People's Sexiest Man Alive is the internet's favourite event. It all started with Mel Gibson's 'terrible' interview.

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Jonathan Bailey is the sexiest man of the year.

Perfect, no notes.

He's the first openly gay celebrity to win — and my oh my, we love to see it.

The star of Wicked: For Good was selected to be People's annual 'Sexiest Man Alive', and the decision has proved to be one of the magazine's most popular in years.

People has named Jonathan Bailey the Sexiest Man Alive of 2025. pic.twitter.com/kln2FjxGoq

— Pop Base (@PopBase) November 4, 2025

my flo app telling me i’m ovulating whilst i’m watching jonathan bailey describe his perfect date night yeah babe i KNOW pic.twitter.com/V6qCNKufbZ

— leanne (@yrstrulygrande) November 4, 2025

Because who can forget (or forgive) the last two random picks of Patrick Dempsey and John Krasinski? Not me.

I'm not saying these men aren't plenty sexy, but they don't quite hit as hard as previous winners like Michael B. Jordan, George Clooney and Jude Law.

So how exactly do these men become the sexiest?

People's editors make the final selection, prioritising the men with mainstream appeal who are promoting a project that year.

Watch the hosts of The Spill discuss the 'birth' of People's Sexiest Man Alive. Post continues after video.

But it's often not as simple as picking which celebrity man has broken through the sexy zeitgeist the most. It's quite the PR machine, with the process heavily influenced by management and marketing, and often involves celebrity teams and studios working together.

Most crucially, the chosen man must agree to accept the honour and participate in the cover shoot, photo spread and interview.

That said, the very first Sexiest Man Alive did not agree to be the face of the award. In fact, the origin of how People started the cultural phenomenon is much messier than you'd expect.

The inaugural winner happened to Australia's own Mel Gibson. Of course, these days he's a human magnet for controversy, but back in 1985, he was quite the international hunk.

A few veteran staffers at People recently spoke about the first ever Sexiest Man Alive.

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"Probably our worst SMA [Sexiest Man Alive] was our first SMA," one editor said.

"He gave us the worst interview of all time," added another.

Basically, a writer flew to Australia to interview Gibson just for a regular celeb profile on the set of Mad Max III.

Gibson clearly did not want to be there. "I don't want to be doing this interview," he literally told People at the time.

Great!

He spoke negatively about his movie and basically threw a tiny tantrum.

The staffers didn't know what to do with the 'terrible' interview, which meant they had to get creative. The magazine's photo editor, Mary Dunn, pitched the idea to write on the cover "He's the sexiest man alive!" — and with that, the Sexiest Man Alive was born in 1985.

"We were lucky he was such a bad interview," the staffer joked.

The more you know!

Feature image: Getty.