Featured Image Credit: X/@EmpireStateBldg
Topics: Music, Celebrity, New York, US News, Jared Leto
Emily Brown
Topics: Music, Celebrity, New York, US News, Jared Leto
Jared Leto - musician; actor; Empire State Building climber.
Bet you didn't have that last one on your bingo card, did you? That's probably why fans are so confused about the whole thing.
Leto earned the title today (9 November), when he became the very first person to climb the iconic building in New York City.
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Considering it would take a while to climb all 443 meters of the building - including its spire and antenna - Leto only climbed a portion of the structure, from floor 86 to 104.
It took him about 20 minutes, but it's still more than any other human has legally done before.
Speaking to Today after the venture, Leto said he was 'more excited than nervous'.
"But I have to be honest, it was very, very hard. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be," he said.
"Just the endurance that it took, the stamina that it took, and it was very sharp."
Taking a quick trip up the outside of the Empire State Building isn't your usual mid-week activity, so fans were naturally confused when they learned that the singer had achieved the challenge.
"What is the point of this lol," one person asked after hearing the news, while another commented: "Yes. But, WHY, tho?"
"Somebody tell Spider-Man that Morbius has been spotted scaling the Empire State Building," joked a third.
As it turns out, the decision to climb the building didn't come solely from a desire to impersonate King Kong.
Instead, Leto decided to take on the challenge to celebrate the launch of Thirty Seconds To Mars’ 2024 tour, which comes following the release of the band's most recent album, It’s the End of the World but It’s a Beautiful Day.
The singer has been 'fascinated' by the building since he was a child, so getting to explore it in a way that nobody else has was a bucket-list item for him.
He told Today: "It's incredible. To watch the sun rise overlooking the city that's meant so much to me. Ever since I was a kid, New York stood for the place that you went to make your dreams come true.
"And as a young kid, I wanted to be an artist, and New York was the place that you came to be an artist. And the Empire State Building was always that symbol for me."
Leto was secured during his ascent by ropes in case he lost his grip, but the challenge definitely took it out of him as he joked that the next place he was going to climb was 'in to bed'.