The search engine released its ranking from the past year, which includes celebrities such as David Beckham, Kylian Mbappé, Jenna Ortega and Andrew Tate. Of the top 10, only two women made the list
Once again, it’s clear that stories but also their protagonists captivated us in 2023. They also made us ask Google a lot of questions. The search engine has published its ranking of the most-searched questions on the internet in 2023. Based on the data, it’s clear that what’s important to us — beyond the mere who — is, above all, the what.
Google divides its search report of the year into categories: the most-searched news (led by the war in Gaza), deaths (Matthew Perry is the first in that section), actors (Jeremy Renner), athletes (Damar Hamlin), video games (Hogwarts Legacy), movies (Barbie), singers (Shakira), recipes (bibimbap), songs (Yoasobi, a Japanese superduo), sports teams (Inter Miami), TV series (The Last of Us) and museums (the Louvre in Paris).
In this report, we look at the 10 most-searched people on Google over the last 12 months… a classification in which only two women appear. The list is headed by the American football player Damar Hamlin, while it also reflects that the top 10 have little in common with each other (beyond being world-famous stars).
Damar Hamlin
Damar Hamlin, 25, isn’t the most-searched person of the year because of his love life, which perhaps makes his story particularly fascinating. Last January, the Pennsylvanian NFL player suffered a cardiac arrest in the middle of a game that his team, the Buffalo Bills, was playing against the Cincinnati Bengals. Hamlin received CPR on the field until he was stabilized. He was then taken to a hospital, where he was in critical condition for a week.
In August, his team’s coach, Sean McDermott, announced the player’s return, just seven months after his “resurrection.”
“I’m blessed to have the opportunity to get back to doing what I love most,” Hamlin said, upon his return to an official match last October, just nine months after the incident that hit the sports world and forced America’s most popular league to review its safety policies.
Damar Hamlin
52-year-old Jeremy Renner, known for his role as Hawkeye in Marvel’s Avengers films, has a similar story to Hamlin. He was the second-most Googled person over the last 12 months due to a terrible accident that almost cost him his life. It also happened last January, when the actor was cleaning the entrance to his house with a snow plow. He lost control of the machine and crashed into his nephew’s truck. Renner suffered a collision that caused multiple fractures throughout his body. His millions of worried followers have been monitoring his recovery every month through social media. His first appearance after the accident was in Los Angeles, during the red carpet at the premiere of his new series, Rennervations. Supported by a cane, he spoke to the media: “These 30-plus broken bones will mend, grow stronger, just like the love and bond with family and friends deepens.”
Andrew Tate
Andrew Tate, 37, is an atypical influencer. He’s been canceled on social media on multiple occasions for homophobic, sexist, anti-vax and misogynistic comments. In 2022, he was arrested in Romania, accused of having committed acts of sex-trafficking.
The former kickboxing champion made multiple headlines in 2023. At the beginning of the year, Elon Musk allowed Tate to return to Twitter. This led to a wave of criticism and demands that he be expelled again. Furthermore, last August, the Romanian justice system granted the influencer conditional release before his trial begins. This has caused several social media users to become even more agitated.
Kylian Mbappé
Kylian Mbappé, at only 25, became one of the most viral people in 2023. The Paris-born soccer player’s professional future remains a mystery. In 2024, a new trade window opens in Europe… as does a new chapter in the frustrated romance between Mbappé and Real Madrid, which has become one of the most talked-about topics in sports journalism. Even the president of the French Republic himself, Emmanuel Macron, reiterated by telephone to the soccer player that he was an example for the French and that he should stay with his Parisian team. However, it became known in December that Florentino Pérez, the president of Real Madrid, has prepared a contract for Mbappé that will be impossible for him to reject.
Travis Kelce
At the beginning of 2023, Travis Kelce, 34, probably didn’t imagine that he was about to end up becoming one of the most-Googled people on the internet. His career as an NFL player for the Kansas City Chiefs hasn’t resulted in as many headlines in the media (or as many comments on social media) as his recent relationship with singer Taylor Swift.
Travis Kelce had a crush on the singer. When she came to sing at Arrowhead Stadium where he was playing, he wanted to give her one of the bracelets that fans make for her concerts. The bracelet — instead of a song title — had his phone number.
Now, five months later, they’ve become one of the couples of the year, holding hands and being seen in public on a regular basis… something very different from how the artist has handled her past relationships. Lots of Swifties were online, trying to find out more information about their idol’s new partner.
Jenna Ortega
Jenna Ortega, 21, is an American actress of Latin origin who rose to global stardom after the premiere of the Netflix series Wednesday, in November of 2022. But this young actress continued to make people talk well into 2023.
Following her success in the supernatural comedy horror TV series directed by Tim Burton, in March, she sat down with the Armchair Expert podcast to talk about how she felt working on a project by the man who created classics such as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). And the Californian took advantage of the moment, holding nothing back: “I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in a way that I had to on Wednesday. Everything that [my character] does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all.”
“Her being in a love triangle made no sense,” Ortega explained. “There was a line about a dress she has to wear for a school dance, and she said, ‘Oh my God, I love it.’ And I had to go, ‘No.’” After this attack on the series, social media caught fire with different arguments for and against the actress.
Last November, she abandoned her role as the protagonist of Scream 7 due to scheduling issues with the filming of the second season of Wednesday. Still, her film career continues its course. This past December 15, Finestkind premiered, a film in which the actress co-stars with Tommy Lee Jones. And over the course of 2023, she also participated in several advertising campaigns. In April, she became an ambassador for Dior’s Gris perfume.
Lil Tay
Lil Tay is a Canadian rapper and influencer who has more than 5.5 million followers on social media. Her real name is Claire Hope. She became famous five years ago, with a viral video in which she publicly accused her father of physically and mentally abusing her.
In 2023, the musician, aged only 16, faced her own death on social media. On August 10, several online tabloids announced that Tay had died of unknown causes and that her death had occurred on the same day that her 21-year-old brother had also lost his life. No media outlets could confirm the news (even though many published it). Such was the confusion that the young woman had to come out and deny the rumors.
The influencer wanted to explain herself through a statement provided by the family to TMZ: “I want to make it clear that my brother and I are safe and alive, but I’m completely heartbroken, and struggling to even find the right words… it’s been a very traumatizing 24 hours. All day yesterday, I was bombarded with endless heartbreaking and tearful phone calls from loved ones all while trying to sort out this mess.”
The young woman claimed that her Instagram account had been hacked by someone who had been spreading misinformation. In the end, the rapper was able to recover her social media accounts and the statement about her death was deleted. However, many still wonder why it took her 24 hours to deny her own death. Some have asked if it was simply a joke that got out of hand, or a publicity stunt to gain followers.
Danny Masterson
Danny Masterson, 47, is an American actor known for his leading role in the series That ‘70s Show. In 2023, the actor appeared in court several times, until, last September, he was found guilty of two counts of rape. Two trials had to be held for jurors to side with the prosecution and the victims, who claimed to have been sexually abused by the television star 20 years ago. Apparently, Masterson used his standing in the Church of Scientology to evade justice.
Masterson left the court handcuffed and in front of his wife — actress and model Bijou Phillips — who filed for divorce weeks later. The actor received a sentence of 30 years to life in prison. His name spread like wildfire on the internet again when it was learned that Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher supported their former co-star through letters they sent to the judge before the sentence was handed down. After learning of his sentence, the couple released a video asking for forgiveness from the victims and regretting the pain caused by the words they sent to the judge.
David Beckham
In 2023, David Beckham, 48, decided to star in a documentary made up of four one-hour-long episodes that premiered on Netflix last October. The former soccer player already offered a preview of the series’ content in April, revealing that he suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). But this was only the beginning of many other details.
The revelations about his life that are revealed in the documentary are made alongside his wife, Victoria Beckham, who has been essential to the story of the former captain of the English national soccer team. The four chapters talk about almost everything: his childhood, his beginnings at Manchester United, his love story with the former Spice Girl, the headlines about infidelities and his efforts to turn Inter Miami into a winning soccer club thanks to the help of Lionel Messi, who joined the team last summer. All of this has, understandably, earned him a good number of Google searches.
Pedro Pascal
Although the 48-year-old Chilean has been in the world of acting for a long time, his global stardom grew even more in 2023, with his role as the protagonist in the HBO series The Last of Us, viewership for which reached the levels of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.
Pascal — who has become one of the most desired men on the internet over the past 12 months — has seen the job offers pour in. In addition to continuing with The Mandalorian on Disney+, the actor hosted SNL in February. And, in May – in the middle of the Cannes Film Festival – Pedro Almodóvar premiered his new short, Strange Way of Life, with Pascal and Ethan Hawke as the protagonists. The director described the characters of Sheriff Jake (Hawke) and Silva (Pascal) as portraits of these two talented actors. He also expressed his joy at the fact that they participated, since he needed two actors who were the complete opposites of each other, even in physical terms, and who represented two different cultures. “One is cold, hermetic Anglo-Saxon, while the other is the opposite: warm, truculent… unafraid of talking about his desires.” For the Spanish director, Pascal and Hawke were the perfect choices.
