Paul Rudd has been crowned People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive this year, and it turns out he’s near the top of another list, too: he’s one of the oldest men to ever receive the honor.
Rudd, who is allegedly 52 but has barely appeared to age over the past few decades, is the third-oldest "Sexiest Man Alive," beat out only by Harrison Ford, who earned the title in 1998 at age 56, and Sean Connery, who received the award at age 59 in 1989.
The “Ant-Man” star may be in his 50s but it’s a well-known fact that Rudd has not discernibly aged since he rose to fame in the 1990s with his roles in “Clueless” and Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet.”
Rudd played a college freshman In “Clueless,” which came out the year he turned 26. At that point, to be fair, he looked plausibly like a man in his late teens or early 20s.
However, as the years passed, Rudd appeared to simply stop aging altogether.
Here he is in a 2004 scene from “Friends,” in which his character, Mike Hannigan, marries Phoebe Buffay. He was 35 years old when this episode aired.
Here he is eight years later at a 2012 event in New York City, when he was 43.
And below is the Marvel star attending the premiere of "The Shrink Next Door" just last month at age 52. (Or is he 35 here? We would believe it).
After Rudd won this year’s "Sexiest Man Alive" award, people on Twitter marveled at his apparent eternal youth.
“how does paul rudd look like THAT at the age of 52 my brain cant comprehend it,” one person wrote on Twitter.
“The man who doesn't age. The Curious Case of Paul Rudd,” another fan tweeted, referencing “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a 2008 film about a man who ages in reverse.
“Fun fact: Did you know that Paul Rudd and Betty White are the same age?” another person joked.
One fan suggested that Rudd might in fact, be an alien, sharing a photo of him “when he arrived on earth in 1969” and an identical pic of the actor in 2021.
Yet another person on Twitter shared a grid of photos of Rudd through the years and labeled one pic as being taken in the year 1854, writing, “Paul Rudd is sexy, but can he be counted as the sexiest man alive if he doesn't age?”
Absolutely!