People is an American weekly magazine that specializes in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It is published by People Inc., a subsidiary of People Incorporated.
As of 2025, People has approximately 2.2 million paid subscribers across print and digital editions, making it one of the largest magazine audiences in the United States.
Peoples website, People.com, focuses on celebrity and crime news, royal updates, fashion and lifestyle recommendations and human interest stories. In 2025, the website attracted approximately 187 million monthly visits across desktop and mobile platforms.
People produces yearly special issues naming the "World's Most Beautiful", "Best & Worst Dressed", and "Sexiest Man Alive". The magazine's headquarters are in New York City, and it maintains editorial bureaus in Los Angeles and in London.
History
Andrew Heiskell, who was the chief executive officer of Time Inc. at the time and the former publisher of the weekly Life magazine, is credited with coming up with the idea for People Weekly. The founding managing editor was Richard Stolley, a former assistant managing editor at Life and the journalist who acquired the Zapruder film of the John F. Kennedy assassination for Time Inc. in 1963. The first publisher was Richard J. "Dick" Durrell, another Time Inc. veteran.
Stolley characterized the magazine as "getting back to the people who are causing the news and who are caught up in it, or deserve to be in it. Our focus is on people, not issues." Stolley's almost religious determination to keep the magazine people-focused contributed significantly to its rapid early success. It is said that although Time Inc. pumped an estimated $40 million into the venture, the magazine only broke even 18 months after its debut on February 25, 1974. Initially, the magazine was sold primarily on newsstands and in supermarkets. To get the magazine out each week, founding staff members regularly slept on the floor of their offices two or three nights each week and severely limited all non-essential outside engagements. The premiere edition for the week ending March 4, 1974, featured actress Mia Farrow, then starring in the film The Great Gatsby, on the cover. That issue also featured stories on Gloria Vanderbilt, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the wives of U.S. Vietnam veterans who were missing in action. The magazine was, apart from its cover, printed in black-and-white. The initial cover price was 35 cents ().
The core of the small founding editorial team included other editors, writers, photographers and photo editors from Life magazine, which had ceased publication just 13 months earlier. This group included managing editor Stolley, senior editors Hal Wingo (father of ESPN anchor Trey Wingo), Sam Angeloff (the founding managing editor of Us magazine) and Robert Emmett Ginna Jr. (a former Life writer and also a film and television producer); writers James Watters (a theater reviewer) and Ronald B. Scott (later a biographer of presidential candidate Mitt Romney); former Time senior editor Richard Burgheim (later the founder of Times ill-fated cable television magazine View); Chief of Photography, a Life photographer, John Loengard, to be succeeded by John Dominus, a noteworthy Life staff photographer; and design artist Bernard Waber, author, and illustrator of the Lyle The Crocodile book series for children. Many of the noteworthy Life photographers contributed to the magazine as well, including legends Alfred Eisenstaedt and Gjon Mili and rising stars Co Rentmeester, David Burnett and Bill Eppridge. Other members of the first editorial staff included editors and writers Ross Drake, Ralph Novak, Bina Bernard, James Jerome, Sally Moore, Mary Vespa, Lee Wohlfert, Joyce Wansley, Curt Davis, Clare Crawford-Mason, and Jed Horne, later an editor of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.
In 1996, Time Inc. launched a Spanish-language magazine entitled People en Español. The company has said that the new publication emerged after a 1995 issue of the original magazine was distributed with two distinct covers, one featuring the murdered Tejano singer Selena and the other featuring the hit television series Friends; the Selena cover sold out while the other did not."Grad Named Head of People en Español" . Tufts University. February 29, 2004. Although the original idea was that Spanish-language translations of articles from the English magazine would comprise half the content, People en Español over time came to have entirely original content.
The April 22, 2002, issue was the first to omit "Weekly" from the magazine's cover. That year, People launched People StyleWatch, a magazine devoted to celebrity style, fashion, and beauty, expanding on its StyleWatch column. Due to its success, the frequency of People Stylewatch was increased to 10 times per year in 2007. In spring 2017, People Stylewatch was rebranded as PeopleStyle. In late 2017, it was announced that there would no longer be a print version of PeopleStyle and it would be a digital-only publication.
In October 2005, it was named "Magazine of the Year" by Ad Age for excellence in editorial, circulation, and advertising.
In October 2006, People ranked number 6 on Advertising Ages annual "A-list" and number 3 on Adweeks "Brand Blazers" list.
In 2006, it had a circulation of 3.75 million.
In 2006, for financial reasons, it closed bureaus in Austin, Miami, and Chicago.
With a readership of 46.6 million adults in 2009, People had the largest audience of any American magazine.
In Australia, the localized version of People is titled Who since there was already another magazine published under the title People. The international edition of People has been published in Greece since 2010.
People had $997 million in advertising revenue in 2011, the highest advertising revenue of any American magazine.
In July 2013, Outlook Group announced that it was closing down the Indian edition of People, which began publication in 2008.
In September 2016, in collaboration with Entertainment Weekly, People launched the People/Entertainment Weekly Network. The "free, ad-supported online-video network... covering celebrities, pop culture, lifestyle and human-interest stories", was rebranded as PeopleTV in September 2017.
In December 2016, LaTavia Roberson engaged in a feud with People after alleging they misquoted and misrepresented her interview online.
Meredith purchased Time Inc., including People, in 2017. In 2019, People editor Jess Cagle announced he was stepping down from his role. It was later announced he would be replaced by deputy editor Dan Wakeford, who previously worked for In Touch Weekly. Liz Vaccariello was named the new Editor in Chief on February 23, 2022, replacing Dan Wakeford.
People fell to second place in 2018 after its readership declined to 35.9 million.
In October 2021, Dotdash agreed to purchase Meredith, which still owned People and sister magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, and Chip and Joanna Gaines' Magnolia Journal, in a $2.7 billion deal. The purchase would be finalized on December 1, 2021."IAC's Dotdash Announces Close of Meredith Transaction" , IAC, December 1, 2021, Retrieved December 5, 2023.
In April 2025, People launched a standalone mobile application featuring a vertical, scrollable feed of celebrity news, videos, and lifestyle content aimed at younger audiences.
The publisher, previously Dotdash Meredith, adopted the name People Inc. in 2025, reflecting the central role of the People brand within the company's media portfolio.
Teen People
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens, called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced that it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. In exchange, subscribers to this magazine received Entertainment Weekly for the rest of their subscriptions. There were numerous reasons cited for the publication shutdown, including a downfall in ad pages, competition from both other teen-oriented magazines and the internet, and a decrease in circulation numbers. Teenpeople.com was merged into People.com in April 2007. People.com will "carry teen-focused stories that are branded as TeenPeople.com", Mark Golin, the editor of People.com explained. On the decision to merge the brands, he stated, "We've got traffic on TeenPeople, People is a larger site, why not combine and have the teen traffic going to one place?"
Competition for celebrity photos In a July 2006 Variety article, Janice Min, Us Weekly editor-in-chief, blamed People for the increase in cost to publishers of celebrity photos:
People reportedly paid $4.1 million for photos of newborn Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, the child of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The photos set a single-day traffic record for their website, attracting 26.5 million page views.
Sexiest Man Alive The annual feature the "Sexiest Man Alive" is billed as a benchmark of male attractiveness and typically includes only famous people. It is determined using a procedure similar to the procedure used for Times Person of the Year. The origin of the title was a discussion on a planned story on Mel Gibson. Someone exclaimed, "Oh my God, he is the sexiest man alive!" And someone else said, "You should use that as a cover line."
For the first decade or so, the feature appeared at uneven intervals. Originally awarded in the wintertime, it shifted around the calendar, resulting in gaps as short as seven months and as long as a year and a half, with no selection at all during 1994 (21 years later the magazine did select Keanu Reeves to fill the 1994 gap, with runners-up including Hugh Grant and Jim Carrey). Since 1997, the dates have settled between mid-November and early December. Denzel Washington was the first racialized winner, and Jonathan Bailey was the first openly LGBTQ+ winner.
Dates of magazine issues, winners, ages of winners at the time of selection, and pertinent comments are listed below.
, former winners John F. Kennedy Jr., Sean Connery, and Patrick Swayze have since died. Kennedy and David Beckham are the only non-entertainers to have won the accolade.
+ Year Choice Age Mel Gibson 29 Mark Harmon 34 Harry Hamlin 35 John F. Kennedy Jr. 28 Sean Connery 59 Tom Cruise 27 Patrick Swayze 38 Nick Nolte 51 Richard Gere (1)(Sexiest Couple Alive) 44 Cindy CrawfordIn 1993, People named Gere and Crawford the "Sexiest Couple Alive" instead of naming a sexiest man.27 1994 (awarded on ) Keanu Reeves 30 Brad Pitt (1) 32 Denzel Washington 41 George Clooney (1) 36 Harrison Ford 56 Richard Gere (2) 50 Brad Pitt (2) 37 Pierce Brosnan 48 Ben Affleck 30 Johnny Depp (1) 40 Jude Law 31 36 George Clooney (2) 45 Matt Damon 37 Hugh Jackman 40 Johnny Depp (2) 46 Ryan Reynolds 34 Bradley Cooper 36 Channing Tatum 32 Adam Levine 34 Chris Hemsworth 31 David Beckham 40 Dwayne Johnson44 Blake Shelton41 Idris Elba46 John Legend40 Michael B. Jordan33 Paul Rudd52 Chris Evans41Patrick Dempsey57November 13, 2024John Krasinski45November 3, 2025Jonathan Bailey37
Centerfold The magazine released its first Sexiest Man Alive centerfold issue in 2025, with singer Role Model being chosen.
Year Choice Age Role Model 28
Sexiest Woman Alive
In December 2014, People selected its first and only Sexiest Woman Alive, Kate Upton. Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere were declared "Sexiest Couple of the Year" on October 19, 1993.
Year Choice Age Kate Upton 22
Cutest Baby Alive In 2019, People selected its first Cutest Baby Alive, Andy Cohen's son Benjamin. In 2020, Anderson Cooper's son, Wyatt Morgan, was named the Cutest Baby Alive.
Year Choice Benjamin Cohen Wyatt Morgan
Most Intriguing People of the Year