We all have an embarrassing list of celeb childhood crushes whose names we used to doodle with glitter gel pens and embellish with heart stickers. Our once innocent eyes knew no better and fell for every big screen star and boy band lead—even if they had platinum hair and a weird sun-like tattoo around their navel.
With time and maturity, though, our list grew shorter and shorter as certain candidates lost their charming looks, while others lost brain cells, and some we realized were just never that cute to begin with. Here’s a list of celebs we swore we’d marry before our good sense and eyesight fully developed! —Essence Gant
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Tyrese
His tweets, his “paintings,” and his home video ramblings turned us all the way off! Did I mention his tweets?
Immature
Remember fighting with your besties on who was going to marry Batman, Romeo or LBD? The boy band Immature, later known as IMx, had us swooning for reasons we still can’t seem to put our finger on.
Malcolm Jamal Warner aka Theo
Malcolm Jamal Warner never did much for me, but he managed to win a lot of hearts during his eight-season run on The Cosby Show. He may have avoided making this list if not for the baby hoop earrings, choker necklaces and really tight button downs he seemingly likes to wear these days.
Jaleel White aka Stefan Urquell
The geeky, bent-kneed and clumsy Steve Urkel was quite the eyesore, but when he transformed into the debonair Stefan Urquell, our feelings of disgust turned into tummy butterflies and prissy giggles. Watching reruns 20 plus years later, we now realize that Urquell wasn’t much of an upgrade from Urkel.
Tevin Campbell
Every girl had a crush on Tevin, especially after his guest appearance on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air! While “Can We Talk?” is still our jam, our deep rooted love for the 90s crooner has faded. He still has an adorbs quality, but in a fragile, boney and elderly-looking kind of way.
Mr. Dalvin and DeVante Swing
Before K-Ci and JoJo did their duo thing, they were part of Jodeci, one of R&B’s biggest wonders, with two other bandmates by the names of Dalvin and DeVante. K-Ci and JoJo were the vocalists, while Dalvin and DeVante were the lookers. After Googling how the two Ds kept up their sexy bad boy looks, however, we were disappointed… to say the least.
What can we say? We were young and dumb.
Kel Mitchell
We loved Kel just as much as he loved orange soda! The All That, Kenan &Kel, and Good Burger actor just doesn’t do it for us anymore though. He looks more like the really cool youth pastor type who you may grab brunch with, but not dinner and drinks.
Ray J
Some of us really liked Ray J, while others of us just wanted to be Brandy’s sister-in-law (meeee!). His antics (the Kim K sex tape, the Kim K diss record, the drug induced call to Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, and so on), however, were just too much to bare and our fire for the childhood actor and singer blew out.
Fredro Starr aka “Q” from Moesha
His cool, raspy voice and bad boy swag as “Q” on Moesha had us weak in the knees. Fredro proved to be a bit of a lame though after spilling his alleged dealings with R&B’s beloved Brandy and spazzing on The Breakfast Club when Charlamagne asked him about the allegations. Aside from all of that though, he’s just not that cute.