Oh, I’m sorry, were you not expecting to have your world rocked by shirtless Charlie Hunnam photos today? MY BAD. Hunnam covers the new issue of V Man and the photos are absolutely a delight. You know what I enjoy? Charlie is a pale Englishman and he owns that paleness. It’s refreshing to see a guy with a great body who isn’t fake-tanned or real tanned to the point of orange-ness or skin damage. Anyway… enjoy. His interview is pretty good too, but you’re probably not even reading it because SHIRTLESS CHARLIE HUNNAM. Some highlights:

Backing out of Fifty Shades of Grey: “Oh, it was the worst professional experience of my life. It was the most emotionally destructive and difficult thing that I’ve ever had to deal with professionally. It was heartbreaking.”

Putting Crimson Peak ahead of 50 Shades: “I’d given Guillermo my word, over a year before, that I was going to do this film. People were saying, ‘Are you crazy? Guillermo still has got four months to recast, it’s the fourth lead, you can go and do this [instead].’ I said, ‘I can’t. He’s my friend, I’ve done a film with him, I gave him my word.’ I’m pretty mercurial and a very difficult, long-winded decision-maker at the best of times. It was deeply unpleasant and challenging emotionally. I really, really pride myself on being a professional and a man of keeping my word. It means a lot to me, truly.”

Breaking the news to Sam Taylor-Johnson: “I called her and we both cried our eyes out on the phone for 20 minutes. I needed to tell her that this was not going to work. I was going to finish Sons, shoot the whole sequence where Tara was brutally murdered, fly to Vancouver the next day, have 10 days of rehearsal, and then start shooting. Then I was going to have three days after that and I’d have to start shooting Crimson Peak and then I’d have two days to travel and go back into season seven of Sons. There was a lot of personal stuff going on in my life that left me on real emotional shaky ground and mentally weak. I just got myself so f–king overwhelmed and I was sort of having panic attacks about the whole thing. I just didn’t know what to do.”

Saying goodbye to Sons of Anarchy: “The security guards who’d worked there for years were like, ‘You’re back?’ I said I forgot something and they knew that was bulls–t. That I needed to be there. I smoked a few joints and sat on the back lots and cried a bunch and said goodbye to him. It was beautiful and it was the right thing to do. I took my rings, my bike, my jacket, my knife—f–king a lot. Anything that wasn’t nailed down, I took.”

[From E! News]

He also said some words about how he did NOT exit FSOG because of the sexually explicit nature, citing his previous work on Queer as Folk as evidence that he’s always been fine with doing sex scenes. I believe him. I also believe that he’s a weeper, since he describes so many tears all the time. I like that about him, actually. He seems like a guy comfortable with his emotions, comfortable being vulnerable. He’s also comfortable without a shirt. So…

Photos courtesy of V Man.