Celebrities Are Making Smoking Cigarettes Cool Again

On the silver screen, about half of all movies that made their debut last year included appearances of cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products, up 10% from the previous year, according to a new report from public health nonprofit Truth Initiative and research organization NORC at the University of Chicago.

With more actors, pop stars and other celebrities spotted unapologetically smoking, the cultural taboo against it shows signs of ebbing. That worries antismoking advocates, who fear a reversal of the yearslong decline in U.S. smoking rates.

“I find that concerning, glamorous, attractive people smoking cigarettes,” said Ollie Ganz, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, whose research focuses on tobacco.

While U.S. smoking rates are hovering at their lowest level in decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has previously said that smoking in movies contributes to increased smoking rates among young people. “Youths heavily exposed to onscreen smoking imagery are more likely to begin smoking than are those with minimal exposure,” a 2019 CDC report found.

Roughly one in three cancer deaths in the U.S. are linked to cigarette smoking, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Federal health officials have linked smoking to more than 30 diseases and health conditions, including heart disease, stroke and asthma.

A still of Sabrina Carpenter smoking a cigarette in her ‘Manchild’ music video.

Since the early 2000s, antismoking campaigns have flooded television and phone screens, and for years celebrities and high-profile individuals generally shunned smoking—at least in public. Former President Barack Obama was criticized by health advocates for smoking, and confessed he had struggled to quit. Actor Sean Penn caught flack for lighting up during a 2018 appearance on “The Late Show.”

The tobacco industry introduced new ways to ingest nicotine. Vaping, considered less harmful than smoking cigarettes, has become the most commonly used tobacco product among youth, according to the CDC. Nicotine pouches have also gained some popularity.

Smoke break

To some, cigarettes now have a retro appeal.

Maddie Bell, a 21-year-old college senior in New London, Conn., said she grew up knowing the risks of smoking. By the time she was in high school, cultural figures like the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas had her intrigued. “Cigarettes looked cool,” she said.

Bell picked up smoking over the past year, she said, sharing cigarettes with friends after weekend parties. Following a semester in Europe earlier this year, her occasional weekend cigarette became a routine.

“That’s when I went from being drawn to nicotine to it becoming a real habit,” Bell said. Her favorite brand is Marlboro, but she said she prefers Natural American Spirit’s roll-your-own tobacco because it is cheaper.

Jared Oviatt, who runs an Instagram account called @cigfluencers, has been chronicling celebrities smoking since 2021. He said he started the account because he and his friends always thought smoking cigarettes was cool.

“I would argue antismoking campaigns were too effective,” said Oviatt, who said he buys a pack every few months. “That paved the way for vaping. When vaping became uncool, it paved the path for cigarettes.”

Oviatt said he started the account after seeing a photo of British singer Dua Lipa smoking. He recently featured a shot of Lily Allen smoking in a nun outfit, along with Charli XCX and her husband sharing a smoke at a restaurant after their wedding, still in their formal wear. Oviatt’s caption: “This is my royal wedding.”

The account now has 83,700 followers. Oviatt said that over a 30-day period he found the audience for his account was focused in New York City and London, and that it was 70% female.

On Saturday nights in the East Village, Columbia University graduate student Amira Hakimi often sports platform Dr. Martens boots, a sparkly top and her pink Bic lighter. The 22-year-old said she smokes twice a month, usually after long nights of partying.

“You step out of the bar, you feel all that cold air, and it’s quiet,” Hakimi said. “That’s the moment that everyone’s like, ‘Oh, we should smoke a cig.’ ”

To Hakimi, vaping is corny. “Smoking cigarettes is a very timeless act,” she said.

Smoking rates in the U.S. over the past several years have hovered around their lowest levels in eight decades, with 11% of Americans reporting that they smoked a cigarette in the prior week, according to a Gallup report. Younger Americans are even less likely to light up, according to the survey. In recent years an average of 6% of adults under 30 reported recently smoking, versus 35% in surveys from 2001 to 2003.

“Cigarettes are dangerous. The nicotine addicts people and then it’s the smoke that kills them with heart disease, lung disease and cancer,” said Dr. Nancy Rigotti, a Harvard Medical School professor and a director of tobacco research at Massachusetts General Hospital. “We have such good data from a couple decades ago that having celebrities smoking and smoking in movies really was a model that led to smoking in young people.”

‘Something about smoking’

Big tobacco companies, including Altria, said that they regularly track instances where their cigarette brands are used in movies and other media, sending cease and desist letters. Reynolds, which produces cigarette brands including Camel and Newport, said it has a strict policy barring use of its products in movies or television shows.

Altria, which produces Marlboro through its Philip Morris USA subsidiary, said that it regularly encourages smokers to pivot to products other than cigarettes. Reynolds said it doesn’t encourage consumers to start using tobacco products, including cigarettes.

For Matthew Daniel Siskin, a creative consultant who has worked with craft cigarette brand Hestia, younger—though still legal-age—consumers are among the brand’s top customers. Hestia’s cigarettes, derived from American-grown tobacco and bearing the tagline “Naked, Wild, Tobacco,” are popular with younger smokers.

“There’s something about smoking out of my window,” said Siskin, 43, who works with artists and musicians. “It’s what we did before we looked down at our phones. You’d say ‘Hey do you have a light, do you have a cigarette?’ ”

Bell, the college senior, said she now smokes one or two cigarettes a day. “For me, a huge part of why I’m into smoking is because it’s a very social thing.”

Ideally, Bell said, she would quit. “But I guess it’s a habit. It’s hard to kick.”

Write to Laura Cooper at [email protected] and Terell Wright at [email protected]