The Upton Effect

Can’t remember when I first saw Kate Upton, though it bothers me that I can’t. I’d been absolutely fixed on redheads—call it a phase, call it certainty, but it felt done and settled. And then there she was, and nothing else mattered anymore. When did it happen? Terry Richardson shooting on a beach? That Guess Lingerie video that blew everyone away? Ken Jeong’s dumb photobomb thing? Some page in a magazine I’ve long since thrown away? No idea. It’s all blur.

The shift itself is what matters: one day I was one thing, the next day I was something entirely else.

Alasdair McLellan shot her for Vogue at some point. She looked the way she always looked—which is to say, fantastic. Not in some airbrushed magazine fantasy way, but real. The proportions are right, the face is right, the way she moves is right. It’s not complicated to see. You look at it and you understand immediately why people lose their minds. I’m not going to dress it up or sound precious about what’s happening here.

This is what’s strange about obsessions like this: they’re total. They overwrite everything you thought you knew about what you wanted. I had a type, or so I thought. Kate Upton made that entire theory look stupid. She was the exception that became the rule. Even now I can’t explain it—can’t point to when, can’t say why her instead of anyone else. It just happened, and there’s nothing to analyze about it.

I’ll marry you, Kate. Obviously.