Why Celebrities Like to Be Spotted Wearing Watches

By Rob Bates | October 13, 2025

From Ryan Gosling for TAG Heuer to Paul Newman and his Daytonas to James Bond sporting whatever brand signed a sponsorship deal, there’s a long tradition of the luxury watch business intersecting with the equally glitzy world of Hollywood. It’s becoming more and more common for stars to admit they’re watch geeks.

Watch Spotting: The Collectors. set to be released tomorrow by ACC Art Books, delves into the private watch stashes of 30 big names, including Jay-Z, Rihanna, Pharrell, Serena Williams, Taylor Swift, Andy Warhol, and Tyler, the Creator. Here, author Rhonda Riche talks with JCK about stars and their high-end watches, the geekiest celebrity collectors, and her favorite stories of Hollywood horology.

What made you want to write about celebrities and their watches?

I’ve been doing watch spotting for a long time. I have spent a lot of time, staring at things way too hard, trying to identify who’s wearing what watch. But in the last eight years, the watch spotting trend has really exploded. There’s so many people on Instagram and TikTok that are watch spotters.

It’s become a cultural thing. If you like watches and you find out your favorite celebrity is wearing a watch, it’s a way to connect with them. But it’s also a way to democratize watch enthusiasm. Being a watch spotter, you don’t necessarily have to own a $100,000 watch to be part of the community.

When a famous person wears a watch, does it help sales?

I have my private speculation that sometimes [watch executives] just want to hang out with celebrities. We all kind of get starstruck, like that little kid hanging out at the baseball stadium hoping to get an autograph.

But they must sell watches that way. I would guess someone like David Beckham is a terrific brand ambassador for Tudor who probably sells a lot of watches—not just because he’s famous, but because he seems to be really enthusiastic and he’s a collector who wears them with a bit of panache, a bit of style.

Having a good ambassador is an investment. Rolex being associated with Martin Scorsese reinforces their connection to the arts. They might not see immediate returns on a spreadsheet, but it’s a long-term investment in their brand.

How did you narrow down who you spotlight in your book?

We wanted to focus on people who had an authentic connection to watches. There are people who might not be able to name all the watch specs, like how many beats per second. They don’t care about that, but they know what messages they want to send out.

[A luxury watch] is a way to say, “I’ve arrived.” It’s like, you might get a Lamborghini and a Rolex, it shows some recognition that you’ve climbed up the ladder.

Someone like Princess Diana—she started with all these diamond-encrusted watches that were gifts from the royal family. But when she split off from them and got her own watch, it was a fairly inexpensive Cartier and told the story that she was “the People’s Princess.”

Ed Sheeran, he just loves watches. Most rock stars would be out having big parties, and he’s putting it all into watches. So there’s a different context for every celebrity. We tried to get people who did have a connection. We didn’t want to do people who seem like they were just doing it for a paycheck.

Is that something the public has started to suspect, that celebs are wearing watches for paychecks?

I wouldn’t say that there’s an overwhelming cynicism. Rolex just announced Zendaya as a brand ambassador. She’s not necessarily someone who’s historically known for wearing watches. You saw a few people on Instagram who are enthusiasts pointing out what they feel is an inauthentic connection.

Were there any stories that surprised you?

Tyler, the Creator. He has an arm full of Cartiers. But he also spent a long time trying to find the SpongeBob SquarePants watch of his youth. That’s his Rosebud. It was his first watch, and he had that connection with that watch from a certain moment in time. He’s spent a lot of time on eBay trying to find that watch. That was a fun story to uncover.

Were celebrities generally interested in talking about their watches?

Some are very happy to, because they are truly enthusiasts and they just want to geek out with you about their watches. But a few are guarded. I remember with Joe Biden, people were complaining that he was wearing an Omega. Some people do judge you for having what they deem as a frivolous accessory.

So, yes, some celebrities are more guarded as far as their personal brand, because they don’t want to come off as too flashy. There’s probably a few that don’t want to advertise they have expensive watches because they don’t want to get robbed.

The celebrities who are watch geeks—do they know their stuff?

Yes, but they have different areas of interest. Some people, like Kevin Hart, are into the super-complicated watches. Andy Warhol had watches that didn’t even work, but he just liked the looks of them, and he had a ton of watches.

I talked to the curator of the Andy Warhol auctions at Christie’s, and he told me a story that Warhol had one of those canopy beds and he just threw watches up there. They had two different auctions because they kept finding watches as they went through the estate. As an artist, Andy Warhol was obviously very into what things symbolize. He was also an insane collector. He just had the collector’s bug. There’s a Piaget named after him. He had a really close relationship with the Piaget family.

So their passion might come from different angles. It’s amazing the stories that are out there, that are personal and also universal. I’ve always been interested in the universal aspect. Watches tick, they move, they’re fidgety. They’re on the pulse of your wrist. There’s some kind of connection between man and machine.

But then it becomes more personal. It could be your grandfather’s watch. It could be the mechanics, the engineering. It could just be the design. Something about it hits you emotionally in a way that other things might not.

(Photos courtesy of ACC Art Books)