Jeremy Allen White is coming in hot in 2024.
The star of The Bear, 32, is Calvin Klein’s newest underwear model. The campaign, shot by photographer Mert Alas, features the native New Yorker on the roof of a building, rocking both black and white briefs.
The ads, part of the brand’s spring 2024 campaign, feature a series of stills and videos. One of the latter — set to “You Don’t Own Me” performed by Lesley Gore — shows the wavy-haired actor emerging from the building, stripping down to his undies and doing a series of pull-ups. After striking several poses in front of the cityscape, channeling his inner Adonis, the tatted star falls perfectly onto an orange couch as pigeons are released.
No, it’s not a dream. White told GQ he has long admired the brand’s ad campaign because “they always get really interesting people” to model. But he was surprised to be the one to get the call. “I didn’t see this in my future necessarily. Who grows up thinking, ‘Yeah, I’ll be in a Calvin Klein campaign’?”
He credited his role as a pro wrestler in The Iron Claw for his rock-solid physique.”I was used to running around in front of large groups of people in my underwear because of [The Iron Claw]. So maybe there was some mental and emotional prep from that job,” he told the same outlet. He also noted that he had been sick with “a chest thing” the week prior to his shoot but was able to get in a last-minute run and countless push-ups on the eve of the shoot.
White, whose star has exploded since playing chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto on the Hulu series, has been in NYC this week with his new girlfriend, singer Rosalía. However, on Sunday he’s expected in L.A. to attend the Golden Globes, as he’s nominated in the Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy category. The Shameless alum won in the category last year, dedicating the win to his then-wife, Addison Timlin, with whom he has two daughters.
Historically, Calvin Klein is known for its provocative ad campaigns selling, well, sexiness.
Back in the 1980s, a 15-year-old Brooke Shields caused quite a stir modeling the brand’s jeans while infamously uttering, “You want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” The ads were banned by local stations in New York City, including CBS.
Mark Wahlberg became an underwear model for the brand in 1992 — while then still known as Marky Mark — and he courted controversy with his pose.
The future movie star also posed with rising model Kate Moss, who was topless for the shoot. She has since said it was a less than stellar experience.
Moss continued to work with the brand for years, becoming the face of the perfume line Obsession the next year. The debut of that campaign was shot by her then boyfriend Mario Sorrenti and featured many nudes. Moss’s ads for the brand sparked the term “heroin chic,” and she was accused of glorifying thinness and drug use. Moss had to deny using heroin and being anorexic.
In 1995, a Calvin Klein jeans campaign featuring teen models, including a then-15-year-old Bijou Phillips (ex-wife of Danny Masterson, daughter of Mamas and Papas singer John Phillips) — and others was pulled after critics compared it to child porn. Dubbed the “teen porn” campaign, shot by Steven Meisel, it was criticized by then-President Bill Clinton, and there was a Justice Department investigation into it.
Michael Bergin famously took over for Mark Wahlberg as the face of the brand’s underwear line. The model-actor appeared in campaigns with Moss. He also dated then-CK publicist Carolyn Bessette before she married John F. Kennedy Jr.
The Calvin Klein torch was also passed to smoldering soap opera star Antonio Sabato Jr. in the late ’90s — with the 90-foot billboard in Manhattan’s Times Square to prove it.
In the 2000s, Eva Mendes became a Calvin girl. She posed in underwear as well as the Secret Obsession perfume campaign. A billboard for another one of her ads, showing her and a male model greased up and in bed together, riled up New York residents who likened it to pornography and wanted it removed.
Justin Bieber became the Calvin undies guy for ads in the 2010s, which were also buzzy and parodied by Saturday Night Live.
The pop star later appeared in a star-studded campaign along with Kendall Jenner, shot by Tyrone Lebon.
The Biebs also starred in the brand’s 50th anniversary campaign with now-wife Hailey in 2019.
Kendall and her sisters — Kylie Jenner as well as Kim, Kourtney and a pregnant Khloé Kardashian— made posing for Calvin Klein a family thing in 2018. They were featured in both the jeans and underwear campaigns that year. Kim launched her own intimates line, Skims, the following year.
Zoë Kravitz and mom Lisa Bonet also kept it in the family. They posed together for the brand’s watches and jewelry line in 2016. That same year, Zoë also modeled in undies.
Prior to White’s being named the famous undies guy, Michael B. Jordan had the job in 2023.
Now White joins the ranks of these other famous faces. He’ll also be magnified to new levels on the brand’s famed billboard in lower Manhattan.
