Editors tell all! In honor of the 40th anniversary of Sexiest Man Alive, PEOPLE editors share the untold stories behind some of the splashiest cover stars. Here, Editor-in-Chief Charlotte Triggs looks back at Bradley Cooper’s polarizing crowning in 2011.
The first and only time I did the cover of Sexiest Man Alive was in 2011.
I was a TV reporter at the time, and the man of the hour was Bradley Cooper, a movie star, so it wasn’t really my beat. But Bradley was fluent in French — one of his sexy selling points — so they needed someone who spoke French to tag along with the more senior reporter and help produce a video segment where we asked him to say sexy things in his second language. It was a little bit of silly fun, but it was my ticket there.
The shoot was at an estate on the Main Line in Pennsylvania., near Philadelphia, where he was in production on Silver Linings Playbook. He drove up to the shoot on a motorcycle, so naturally we asked him to pose on it (and it resulted in some smoking hot pics).
His mom Gloria tagged along. He later said the only reason he said yes to doing the cover was because it would make her “so happy.” (Thanks mom!)
The whole vibe of the shoot was sexy, autumnal, collegiate and when the pictures came in, his blue eyes were like, gleaming off the page. The only issue was his hair. He had shaved his head for the Silver Linings role. (We knew this going in, of course.) And the big bosses upstairs decided that his haircut was not going to be recognizable on the cover.
This was back in the day where you would still reshoot things if you weren’t happy with the pictures, but for some reason that was off the table. (Probably because those lustrous locks weren’t going to magically grow back while he was on set for a couple months in character.) So what ended up happening was, they had to find an older picture of him with his more “recognizable” hair and change only the cover image. (Cringe!)
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When the story hit, it was my first time doing the rounds of press to support one of these issues, so I was excited to do interviews with everything from the Today show to Extra, Entertainment Tonight, and on and on — all back to back to back from a satellite studio in the PEOPLE offices in Midtown.
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There was just one problem. A crowd of protestors were picketing our offices outside, adorned with Ryan Gosling face masks.
Every single interview I did, I had to answer a question about the protests. I mean actually, it was probably better publicity than you can buy, but it felt mortifying. I can still remember feeling indignant while justifying why Bradley was so much better a choice anyway. What other guy speaks French, can cook you an elaborate meal and has those glimmering blue eyes?
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We worried Bradley might be irritated by the reaction, but he took it in stride — and that solidified our decision for me even further.
He joked about understanding their reaction on The Graham Norton Show: “[Ryan Gosling] and I were both in Paris this last week and … there was like photographs from the paparazzi. He literally looks like he’s in a photo shoot, like he just came off the runway. And I literally look like the neighbor who never really comes out of his house and when he does, you want to make sure like, maybe we should just stay in.”
The big reveal of 2025’s Sexiest Man Alive will be announced on Nov. 3. Mark your calendars!
