For months now, it’s just been headline after headline and lawsuit after lawsuit about and against Sean Combs. Combs is facing dozens of civil suits for his years/decades of rape, abuse and assault. He’s also facing federal criminal charges, and he’s currently in jail in New York as he awaits trial. Over the past year, since Cassie sued Combs and he quickly settled with her, there has been a big movement online to suggest that everyone who ever partied with Combs is guilty of the same crimes, or that they had knowledge of those crimes. There’s been a lot of focus on Jay-Z and Beyonce – Jay and Sean Combs were close friends/co-moguls – but up until now, no one had any story or any evidence of Jay-Z knowledge of or involvement with Combs’ crimes. Well, now a Jane Doe has accused Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 years old, in the year 2000, at Combs’ house.

Jay-Z, the star rapper and entrepreneur whose real name is Shawn Carter, was accused in a lawsuit Sunday of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000 allegedly along with Sean “Diddy” Combs. The anonymous accuser, identified only as “Jane Doe,” said the assault happened after she was driven to an MTV Video Music Awards after-party. The federal lawsuit was originally filed in October in the Southern District of New York, listing Combs as a defendant. It was refiled Sunday to include Carter. Texas-based attorney Tony Buzbee, who filed the suit, did not comment.

Carter called the allegations “idiotic” in a lengthy statement Sunday evening and alleged that Buzbee was engaged in unprofessional behavior.

“These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!! Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?” Carter said in a statement to NBC News. “These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case.”

Buzbee has filed several lawsuits in recent months — all have withheld their complainants’ names — accusing Combs of assault and rape. This is the first suit in which he has named another high-profile defendant. Before the lawsuit was refiled Sunday, “Carter received a letter from Plaintiff’s counsel requesting a mediation to resolve this matter,” Buzbee wrote in the suit. In response to the letter, which NBC News has seen, Carter filed his own lawsuit against the accuser’s attorneys, Buzbee wrote in the suit.

“You have made a terrible error in judgement thinking that all ‘celebrities’ are the same,” Carter added in his statement Sunday. “I’m not from your world. I’m a young man who made it out of the project of Brooklyn. We don’t play these types of games. We have very strict codes and honor. We protect children.”

“My only heartbreak is for my family,” Carter said in the statement. “My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people. I mourn yet another loss of innocence. Only your network of conspiracy theorists, fake physics, will believe the idiotic claims you have levied against me that, if not for the seriousness surrounding harm to kids, would be laughable,” Carter added.

[From NBC News]

In case you didn’t catch the backstory on the legal actions, Buzbee went to Jay-Z’s lawyers and asked to settle this privately, meaning they wanted Jay-Z to give them a financial settlement with an NDA. Jay-Z refused and he’s already countersuing Buzbee and the client, claiming that this is all a blackmail attempt. Jay is also saying that what he’s being accused of is so heinous, he doesn’t know why it’s a civil lawsuit and not a criminal action. I’m including Jay’s full statement (posted to Roc Nation’s social media) below. Compare this with the Cassie-Sean Combs situation – Cassie also tried to settle things privately with Combs before she filed her lawsuit. Combs refused to settle, and he made a lot of noise for 24 hours, threatening to fight Cassie in court. Then he settled. It does not sound like Jay-Z is going to give one inch though. (And yes, it’s bonkers for a 55-year-old man to refer to himself as a “young man.”)

pic.twitter.com/jl8sgOllCM

— Roc Nation (@RocNation) December 9, 2024

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

On Saturday, Prince William went to the Notre Dame reopening ceremony in France, and in addition to that appearance, William met privately with Donald Trump. Both Trump and Dr. Jill Biden attended the reopening, and William was apparently supposed to meet privately with Dr. Biden as well, but that meeting was canceled due to the weather (I think that’s Britspeak for Dr. Biden canceled with a vague excuse). But Trump arrived at the British embassy in the rain, and he did two photo-ops with Peg. First, they greeted each other in the embassy lobby, then they invited cameras in for a quick photo-op in one of the state rooms.

I saw a lot of people criticize William for all of this, and while I understand why, I kind of have to defend William a little bit? He’s literally doing his job. Should he wipe the sh-t-eating grin off his face when he’s meeting with an adjudicated rapist & white supremacist? For sure. But as Prince of Wales, this is exactly what he’s supposed to do – soft diplomacy, get some face time with world leaders, do these photo-ops and brief private meetings. William isn’t negotiating a treaty here, and he’s not wearing a f–king MAGA hat. It’s not William’s fault that dumbf–k Americans voted for this piece of sh-t. Now, all that being said, William is definitely trying to make himself look very important, and he sent his minions out with a full-throated embiggening campaign. He’s a 42-year-old big boy taking big-boy meetings!

Kensington Palace sources often like to refer to the role of the Prince of Wales as an “apprenticeship” for the top job. And there’s been plenty of talk over the past two years about Prince William’s efforts to position himself as a global statesman. But the Prince’s meeting with Donald Trump in Paris on Saturday suggests not only that his training period is over, but that he has passed with flying colours. This tete-a-tete at the British ambassador’s residence was no box-ticking exercise. The Prince was scrambled at very short notice to woo a US president-elect whose fast approaching four-year term will have significant foreign policy implications for the UK.

The details surrounding this hastily arranged diplomatic mission remain hazy but it appears clear that as soon as Mr Trump announced his intention to travel to Paris, the Government identified an opportunity that could not be wasted and calls were duly made to the palace. That the King’s diary was already “locked in” was not a great concern; his son could travel in his place. For the Prince of Wales is no longer seen as a young royal merely waiting in the wings. He has emerged as a global statesman in his own right.

“He is extremely comfortable in doing this,” a well-placed palace source acknowledged. But in this game, nothing is taken for granted. The Government is acutely aware of the potential pitfalls of the coming presidency. Soft diplomacy is critical. A second state visit has not been ruled out. The Prince knows all too well what is at stake. His aides, on Saturday, acknowledged that the Paris meeting was “extremely important”.

“As his presence at the Notre-Dame ceremony says, representing the UK is really important,” one source said as the Royal party made its way to France. “But obviously the United States is an incredibly special partner to the nation. One of the things that he’ll definitely be talking to both Flotus Jill Biden and president-elect Trump about is that special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States and it being so important to us as a nation.”

William has always been keen to support his father however he can, no less so as Charles continues to undergo weekly cancer treatment. But aides are also aware that optics is everything. There is always one eye on that future role, whenever it may come.

“Knowing the job that the Prince of Wales will have in the future, having a strong partnership with the leader of the US as a close ally and partner to the UK is, of course, extremely important,” the source said.

Many observers remarked how comfortable Prince William was in France earlier this year, when he took part in the D-Day anniversary celebrations, standing shoulder to shoulder with 25 other world leaders. Aides say such engagements do not phase him, that he is “very comfortable in his own skin” and was “looking forward” to his conversations with Mr Trump.

[From The Telegraph]

Sources also told the Telegraph that William went into the Trump meeting with the Starmer government’s full backing. Which I also believe, although I think it’s funny/weird that they’re pointing it out. It would be a huge scandal if William decided on his own to fly to Paris and meet with Trump without consulting the government, you know? Of course Peg had the full support of the government – William is at best an empty suit who got coached on what to say and how to behave. “He is extremely comfortable in doing this” – is that why he regularly begs important leaders to do photo-ops with him? Like at the United Nations last year, when he tried to milk his quick photo with the UN Secretary General, or when he told everyone he was taking meetings at the UN?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Last week, Prince Harry appeared at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit and gave several updates about his life and work. He spoke about his lawsuits against the British tabloids, he said that he loved raising his kids in America and he has no plans or desire to go back to the UK. He shrugged off the “concerns” about his marriage and he made fun of the trolls who spread rumors about his marriage. You would think that since there are videos of Harry saying all of this and it’s 100% authentic, it would change all of the make-believe storylines in the British tabloids. You would be wrong. The tabloids mostly ignored Harry’s own words in favor of their latest storyline, all based on a German documentary called Harry: The Lost Prince. German journalist Ulrike Grunewald spent months trying to stalk the Sussexes in Montecito and she came out of all of it believing many Deranger conspiracies. Shocking! Well, that documentary is the basis for this story – apparently, Harry and Meghan are not popular in Montecito because they don’t wander around the neighborhood, begging for people to pay attention to them.

Prince Harry declared this week that he has no plans to return to the UK because his family are so happy in Montecito. The Sussexes’ A-list neighbour Katy Perry has agreed to perform at the Invictus Games while friends Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry are also among other supporters living in the celebrity-heavy enclave of California.

But it appears that not all locals are happy with the couple, with one claiming the Duchess of Sussex is more aloof than her husband, who is ‘jolly’ but not fully involved with the locals either. Neighbours and locals in Montecito have spoken about the couple’s life there – and admit they don’t often see them, unless Harry is on his bike followed by his security team. There are also questions about their ‘elitist’ lifestyle.

Richard Mineards, one of their near-neighbours, has said they are not an ‘asset’ to the wealthy community. ‘I personally don’t think that Meghan is an asset to our community… She doesn’t really go out or get involved with the community, he said. ‘Harry has to a certain extent, because he’s quite jolly…but Meghan doesn’t seem to get seen anywhere…. And you don’t see him either.’

Mr Mineards was speaking to a new German documentary, called ‘Harry: The Lost Prince’. There are also reports that they are planning to send Archie and Lilibet to a ‘prestigious’ private school, which will test how much they will get involved with their community.

Royal commentator Duncan Larcombe said: ‘They are the public couple that claim to crave privacy and that I suppose would involve the local community. But when you have young children, they all mix with other young children at schools or nurseries. Are they going to play the role of just another parent?’

[From The Daily Mail]

The part about the private school is gross – those entitled royal reporters still think they “own” Harry, Meghan, Archie and Lili. What f–king business is it of Duncan Larcombe? Those kids will go to American schools and it’s not the Mirror’s business or the Mail’s business or anyone else’s. Same with the neighbor sh-t – the whole reason why rich people move to Montecito is to get away from paparazzi, the industry and the party circuit. I have no doubt that Harry and Meghan have many friends in California, but they probably keep to themselves most of the time. And? Again, why is this a major story in the Mail?? Also: the Mail doesn’t want to acknowledge the Sussexes’ attendance at a bookstore opening in Santa Barbara just a few months ago?

Photos courtesy of Archewell, Backgrid.

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Remember when the Duchess of Sussex re-wore a red Carolina Herrera dress to a hospital gala in LA and it brought down the United Kingdom? The British media spent WEEKS obsessing over Meghan’s red dress and what it meant to them personally, and how much they despised the dress, and how no one paid attention to the dress and yet the dress was as iconic as Princess Diana’s revenge dress! It was bonkers. Well, guess what? They are still talking about that fakakta dress.

Social media is abuzz with users critiquing the Duchess of Sussex’s wardrobe since she quit as a working royal – with countless videos on YouTube about her ‘fashion fails’. While many still praise Meghan’s glamorous wardrobe, she was recently criticised over her red Carolina Herrera gown – with its plunging neckline, daring front slit and ill-fitting bodice – which she wore to the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles gala last month.

Fashion stylists dubbed the altered £4,730 poppy red dress one of her biggest ‘fashion faux pas’ and said it was inappropriate for the event, which started early at 5.30pm. One TikTok user said: ‘The Carolina Herrera number she chose was so inappropriate for a children’s event that it can only be described as shockingly revealing. We’re talking bare shoulders, arms and even a flash of leg that should have been reserved for a late-night adult dinner party, not a wholesome charity gathering for kids. It’s almost comical that a dress that cost so much can end up looking so tacky. It might look better on somebody else but on Meghan it looks like it was made for a different body type with better posture.’

But Meghan is not the only royal who has struggled dressing for her body shape.

[From The Daily Mail]

What’s driving me crazy is that I don’t even think this dress was Meghan’s best look, but I love the dress simply because it made all of those people collectively lose their minds. What was it? The fact that she looked so young and free? That she wore something other than beige? That her hair was loose and beachy? That she looked effortlessly sexy, even in a not-great dress? It’s been two months and they’re still crying about it, to the point where they’re quoting a random TikTok?? As for that TikToker’s criticism… it was a gala and people were dressed in evening-wear. Most women were dressed similarly to Meghan. It was not a “charity gathering for kids,” although some kids were there. This person is trying to make it sound like Meghan wore a negligee to visit sick kids at the hospital. My god.

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Photos courtesy of Getty.

From what I hear of France’s domestic political situation, President Macron is getting his ass handed to him on a regular basis. But his presidency has been marked by his internationalism, and his ability to showcase France in the best light on an international stage. He is, frankly, really good at the diplomatic and foreign policy part of his job. It was so smart for the French government to stage a huge celebration for the reopening of Notre Dame, after a five-year restoration-and-repair job following the 2019 fire. Macron invited world leaders and titans of business to attend. Every major attendee got a photo with President Macron and Madame Macron inside the cathedral. Special VIPs also got a special greeting at Palais de l’Élysée.

Well, Prince William did not get the special VIP greeting at Elysee. That was seemingly reserved for Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. First, Macron outmaneuvered Trump’s stupid handshake sh-t, then Macron made Trump and Zelenskyy pose together. This speaks volumes about Macron’s concern and NATO’s concern about what the incoming Trump administration is going to do about Ukraine. Macron is openly trying to influence Trump to NOT do whatever Putin tells him to do.

The Macrons did give Prince William his own photo-op inside the cathedral. In case you’re looking at President Macron and William and wondering what the age difference is… Macron turns 47 years old in two weeks. William just turned 42 in June. William looks about ten years older. William was supposed to meet with First Lady Jill Biden before the reopening ceremony, but that meeting was canceled because of the weather. They did speak inside the cathedral, and Trump and William also shook hands on camera. Kensington Palace briefed everyone far and wide that William is an emerging statesman and that he met with Jill Biden and Donald Trump to “discuss the special relationship between the U.S. and the U.K.” Some people theorized that William probably brought up deporting Harry from the US. Sh-t, I don’t know. It sounds like something he would do.

The Prince of Wales has become the first member of the Royal Family to meet @realDonaldTrump since he became President Elect. The pair have met in Paris at the re-opening of Notre Dame. The PE told the media William ‘was doing a fantastic job’. pic.twitter.com/LxPoyzrAjn

— Rebecca English (@RE_DailyMail) December 7, 2024

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Photos courtesy of Getty, Cover Images.

On Friday, the Wales family attended the Princess of Wales’s Together at Christmas event at Westminster Abbey. This is now the fourth year of this “Christmas carol” event and this year’s was notable not for anything that happened during the show, but because Kate “planned” it and attended it. This is basically of only three annual events on her schedule which she bothers with at this point – this, Trooping the Colour and Remembrance Sunday. That’s it. Her appearance this year obviously comes after her health struggles in the past twelve months, although unnamed sources have indicated that Kate was actually having health issues long before her January “planned abdominal surgery.”

For this year’s Together at Christmas event, Kate wore a new (?) coat by Sarah Burton for McQueen. She keeps wearing Burton-for-McQueen pieces, and I keep wondering if she’s pulling out pieces from her storage, because Sarah Burton hasn’t been creative director of McQueen in over a year. Has this coat been languishing in some storage set for a few years? It’s “timeless” in the sense that it looks really dated, and that’s what Kate likes. She asks designers to make coats and dresses which look like sh-t her mother wore in the ‘80s. As you can tell, I rolled my eyes at the gigantic black chest bow. Are bows the new buttons? Oh, wait, the coat has giant buttons too. Apparently, underneath the coat, Kate wore an Emilia Wickstead skirt. We didn’t see it because Kate did not remove her coat inside the Abbey.

As for the kids… I went back and double-checked, Princess Charlotte is wearing the same burgundy coat she wore to last year’s Together at Christmas event. Did Charlotte’s clothing allowance get slashed too?? Prince William, Louis and George all wore ties in the burgundy/red range, so the family was all coordinated, although I do think Kate and Charlotte’s coats clashed with one another.

Paloma Faith (of all people) asked Kate about her health at the event, and Kate told her: “I didn’t know this year was going to be the year that I’ve just had… The unplanned, exactly. But I think lots of people this year have had such challenging times, and many who are here today.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Before Friday, we hadn’t seen Carole and Michael Middleton since Wimbledon back in July. They really can disappear for months at a time and the whole thing has gotten so mysterious. More than anything, the messy situation with the Middletons has convinced me that some serious sh-t has gone down in the past year and a half. The Middletons’ business collapsed last year, they practically went into hiding, the royalist press published many highly critical articles about their grift, and then magically, it was all forgotten in May/June of this year. Carole got sh-thoused at Royal Ascot AND got photo-ops with Prince William and various royals. Then she was seated in the Royal Box at Wimbledon. A deal was struck and the biggest “tell” is that no one in the British media is talking about the Party Pieces lies and catastrophes.

So Carole and Michael Middleton came out on Friday for the Princess of Wales’s Together at Christmas event. The whole Middleton clan was there – Pippa, James Middleton and James’s wife Alizee. The only one missing was Pippa’s terribly moderately wealthy husband. TMW James Matthews went to last year’s event. I wonder why he skipped this year. A professional separation, perchance??

I actually like what Pippa wore – a bouclé coat-dress from Karen Millen, paired with red pumps and a red clutch. The dress is very “ladies who lunch,” but Pippa really is a lady who lunches. Alizee wore a midnight-blue velvet pantsuit with a white pussybow blouse. It’s sort of offbeat but fine. Carole wore a clean white coat and her hair seems to be a few shades darker these days. I would love to know how she fills her days.

Meanwhile, something really bizarre happened. At one point, Carole walked side-by-side with Lady Gabriella Windsor. Now, Gabriella is reportedly close to Prince William, and you could make the argument that maybe Gabriella gets along with the Middletons. But what was bizarre about it is… Gabriella’s parents were at the event too. Why was she hanging with Carole and not Princess Michael of Kent? Why did Gabriella and Carole make a point of walking out together??

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Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red, Cover Images.

For several months, the British media has been trying to make “the Sussexes are professionally separated” into a storyline. The evidence of this “separation” is that Meghan and Harry have done some separate work events, and Harry has traveled solo for business. So, we’ve now established that couples have to be joined at the hip 24-7 or else we get to scream “separation” at them constantly. So it appears that Zara Tindall went to the Princess of Wales’s Together at Christmas event without her husband. The Duchess of Edinburgh also went to the event solo. Professional separations abound, apparently.

These are yet more photos from the Together at Christmas caroling event at Westminster Abbey. There are fewer and fewer royals and royal-adjacents in attendance in each successive year. King Charles and Queen Camilla skipped, of course. So did Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank. So we ended up with Zara Tindall, Duchess Sophie, Princess Beatrice, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and… Prince Michael of Kent and Princess Michael of Kent. I think the Gloucesters were there as well. Not exactly slim pickings, but previous years have had much higher attendance with the Windsor clan.

I thought Beatrice looked the best out of a motley crew. She wore a lovely coordinated burgundy coat and patterned dress, and she had a cute little bump too (she’s pregnant with her second). Zara tried to look snazzy in a velvet pantsuit. Sophie didn’t even bother to try to look seasonal.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Newly single Sabrina Carpenter stepped out in NYC. [Just Jared]
Emily Blunt wore Tamara Ralph in Saudi Arabia. [RCFA]
Jane Fonda loved Angelina Jolie in Maria. [LaineyGossip]
ASAP Rocky adores Rihanna. [Socialite Life]
Why would anyone invest in the Hawk Tuah lady? [Pajiba]
Blake Lively towers over Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande. [Go Fug Yourself]
Sky Ferriera has a song on the Babygirl soundtrack. [OMG Blog]
The “Alexander Hamilton ghost” has been cast in Ghosts. [Seriously OMG]
Is a Southern Charm star really a lawyer? [Starcasm]
There was a huge earthquake in California yesterday. [Hollywood Life]
Pete Davidson talks about how SNL really doesn’t pay much. [Buzzfeed]

A few weeks ago, Angelina Jolie was spotted at the Met, attending a performance of Puccini’s Tosca with Pablo Larrain. It came during one of several trips she’s made to New York in recent months, almost all of which have been to promote Larrain’s Maria, where Jolie plays Maria Callas. What we didn’t know last month was that a New York Times reporter was along for the ride at the opera, and that it was all for a rather lovely piece about Jolie and about opera. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

Jolie identified with Callas’s isolation. “Loneliness is not a bad thing. We’re both seen as strong, but actually we’re very vulnerable and human. I don’t think either one of us is necessarily comfortable being public.”

Jolie was worried about her singing voice: For years, she had carried the trauma of a boyfriend telling her she had a bad voice and that she should be grateful she had other talents. “It was nasty, and it was more than once. Then I stopped singing.” She told Larraín that she had “a lot of emotion and pain that I did not feel like letting go.” She was not very familiar with classical music; she had grown up listening to punk bands like the Clash. And she wasn’t sure she had the technique to sing — until that point, she had avoided even “Happy Birthday.”

She sang “Piangete voi?” at La Scala: The aria was one of the most challenging on the list, but it was also Jolie’s favorite. Dressed in a costume that matched Callas’s, with a white headpiece and navy dress, she sang before a crowd of about 500 people. “It’s like jumping off a cliff. There was just nothing I could do but try to give everything I had.”

Her mother’s death: Her mother’s death from cancer in 2007, at 56, made Jolie feel she no longer had the luxury of time. “I don’t want to be comfortable or too relaxed,” she said. “I want to live fully.”

She’s concerned about revealing too many truths. “When you are stripped of so many things that make you feel safe and whole, you really sit with what matters to you and what you want to give every breath in your body for. In the end, I found a lot of softness.” She said she hoped that despite all that, Callas was able to “feel safe to be soft and hopefully eventually rediscover a level of joy.”

Has Jolie found joy again? “I don’t know about that. But I hope for it. I hope to find a lightness that I may have lost along the way.”

[From The NY Times]

There’s a lot in the Times piece about how Jolie has a rare, genuine elusiveness and not even Pablo Larrain really knows her and they worked together for months. When Jolie walked into the Met, apparently people gasped and began murmuring and trying to take her photo too. The Met let Jolie linger after Tosca – she and Pablo met several people working on the opera, and they let Jolie go on stage and examine the set. It’s actually a really lovely portrait, and Jolie’s unwillingness to talk about her personal life just made it even more interesting. I mean, she’s been doing this for a while, she knows how to talk around her eight-year-plus divorce. “When you are stripped of so many things that make you feel safe and whole” – f–k Brad Pitt. She’s spent eight years just trying to feel safe and whole again.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.