Jonathan Bailey has been named the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine for 2025.

The magazine’s pick was announced Monday night on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Bailey takes the mantle from The Office and Jack Ryan star John Krasinski, who was the 2024 selection.

The Wicked: For Good actor is the first openly gay man to be named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in the title’s 40-year history.

Bailey had audiences swooning as Prince Fiyero in his 2024 big-screen debut in Wicked, the popular movie musical whose second half arrives in theatres Nov. 21.

He dripped with charm as Lord Anthony Bridgerton on Netflix’s Bridgerton, and earned a 2024 Emmy nomination for his role in the Showtime series Fellow Travelers. Most recently, he starred in Jurassic World Rebirth, which came out in July.

The 37-year-old British actor said it was a “huge” honour to be given the title of Sexiest Man Alive.

“Obviously, I’m incredibly flattered. And it’s completely absurd,” Bailey told the magazine.

“It’s a big deal because it’s the 40th anniversary of Sexiest Man Alive. Where were you when you got the call for this?” Fallon asked Bailey.

Bailey said he first heard about the title at the beginning of 2025 while appearing in a production of Shakespeare’s Richard II.

“The only thing madder than doing Richard II was to be invited into this,” he said. “And also in 2025, I’m sort of thrilled that People magazine have invited someone in, bestowed this honour on someone who can really cherish the value of a sexy man.”

5:55 Jonathan Bailey says he and Scarlett Johansson were like “school kids” on Jurassic Park set

When asked if he thinks people are going to treat him differently after being named Sexiest Man Alive, Bailey laughed and said, “I f—ing hope so.”

Bailey, the cover story in People’s edition coming out Friday, had to stay tight-lipped about the news. But he admitted to the magazine that he couldn’t keep it a complete secret — he shared the news with his dog, Benson, who will also be featured in the magazine.

When asked who will give him the most grief when they find out about his new title, Bailey said a lot of his friends.

“They will be furious that I haven’t told them and then they’ll just squeal with delight. And also they’ve seen me grow up, you know like the magic behind the mask of being identified as a sexy man is that there are other truths that they know and they’ve witnessed,” Bailey told People.

Bailey’s Wicked castmates, including Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and Jeff Goldblum, all took to Instagram to celebrate his new title in a video.

“Congratulations to our boy Jonathan Bailey,” director Jon M. Chu said.

“He’s the sexiest man alive not only on this planet but in the solar system and the universe and any multiverse,” Goldblum said while showing off his T-shirt featuring a photo of Bailey.

“You’re the kindest and most brilliant and beautiful inside as well,” Grande said.

The first Sexiest Man Alive was Mel Gibson in 1985. Other past recipients include Brad Pitt, George Clooney, John F. Kennedy Jr., David Beckham, Michael B. Jordan, John Legend, Dwayne Johnson, Paul Rudd, Pierce Brosnan and Patrick Dempsey.

— With files from The Associated Press

When the Blue Jays’ season ended in heartbreak on Saturday, Khela Maquiling was surprised to find herself sobbing outside a Toronto bar.

The 30-year-old web designer had only started watching the playoffs to bond with her baseball-loving partner, but somewhere along the way she fell for the game — and for the nightly ritual that brought them closer.

As the Los Angeles Dodgers rallied for a 5-4 win in 11 innings to capture Game 7 of the World Series against the Jays, Maquiling watched from the Drake Hotel with her boyfriend, caught up in the anguish that rippled across the city. The game drew an average audience of 10.9 million viewers on Sportsnet.

“I just started crying and I shocked myself because I didn’t think I was a sports person until that moment,” the Toronto resident recalls.

“And then my boyfriend turns to me and he’s like, ‘I am so grateful that I got to experience this entire post-season with you,'” she adds, choking up.

With her partner moving to Switzerland soon for work, watching the Jays’ playoff run had become a cherished routine, making the loss especially bittersweet.

“I’ve been coping in not the smartest way, because I keep watching videos of Vladdy (Guerrero Jr.) looking sad after the game.”

For many Toronto fans, the Jays’ post-season was more than baseball — it was a reason to gather with friends, family and partners night after night. Now, with the season concluding in crushing defeat, fans like Maquiling are left navigating the quiet, reflecting on the shared experience and figuring out how to fill the sudden void.

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For Guy Felicella, a 56-year-old Vancouver father of two, the post-season became a multi-generational ritual, sparking a newfound love of the game in his youngest son, five-year-old Leo.

“He’s just became a fanatic. He loves Bo Bichette. He started asking all these questions about how to play the game. It was such a good bonding experience for me,” says the public speaker.

Felicella watched every game with Leo and his 11-year-old brother, Noah, with the kids even staying up through the 16th inning of Game 3’s 18-inning thriller against the Dodgers.

When the Jays lost Game 7, Felicella says he was “devastated.”

“I just turned the TV off. I didn’t want to see any of it.”

Thankfully, his sons have taken the Jays loss pretty well. They’ve been filling the void by watching NHL games. But Felicella says he can’t get invested in any sport quite like baseball: “It’s 162 regular season games a year, hockey’s like 82. When you get locked into that, it takes a physical and mental toll.”

Leo, meanwhile, is optimistic about next season. He’s looking forward to attending his first Jays game.

“After the loss, I tucked him into bed and he still had his Jays hat on. He told me he loved me. I mean, that’s it right there. He’ll be a Jays fan for life, but the most important thing is it brought us so close.”

While Leo is just discovering the thrill of playoff baseball, Cecilia Reyes has been there for it all. At 94, she’s been following the Jays for decades, attending games whenever she could and watching every post-season since she moved to Canada in 1973. She saw the Jays win back-to-back World Series in 1992 and 1993, and was hopeful they could recreate that magic.

“I’ve been watching the game a long time and I love the Jays very much, but I’m so disappointed that we lost,” says Reyes, who was born in Trinidad.

She followed all the playoff games with her daughter and son-in-law, cheering when the Jays hit dingers, and quietly mourning with them when the team fell behind.

“Whenever we won, we would laugh, jump up, clap our hands,” she says.

“We were very, very sad when we lost. But I told my family, ‘This is how games are. You have to have a loser and a winner.'”

Reyes says she’ll be occupying her time by rooting for the Toronto Raptors and Maple Leafs.

“I love sports. Any game that they have on the TV, I’ll be looking at it.”

Still, the Jays hold a special place in her heart. She’s already counting down the days until spring training.

“I hope that the good Lord gives me life to see them play again next year,” she says.

“If they keep practising, learn from their loss and put in their best efforts, I think good things will happen.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2025.

Diane Ladd, the three-time Academy Award nominee whose roles ranged from the brash waitress in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore to the protective mother in Wild at Heart, has died at 89.

Ladd’s death was announced Monday by daughter Laura Dern, who issued a statement saying her mother and occasional co-star had died at her home in Ojai, California, with Dern at her side.

Dern, who called Ladd her “amazing hero” and “profound gift of a mother,” did not immediately cite a cause of death.

“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created,” Dern wrote. “We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”

A gifted comic and dramatic performer, Ladd had a long career in television and on stage before breaking through as a film performer in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 release Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

She earned an Oscar nomination for supporting actor for her turn as the acerbic, straight-talking Flo, and went on to appear in dozens of movies over the following decades.

Her many credits included Chinatown, Primary Colors and two other movies for which she received best supporting nods, Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose, both of which co-starred her daughter.

She also continued to work in television, with appearances in ER, Touched by Angel and Alice, the spinoff from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, among others.

Through marriage and blood relations, Ladd was tied to the arts. Tennessee Williams was a second cousin and first husband Bruce Dern, Laura’s father, was himself an Academy Award nominee. Ladd and Laura Dern achieved the rare feat of mother-and-daughter nominees for their work in Rambling Rose.

A native of Laurel, Mississippi, Ladd was apparently destined to stand out. In her 2006 memoir, Spiraling Through the School of Life, she remembered being told by her great-grandmother that she would one day in “front of a screen” and would “command” her own audiences.

By the mid-1970s, she had lived out her fate well enough to tell The New York Times that no longer denied herself the right to call herself great.

“Now I don’t say that,” she said. “I can do Shakespeare, Ibsen, English accents, Irish accents, no accent, stand on my head, tap dance, sing, look 17 or look 70.”

A final judgment was entered in Justin Baldoni’s US$400-million defamation and extortion countersuit against It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds after Baldoni missed the deadline to file an amended complaint.

On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Liman signed an order stating that Baldoni, 41, and his production company Wayfarer Studios had let the deadline lapse after the court dismissed the case in June.

Liman said he’d contacted all parties on Oct. 17 to let them know he’d be entering a final judgment to conclude the case.

Lively, 38, was the only one to respond, asking the judge to finalize the dismissal and to keep her request for legal fees open, which the judge agreed to, according to People.

Baldoni may still appeal the dismissal after the court decides Lively’s pending motion for legal fees, according to E! News.

Liman previously dismissed Baldoni and production company Wayfarer Studios’ lawsuit on June 9, but allowed him and his legal team to amend the complaint to change the “allegations relevant to the claims of tortious interference with contract and breach of implied covenant.”

Liman also ruled that Baldoni’s claims that Lively stole creative control of the film didn’t count as extortion under California law.

“The Wayfarer Parties have not alleged that Lively is responsible for any statements other than the statements in her CRD complaint, which are privileged,” Liman wrote in the opinion and order filing. “The Wayfarer Parties have alleged that Reynolds and (publicist Leslie) Sloane made additional statements accusing Baldoni of sexual misconduct and that the Times made additional statements accusing the Wayfarer Parties of engaging in a smear campaign.

6:38 Justin Baldoni’s legal team claps back after Blake Lively’s recent court victory

“But the Wayfarer Parties have not alleged that Reynolds, Sloane or the Times would have seriously doubted these statements were true based on the information available to them, as is required for them to be liable for defamation under applicable law.

“The Wayfarer Parties’ additional claims also fail. Accordingly, the Amended Complaint must be dismissed in its entirety.”

The judge also dismissed Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, which had reported on Lively’s sexual harassment allegations.

Lively’s lawyers previously called the dismissal “a total victory and complete vindication for Blake Lively, along with those that Justin Baldoni and the Wayfarer Parties dragged into their retaliatory lawsuit, including Ryan Reynolds, Leslie Sloane and The New York Times.”

“As we have said from day one, this ‘$400 million’ lawsuit was a sham, and the Court saw right through it. We look forward to the next round, which is seeking attorneys’ fees, treble damages and punitive damages against Baldoni, Sarowitz, Nathan, and the other Wayfarer Parties who perpetrated this abusive litigation,” Lively’s lawyers said in a statement.

Baldoni’s suit was seeking at least $400 million for damages that included lost future income. The lawsuit from Baldoni and production company Wayfarer Studios, which also named Sloane as a defendant, came about two weeks after Lively sued Baldoni and several others tied to the film, alleging harassment and a co-ordinated campaign to attack her reputation for coming forward about her treatment on the set.

In late March, Lively asked a judge to dismiss Baldoni’s countersuit, calling his claims “vengeful and rambling,” after she filed the lawsuit against him for sexual harassment and retaliation.

1:23 Justin Baldoni releases behind-the-scenes footage of him and Blake Lively on ‘It Ends with Us’ set

Lively’s lawyers, Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson, wrote in papers filed in Manhattan federal court that Baldoni and his production company’s claims that they were defamed were a “profound abuse of the legal process.”

“The law prohibits weaponizing defamation lawsuits, like this one, to retaliate against individuals who have filed legal claims or have publicly spoken out about sexual harassment and retaliation,” the lawyers said.

“The right to seek legal redress and the right of the press to report on it are sacred principles that are protected by multiple privileges, including the litigation and fair report privileges, which are absolute.”

Lively’s legal team also referred to Baldoni’s lawsuit as part of a “sinister campaign to bury and destroy” her for speaking out about sexual harassment against him.

Lively sought unspecified damages when she sued Baldoni in late December 2024 for alleged sexual harassment and retaliation. The trial is currently set to take place in March 2026.