By now, most Americans recognize World News Tonight anchor David Muir as the clean-cut, serious face of ABC’s nightly broadcast. But for a significant segment of the internet — especially those whose For You pages are full of glitter, gossip, and gratuitous thirst traps — Muir is more than just a journalist. He’s “Daddy.” And honey, he knows.
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In a delightfully self-aware interview with People, Muir, 51, leaned into the leather-scented mystique that the internet’s been projecting onto him for years. “People will forward TikTok videos, but only because they are laughing out loud at them and making fun of me and saying, ‘When did you become daddy?’” he said. “So I don’t know whether that happens when you hit 50 or what, but I’ll take it as a compliment, I think.”
Let’s be clear: we’re not calling him Daddy — the algorithm is. Blame Gay Twitter X. Blame Tumblr. Blame the viral video set to Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack.” Blame that very convincing (and completely fake) photo of his hairy chest that made the rounds last summer. It’s not our fault we saw a serious, globe-trotting newsman and thought, he probably smells like cedarwood and legacy.
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Still, the man himself? Unfazed. “Maybe it’s lost on me, but I guess daddy’s better than the alternative,” Muir added. Swoon.
Hottie in Denim
Underneath the suit and journalistic gravitas lies a man just trying to keep his jeans off-camera. Literally.
“I generally have jeans on from the waist down,” Muir admitted, confirming the long-standing theory that no one on TV wears pants anymore.
“So the first thing that we try to do is make sure my jeans aren’t showing… I really don’t try to take myself too seriously but I always just joke, ‘Don’t tell anyone about the jeans and the boots!’”
Newsflash, David: nerds and jeans are the gay agenda now. You’re already halfway to Brooklyn dad chic. One well-timed beanie and you’ll have your own runway at the Eagle.
In fact, Muir’s most relaxed moments don’t happen under the bright lights of Times Square, but far from it — on the lake, covered in mud, beside his German short-haired pointer, Axel.
“It was pouring rain and I loved every second of it,” he said of a recent Memorial Day weekend trip upstate. And in the most gay-dreamscape anecdote imaginable, he added: “I spent more time at nightfall standing on the dock with the dog who was waiting for a glimpse of this beaver coming out of the boathouse than I did doing anything else.”
We don’t know whether to cry or buy flannel.
The News, The Wisdom, The Daddy
Despite the internet’s thirst, Muir remains rooted. “I still feel like I’m that kid racing into that local newsroom all those years ago,” he said. “I love this job. I love the people that I interview and get to meet, and I think that journalism is more important than ever.”
He closed the interview with a quote so good you’ll want to embroider it on a tea towel and hang it in your queerest corner:
“The moment you stop learning, the moment you’re no longer curious, the moment you don’t believe you can be better than you were a night ago or a week ago, is probably a time to sort of check yourself.”
David Muir may be America’s most-watched news anchor, but to us? He’s just Daddy. And thank God he’s finally starting to believe it.
Source: PEOPLE
I love watching David Muir !! A true professional and SO handsome. Thank you for sharing this view of him with his fans. Now about a story on Matt Gutman and Gio Benitez and Trevor Ault? yummmm…