How TikTok Made Nicholas Alexander Chavez Hollywood’s Hottest New Heartthrob

The 25-year-old actor has had quite an eventful few months, as he’s the star of this fall’s two hottest new shows, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and Grotesquerie.

Riding the wave created by Glen Powell’s popularity in Twisters over the summer, Nicholas Alexander Chavez is not only the internet’s new boyfriend but another example of how women will always be drawn to traditionally attractive and masculine men.

Who Is Nicholas Alexander Chavez?

There’s a good chance that you never heard of Chavez before the release of Monsters and Grotesquerie, and that’s because he’s relatively new to the industry with only four acting credits under his belt. Before getting into acting, he attended Rutgers University and dropped out to pursue a career in Hollywood. Before he booked any roles however, coronavirus lockdowns forced him to move to Miami to live with his father, where he worked as a car and insurance salesman.

Luckily for Chavez, his luck turned around quickly when he was cast in his first role on the long-running soap opera, General Hospital, in 2021. His role earned him a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Performer in a Drama Series in 2022. During his acceptance speech, he got emotional as he thanked his family for supporting his dream to become an actor.

2022 was a good year for Chavez, for he also made his movie debut in the Tubi teen rom-com Crushed, but that was only a small taste of what was to come in 2024. After his General Hospital character was killed off in early 2024, he started filming Monsters. Chavez played Lyle Menendez, the older brother of the infamous duo, and portrayed him as a complicated young man who developed a harsh façade to cope with the horrific sexual, emotional, and physical abuse he faced at the hands of his father. This abuse and the desire to protect his brother, Erik (played by Cooper Koch), eventually drive the pair to kill their parents out of the fear they’d kill them first. While this portrayal isn’t 100% accurate, many praised Chavez for his acting chops as well as his ability to provide viewers with comic relief amid such a dark and tragic story.

Fans weren’t the only ones to take note of Chavez’s talent, though. Creator Ryan Murphy was quick to cast him in his latest show, Grotesquerie. The shows were filmed only days apart, and both premiering simultaneously helped Chavez rise to viral fame.

How Monsters Turned Him Into A TikTok Sensation

It only made sense for Chavez’s role of Lyle Menendez to blow up on TikTok, for the Menendez Brothers' case has been popular on TikTok for a while. While some TikTokers try to romanticize the brothers like they’re a ‘90s pop duo, most of the viral videos discuss the injustice of the case. If you’re interested in reading more about the case, you can read about it here.

Shortly after Monsters premiered on September 19, fans took to TikTok to praise both Chavez and co-star Cooper Koch. Many TikToks praised the talent of the young actors, but most gushed over how handsome the actors (especially Chavez) are. Some of the most popular videos to date are thirst trap edits of Chavez in Monsters, the most famous edit titled “That ONE Nicholas Chavez Edit” currently has 19.3 million views.

This isn’t the only viral fan edit of him, and if you’re wondering if he’s seen the edits, he has. When asked if he’d seen some of the videos, he told People Magazine, “My girlfriend and my brother and my friends, they send me the ones that they think are funny, and those are the ones that I watch. I could have never predicted that.”

While Chavez isn’t active on TikTok (even though some posts from an old account have resurfaced since he’s gone viral), his Instagram following has exploded since the premieres of Monsters and Grotesquerie. According to Social Blade data, he had less than 100k followers in mid-September and now has 1.8 million. Over one million followers were gained in October alone, and he averages over 35,000 followers gained on a daily basis. This proves not only the power of fandom and social media (Monsters has gained a huge fanbase on social media due to the Menendez Brothers already being a pop culture phenomenon), but that young women still crave hunky men.

Why Women Are Obsessed

When Chavez’s edits first started popping up on my For You Page, I naturally sent them to a bunch of my girlfriends and it’s safe to say that we couldn't stop talking about them afterwards. Chavez has somehow joined an elite squad of hot men including Zac Efron, Henry Cavill, and Glen Powell over the course of just a few TikToks. Why is that?

The first answer is obvious: he’s hot. His traditionally handsome face and athletic physique are enough to make any woman blush. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this happen in 2024, for women flocked to theaters to see Glen Powell in Twisters after several thirst trap TikToks went viral. It’s proof that no matter how much Hollywood wants to push androgynous men, women will always find their way back to masculine men.

Another reason could be that his recent characters represent the dark, damaged, sexy bad boy that many women are naturally attracted to. In his portrayal of Lyle Menendez in Monsters, he paints him as a deeply complex young man who is haunted by the sexual, emotional, and physical abuse that he’s endured under his father since he was a child. He covers his pain by putting on a macho façade to those around him, but we see it crumble the second he confronts reality. Everything changes for Lyle when his younger brother, Erik, tells him that their father abused him too. When he confronts his father, he implies that coming forward about the abuse wouldn’t end well for either Lyle or Erik. Due to their father’s history of violence, they interpret this as a death threat, making them believe that if they didn’t kill their parents first, their parents would kill them.

Did Lyle take extreme measures to protect himself and his brother? Yes, but it’s nearly impossible not to feel sympathy for him, which translates into real life as many believe that both Menendez brothers were telling the truth about being abused and don’t deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Whether we like it or not, Lyle’s story turns on the “I can fix him” mentality for many of us who feel the desire to “fix” a broken man, and Chavez looks hot doing so.

Grotesquerie is a little different. His character, Charlie, is dark and mysterious but also oozes sex appeal. Similar to characters like Klaus Mikaelson of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, he displays traits related to the Dark Triad (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism), which many women find (often to their own detriment) charming and sexually appealing. Thankfully, Chavez simply seems to be a really good actor and a genuinely nice guy in real life, so we don’t have to worry about him exhibiting these traits off-screen, but the renewed interest in characters like these shows that the allure of the dark and mysterious bad boy still shines bright in popular media.

So what’s next for Chavez? When asked about his career’s future after a breakout year, he said, “My life feels whole and complete between the words action and cut. I live for those moments. I think that is the purpose of my entire existence. Nothing brings me more satisfaction and joy as a human being than the craft of acting. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.”

While I’d love to see him in a rom-com or romantic period drama, there’s no doubt that Chavez will thrive in whichever role he takes next. With the rise of Chavez and Glen Powell, it’s safe to say that it’s the perfect time to be a hunky and talented man in Hollywood.