I met him on a hot summer day in the middle of June.
I had just finished my yoga class, and I was floating down the street with my eyes glued to my phone. Suddenly, I was close to stepping on someone’s toes.
A deep, seductive voice said, “Excuse me?”
Finally peeling my eyes off the screen, I was confronted with what seemed like the biggest, bluest, most beautiful eyes I’ve seen in my entire life.
I immediately identified that they belonged to Jared Leto, the source of my teenage infatuation. The encounter was all too brief — with the “don’t walk” signal blinking on the traffic light, we parted ways and proceeded to carry on with our lives. The short love affair was far too fleeting.
With NYU’s location in swanky Greenwich Village, it’s not uncommon for students to spot celebrities around campus.
Steinhardt junior Youyi Li once saw Brooklyn Beckham while she was walking to class.
“It was in front of The New School — I saw him with his new hairstyle and a bunch of peers,” Li said.
Much to Li’s surprise, not many who passed by seemed to care.
“I don’t think anyone noticed him, really,” Li said. “I feel like he seemed more mediocre than I thought he would be. He just looked like a normal student on the street.”
Li was not the only one who found her celebrity encounter rather disenchanting. Stern junior Maria Sadlocha had a similar experience with Lily-Rose Depp — Johnny Depp’s daughter, who is a model and an actress. She ran into her just steps off the intersection of Broadway and West Fourth Street.
“I barely recognized her,” Sadlocha said. “She looked like a–.”
According to Sadlocha, she could have easily mistaken Depp for a regular NYU student.
“If I didn’t follow her on Instagram, I wouldn’t know that she has so much money and she’s so famous,” she said.
CAS sophomore Hunter Wolff had a chance to meet singer Dev Hynes, better known by the stage name Blood Orange, in Washington Square Park. He even managed to spark a brief conversation with the singer.
“I was like, ‘Dev?’, and he was like, ‘Yeah, hey man! What’s up?’” Wolff said. “We talked for a minute, but he was with someone else. I didn’t want to intrude.”
Some celebrities prove to be a more common sight than others. Many have spotted Alec Baldwin walking his dog more than once.
“Alec Baldwin’s apartment was across the street from Brittany, my first-year residence hall,” Gallatin junior Saransh Desai-Chowdhry said. “I’ve seen him walking his dog a handful of times.”
Some NYU students have a protocol against approaching or drawing attention to celebrities.
“Growing up in Los Angeles, I’ve learned that the best policy is to just let these people live their lives,” Desai-Chowdhry said.
Email Valerie Stepanova at [email protected].
