Jack Black’s Priceless Response After Elle Fanning Calls Him the Hottest Man
Elle Fanning’s resurfaced lie-detector confession crowning Jack Black the hottest man she’s ever seen turned him into the internet’s main character—and his on-camera reaction, all laughs and peak Jack Black cool, sent the moment into overdrive.
Jack Black woke up and found himself crowned hottest man alive by Elle Fanning. It started as a throwaway moment in a Vanity Fair lie-detector bit, then resurfaced, then the internet did what it does. Jack finally saw it on camera and reacted exactly how you hope Jack Black would.
The setup: Elle Fanning goes all-in
In the Vanity Fair video, Dakota Fanning is running the questions, and Elle casually blurts out that Jack Black is the hottest man she has ever seen. She even hits him with: 'Sex on legs, baby.' The clip ricocheted across social pretty fast.
Jack sees the clip (with Paul Rudd) and combusts into Jack Black
When Jack watched the video alongside Paul Rudd, he closed his eyes like he needed a reset, then immediately went into self-roast mode. He coins a term for whatever is happening between Elle seeing him and what he sees in the mirror, and it is very Jack Black.
'Have you ever heard of body dysmorphia, where when you look at yourself, you are like, I am so ugly, but really you are this gorgeous creature? I think she has the opposite of that, where she looks at me — which, objectively, is a goblin gremlin — and she sees this gorgeous creature, apparently. She has that weird, like, goblin dysmorphia.'
Translation: he appreciates it, but he also insists he is an enthusiastic woodland creature at best.
The boyfriend question (and the polygraph snitch)
Back in the lie-detector segment, Dakota puts Elle on the spot: would she leave her boyfriend if Jack professed his love? Elle says no. The machine says... maybe not. Jack addressed it directly in his response video, staying gracious and defusing any weirdness:
'Thank you. I appreciate the compliment,' he says, then looks straight down the lens for a message to Elle Fanning's boyfriend, Gus Wenner: 'Dude, we have got no beef. We are cool.'
This was not a one-off crush, either
A few months before the lie detector chaos, Elle told The Tonight Show that Jack Black is her celebrity 'hall pass.' She also admitted she was nervous to approach him at the Golden Globes until her boyfriend gave her a little nudge. So, yes, this crush has a timeline.
Why this blew up (beyond the obvious)
It is the collision of two things: Elle Fanning earnestly declaring a very specific, very funny crush, and Jack Black responding like a pro—self-deprecating, sweet, and with a brand-new fake medical condition to boot. Internet gold, basically.