Looking like Jalen Hurts ‘doesn’t hurt,’ says contest winner
A Philadelphia bartender easily won a Jalen Hurts look-alike contest Sunday at Rittenhouse Square.
A few hundred Eagles fans — mostly wide-eyed women — circled the man with the distinct eyebrows, sharp goatee, and chiseled jawline, some just eyeballing him, others yelling out questions.
“What’s your Instagram?”
“Are you single?”
“How much can you squat?”
In Philly, it pays to look like Jalen Hurts.
“It sure doesn’t hurt,” said Quaeleb Monfiston, a dead ringer for the Eagles star quarterback.
Monfiston, a 29-year-old Philadelphia bartender, received the loudest applause and made a few women blush in the bitter cold Sunday afternoon in Rittenhouse Square, seemingly locking up the Hurts look-alike contest as soon as he emerged from the crowd.
“Who looks like Jalen Hurts? Come up here,” organizer Morgan Blagman announced at 12:30 p.m.
Hurts is the latest Philadelphia celebrity to have a look-alike contest, along with Miles Teller and Jason Kelce. It’s all part of a larger trend that’s popped up, nationally, for no clear reason other than “why not?” Actor Timothée Chalamet had one, Jeremy Allen White, of The Bear, too.
Sen. Bernie Sanders had one Saturday in Vermont.
On Sunday, Elijah Thomas, 30, was the first to step out of the crowd. He bore a resemblance to Hurts, getting a decent reception from the growing crowd. Thomas said it’s mostly the eyebrows and his cheekbones.
“I would say, ‘You look like a legend,’” Thomas said when asked what he’d say to Hurts.
Thomas had a look of defeat when Monfiston emerged from the crowd.
“Everybody is always yelling ‘You look like Jalen Hurts’ every time I walk around, so why not?,” he said.
Women roared at the sight of him.
“I drove two hours to be here. Write that down,” said Erin Kelly, a Lancaster County resident.
Kelly is married.
“Very married,” she said.
Tara Loskowski, 40, of South Philly, said the event had been posted in the Philaqueens Facebook group.
“We’ve been talking about this for a while,” she said.
Nina Cunningham, 21, came to support her boyfriend, who was garnering quite a bit of attention as top Hurts look-alike. She said she didn’t mind that he gave his Instagram handle out, to the public — with a bullhorn.
“He’s going home with me,” she said.
Monfiston, of course, won the contest, earning two tickets to the Eagles-Steelers game later Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field and a year’s worth of free coffee at Dunkin’.
He did leave the crowd a bit disappointed when he said he’d be taking a relative to the game instead of one of them.
“It’s my cousin’s birthday,” he said.