"CATHERINE ZZZZZZZEEEEETA JOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNZZZZZ!... One day you will be mine."
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? With the help of a chance encounter, some characters are able to turn their crush into an actual relationship.
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. 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).
noreallife
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dandadan: Momo has a huge crush on classic actor Ken Takakura; in the very first scene, she's dating a jackass just because he happens to look vaguely similar. At the end of the first chapter/episode, the otaku she's been running around with happens to drop one of Ken Takakura's lines on accident, causing Momo to blush. She quickly changes the subject by finally asking his name, but that backfires.
Otaku: Oh. It's Ken. Ken Takakura.
[Momo falls heads over heels in love as the spaceship behind her explodes] - In Gintama, Gintoki has 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 disappointed 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 a 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 Friends has a massive crush on Planet Xing Xing's celebrity news reporter, Miss Peach. There are a few episodes that 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 turns 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 extinguished 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.
- Many Reader Insert Fics are about the reader's romance with a celebrity or a popular band.
- 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
- In Backstage, 17-year-old teen Lucie (Isild Le Besco) is obsessed beyond reasonable by singer Lauren Waks (Emmanuelle Seigner) and manages to make her way to her inner circle. At one point it simply morphs into a celeb crush as Lucie's Sanity Slippage goes, particularly when she decides to interrupt Lauren when she has sex with a man ("It disgusts me that she has a man. She is pure!"). Lucie also ends up having an affair (and a baby) with Lauren's ex.
- Borat is obsessed with Pamela Anderson. He even tries to kidnap her during a meet-and-greet event.
- Breach: Played for Drama; Robert Hanssen is shown to have a disturbing, lustful, and borderline creepy obsession with Catherine Zeta-Jones, especially her infamous Ms. Fanservice scenes in Entrapment, that adds to his characterization as a sexual deviant. This was very much Truth in Television.
- Broadway Melody of 1938 featured Judy Garland singing "You Made Me Love You" to a photograph of Clark Gable.
- Phil Foster from Date Night confesses to his wife that his "sex fantasy" involves Cyndi Lauper.
- Arlene from Dick is originally infatuated with Bobby Sherman before settling on Richard Nixon. By the end of the movie, she's moved on to David Cassidy.
- Doctor at Sea: Easter owns a copy of Diana Dors in 3-D and calls her "a bit of English delight".
- Donnie Darko: While under the influence of hypnosis, Donnie tells his psychiatrist that he wants to smash Christina Applegate and almost starts masturbating to her, forcing the shrink to hastily end the session. (In an earlier draft, it was Alyssa Milano.)
- Prince Char from Ella Enchanted had mobs of screaming fangirls.
- Enemy of the State: Robert Dean assures his wife she's the only woman for him - unless Janet Jackson came calling, in which case he'd drop her in a second.
- The Fifth Element: Korben Dallas' hotel concierge lady has a crush on Ruby Rhod. "I just love him. He's so talented, don't you think? He's so sexy."
- In French Dressing (1964), Jim kisses a photograph of the French starlet Françoise Fayol before he meets her in person.
- I Wanna Hold Your Hand circled around celeb crushes on The Beatles.
- Jay and Silent Bob Reboot: Millie and Jihad go on at length about what they'd like to do to Chris Hemsworth.
- Sammy from Keep the Change (2017) is in love with David's cousin Matt Cone, an actor who is Famed in Story. When the group is asked what superpowers they wish they could have, Sammy's is the ability to make Matt Cone fall in love with him.
- In Kill Bill Volume 2, Bill's father figure Esteban Vihaio, a Mexican pimp, tells a story about how he once took Bill to the movies when he was a little boy. He could tell that Bill was drawn to blondes when he noted that the boy had a Precocious Crush for 1940s-1950s movie star Lana Turner.
- Love and Death on Long Island adapts the novel about a highbrow novelist who becomes obsessed with a Teen Idol.
- In The Love Guru, Le Coq Grande has a thing for fellow French-Canadian Céline Dion.
- In Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, Greg Simmonds has a fascination with movie star Danny Francesco that borders on obsession; having once offered him $10 million to jump out of a cake and sing "Happy Birthday" to him.
- The Parent Trap (1998): One of the things Annie brought with her to Camp Walden was a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio.
- As part of their Batman Gambit in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the pirates must enact a ritual involving words spoken as if to a lover, but the pirates are all a Large Ham who've never known a love they didn't pay for... except one:
Ragetti: [whispers tenderly] "Calypso... I release you from your human bonds."
- Quiz Lady: Played for laughs. The cranky old coot Francine adores Paul Reubens, except she thinks he's Alan Cumming. When they meet Reubens at the end of the film, Anne gets him to pretend to be Cumming to make Francine happy.
- 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.
- Exploited twice in A Grimm Quest by Amy, first when she "convinced" a bartender to save a guard's life by giving him a way to speak to Captain Piper, and then when she outed Ash as The Ashling Dresden to a teenage girl so she would talk to him about Princess Capricorn.
- 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 as 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.
- 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.
- The Queen of Water: Virginia has one on MacGyver, because he's handsome, smart, and can get himself out of any disastrous or dangerous situation with nothing more than some improvised tools.
- 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.
- In Wild Orchid, Penny gives Matt Damon as an example of a man who's a 10. Taylor says he can't be a 10 because he smokes.
Live-Action TV
- 13 Reasons Why has Jessica mentioning she's had sex dreams about all the Avengers. "Including Scarlett Johansson".
- The Big Bang Theory: Howard has "masturbatory fantasies" about Katee Sackhoff (who appears As Herself) every now and then, mainly when his relationship with Bernadette has hit a rough patch. George Takei randomly appears in one of his fantasies, causing Katee to ask if Howard has "latent homosexual tendencies"?
- 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."
- Played for laughs when Buffy reacts this way on meeting Dracula.
- 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-around 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 photoshoot 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 the 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.
- Chandler's girlfriend Janice has the magician David Copperfield among her freebies.
- Chandler's own list includes Kim Basinger, Cindy Crawford, Halle Berry, Yasmine Bleeth, and Jessica Rabbit.
- Rachel promptly makes her selection on the spot: Chris O'Donnell, John F. Kennedy Jr., Daniel Day-Lewis, Sting, and Parker Stevenson. Other episodes establish she also had a crush on Stevenson's co-star Shaun Cassidy as a teenager.
- Ross spends the whole episode trying to come up with a perfect list, and his final version involves Uma Thurman, Winona Ryder, Elizabeth Hurley, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Dorothy Hamill. He wanted to include Isabella Rossellini but the guys convinced him that she's too international, so his odds would be very low. Too bad Rossellini did appear in their favourite coffee place; however, Rachel allowed him to hit on her despite being out of the list. It doesn't go well.
- 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 fourth 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 become 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👁 Image
. 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.)
- The Saturday Night Live skit "First Got Horny 2 U"👁 Image
is an ode to young teenagers' first crushes, with five women singing about who caused their sexual awakening back in The '90s. It starts off normal enough (one woman talks about Carson Daly, and another mentions Taylor Hanson), but then gets into more unusual territory (with one woman saying she had a crush on Charles Shaughnessy based on his performance as Mr. Sheffield on The Nanny, and another woman saying her first crushes were the Menéndez brothers👁 Image
, two convicted murderers from that era). Crossing over into Perverse Sexual Lust, the final woman says her first crush was Robbie Sinclair from Dinosaurs. - 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.
- Zack and Cody's mother Carey also has a crush on George Clooney.
- 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.
- Top Gear (UK): Jeremy Clarkson had based his opinions of the "Cool Wall" off of Kristin Scott Thomas, specifically whether she would want to go on a date with you in a specific car. This leads to Richard Hammond and James May teasing Jeremy about him having a crush on her, especially when he dressed nicely for her guest appearance on the show. It's during said guest appearance where James and Richard made fun of the fact that Kristin actually disagreed with Jeremy's car opinions, culminating in them holding a giant sign in the studio audience that read "Jezza ♥︎ Kristin".
- 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 Vicar of Dibley: Geraldine, the titular vicar, keeps photographs of Sean Bean, Johnny Depp and various other celebs she fancies on the wall of her living room next to a picture of Jesus Christ.
- 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
- "Your Voice" by The Downtown Fiction.
- The Pixies' "Make Believe" is a joke song about drummer David Lovering's crush on Debbie Gibson.
- "Superstar" by Taylor Swift.
- "Pictures of Lily" by The Who, about a boy who falls in love with a picture of a dead celebrity. (Pete Townshend later claimed that the song was inspired by British actress Lillie Langtry.)
- "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder" by "Weird Al" Yankovic.
- "Élodie"note About French actress Élodie Bouchez by David Mead.
- "Natalie Portman" by Ozma.
- "#1 Crush" by Garbage could have anybody substitute for the crush, including a celebrity. The "#1" in the title could be referring to a pop hit on the charts or a movie's position in the box office charts.
- "David Duchovny" by Bree Sharp.
- Bloodhound Gang's "The Ballad of Chasey Lain" - which degrades into the Loony Fan kidnapping said porn star.
- Van Halen's "I'll Wait" is a love song to a model in a print ad. Though the distance is discussed ("Are you for real, it's so hard to tell, from just a magazine").
- Scott Cain's "I've Got A Crush On Hilary Duff."
- LFO's "Girl On TV" isn't actually about a specific female celebrity, but the music video features Jennifer Love Hewitt playing the role.
- Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack" is about the Unlucky Childhood Friend who has watched from afar as his lifelong crush has become a jetsetting celebrity while he's led a boring life in the titular town, and expresses the Tragic Dream that someday she might come back for him.
- "The Famous Polka" by They Might Be Giants is about a guy making any comparisons he can to justify his crush on a famous person, but realizing in the end that she doesn't love him back.
- "Pop Princess" by The Click Five is, as the name implies, a song about a normal guy who's in love with a pop star.
- "Funny Little Frog" by Belle and Sebastian (Band) describes a man's obsessive daydreaming about a girl on a poster on his wall. He knows he's neglecting his health and alienating his real friends, but insists it's Courtly Love and he has no intention of making it real.
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
- Chris and Ciara: Ciara has one on Roger Federer.
Roleplay
- Played for Laughs in Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues when Jemimah admits her celebrity crush is Kimura Masahiro- a deceased judoka.
Theatre
- In Stereophonic, Grover claims to Holly that all the girls he knows go wild for Marlon Brando; but Brando's bad-boy image actually turns Holly off; she prefers the more erudite Donald Sutherland.
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.
- Narbonic:
- Professor Madblood, the Robot Master, has one on Jennifer Connelly. He uses her voice and face for an Artificial Intelligence he builds.
- At one point Artie lists his recent crushes as including Antonio Banderas.
Web Original
- Jessica of Fat, French and Fabulous has a thing for both the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Queen of England.
"I will not apologize for appreciating the Queen's body. She might be a far-off, purely symbolic head of state to you, but to me she's just Betty from the block."
- The Nostalgia Critic has a huge one for Catherine Zeta-Jones. Watch any review of his for a movie she's in and he will go gaga.
- Likewise The Nostalgia Chick for Will Smith, not that she'd admit it.
- The Critic has also demonstrated a crush on Will Smith, occasionally having to remind himself he likes boobs.
- So far The Rap Critic has made two jokes about being attracted to Nicki Minaj, one involving a Freudian Slip and the other implying masturbation. Well, there was a joke where he did a fake proposal👁 Image
, but that was only to parody DJ Khaled's actual proposal to Nicki on MTV. - Film Brain admits that part of why he saw When In Rome regards Kristen Bell, though the quality of the movie kinda hurt his crush. His review of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian also mentions the "absolutely adorable Amy Adams - I know you're all thinking of this...".
- Sam & Mickey's videos give Stacie a crush on Justin Bieber.
- SMPLive:
- Schlatt has one towards AntVenom, his self-described "childhood hero", who he wants to defeat the Ender Dragon with and sleep in the same bed with.
- While not as overt as Schlatt's, Connor does have this to say about AntVenom:
<ConnorEatsPants> god i just want him to kick my ass
- MK3 of Swag Sold Separately has one on Carly Rae Jepsen.
- Matt of Two Best Friends Play has expressed an attraction towards Emma Stone.
- In A Very Potter Musical, this is presumably the reason why Ron wouldn't be able to destroy an Ashley Tisdale poster if it was a horcrux, like the Zac Efron poster.
- VlogBrothers: Hank Green has one on Helen Hunt👁 Image
. And who can blame him? She's Helen Hunt!
Western Animation
- Jake the Dog from Adventure Time has one on the legendary hero Billy. "I love you, Billy! I got a secret crush on you, Billy!"
- Animaniacs:
- It's a Running Gag that Dot has a crush on Mel Gibson. Much to his annoyance.
- In the episode "The Taming of the Screwy" Yakko is desperate to attend the big Hollywood party so he can hit on Michelle Pfeiffer.
- Bob's Burgers: In "Boyz 4 Now", the boy-hating Louise is horrified to find herself crushing on Boo-Boo, the youngest member of the eponymous Boy Band.
- Sarah DuBois from The Boondocks is openly attracted to (black male) celebrities such as Usher, Barack Obama, and Pretty Boy Flizzy; much to the chagrin of her husband Tom, who becomes paranoid that his wife might want to have extramarital affairs with these aforementioned celebrities (though fortunately Sarah doesn't actually commit adultery against Tom).
- The Crumpets has Caprice, and Cassandra and her mother admiring the actor Cradley Booper, who try to meet him via helicopter at one point, with only Cassandra succeeding. Caprice owns a cutout of him that Cassandra fights for her turn at its custody in one episode, and her mother never realizes that it's not a real man. Then there's also Caprice's brother Pfff being drawn to the weather girl, who is Booper's publicized girlfriend.
- The Fairly OddParents!:
- Both of Timmy Turner's parents have a crush on Chip Skylark, and so did Vicky until she found out he was broke.
- Cosmo has a crush on pop star Britney Britney, as does Timmy's bully Francis.
- Meg from Family Guy has a crush on Tom Tucker and has a daydream sequence that recreates the Sexy Surfacing Shot sequence from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
- On The Flintstones, Wilma and Betty crushed on Stony Curtis and Cary Granite and Fred and Barney crushed on Ann Margrock.
- The Galaxy High School episode "Those Eyes, Those Lips" shows Booey Bubblehead being infatuated with a singer named Mick Maggers.
- Cleofatra from Gravedale High has a crush on werewolf soap star Billy Headstone from Trudy and the Beast.
- In Harley Quinn, the characters go into Harley's mind and are helped by a teenage Frankie Muniz, guest-starring As Himself. Apparently Harley used to have a huge crush on him! Also, an elaborate plot to kidnap, marry, and get pregnant by him.
- Kick Buttowski has an idol worship thing on Billy Stumps.
- The Mighty B! has a hero worship thing for Miriam Breedlove.
- Miraculous Ladybug plays with this trope. Main character Marinette has a hopeless crush on her classmate Adrien, a teenage fashion model whose picture is all over Paris. Meanwhile, Adrien has a crush on the superheroine Ladybug (who is Marinette but he doesn't actually know that) and constantly flirts with her as Chat Noir. However, in both cases, neither is attracted by the other's fame; Chat falls for Ladybug after she shows courage in the face of danger while Marinette initially mistakes Adrien for a jerkass and is won over by his kindness (not that he realizes that).
- In a straighter example, "Princess Fragrance" shows that resident sweetheart Rose has a crush on an equally kind prince. Unfortunately, so does Chloé, which ends up leading to Rose's akumatization.
- That said, Marinette and Kagame (and potentially Chloénote Who knew him before he was famous and has also made a few Gold Digger comments explaining their potential relationship) are the only girls who like Adrien for himself. He has legions of fangirls (and a few fanboys) thanks to his good looks and having his pictures posted all around Paris.
- Played straight in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Simple Ways" when Rarity develops a crush on famous travel writer Trenderhoof. This is quickly inverted when Trenderhoof develops a crush on Applejack.
- In The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode "The Frickert Fracas," Maude Frickert fancies Glen Campbell.
- Ready Jet Go!: Dr. Bergs seems to have one on Ellen Ochoa. He has a coffee mug with her face on it, and when she shakes his hand, he looks at his hand and smiles with absolute glee, almost like he's thinking "I'll never wash this hand again!". Dr. Rafferty can be seen giving him a funny look after that happens.
- The Simpsons: During her High School days, Marge Simpson had a crush on Ringo Starr, and painted pictures of herself with him, including one of them getting married.
- In "Brother From the Same Planet", Marge reveals to Lisa that when she was little, she had a crush on Bobby Sherman; Lisa responds by laughing openly.
- South Park: In the song "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel," Gerald sings about his crush on Courteney Cox to Kyle's bemusement and Sheila's annoyance.
- In Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Janna mentions she has a crush on John Keats.
- On Total Drama World Tour, Sierra has a "crush" on Cody from his time in the previous seasons (since Total Drama is also a Reality Show Within a Show).
Real Life
- Some celebrities married fans of them👁 Image
.- Michael Jackson's second wife Debbie Rowe (and mother of his children Prince, Paris and Bigi) was a nurse and a fan of him.
- French singer and children's show host Dorothée is married to a fan of hers, Vincent Gaudel, since 2011.