On Saturday night, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine wed supermodel Behati Prinsloo. The ceremony was conducted by none other than Jonah—sorry, I used a Homophobic Slur but it’s OK because my friend is gay—Hill, and the majority of bridesmaids were Victoria’s Secret models. Essentially, if a bro-y d-bag designed a wedding, it would resemble the Levine-Prinsloo affair. Oh, wait: the Fresh Prince of Douchebagville did plan this wedding.
Many lamented the fact that People’s reigning Sexiest Man Alive is now betrothed. And sure, for those unfamiliar with Levine’s rampant douchebaggery, it is sad to see him officially go off the market. But for anyone who’s read or heard Levine's sorry attempts to string words together in a way that doesn’t make him sound like a jackass, there’s only one way to describe how we feel: good riddance. Oh, and good luck to Behati. Mazel tov, darling. He’s your problem now.
Levine has done a remarkably good job of making us forget that he is, objectively, a physically sexy man. When he’s not arrogantly smirking or doing his best Blue Steel impersonation, his abs, collection of tats, and eyes could overwhelm anyone who grooves to the male sex. I stress his admittedly attractive physical attributes because pretty much every other bit of his personality and behavior acts as one giant bonerkiller.
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We all remember when Levine shot to fame with Maroon 5's Songs About Jane. But it became pretty clear once Levine was in the limelight why this Jane dumped his ass. By the way, he, of course, set the record straight that he is the one who rejected her, despite the fact that, you know, he wrote an entire album about her. Regardless of the truth, it’s a super-classy move to publicly stress that you ditched the woman who inspired your first successful musical endeavor.
From there, Levine’s escapades only get worse as he wreaked havoc at Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont. First famous lady on deck was a freshly divorced Jessica Simpson, who in 2006 was seen leaving the Hollywood hotspot wearing Levine’s shirt. Solidifying his reputation as the one you wish had gotten away, Levine reportedly broke up with Simpson via text message.
Mr. Charm proceeded to bang and tell his way through Hollywood. A lot. He met cocktail waitress Rebecca Ginos the night of her 21st birthday in 2007 and proudly told Howard Stern on his radio program, “We had sex the first night we met.” That wasn’t the last time Levine would overshare on The Howard Stern Show. He was in a long-term relationship with Russian Victoria’s Secret model Anne Vyalitsyna for two years. In an interview with Stern, Levine admitted they rely on the “pull-out method,” which he described as a “full-proof birth control system.” She pulled out of the relationship two months later.
Even though discretion isn’t exactly his strong suit, and he has a professed penchant for not wearing condoms, Levine has still managed to bed a plethora of ladies who’ve graced the catwalk. Levine is all about the models. He likes them almost as much as unprotected sex. It's no shocker the first Mrs. Levine is a supermodel. More specifically, Prinsloo is the third Victoria’s Secret model that Levine has courted (Vyalitsyna was an Angel, and in 2009, he dated Angela Bellotte, another Victoria’s Secret alumna). Oh, and when he and Prinsloo briefly split up in 2013 right before they got engaged, Levine occupied himself with another Victoria’s Secret model, Nina Adgal.
It’s not that Levine beds many a model. He’s hardly the first rock star to do so. But his general approach to women and sex—even ones he claims he hasn’t slept with—shows what an arrogant and self-righteous lothario he is. Levine was named on Lindsay Lohan’s infamous celebrity fuck list. Now that Lohan is no longer an A-list celebrity, he washed his hands clean of the redheaded bombshell. In a statement that oddly echoed Bill Clinton’s response to questioning about Monica Lewinsky, Levine told Stern (who is, apparently, his nearest and dearest confidante), “I did not have sexual intercourse with Lindsay Lohan.” When Stern asked him if anybody had sex with Lohan, Levine replied, “A lot of people probably did.” It wasn’t enough to merely deny the rumor; he had to top it off with a pinch of slut-shaming, too. Who says chivalry is dead?
The way he approaches his sexual escapades is only a microcosm of his general douchebag approach to life. There’s swagger, and then there’s grossly misplaced confidence that you’re a musical and sexual god.
It just takes a quick Google search to find endless lists of Levine’s verbal gems in magazine profiles, but here are a few critical favorites. He told Cosmo UK, “I spend most of my life naked,” adding, “In fact, I often have to be told by the people around me that it’s inappropriate to be as naked as I am. But I live in California, where it’s always warm, so why not?” Oh, I don’t know, Levine. Shocking as it is that us mere mortals wouldn’t want to be graced by your nudity, maybe we actually aren’t dying to see your junk all the damn time?
In his (in)famous Details profile, Levine rattled off a series of remarks that made him seem both like a massive tool and potentially lacking a junior high understanding of science. Apparently, Levine has a phobia of flying, which is completely normal; what isn’t is his explanation for it: “I hate flying. Know why? Because no one really understands how planes actually work.”
He also explained his love of sleeping around in the most self-aggrandizing way possible, claiming, “There are men who are fucking misogynist pigs, and then there are men who just really love women, who think they’re the most amazing people in the world. And that’s me. Maybe the reason I was promiscuous, and wanted to sleep with a lot of them, is that I love them so much.” Yup, and that’s totally why you break up with them over text and don’t wear condoms.
His attempts at thoughtfulness fall flat, especially when he attempts On Walden Pond-esque introspection and self-assessment. In the June GQ, he said, “So I’m gonna get really intricately self-reflective right now and ask myself the hard questions, to find out, once and for all, definitively, whether or not I’m a douchebag.” Let me spare you the reading time: He never satisfactorily responds to that question, but then again, the answer is self-evident.
Of course, when it comes to Levine, it’s hard not to return to his lothario history. Later on in the profile, Levine justifies his less than savory sexual past with another giant heap of pseudo-science bullshit. He claims men simply “are not as mature as women. There’s a very Neanderthal quality that still exists in a lot of men. There’s the carnal shit you can’t deny.” The Carnal Shit You Can’t Deny: The Autobiography of Adam Levine, available on Kindle soon.
