Last month, Page Six ran a basically boring (but in some places confusing) report about how ladies love Nicholas Braun. The gossip outlet declared the Succession star — who is 33 years old and six feet, seven inches tall — “NYC’s hottest bachelor.” As evidence for this claim, an intrepid reporter noted that “throngs of twentysomethings” regularly line up at Ray’s, the Lower East Side faux dive bar in which Braun is an investor, to get a glimpse of the man himself. “The reason I first went to Ray’s was, honestly, Nicholas Braun-motivated,” said one anonymous (allegedly twentysomething) woman.
Is Braun actually NYC’s hottest bachelor? That’s a question I don’t care to think about too much. But I bet someone else is thinking about it all the time, and that person is Justin Theroux.
Theroux, the 50-year-old actor who was previously fake-married to Jennifer Aniston, is also a bachelor and an investor in Ray’s. When the bar first opened in the summer of 2019, his name was in every headline about it. In those halcyon early days, throngs of twentysomethings bought $12 beers in the hopes of rubbing elbows with that guy from The Leftovers. But then, the second season of Succession premiered, and Braun revealed in an interview that he was also an investor in the bar. By accident or design, the majority of Ray’s promotional duties shifted to the younger actor. In early 2020, Braun posed for Vogue to announce the opening of Ray’s “downstairs speakeasy”; Theroux faded into the background.
It wasn’t always like this. Not three years ago, Theroux was a downtown socialite, regularly accused of dating scenesters like Petra Collins and A-list celebrities like Emma Stone and Selena Gomez. Now, all anyone cares about is who Braun might be dating. No matter how many times Theroux walks his rescue dog very slowly around Washington Square Park in front of the paparazzi, he can’t catch a break.
Does this bother Theroux? Well, it doesn’t seem like he’s gone out of his way to befriend his younger business partner. Theroux and Braun have never posed for a photo together, and they don’t talk about each other in interviews. (It’s possible they have appeared on each other’s Instagram Stories, but I haven’t seen it.) I’ve never been to Ray’s, but I imagine their co-working relationship looks something like this: Theroux stands behind the bar, trying to look like he’s trying not to be noticed, while Braun talks to 40 different women across the room. Heartbreaking.
Justin, if you do in fact resent Braun and wish you were getting more attention for yourself, please reach out. We are always available to talk.
