Kevin Hart’s Royal Oak Costs More Than a House

Photographs: Getty Images, Audemars Piguet

Earlier this week, Kevin Hart received the most prestigious award in comedy: the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. In his acceptance speech, the 44-year-old seemed genuinely tickled to be able to make people laugh for a living, humbly thanking those who helped him along the way and reflecting on all his luck (and hard work). But watch lovers were no doubt more focussed on the wrist candy poking out from his navy-blue sleeve: an incredible Royal Oak from Audemars Piguet.

Hopping on the small watch trend, Hart opted for a 37mm iteration of the famed luxury sports watch, the Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Extra-Thin RD#3. But this is far from just a shrunken version of what was launched, in 1972, as a 39mm timepiece—rather, the RD#3 boasts not only a tourbillon, but also an extra-thin automatic, in-house movement, the Calibre 2968. Adopting this movement to suit 39mm and 37mm Royal Oaks supposedly took AP five years of R&D, and the results are pretty spectacular.

Measuring just 8.1mm tall in satin-brushed and polished white gold, the RD#3 is set with a new smoked blue Petite Tapisserie dial with baguette-cut diamond hour indices and lumed, white gold hands, while a titanium-caged flying tourbillon with a rhodium-plated balance wheel rotates above the 6 o’clock position. The incredible smoked dial color is created courtesy of PVD (“physical vapor deposition”), which is used to apply black varnish to the edges. The model’s classic eight-sided bezel, meanwhile, is set with 32 baguette-cut diamonds, while the white gold, integrated bracelet features a signed folding clasp.

The “RD” series of Royal Oaks is where the maison parks some of its most groundbreaking pieces—the first RD was a mind-blowing minute repeater, while the second was the thinnest automatic perpetual calendar in the world at the time of its release in 2018. Though the RD3 may seem more subdued than those two models, it nevertheless draws on a long lineage of AP watches that combined automatic winding with a tourbillon complication. Furthermore, the first RD3 was a Royal Oak “Jumbo” 39mm model—the first Jumbo, in fact, to house an ultra-thin, flying tourbillon-equipped automatic movement.

With only 50m of water resistance and a power reserve of 50 hours, you may be asking yourself just how sporty this luxury sports watch really is. However, the Royal Oak in 2024 is an enormous collection housing myriad references—and the Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Extra-Thin RD#3 simply isn’t the reference you wear into the ocean and out to dinner. Representing the culmination of several distinct facets of Audemars Piguet’s savoir faire, it’s a stunning watch that somehow manages to remain fairly inconspicuous to all but those who follow the brand. Though now that Kevin Hart’s worn it on stage, good luck getting your paws on one—even if you can swing the $240,000 sticker price.

Originally Appeared on GQ