Jack Harlow has dropped his second studio album, Come Home the Kids Miss You, to mixed reviews, and there’s one in particular that I can’t stop thinking about: Pitchfork gave the 24-year-old rapper’s latest offering a brutal 2.9/10 star rating. But before they eviscerated him as an artist (“a one-trick pony without a discernible trick”) they gushed over his appearance, commenting on his “mop of curly hair,” his “sharp blue eyes,” and his “youthful beard” and “coy smile.” They also said he was “charming,” “increasingly chiseled,” and…“tall?”
As someone who finds Harlow’s music barely mid-tier, I, too, would attribute much of his success to the hordes of women (like me) afflicted with sinful thoughts over said “mop of curly hair.” But there’s just one problem with Pitchfork’s appraisal of Mr. Harlow: The man is said to be 5’9", which, to me, a 5’8" woman, is average at best—pending his posture. More recently, I’ve seen wildly different guesses about his height, with some even identifying him as north of 6 feet, but much like men’s dating app bios, that seems… generous, if not an outright, egregious lie.
In any case, Harlow’s relative shortness at 5’9 quite surprised me, since he exudes the energy of a much taller man. His simultaneous confidence and earnestness give off the vibe of someone who does not need to overcompensate.
Now, there are plenty of celebrity men who are famously short, so much so that it’s kind of their thing, a la Kevin Hart. Meanwhile, not unlike Harlow, there are a lot of male celebs who you probably imagine to be taller than they are, short kings whose short-king-ness has long slipped under the radar. Height is, in seriousness, really not that important. Tall men’s awful personalities and questionable ethics get in their own way all the time! But if you’re shocked to learn Jack Harlow is not, in fact, seven feet tall, then in the spirit of Short King Spring, here are some other tall-energy-exuding, short-to-mid-sized kings who may surprise you...
