Here’s a sure-fire way to get a discussion, and even a lively debate, going among friends from Pennsylvania. Challenge each other to name the most famous Pennsylvania celebrities.
PennStakes.com — your source for Pennsylvania online casinos — took a hyper-localized approach to determine which celebrities that were raised in Pennsylvania were being discussed the most in the past year, and concluding they would be the most well-known celebrities from the Keystone State.
In arriving at the top 10, PennStakes.com utilized a weighted system between AhRefs.com Keywords Explorer and Google Trends to look at the most-searched Pennsylvania celebrities over the past 12 months (October 2023 to October 2024). Once finding both statistics, they were averaged to determine the top 10.
To set the parameters for this list, a Pennsylvania celebrity was defined as a person who resided in Pennsylvania in their formative childhood and teenage years for more than five years. To make this list, celebrities had to be living actors/actresses, singer/songwriters, TV personalities, comedians, dancers, or social media influencers.
Weighted Rank | Celebrity | Hometown | Average Search Volume Per Month |
1 | Taylor Swift, Singer-Songwriter | West Reading, PA | 17.0 M |
2 | Sabrina Carpenter, Singer-Songwriter | Quakertown, PA | 4.0 M |
3 | Will Smith, Actor | Philadelphia, PA | 1.8M |
4 | Bradley Cooper, Actor | Abington Township, PA | 1.6M |
5 | Richard Gere, Actor | Philadelphia, PA | 875K |
6 | Kevin Hart, Comedian / Actor | Philadelphia, PA | 859K |
7 | Christina Aguilera, Singer-Songwriter | Pittsburgh, PA | 727K |
8 | Michael Keaton, Actor | Kennedy Township, PA | 706K |
9 | Miles Teller, Actor | Downingtown, PA | 670K |
10 | Amanda Seyfried, Actress | Allentown, PA | 653K |
MORE: Pennsylvania sportsbooks
Given the above, many show business legends from Pennsylvania from earlier eras — such as opera singer Marian Anderson, show host Dick Clark, tenor Mario Lanza, comedian W.C. Fields, dancer Gene Kelly and actress Grace Kelly — are not on this more contemporary list.
Actually, given the pop culture climate of 2024, there’s really not much debate as to the most famous Pennsylvanian of the moment. That would be the performer who has become an industry unto herself, Taylor Swift. Swift had a search volume of 17 million, more than four times the second-place celeb, singer Sabrina Carpenter.
Swift, 34, hails from West Reading. She initially attended Wyomissing Junior/Senior High School but in her early-teen years started making frequent trips to Nashville, Tenn. Seemingly ubiquitous in the public eye, whether on stadium tours or appearing in TV commercials, the singer-songwriter has earned her celebrity with 14 Grammy Awards among dozens of other honors and has been estimated to have a net worth of $740 million by Forbes.
Swift in the past year has also garnered unprecedented media attention for her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who helped Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes win consecutive Super Bowls and are currently on the hunt for No. 3 (their fourth overall).
No. 2, Carpenter, has had a great 2024, with her single "Espresso" topping the Billboard Global 200 and collecting the MTV Video Music Award for Song of the Year. Carpenter is from Quakertown, 45-to-50 miles north of Philadelphia, and will soon headline a Netflix Christmas special.
No. 3 on the list is Will Smith, who advertised his Philly background from the outset as the Fresh Prince. A West Philly guy, Smith rocketed from rap artist to movie star, including an Oscar for Best Actor in 2022. His reputation is still undergoing rehabilitation as a result of slapping comedian Chris Rock during the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony after Rock joked about the hair loss condition Smith’s wife suffers from. However, Smith and Martin Lawrence's "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" earlier this year grossed over $400 million at the box office, proving fans are about ready to forgive and forget. Smith’s search volume was 1.8 million.
No. 4 is an Eagles fan extraordinaire, actor Bradley Cooper, from lower Montgomery County. In fact, Cooper even played an Eagles fan in the film “Silver Linings Playbook” with Robert De Niro and Jennifer Lawrence. Cooper, 49, has played in a range of movies from the farcical “The Hangover” to war drama “American Sniper” to musical drama “A Star is Born.” Cooper’s search volume was 1.6 million.
At No. 5 is veteran actor Richard Gere, who at age 75 is staying as busy as ever. Gere this year appeared in two films, "Oh Canada" and "Longing," and will also appear on the Paramount+ program ""The Agency" opposite Michael Fassbender and Jeffrey Wright.
The No. 6 is a performer who is a constant on TV these days, including commercials for DraftKings. Kevin Hart, who went to George Washington High School in Northeast Philadelphia, was reportedly booed off stages early in his stand-up career. Now 45, Hart has won a slew of performance awards and his career seems to be accelerating. Again, Hart can be found wearing his Eagles fanhood proudly. A wager on the Eagles on a PA sports betting app is certainly not out of the question for Hart, whose volume search is 859k.
The rest of the top 10 Pennsylvania celebrities (in order of search volume) were: Christina Aguilera, singer-songwriter form Pittsburgh (727k); Michael Keaton, actor, from Kennedy Township in the far western part of the state (706k); Downingtown’s Miles Teller, who had a search volume of 670k. (Despite going to high school in Florida, Teller, a star of “Top Gun: Maverick,” is a Philly sports fan through and through, regularly photographed sporting his Phillies and Eagles gear). Finally there's Amanda Seyfried, actress, from Allentown (653k).
Honorable Mentions: Actress Sharon Stone, actor Kevin Bacon, actor Jeff Goldblum, singer-Songwriter Lil Uzi Vert, and comedian Tina Fey.
PennStakes.com occasionally dabbles in stories of cultural interest such as this when not providing news and analysis on sports betting or the top PA online casino bonuses.
Thomas Leary contributed to this article.
Author
A longtime reporter and editor who began writing on casinos and gaming shortly after Atlantic City’s first gambling halls opened, Bill covered the world Series of Poker and wrote a syndicated column on travel to casino destinations for a decade.
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