Celeb Crush

"I can't help it, I just swoon when I look at this beautiful girl. To me, it seems like she doesn't even realize how gorgeous she is because she just seems like the sweetest, most approachable girl-next-door type. The fact that she is an immensely talented musician is just icing on the cake. I love to jam out to her songs in my car... and this coming from a 21-year-old college guy who isn't exactly within the target demographic for Ms. Swift's music. I can't help it, I'm just fully crushing on this girl. It feels like Junior High all over again." —IMDb user GregHouse88 on Taylor Swift

Celebrities.

They are The Beautiful Elite. Even the ugly ones are usually just Beautiful All Along.

In addition to their attractiveness, the talent -- be it acting, singing, or something more strange and out there -- is what gets the attention of the media, who then brings it to the hungry viewing world.

Take a gorgeous person, inundate the world with their image, and there's the illusion of closeness and attainability.

Thus people are prone to fall victim to the Celeb Crush, which can vary from hopeless, depressive mooning to innocent fantasizing to crazy schemes to meet and woo the object of their affections.

Teenagers everywhere of both genders will fall prey to the charms of the hottie du jour. (And not just teenagers, either, as evidenced by the page quote.)

Happens in Real Life as well as in fiction. Fictional examples can include Yandere, Loony Fan, or Stalker with a Crush, though those can also be Ripped from the Headlines too. They may even be benign crushes, but where's the story in that? The opposite of this trope is Perverse Sexual Lust.

More than a roomful of fans crushing on a celebrity could be a fan mob, which is sort of the inverse of an Angry Mob. Fan mobs tend to want to pepper their crush with kisses while simultaneously ripping off clothing or props for souvenirs.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Barnaby Brooks Jr. from Tiger and Bunny tends to collect fangirls like honey collects flies -- including Kaede, his partner Kotetsu's own preteen daughter. Kotetsu is a bit annoyed by this, particularly since Barnaby actively encourages it.

Kotetsu: Don't you ever get tired of that?

• In Gundam Seed Destiny Lunamaria Hawke, Meyrin Hawke, and Meer Campbell all have major hero crushes on Ace Pilot Athrun Zala, one of the protagonists of the previous series. They're all a little dissapointed when they meet the man behind the legend. Athrun for his part, doesn't even seem to notice their interest (and in Luna's case brushes her off by saying that "I can't allow your feelings to jeopardise the ability of this team to cooperate."), though he's still kind to the girls when they need his help. Meer dies in an Heroic Sacrifice (and Athrun is quite saddened over it), Luna hooks up with Shinn Asuka, Meyrin may have a chance to get Athrun's romantic love or at least become very close friends with him.
• Yuri!!! On Ice has the early stages of Yuuri's admiration for Victor, which began when he (Yuuri) was a young teen and Victor was on the height of his career. He has the massive luck of actually meeting and directly interacting with Victor on a daily basis when he becomes his coach, and as they know each other better, Yuuri's feelings evolve into actual romantic love - which Victor reciprocates and seals with a kiss..

Film

• There's that woman in Southland Tales who's obsessed with Dwayne Johnson, and tries to force him at gunpoint to let her blow him.
• Play Misty for Me and The Fan were about the Loony Fan variety.
• Korben Dallas' hotel concierge lady has a crush on Ruby Rhod. I just love him. He's so talented, don't you think? He's so sexy.
• Win A Date With Tad Hamilton was about exploiting the crush.
• Prince Char from Ella Enchanted had mobs of screaming fangirls.
• Borat is obsessed with Pamela Anderson.
• In The Love Guru, Le Coq Grande has a thing for fellow French-Canadian Celine Dion.
• Phil Foster from Date Night confesses to his wife that his "sex fantasy" involves Cyndi Lauper.
• Broadway Melody of 1938 featured Judy Garland singing "You Made Me Love You" to a photograph of Clark Gable.

Live Action TV

• New Tricks has had a case or two of the trio being involved in a case where they fancied the person when younger.
• The Brady Bunch: Marsha Brady had a crush on Desi Arnaz Jr. and later, Davy Jones.
• On Night Court Harry Stone had a non-sexual crush on Mel Torme. Non-sexual...but still borderline stalkery.
• Analysed in Coupling with Jeff's theory about what happens when two lovers' Celebrity Crushes meet -- which occurs at the end of the episode, between Steve's crush (Mariella Frostrup) and Susan's (Angus Deayton). Jeff reckons this phenomenon is the reason there are so many celebrity marriages.

Jeff: If you fantasize about someone else during sex, and so does your partner, and, you know, those two people that you're fantasizing about happen to meet while you're still doing it, they're bound to sense something, aren't they? Because they're connecting on, like, a virtual plane. So can you imagine what it was like when Posh first met Beckham? They were the epicenter of a non-stop, nationwide virtual shag!

• In Friends, a character not only has a crush on actor Joey, but actually thinks he is a doctor called Drake Ramoray, a character he plays in Show Within a Show Days of Our Lives.
  • Rachel also had a Celeb Crush on Joey in 'The One That Could've Been'.
• In Castle, Ryan has a 'Free Five' list: five celebrities that he can sleep with and it 'won't count.' This causes problems, naturally, when one of those actresses works with the team briefly.
• The Suite Life of Zack and Cody establishes that London and Maddie have a major crush on Orlando Bloom (which caused a Noodle Incident) and both are quite enamoured with Jesse McCartney as well, when he pops up as a Special Guest.
  • Fellow Disney sitcom Hannah Montana also makes many jokes about Lily's near-stalkerish pinings after Orlando.
• The Colbert Report for a long time had a Running Gag of the fictional Stephen Colbert lusting for the real CNN anchorwoman Soledad O'Brien.
• Not the Nine O'Clock News had a song dedicated to a woman's latest crush, Ayatollah Khomeini. The lyrics indicate she had a similar thing for Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Helmut Schmidt.
• In Mystery Science Theater 3000, Gypsy's infatuation with Richard Basehart is a Running Gag.

Music

• Your Voice by The Downtown Fiction.
• The Pixies' "Make Believe" is a joke song about drummer David Lovering's crush on Debbie Gibson.
• "Superstar" by Taylor Swift.
• "Pictures of Lily" by The Who, about a boy who falls in love with a picture of a dead celebrity.
• "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder" by "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Radio

• A male DJ on Virgin Radio Toronto is implied to have the hots for Dev, and another likes Jennifer Lopez.

Real Life

• In general, teenage girls will moon dreamily over teen idols such as the Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber and Taylor Lautner. Likewise, many a teen boy has fallen prey to the charms of Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus and the like. In both cases, this can lead to Fan Dumb.
  • Oh dear Lord, Taylor Swift. In 2010, some guys at Auburn launched a website called "A Hug From Taylor Swift", which aimed to get exactly that. Taylor found the website, and proceeded to put them through three rounds of challenges if they really wanted one. They aced them. After they completed the final challenge- get people to an auditorium and lead them in karaoke- she popped up and gave them their hugs. And kisses. And concert tickets. And put on a bonus concert to boot.
• Elvis, Michael Jackson and The Beatles had this problem in spades, to the point they had trouble going out in public.
• The majority of the cast of the Harry Potter movies have fans with crushes and have since the first film.
• Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby as well. To the point it was parodied by Looney Tunes: Porky hired chicken crooners based on each of them to make the hens lay eggs.
• David Letterman has a Stalker with a Crush type Loony Fan.
• Nicolas Cage has also had a Loony Fan break into his home naked.

Web Comics

• Several appear in Dork Tower over the years, most notably Matt with Sarah Michelle Geller and Carson the muskrat with Megan Morrone. Megan refuses to discuss whether her baby is actually Carson's...
• Vriska from Homestuck has one on Nicolas Cage, complete with Stalker Shrine.

Web Original

• In A Very Potter Musical, this is presumably the reason why Ron wouldn't be able to destroy an Ashley Tisdale poster if it was a horocrux, like the Zac Efron poster.
• The Nostalgia Critic has a HUGE one for Catherine Zeta Jones. Watch ANY review of his for a movie she's in.
  • Likewise The Nostalgia Chick for Will Smith, not that she'd admit it.

Western Animation

• Both of Timmy Turner's parents have a crush on Chip Skylark, and so did Vicky until she found out he was broke.
  • Cosmo has a crush on pop star Britney Britney.
• Florence from The Jeffersons had a crush on Billy Dee Williams and got to meet him.
• The Mighty B has a hero worship thing for Miriam Breedlove.
• On The Flintstones, Wilma and Betty crushed on Stony Curtis and Cary Granite and Fred and Barney crushed on Ann Margrock.
• Kick Buttowski has an idol worship thing on Billy Stumps.
• Meg from Family Guy has a crush on that newscaster and has a daydream sequence about him based on the masturbation sequence from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
• Cleofatra from Gravedale High has a crush on werewolf soap star Billy Headstone from Trudy and the Beast.
• Jake the Dog from Adventure Time has one on the legendary hero Billy. "I love you, Billy! I got a secret crush on you, Billy!"
• During her High School days, Marge Simpson had a crush on Ringo Starr, and painted pictures of herself with him, including one of them getting married.
• On Total Drama World Tour, Sierra has a "crush" on Cody from his time in the previous seasons (since Total Drama is also a Reality Show Within a Show).