Kaley Cuoco's Celebrity Crush Might Surprise You
On "The Big Bang Theory," Kaley Cuoco played a Cheesecake Factory waitress who aspired to be a famous actor. However, her character, Penny, didn't have to be a celebrity to make guys fall head over heels for her. When she moved in across the hall from physicist Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), he and most members of his love-starved friend group immediately started crushing on her, and it's safe to say plenty of viewers felt the same way about Cuoco.
Over the years, Cuoco helped humanize a fantasy girl who seemed unattainable at first by showing viewers her flaws, which was part of Penny's appeal. During a 2008 interview with Closer Weekly, the actor shared her thoughts on why Penny was such a hit with fans. "My character is not this raging sexpot who women don't want to watch and men are bothered by. She's not obnoxious," she said.
The role eventually helped Cuoco become one of television's highest-paid stars, but gaining wealth and fame didn't make Cuoco immune to crushing on her fellow celebs. In fact, she confessed to being obsessed with an actor who appeared on a different long-running sitcom with an ensemble cast viewers fell in love with. Read on to learn about all of Cuoco's celebrity crushes (yes, there are way more than one).
Kaley Cuoco adores a certain Friends star and her ex
During a 2016 appearance on "Late Night with Seth Meyers," Kaley Cuoco confessed that she's a "crazy obsessed Jennifer Aniston fan." When she was 11 years old, she appeared alongside Aniston in the movie "Picture Perfect." Her role was small, but it provided her with a priceless opportunity to tell Aniston how much she enjoyed watching her on "Friends."
"She was so kind," Cuoco told Emmy magazine in September 2020. Years later, she got to meet her idol again at a tribute to James Burrows. Cuoco received a warm welcome from Aniston that she'll probably cherish for the rest of her days. "It was like the skies opened up, and she smelled like a garden," she remembered. "It was everything I dreamed it would be." Cuoco also described Aniston as her "girl crush" while speaking to the Associated Press in 2015. "She was funny and cool and cute, and I just idolized her," she gushed. Cuoco told Meyers that she really wanted to ask Aniston for her phone number but managed to restrain herself from going full-on fangirl.
It might be a good thing that the women didn't become BFFs who chat every day because they'd eventually have to have an awkward conversation about what Cuoco said about one of Aniston's exes. "My crush is and always will be Brad Pitt," she told W Magazine. "Until he's 80, I will still think he is the hottest thing around."
Kaley Cuoco kissed one of her crushes and dated another
Kaley Cuoco's list of celebrity crushes is pretty eclectic. In 2008, she told Vanity Fair that one famous guy who had caught her eye was "Alias" actor Michael Vartan. But by 2011, she was telling Playboy that she was really into funny men like "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane and "Talking Dead" host Chris Hardwick, whom she described as "sexy."
One of Cuoco's first Hollywood crushes came early in her career when she was shooting a Disney Channel original movie. She told W Magazine that she had a crush on a co-star, and he wound up being her first kiss. "He took me on a date, and he actually kissed me," she recalled. "Kids got wild on those Disney movies back in the day." She revealed that the young Romeo got fired before filming was completed, and his identity remains a mystery.
Years later, Cuoco would admit to developing feelings for Johnny Galecki as soon as they began working on "The Big Bang Theory" together. "I had such a crush on him, and I didn't think that he felt that way about me," she said on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast. However, the co-stars went on to date for "about two years" before deciding they were better off as friends. Now that Cuoco and Karl Cook are getting a divorce, fans are waiting to see if Cuoco might have a future with any other celeb crushes.