissapointed when they meet the man behind the legend. Athrun for his part, doesn't even seem to notice their interest (and in Luna's case brushes her off by saying that "I can't allow your feelings to jeopardise the ability of this team to cooperate."), though he does act kindly towards Meyrin after she saves his life and they both defect, and later refuses to leave Meer alone with the enemy... then is VERY upset when she dies in an Heroic Sacrifice. (And the Extended Edition shows him alongside Meyrin, so the possibility of her developing real feelings for him is not necessarily outta the question.
  • In Char's Deleted Affair, Char is Zeon's most famous and photogenic surviving Ace Pilot after its defeat in the One Year War. This makes him widely admired on Axis, and in the old Side 3 colonies. Haman Karn (future evil overlord, now a mostly-cheerful and innocent schoolgirl) is introduced with a starry-eyed crush and desire to emulate him. Later, Oksana Boginskaya and a young Nanai Miguel are also shown to buy into his public image.
  • Himiko Toga from My Hero Academia claims to have a crush on Hero Killer Stain. Of course, her idea of a crush is a desire to murder Stain and drink his blood in a Kill and Replace fantasy.
  • Slam Dunk: Haruko Akagi is perfectly aware that her feelings for Kaede Rukawa are this, ever since the beginning. Therefore she fangirls him from afar, but never really expects him to notice her. (And in the anime, when it actually sinks in, she's briefly driven to tears)
  • Magical Girls are celebrities in Spill it, Cocktail Knights!, riffing off idol culture complete with handshake events and merch. Sora actually befriends his celebrity crush when she's in her Secret Identity as another high school boy.
  • The Super Real Mahjong OVA is probably most well known for the scene of a blue haired anime girl freaking out when she sees her crush Michael J. Fox on a magazine.
  • Barnaby Brooks Jr. from Tiger & Bunny tends to collect fangirls like honey collects flies — including his partner Kotetsu's own preteen daughter. Kotetsu is a bit annoyed by this, particularly since Barnaby actively encourages it.
    Kotetsu: Don't you ever get tired of that?
  • Tokyo Mew Mew: Mint has a huge crush on Zakuro, a famous fashion model (also an actress and Idol Singer in the 2022 reboot).
  • Mentioned in Wandering Son. One of Nitori's classmates mentions to her that he likes Anna, a popular teen model. Nitori awkwardly says the same as she's in a Secret Relationship with Anna.
  • In Yuri!!! on Ice, Yuri Katsuki has admired famous Russian figure skater Victor Nikiforov ever since he was a child, and his admiration veers into this. He grows out of it after Victor becomes his coach and they get to know each other better, and eventually their relationship becomes a genuine romance.

    Asian Animation 
  • Doctor H. of Happy Heroes has a massive crush on Planet Xing Xing's celebrity news reporter, Miss Peach. There are a few episodes which primarily focus on this crush or otherwise have him try to be with Miss Peach, such as one where he tries to win a fitness competition because the prize is going out for dinner with her and one where he tells a genie he wishes he were married to her.

    Comic Books 
  • Batwoman/Kate Kane has one on both Wonder Woman and Zatanna Zatara (who is a famous stage magician in-universe outside of being a superhero).
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, Buffy and Willow list various crushes, such as Daniel Craig and a Twin Threesome Fantasy with Christian Bale for Buffy and Tina Fey for Willow. Naturally Faith tries to get Angel to drag Craig to her.
  • Early on in his comics, Deadpool often mentioned having a crush on Cindy Crawford. Since the early 2000s, it's become a running gag that he's attracted to Bea Arthur. No, not a young Bea Arthur.
  • The Eagles of Rome: At a Roman camp in Germania around 9CE, one of the German recruits talks about how much he'd like to meet "that beautiful Egyptian queen", Cleopatra VII. Someone with more knowledge of recent history has to tell him that she's been dead for more than half a century.
  • Marvel Comics character Jessica Jones had a crush on Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four.
  • Red Ears: The set-up to a vulgar joke involves a married man who is a huge fan of Brigitte Bardot. His wife knows that he loves doggystyle and wants to get him a birthday present, so she has the initials "B.B." tattooed on her ass. She tells him to close his eyes while she "gets him his present", but when she tells him to open his eyes he just angrily replies "BOB? Who the hell is Bob?"
  • Squirrel Girl had one on Speedball (who, at the time, was also a reality TV star). They did end up interacting a few times (even sharing a kiss), but then Civil War (2006) happened, Speedball became Penance, and she lost her crush on him.

    Fan Works 
  • The plot of The Champion And The Singer starts with Weiss having been a huge fan of the athlete Pyrrha for a decade and having a crush on her. As it turn out, it goes both ways: Pyrrha is a fan of Weiss' music and also likes her back.
  • Takara Tsukuda of Despair's Last Resort has one on a famous newscaster that she doesn't want anyone to know about. Hikaru Nagai seems to be the victim of this, as it's mentioned that he has a ton of fangirls.
  • Lady Luck (Miraculous Ladybug): Rose's canon crush on Prince Ali gets brought up when she is akumatized into Princess Fragrance and tries to marry him, despite the fact she's dating Juleka.
    Lady Luck: Rose, what the fuck? You have a girlfriend.
    Princess Fragrance: Prince Ali is on the freebie list!
  • In The Many Dates of Danny Fenton, It's shown that Danny used to have a big crush on fellow hero Supergirl before the accident...which resurfaces when he goes on a date with her civilian self Kara.
  • Mischief In Musutafu and Other Such Tales: Sir Nighteye used to have a crush on All Might, but it was estinguished when they started arguing over All Might pushing himself too hard with his debilitating injuries. His remaining adoration for All Might vanishes entirely when it's revealed that he is racist against Quirkless people.
  • This is the entire plot of Rainbow in the Dark, which is about the relationship between Rainbow Dash and an ordinary stallion who recently moved to Ponyville.
  • In RWBY: Scars, Weiss has a crush on the athletic Pyrrha, but it isn't noted outside of their initial meeting.
  • Vivienne of Soulmate Survey is a total Loony Fan, no matter what celebrity she worships. She even changes her name to match whatever celeb she currently idolizes. Right now, the object of her obsession is teen supermodel and heartthrob Adrien Agreste, so of course, her new name is Adrienne.
  • the superhero game: Jason Todd's favorite superhero growing up was Wonder Woman, and he instantly had a crush on her kid sister Donna Troy (the then-Wonder Girl) during his first visit to Titans Tower with his older brother Dick Grayson. The crush faded after his first death, and when the two met again they instead developed a solid friendship that didn't evolve into an actual romance until they were both middle-aged.

    Film 
  • There's that woman in Southland Tales who's obsessed with Boxer Santoros, and tries to force him at gunpoint to let her blow him.
  • Species II: Patrick the astronaut meets a female fan in a supermarket after he has returned from his journey to Mars. Too bad that he's possessed by an alien symbiote that spreads through sex, so he exploits her star-struck interest for an Attempted Rape.
  • In Stalag 17, Animal is crazy about Betty Grable, having sat through her pictures several times, and being so entranced by her he wouldn't even eat his popcorn.
  • In Turning Red, Mei has a special one for Robaire from the Boy Band 4*Town.
  • Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! was about exploiting the crush.
  • In You and Your Stupid Mate, Jeffrey's favorite Sons and Surf character is Emma, a blonde who spends most scenes in a bikini top. When he finds out she's going to be killed off, he's even more upset than when he found out Sons and Surf was going to be cancelled.
    Jeffrey: I think you are the most amazing woman on Australian television. And may I just add that I think that you represent everything that is kind and good and wholesome and beautiful in Australian womanhood.

    Literature 
  • Angela Nicely: “Starstruck!” establishes that Angela and her friends (all six-year-old girls) find a pop star “dreamy”.
  • In the twelfth Animorphs book, Rachel and Cassie both have a crush on a teen heartthrob named Jeremy Jason McCole, who is, unfortunately, now getting involved with The Sharing, a youth group/secret cult that serves as the villains' front.
  • In Bounders, the aeronaut Maximilian Sheek used to be an actor before he joined Earth Force. He has bulging biceps, immaculately poofed hair, and his own line of hair products, and is usually greeted with screams from the female Bounders. Jasper's sister Addy has a poster of him that says "Shrieks for Sheek."
  • In the Bridget Jones books, Bridget has a huge crush in Colin Firth.
  • Stephen King's novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, nine-year-old Trisha (the titular girl) has a crush on the baseball player Tom Gordon, though she doesn't admit it to anyone, and says that she only likes him because he's a good player.
  • During Cannie Shapiro's stay in Hollywood, in Good in Bed, she gets to meet and hang out with her crush, Adrian Stadt. She ends up having to make sure nothing bad doesn't happen after he passes out from the effects of the drugs he took, earlier.
  • I Think I Love You: As an adolescent, Petra is passionately obsessed with David Cassidy, to the point of wearing nothing but brown because she's read it's his favorite color. Twenty-four years later, her daughter Molly is in love with Leonardo DiCaprio, but not nearly as desperately. Petra thinks it's because Molly is happier with her life and doesn't need to escape into celebrity fantasies, like Petra did.
  • In P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster short story "The Love that Purifies", Aunt Dahlia has a bet with a friend that her son Bonzo can behave better than her Aunt Agatha's offspring Thomas while a mutual acquaintance is staying with Bertie; Bonzo is toeing the line so he can be worthy of movie star Lillian Gish, who he has a big crush on. Unfortunately, Thomas is behaving even better, because he has a crush on Greta Garbo.
  • Love and Death on Long Island gives this a slight twist by making the crush befall a highbrow novelist who's totally oblivious to pop culture and celebrity. His crush leads him not only to stalking but appreciating art that he thought was beneath him.
  • Loveless: Rooney and Pip have huge crushes on Henry Cavill and Keira Knightley, respectively. Georgia, on the other hand, can't relate to them because she's aromantic/asexual.
  • In The Lunar Chronicles, Cinder's stepsisters have a huge crush on Prince Kai. So does Cinder herself, despite all her denial.
  • In Newsflesh, Shaun Mason was the target of many a girl with a crush on him as a famous Irwin.
    • Elle Riley has to keep her girlfriend secret to maintain the interest of her show's viewers, who are mostly straight men attracted to her.
  • In Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Percy mentions that he used to have a crush on an unnamed TV actress, and that Aphrodite, for whom Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder, looks to him like a cross between her and his Love Interest, Annabeth.
  • In Queens of Geek, Charlie has a crush on Alyssa Huntington, the vlogger who inspired her to take up vlogging. She's thrilled to meet her at SupaCon.
  • Newscaster Les Weathers from Shine Shine Shine is not only a local celebrity but also Sunny's neighbor, and is a crush object for many women in the neighborhood.
  • In the Snarkout Boys books, Rat has devoted her life to the memory of James Dean, and refuses all relationships with anyone unless they resemble James Dean in every respect. She's incredibly sad that he has passed away by the time of the events of the stories.
  • In Space Marine Battles novel Rynn's World, Maia Caglieri is heavily implied to have a crush on Pedro Cantor, only while she is a member of The Beautiful Elite as a noblewoman, he's a Space Marine Chapter Master, the Emperor's Angel of Death and actually asexual, like all of them.

    Live-Action TV 
  • 13 Reasons Why has Jessica mentioning she's had sex dreams about all the Avengers. "Including Scarlett Johansson".
  • The Brady Bunch: Marcia Brady had a crush on Desi Arnaz Jr. and later, Davy Jones.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • Played for laughs when Buffy reacts this way on meeting Dracula.
      Dracula: Do you know why you cannot resist me?
      Buffy: Because you're famous?
    • Harmony clearly has one: "No threesomes unless it's boy, boy, girl. Or Charlize Theron."
  • Castle:
    • Ryan has a 'Free Five' list: five celebrities that he can sleep with and it 'won't count'. This causes problems, naturally, when one of those actresses works with the team briefly.
    • In "The Squab and the Quill", Ioan Gruffudd plays Eric Vaughn, a genius-level inventor, billionaire and all-round innovator. He's Famed In-Story and both Beckett and the coroner fancy him and gush about him being handsome, hot, rich, and having a British accent.
  • Charmed: Phoebe becomes a local celebrity for her advice column and faces one or two admirers - particularly in Seasons 5 and 6. She's even convinced to do a sexy photo-shoot to cater to them.
  • The Colbert Report for a long time had a Running Gag of the fictional Stephen Colbert lusting for the real CNN anchorwoman Soledad O'Brien.
    • He also harbors one for Paulina Porizkova, which always pops up when her husband, Ric Ocasek of The Cars, makes appearances.
  • Analysed in Coupling with Jeff's theory about what happens when two lovers' Celebrity Crushes meet — which occurs at the end of the episode, between Steve's crush (Mariella Frostrup) and Susan's (Angus Deayton). Jeff reckons this phenomenon is the reason there are so many celebrity marriages.
    Jeff: If you fantasize about someone else during sex, and so does your partner, and, you know, those two people that you're fantasizing about happen to meet while you're still doing it, they're bound to sense something, aren't they? Because they're connecting on, like, a virtual plane. So can you imagine what it was like when Posh first met Beckham? They were the epicenter of a non-stop, nationwide virtual shag! It's no wonder she got pregnant.
  • Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23: June takes James Van Der Beek with her to a wedding where he happens to be the bride's Celeb Crush free pass. He promptly has sex with the bride at the reception. Her new husband is actually okay with this — turned out that when they said "free pass", they meant it.
  • In Eureka, Douglas Fargo has a celebrity crush on Sarah Michelle Gellar, which comes into play a couple of times, for instance when he names Sheriff Carter's smart house S.A.R.A.H. or when his password is revealed to be "Douglas the Vampire Slayer". Carter also uses it at least once to blackmail him.
  • Friends:
    • One crazy woman not only has a crush on actor Joey, but actually thinks he is a doctor called Drake Ramoray, a character he plays in Show Within a Show Days of Our Lives.
    • Rachel also had a Celeb Crush on Joey in "The One That Could've Been".
    • Monica has hots for the actor Jean-Claude Van Damme who plays himself as an actor in a film being made in New York. The gang is allowed to be on the set because they are friends with Marcel the monkey who used to belong to Ross. Rachel has guts to go to talk to Jean-Claude and he finds her cute and asks her out, and Monica thus thinks Rachel stole him from her.
    • In the one with the laminated list, Chandler introduces the concept of having an agreement with your partner about being able to have sex with five celebrities of your choice, should you have a chance to score.
    • When Rachel and Phoebe discuss pregnancy hormones, Phoebe says she remembers trying to steal a cardboard cutout of Evander Holyfield when she was in her forth month. At the end we find out she did steal it and she offers it to Rachel. However, her affection for the cutout is too strong and she cannot bring herself to lend it to her. Quite an example of in-universe Perverse Sexual Lust.
    • The list concept gets mentioned again in "The One With Chandler and Monica's Wedding" when Jack Gellar cheerfully discussed his and Judy's lists with Ross, oblivious to how squicked he was. Jack's includes Rita Moreno. (We don't get told what celebrities are on Judy's, but Gunther is.)
  • Game of Thrones: Some of the highborn-nobles are so well-known that they becomes the target of desire for commoners.
    • Salladhor Saan, a pirate allied with Stannis' army, talks about how he wants to seduce Queen Cersei as his only demand for taking part in the siege on King's Landing.
    • Queen Daenerys' rule in Slaver's Bay leaves such an impression on Essos that a prostitute in Volantis imitates her appearance to get more clients.
  • The Good Place: Judge Gen has crushes on both Mark Harmon and Timothy Olyphant. Janet exploits this by making a construct of Olyphant in costume as Rylan Givens to persuade Jen to stay and listen to a presentation by the protagonists.
  • Disney sitcom Hannah Montana makes many jokes about Lily's near-stalkerish pinings after Orlando Bloom.
  • Murr from Impractical Jokers grew up with a crush on Danica McKellar. He's Starstruck Speechless when he gets to meet her — during a punishment where he has to interview her while he's wearing American-flag briefs.
  • Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has a crush on Chase Utley. He insists in isn't sexual, but his friends are somewhat disbelieving.
  • Florence from The Jeffersons had a crush on Billy Dee Williams and got to meet him.
  • The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House: Grandma has a shrine in her room dedicated to Korean actor Hyun Bin.
  • In Mystery Science Theater 3000, Gypsy's infatuation with Richard Basehart is a Running Gag.
  • New Tricks has had a case or two of the trio being involved in a case where they fancied the person when younger.
  • On Night Court Harry Stone had a non-sexual crush on Mel Torme. Non-sexual... but still borderline stalkery.
  • Not the Nine O'Clock News had a song dedicated to a woman's latest crush, Ayatollah Khomeini. The lyrics indicate she had a similar thing for Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Helmut Schmidt.
  • On Parks and Recreation Leslie Knope's crush on Joe Biden is a bit of a Running Gag; when she gets engaged, her fiancé calls in favors to get her a meeting with Biden as an engagement present. (And yes, Biden appeared As Himself for the episode.)
  • In Smallville, while Clark has always been a super-Chick Magnet, he got his share of crazy fangirls when he becomes an In-Universe celebrity in "Infamous." Trust me, they aren't half as crazy as the real world fans of Tom Welling.
  • On Spaced, Tim Bisley has a crush on Gillian Anderson.
  • The Sopranos: A throwaway line by Uncle Junior in "I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano" after he's been arrested by the FBI and they're trying to get him to turn federal witness:
    Junior: I want to bang Angie Dickinson. See which one of us gets lucky first.
  • On the show Stargate SG-1, Jack O'Neill has a crush on Mary Steenburgen, which is mentioned in numerous episodes across several seasons of the show.
  • The Suite Life of Zack & Cody establishes that London and Maddie have a major crush on Orlando Bloom (which caused a Noodle Incident) and both are quite enamoured with Jesse McCartney as well, when he pops up as a Special Guest.
  • Supernatural:
    • In the episode "Hollywood Babylon", Dean has a crush on an actor named Tara Benchley. When he meets her on the set of a horror movie, they end up having sex in her trailer.
    • In "Rock and a Hard Place", Dean has sex with a fictional retired porn actress he was a huge fan of.
  • Twin Peaks: FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole (David Lynch) tells his colleagues that he often has dreams featuring Monica Bellucci.
  • Veronica Mars: One of Logan's friends recalls that he used to have a crush on Rosie Perez as a kid, who showed up to one of his birthday parties (Logan's father is a fictional A-list actor named Aaron Echolls who frequents the same circles). However, he was pretty annoyed when she mistook him for a girl.
  • The Wire: In the episode "That's Got His Own", Bunk bemoans Jennifer Lopez's then-marriage to Mark Anthony, commenting that Anthony wouldn't know what to do with "that big ass", obviously wanting a piece of it himself.

    Music 

    Professional Wrestling 
  • The Beautiful People had a crush on Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin's husband, to the point they didn't even really know what Sarah herself looked like. Velvet Sky and Angelina Love anyway. Not Kip.
  • Jim Nye, science guy, for Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey host, Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson.

     Radio 

    Roleplay 

    Video Games 
  • In Nancy Drew: The Curse of Blackmoor Manor, inside Jane's room is a TV poster prominently featuring in-universe celebrity Brady Armstrong. When Nancy finds it, the kid gleefully asks her if she thinks Brady's cute. The latter was probably a deliberate attempt to distract Nancy, as Jane is an experienced manipulator who has several things she wants to keep secret near the poster.

    Web Animation 
  • A Day With Bowser Jr: Bowser Jr is in love with famous Koopa journalist Kylie Koopa.
  • Princess Natasha: Greg has one on Princess Natasha. Somehow, he fails to realize the exchange student living with his family is the Princess in spite of his posters of her and the fact she doesn't hide her name and nationality.

    Webcomics 
  • Several appear in Dork Tower over the years, most notably Matt with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Carson the muskrat with Megan Morrone. Megan refuses to discuss whether her baby is actually Carson's...
  • Vriska from Homestuck has one on Nicolas Cage, complete with Stalker Shrine.
    • John, the guy who first showed a video of Cage to Vriska, has one on Liv Tyler. Or, if you ask Dave, Matt McConnaughey.
  • Marry Me: Parker has a massive crush on pop-idol Stasia.
  • Professor Madblood, the Robot Master from Narbonic has one on Jennifer Connelly. He uses her voice and face for an Artificial Intelligence he builds.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 

Alternative Title(s): Celebrity Crush

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