Stop Asking Ayo Edebiri About Jeremy Allen White's Calvin Klein Ad

Ah, the Golden Globes. Long considered the looser and drunker cousin to the Academy Awards, it’s also where interview hosts finesse their snappiest lines to celebrities ahead of the Oscars red carpet in March, which includes putting them on the spot with weirdly sycophantic but also clearly-engineered-to-go-viral questions. But one actress simply isn’t having it.

The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri politely declined to answer multiple questions about co-star Jeremy Allen White’s Calvin Klein undies campaign because – we’re extrapolating here – it’s clearly awkward as fuck to be shown half-naked pictures of someone you work with every day.

In one interview clip, Edebiri and the rest of the cast were shown a blown-up picture of White in his undies and asked “what went through your mind when you saw this?” As White laughs nervously, Edebiri walks over, calmly places the poster face-down against a wall and says: “I’m putting it away… That’s my boy! This is a work function, do you know what I mean?”

In another clip, Edebiri and Abbott Elementary star Quinta Brunson were shown the campaign on the red carpet. “I’m happy for him, that’s my boy,” Edebiri repeats, “but I want people to understand he’s my coworker.” 

The campaign for Calvin Klein underwear recently went extremely viral because, obviously, he looks extremely ripped and hot, inspiring at least one TikTok user to film herself and her friends blowing kisses and genuflecting next to one of White’s billboards. But, as Edebiri’s comments point out, in the same way you wouldn’t expect to be shown Sandra from HR’s thirst traps at a company function, you probably shouldn’t be doing the same to actors on the red carpet.

White didn’t manage to escape questioning, either. “It is strange,” he said in a post-Emmy interview when asked how he felt that his campaign was more talked about than his acting. “It’s been a weird couple of days. It is bizarre doing a Calvin Klein ad and it is even more bizarre having it come out.” 

Luckily, both Edebiri and White secured awards for their performances at the ceremony, so at least they had something less awkward to talk about on their Monday morning Teams call.