Is The Beauty’s Christopher Cross Story True? Real-Life Inspiration Explained

While The Beauty’s Christopher Cross monologue might say a lot about the character who tells the story, the FX series diverges from reality at a few pivotal points in the scene’s version of events. FX’s The Beauty focuses on two law enforcement agents trying to stop the eponymous sexually transmitted treatment, which makes victims physically beautiful but causes homicidal side effects.

While The Beauty’s similarities to The Substance are obvious, the two projects do have a few major differences. For one thing, The Substance focuses almost entirely on Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley’s two competing versions of the same character, whereas The Beauty’s large cast of characters includes Ashton Kutcher, Isabella Rossellini, Rebecca Hall, Anthony Ramos, Evan Peters, and Ari Graynor.

For another, where The Substance is undeniably a character study, The Beauty is loosely structured like a police procedural. Evan Peters’ Cooper and Rebecca Hall’s Jordan are a pair of FBI agents whose job it is to track down the source of this infection and stop its spread, although the show’s focus also sprawls out to center on various other protagonists.

The Beauty’s Christopher Cross Is A Real Musician (And MTV Did Hurt His Career)

Among these is Anthony Ramos’ Antonio, an assassin working for a murky villainous organization known only as “The Corporation,” who was one of the drug’s first test subjects. Although Antonio is played by the 34-year-old Hamilton star, he reveals in episode 3, “Beautiful Christopher Cross,” that he is really 65 years old, and owes his youthful appearance to The Beauty.

Antonio reveals this while he is explaining to Jeremy, a recent recipient of The Beauty, who he murders and why he kills them. The assassin is seemingly hired to dispatch anyone who received the Beauty without prior authorization, as this allows the Corporation to control the flow of the drug through the public.

Thus, Antonio is theoretically supposed to execute Jeremy, but instead, ends up allowing him to become his apprentice at the end of the episode. Before that, in one of The Beauty’s weirdest plot details, Antonio regales Jeremy with an elaborate story about award-winning singer Christopher Cross.

According to Antonio, the "Sailing" hitmaker was poised for major success in the early ‘80s, but the popularity of MTV meant that the aesthetically unfortunate Cross was unable to retain mainstream acclaim. Put simply, Antonio says that Cross was supposedly too unattractive to remain a superstar once the public saw his appearance, thanks to the advent of music videos.

Fortunately for Cross, this isn’t close to the truth. In reality, a confluence of factors led to Cross’s career decline in the mid to late ‘80s, most notably the broader decline in the genre that had defined his career. Cross was a central figure in adult contemporary singing and soft rock, in the early ‘80s, and the relevance of these genres faded.

Soft rock dominated the airwaves throughout the ‘70s, particularly in the latter half of the decade, when the genre arguably reached its critical peak. Iconic albums like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors could be considered part of the genre’s history, and earlier hits from the Eagles, Chicago, Albert Hammond, and Carole King fleshed out the genre’s back catalog from the decade.

Cross’s 1979 album Christopher Cross won five Grammys and earned him a number one hit with “Sailing,” and he managed to repeat that feat with 1981’s “Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do),” from the soundtrack of the Dudley-Moore vehicle Arthur. However, it was changing tastes in music that led to the subsequent downswing in his career.

Antonio claims at length in The Beauty episode 3’s viral scene that it was Cross’s physical appearance that ruined his promising career. However, the real reason was that it was hard to market chill adult contemporary rock in the era of Duran Duran, Journey, and other acts whose New Wave and hard rock music offered young listeners something more vital, exciting, and intense.

The Beauty’s Christopher Cross Story Is Deeper Than It Seems

Ultimately, it was broader social and cultural shifts, like the move away from adult contemporary and soft rock, that shaped the quieter decades in Cross’s musical decline. However, it makes perfect sense for one of The Beauty’s stars to claim otherwise, since this monologue illustrates a key truth about the character telling the story.

Anthony believes his looks alone (or lack thereof) shaped Cross’s life and work, because he can only see people’s lives in terms of their physical looks. Ramos’ character fails to consider the bigger factors that played into Cross’s relative career decline because he has committed his life to the Corporation and permanently altered his body using The Beauty.

Thus, Antonio is convinced that people are judged solely by their looks, and his warped perception shades his understanding of Cross’s career. Where the real-life singer-songwriter was limited by a cultural shift away from his signature genre, The Beauty’s villain is convinced that aesthetic judgments are the secret rubric underlying everything.