Earlier this week, it was brought to our attention that Netflix‘s new historical drama, Blood, Sex, & Royalty, features the strikingly hot (and gay!) actor Max Parker as the famously awful King Henry VIII.
Just witness this beautiful man, and then notice how the history books tell us Henry actually looked. Something simply does not compute!
waaah waaah, the dumptruck police have started. the actor is gay and hot (and engaged). has a nice a butt. hotter than henry would ever be. that’s all. pic.twitter.com/y5vfiXBfah
— alex (@alex_abads) November 29, 2022
Related: Unfortunately, this gay British actor is so hot he’s making us thirsty for Henry VIII
But, once we wiped the drool from our faces, we realized there is actually plenty of precedent for depicting this wife-collecting royal as inaccurately sexy. We can’t forget Eric Bana’s smoldering take on the tyrannical monarch in The Other Boleyn Girl, or Damien Lewis as a particularly hot—and hot-tempered—king in Wolf Hall. But, for today’s purposes, we want to revisit not-too-distant TV history to discuss Showtime’s The Tudors.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The notoriously horny epic had no shortage of hotties (including an early breakout role for our Superman, Henry Cavill)—chief among them, Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VII. With those beautiful pouty lips, striking blue eyes, and washboard abs, Meyers looks nothing like the former king… and the series was all the better for it!
Back then, The Tudors was criticized for being too sexual, but the amount of skin feels pretty standard for an adult epic these days, especially in our post-Game Of Thrones world. Of course, today’s TV is a little more keen on equal-opportunity nudity, though Showtime didn’t skimp on the gratuitous butt shots, especially when it came to its playboy king.
One of Meyers’ most talked about nude scenes in The Tudors came *wink, wink* in the season one finale, “The Death of Wolsey,” which aired on June 10, 2007. In its opening moments, we see Meyers’ Henry VIII in his private chambers, pleasuring himself while hunched over a loyal man servant.
While it sure looks pretty gay, we’re treated to a few interstitial shots of Anne Boleyn’s (Natalie Dormer) busty bosom that tell us what’s really on Henry’s mind. As it turns out, the servant is merely there to kneel beneath him with a towel to catch the… um… royal seed.
Thanks to some strategically placed shadows, this isn’t a full-on nude scene for Meyers, but he certainly shares a lot of himself in this moment that will forever stain our memories. Obviously, it is very NSFW so we can’t share the video, but we’ll help out the curious and drop a quick link to it here.
Related: 5 more shows to stream that feature full-frontal male nudity
It’s kind of funny to think about how much pop culture (and the way we talk about pop culture online) has changed in the nearly 15 years since this episode originally aired. Had this dropped on Showtime yesterday, there would’ve been screenshots, GIFs, and clips of it on Twitter within seconds—think of it as The White Lotus treatment. But Twitter was still young then, and our thirsty reactions to scenes like this weren’t quite so immediate (or, at least, not in public).
And, honestly? It makes us want to go back and re-watch The Tudors. You know, to jog our memories a little!
All four seasons of The Tudors are streaming now via Showtime and its subscriber channels on Amazon, Paramount+, and Roku. Episodes can also be digitally purchased via AppleTV, Amazon, GooglePlay, and Vudu.
cynthia_foxe
he is a hot piece of ass and loves it raw i heard….
bachy
All one hears about Jonathan Rhys Meyers these days is that he staggers like a zombie around London, shitfaced and puking.
theaterbloke
It is a shame about Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He has been doing the rehab/relapse dance since 2007 at least. Either it’s going to stick eventually or he’s going to come to a bad end.
theaterbloke
Ruairi O’Connor also played a sexy Henry VIII, in The Spanish Princess.
Salacious1
Learn a bit of history, guys. Henry was a stone cold stud when he was younger. Tall, athletic, graceful and shockingly handsome. Only after an injury and an illness crippling both his body & mind did he become the swollen, monstrous figure most think of.
ShaverC
Thank you. The writers here never research anything, I think they assumed he was born old and fat.
gymnofrater
Thanks for beating me to it. I really need to stop reading the text and just look at the pics by themselves.
bafoxe2
look for a penis for the night on the site -> hot4.app
SDR94103
so they shaved all the body hair back in those days? LOL
Man About Town
Not only that, the castle had a royal gym with state-of-the-art soloflex machines and free weights!
analove
Look for a Penis for the night on the Site -> hot4.app
nm4047
I think we found the dick from this post.
Dr Sarah
No; if this scene was from Henry’s younger years, it’s actually accurate. He was apparently very good-looking back in the day, before decades of self-indulgence left him an obese mess. Unfortunately, the portraits come from his later years, and hence that’s how he ended up being remembered.
GentlemanCaller
Before you go making your pronouncements about inaccurate history, maybe try learning some. Henry VIII was a big fat pig late in his life for sure, but when he was young he was famously athletic and handsome. The inaccuracy in The Tudors was keeping him that way until the last few episodes, but there’s no inaccuracy in portraying young Henry VIII as a hot piece of beefcake. Read a book, Queerty.
johncp56
One of the reasons I watched but i did not know he was ?? gay in real life ??? now i,m even happier
jerryw242
Actually, the historic Henry VIII was something of a hottie early on. It was only in middle age and later on that he put on all the weight and became the image we think of when we think of Henry VIII.
Godabed
Most of the Royals were not attractive, most of them were inbred especially the ones from england. It’s kind of odd that they would cast him as attractive historically.
jerryw242
If you had done your appropriate research instead of just relying on the famous paintings of Henry VIII as corpulent and extra-wide, you would have realized that those are images of him in later life. As a young man, Henry VIII was known to be particularly attractive and I believe there are contemporaneous paintings which attest to that effect.
Dr Sarah
Huh, this just came up in the ‘From the archives’ section of the notification e-mail. Which is a shame when so many people in the comments have pointed out that the author is actually wrong here.
dwick
Just watched Bend It Like Beckham earlier and this pops up. The man is beautiful.
barryaksarben
Like so many have pointed out the REAL Henry when young was considered the hottest man on the planet and not only in Enguld. There were poems and letters by the French and other nations about how. beautiful he was and very very tall for that time period. He had huge appetites in everything which led to his getting obese after he had a almost deadly accident which left his leg infected for the rest of his life so he became sedentary and ate overmuch
SDR94103
him gots purdy mouf.