The People have spoken. Former Grey’s Anatomy dreamboat Patrick Dempsey has been named People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2023.
“I’m glad it’s happening at this point in my life,” the 57-year-old Dempsey told People. “It’s nice to have the recognition, and certainly my ego takes a little bump, but it gives me the platform to use it for something positive.”
The news was revealed Tuesday night on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “If you know anything about me, you know I’m a huge fan of sexy men who are alive,” the host quipped during his opening monologue. With the help of “cutting-edge hologram technology” which changed Dempsey’s voice and replaced his face with a lizard’s head, Jimmy Kimmel then interviewed People’s Sexiest Man Alive without revealing his identity. Early audience guesses included Timothée Chalamet, Harry Styles, and Travis Kelce, before they began to home in on Dempsey’s identity due to his age. Ultimately, it was an audience member named Keith who correctly figured out that the lizard man, was in fact, “Dr. McDreamy” from Grey’s Anatomy.
After the big reveal, Dempsey joined Kimmel for an interview where he revealed that he was never expecting be named the Sexiest Man Alive. “I was completely shocked, and then I started laughing, like, this is a joke, right?” he said. “I’ve always been the bridesmaid!”
After starring in 11 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy as Meredith Grey’s love interest, neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd, Dempsey returns to the screen December 25 as Italian driver Piero Taruffi in Michael Mann’s Ferrari, costarring Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz. Ferrari received an interim SAG-AFTRA agreement allowing the stars to attend the Venice Film Festival, leading to the red-carpet shots of Dempsey that may have given him the edge he needed to nab the title of Sexiest Man. An avid race car driver, Dempsey said that he’d “been following the movie for years” and that he reached out to Mann asking to be in the film. “I called Michael and said, ‘I want to discuss being a part of this,’” Dempsey recalls. “That taught me if you really want something, you have to do it yourself.”
Dempsey follows a long line of living Sexiest Men that includes, but is not limited to, George Clooney, Michael B. Jordan, Ben Affleck, Idris Elba, Paul Rudd, and Brad Pitt, as well as perhaps less obvious picks like Blake Shelton, John Legend, and most recently, Chris Evans. At 57, Dempsey is the second oldest man to be named People’s Sexiest Man Alive after Sean Connery, who was bestowed the title in 1989 when he was 59 years old. “I peaked many years ago,” joked Dempsey. “But I’m still here.”