America’s renewed love for Betty White goes far beyond cult fascination to total faith, apparently, as a recent Reuters poll finds that White is both the nation’s most popular and its “most trusted” celebrity. Should America need a celebrity to be a friend, a pal and a confidant, it would definitely choose White. And if Betty White threw a party and invited everyone she knew, she would see that the biggest gift would be from America, and the card attached would say, “We are far more likely to buy any product you choose to endorse.” Still, despite coming out on top yet again, White’s ranking really only narrowly edges out her closest competitors: Denzel Washington, Sandra Bullock, and Clint Eastwood are all not far behind in terms of bringing an inherent trustworthiness to any brand they might associate themselves with, and this despite the fact that Clint Eastwood hasn’t really endorsed anything besides getting the nation to not smoke crack, and that obviously didn’t work.
Nevertheless, Eastwood managed to beat out fifth-place finisher Tom Hanks—who’s currently working on regaining the people’s trust by personally reimbursing those who didn’t like Larry Crowne—and Harrison Ford, who almost definitely doesn’t give a shit about finishing sixth, or whether you trust him or not. (This probably also goes for ninth and tenth-place finishers Will Smith and Johnny Depp.) Oddly enough, Morgan Freeman, the enveloping voice of God himself, tied for seventh place with Kate Middleton—because who has the interests of America at heart more than the Duchess of Cambridge?
Not surprisingly, the perennially hated-on Paris Hilton, Charlie Sheen, Britney Spears, and Kanye West topped the list of celebrities deemed least trusted and most unpopular, followed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tiger Woods, Kim Kardashian, Mel Gibson, Donald Trump, and LeBron James. So it’s settled then: America certainly would never put its trust in those people. If America was going out of town and it needed someone to check in on America’s cat, there’s just no way it would call Arnold Schwarzenegger or Mel Gibson. America would just pay to board its cat instead, because they’d probably just be out having sex with maids or making anti-Semitic statements and forget to feed it.