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We New Yorkers have a lot to keep tabs on: subway delays, restaurant reservations, and whether that ominous cloud will actually rain on our outdoor plans. But according to a new study, the celebrity most likely to send us to Google this year is one of our own: Timothée Chalamet.
The Manhattan-born actor drew the highest Google search interest in New York among the 100 celebrities examined in BetMGM Casino’s new Celebrity Cultural Visibility Index. Yes, the young lad who brought us Call Me by Your Name, the Dune franchise, Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and a genuinely committed Knicks courtside presence has won the city’s curiosity contest.
The study examined Google search demand across all 50 states between January 1 and August 1 of this year and then identified the most-searched celebrity in each state. It doesn’t reveal exactly what New Yorkers were typing into the search bar (or how many searches Chalamet received) but it does suggest that the former Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School student remains especially magnetic back home.
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New Jersey, meanwhile, went with Yankees captain Aaron Judge, naturally, while Pennsylvania most often searched for LeBron James. Connecticut looked up Tiger Woods most; California chose Leonardo DiCaprio; and Rhode Island, the one state to make Taylor Swift its top pick, did exactly what you’d expect Rhode Island to do.
Nationally, Swift took the No. 1 spot in the broader visibility index, which combined more than 6.6 million media mentions across TV, radio, podcasts and digital news with Google searches and Wikipedia page views. Michael Jackson ranked second, followed by LeBron James, Bad Bunny and Sydney Sweeney. Swift accounted for more than 7% of all media coverage analyzed, according to the report.
Chalamet, meanwhile, landed at No. 22 on the national cultural-visibility list, just behind Beyoncé and ahead of Aaron Judge. His score was driven far more by media coverage than public-interest measures, the report found, which tracks for an actor who keeps turning up in awards-season chatter, fashion headlines and the occasional New York sports cameo.
A few important caveats before we crown him king of the boroughs: the index is limited to a curated group of 100 entertainment and sports figures, rather than every famous person alive. It measures attention, not popularity, influence or public sentiment. Still, it’s a nice little reminder that no matter how intergalactic his career gets, New York has not stopped keeping tabs on its favorite hometown star.