The XX Factor

Gwen Stefani Finally Admits That Her Boyfriend Blake Shelton Isn’t Sexy In the Least

Gwen Stefani and a guy with, um, a great heart.

Christopher Polk/Getty Images for People’s Choice Awards

People magazine caused a bit of a stir this week when its editors selected Blake Shelton, the human equivalent of a wood-paneled PT Cruiser with sexy-lady mudflaps, as this year’s Sexiest Man Alive. After a year of unprecedented White House villainry, white supremacists marching openly in the streets, and nonstop revelations about sexual abusers in our midst, naming a neck-bearded bully “sexy” was a generous pinch of sea salt in America’s gaping wounds.

Recognizing the unique opportunity to page through images of topless Idris Elbas and Mahershala Alis for “work,” bloggers across the internet made their own respective lists of 10, 11, 25, and 27 options better than Shelton. BuzzFeed found a whopping 85 sexier people, then went so far as to make a video about how not sexy Shelton is.

It soon became clear that even people who purport to love potato-looking, mayonnaise-tasting white dudes don’t think Shelton is worthy of the dubious honor. His own girlfriend, Gwen Stefani, delivered several nice burns in a People interview that ran alongside Shelton’s feature. “He’s perfect for it,” she said of the title. OK, but why? “Somebody that is funny and has a sense of humor is sexy—that’s the No. 1 thing.” Eek! No! Everyone knows that the No. 1 contributor to being sexy is sexiness, and trying to change the subject to talk about Shelton’s sense of humor—which consists of jokes about boogers and wanting to fuck his co-worker’s wife—is her way of acknowledging that he’s a floppy, ill-kempt piece of pleather.

Stefani went on: “It’s interesting because I don’t think any of those things like beauty or sexy or whatever way you want to describe humans is necessarily a physical thing that people are attracted to. It’s all about the heart, and he has that big ol’ gigantic heart in there, so he’s quite an attractive human. I’m not the only one that thinks it!”

Oof. Imagine being so disgusted by your partner’s looks that, when asked about a magazine naming him the sexiest living man, you can only protest that none of “those things like beauty or sexy” actually have anything to do with physical features. Imagine being Blake Shelton, excited to read what your boo has to say about you, and finding out that all she could muster in the way of a compliment was something along the lines of “well, let’s just say he has a sexy…personality?”

Of course, Shelton’s personality is a rotting dump of gay-bashing gags, rape jokes, and racism, so Stefani’s decision to highlight his character over his looks is kind of like saying Shelton is even uglier than racism. Or, uglier than racism would be if racism also had a dad bod (not the hot kind!) and badly needed a haircut.