I totally forgot that Kim Kardashian used to be – and still is – obsessed with Elizabeth Taylor. I mean, same – Elizabeth Taylor was an amazing woman who lived a huge life full of drama, marriages, affairs, Oscars, diamonds, perfume, activism and more. Kim wishes! Kim actually got to meet Elizabeth Taylor in 2011 when she was sent to Taylor’s home to interview her. That was actually Elizabeth Taylor’s final interview. In any case, Kim is now executive producing a BBC docuseries on the life and times of Liz Taylor. Kim will appear in it too.

BBC Arts has commissioned Academy Award-winning production firm Passion Pictures (Searching for Sugar Man, Wham!) to make a three-part documentary series on Elizabeth Taylor, executive produced by and featuring Kim Kardashian. The BBC unveiled the project with the working title Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar on Monday, noting that Taylor is “one of Hollywood’s most famous names.”

Executive produced by Kari Lia, Hamish Fergusson and Kardashian, the series promises to feature “privileged access to those who knew her best, including members of Elizabeth Taylor’s family, friends, and colleagues from throughout her stellar career.” And it vows to shine the spotlight on “a superstar who transformed not just Hollywood but fame itself, as she went from child star to highest-paid actress in the world.”

A show description also highlights: “For too long the story of Elizabeth Taylor has been told as a soap opera. The eight marriages, the diamonds, the addictions. This series gives Elizabeth Taylor the significance she richly deserves, in all her incarnations: as an actor, rebel, business mogul, and activist — to reveal how Taylor created the blueprint for modern celebrity.”

The series will take a deep dive into the legendary star’s craft and technique as an actor and “how she reinvented the nature of fame, even as she smashed the glass ceiling in Hollywood, before going on to become a billion-dollar businesswoman, activist and advocate.”

The series promises to “draw on never-before-heard audio tapes, interviews, and unseen TV footage, alongside rich archive of her movies.” It will also feature interviews with a range of stars who knew Taylor personally, including Kardashian, “who conducted the last interview with her before she died, Dame Joan Collins, a friend and Hollywood contemporary who competed with Elizabeth for the role of Cleopatra, Margaret O’Brien, who went to school with her on the MGM backlot, close friend Carole Bayer Sager, leading scientist Dr. Anthony Fauci who worked alongside Elizabeth in the fight against AIDS, and others.”

Said Kardashian: “Elizabeth Taylor was unapologetically herself, a fighter. She is proof that you can keep evolving and changing and have different chapters in your life — and she paved the way for all of us who came after her with that blueprint.”

[From THR]

I wonder if they’ll interview Colin Farrell, who was a dear friend to Elizabeth in her final years – she absolutely adored him and said that she saw a lot of Richard Burton in him. As for the docuseries… I know I should yell about this and I guess we should be disgusted at Kim or something… but I don’t hate it? The summary is correct – Elizabeth Taylor did it first, she broke through so many glass ceilings, she was a huge AIDS activist, she used her fame to create wildly popular side-gigs like her perfume lines, and she did love to get married. I actually hope Kim helps introduce Generation TikTok to Elizabeth Taylor because they will be gagged.

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Experts are recommending that you reduce coffee consumption for one week each month, so that receptors in the brain can recalibrate. The experts cite studies that show the body needs a minimum of seven days where intake is reduced (it doesn’t have to be complete abstention) to reset caffeine tolerance. So, one week out of the month where I’m likely to be extra irritable, edgy, unhinged, and headache-prone. Pray tell, what would that be like? And speaking of getting your period, would it be better to overlap that with a week of being coffee-lite (intense but condensed), or to keep these weeks separated? But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s what the experts say:

Percolating perks: Coffee can reduce your risk of cancer up to 20 percent, your risk of type 2 diabetes by 30 percent, and your risk of Parkinson’s disease by 30 percent. A study published in Circulation found that coffee can reduce the risk of stroke by 20 percent. A study of over 260,000 people conducted by the NIH found that people who drank four or more cups of coffee a day were nearly 10 percent less likely to become depressed than those who drank none. Coffee can also make you smarter. While research has found little to no effect from ingesting caffeine prior to creating new memories, one study determined ingesting caffeine after a learning task improved memory recall up to 24 hours later. Drinking a little coffee to kick-start your day? Makes sense. So does drinking a little coffee later in the day to better retain what you’ve learned during the day.

A little chemistry: Caffeine blocks adenosine — a nucleoside that modulates physiological processes — from binding to receptors in your brain. When adenosine can’t bind, you feel (or keep feeling) alert and awake. That’s one reason why drinking a lot of coffee makes you feel really awake. Yet not indefinitely. When your body recognizes that adenosine isn’t binding, your body responds by creating more receptors. A 2012 study found that within three days of consistent caffeine ingestion, the number of adenosine, nicotinic, and muscarinic (a chemical that modulates neuronal excitability) receptors is significantly increased.

More receptors, more problems: That’s why you need an extra cup of coffee to kick-start your day. That’s why you need a couple of cups after lunch. In simple terms, your body builds up its tolerance, and the effect diminishes. And that’s why the inevitable caffeine crash — and headache — is so dramatic and even painful; more receptors means your body is even hungrier for caffeine. As with most things, your constantly caffeinated state becomes your new normal. A 2019 study found that participants in a 20-day study increased their peak cycling power (a proxy for feeling alert and energetic) for the first 15 days of ingesting caffeine. The biggest boost came on the first day. After that, adenosine receptors started sprouting like wildflowers. Then the effect steadily diminished, until it reached pre-study levels.

Time for a coffee break: So while coffee will still provide a number of health benefits … the energy and memory boost provided is basically gone. Unless you periodically hit the reset button. The same study found changes in adenosine receptor levels typically reverse after a 7-day caffeine break. Taking a week off reduces your tolerance and increases the boost you will feel when you start drinking coffee again.

It takes a full week to be effective: Keep in mind you don’t have to go cold turkey. While some people take the first week of every month off, others use the week to strategically reduce their intake. Instead of two cups of coffee in the morning, just one. Instead of two cups in the afternoon, just one. The key is to reduce your intake for seven days to allow your adenosine receptor levels to reverse. How great of a reduction you seek depends on how willing you are to cut your consumption. Just make sure you follow that approach for a whole week; one or two days will make relatively little impact on adenosine receptor levels, and therefore on the benefits when you resume your normal coffee routine.

[From Inc.]

By the end of last year I actually had reduced my overall coffee drinking. The impetus was pocket driven, as I like to pick up an iced coffee (all year round, baby!) particularly on days I have to go into the office. When a medium iced coffee at my local Dunkin’ passed $4, I went into revolt… by paying too much for a small iced coffee but still less than the medium. I showed them! But then I found I was fully satisfied with the smaller amount, anyway. Now my routine has been upended again because Dunkin’ is doing a special of $2 medium iced coffees (for members) through the end of February. And I physically can’t pay more money for less drink, so I’m back up to 24 ounces. I guess in conclusion, I’m on board with what this research suggests, and will work on cutting back once a month — as long as it doesn’t get in the way of a good deal.

True story: my great-grandfather ran a chocolate candy store in the Boston area. One day a man who made donuts approached him and proposed going into business together. My great-grandfather haughtily brushed him off with, “No thank you. Donuts have no class.” That man became Dunkin’ Donuts. And that tale pretty neatly sums up the business savvy of that part of my family. And the fact I regularly give money to the company I could’ve been an heiress to, well that just shows you the trait is being passed down the generations.

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One of the coolest stories in country music in 2023 was that Luke Combs covered Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” and the cover became the biggest country-crossover hits of the year. Luke’s version was everywhere, not just country radio – pop stations played it endlessly, and his cover sparked a renewed interest in Chapman’s music. While there was some drama, Chapman actually made a rare public statement in support of Combs, congratulating him on his success and his cover. Chapman got paid in a big way because of Combs’ cover – she is the sole author of “Fast Car,” which means that she got (easily) $500K in royalties just from Combs’ cover alone. Well, now it looks like Luke Combs managed to do the impossible: he’s getting Tracy Chapman to leave her house and perform on stage with him at the Grammys.

Tracy Chapman, who has not performed in public in years, will return into the spotlight to perform a duet of “Fast Car” with Luke Combs at the Grammys on Sunday night, sources tell Variety.

Combs, who had a massive hit with his cover version of “Fast Car” last year, was already announced as a performer on the show. Chapman’s appearance comes as a significant surprise, as she has only performed for the cameras three times since wrapping up her last tour in 2009, and the singer had thus far resisted the popular demand to take advantage of the resurgence of “Fast Car” as an international phenomenon.

Representatives for the Recording Academy could not be reached for comment.

Combs’ version of “Fast Car” was ranked as the fifth biggest song of the year in the U.S. for 2023 when Variety published its annual Hitmakers list in late November, coming in ahead of smashes like Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.” It was a multi-format crossover hit for the country superstar, topping Billboard’s Radio Songs chart for four weeks, making it to No. 1 on the adult pop and country formats for two weeks each, and topping out at an impressive No. 6 at Top 40 radio and No. 2 on the Hot 100.

Chapman’s original version came out in 1988 and peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100, not really a reflection of how massive it was across demographics at the time. It reached the top 5 in the U.K. twice, once in 1988 and then again 23 years later in 2011.

[From Variety]

Ordinarily, I don’t look forward to the Grammys in general, and most Grammy collabs feel awkward and uncomfortable. But this is very cool and I genuinely can’t wait to see Tracy on stage. You know people in the room will be so happy to see her and I hope they honor her properly. From what I’ve seen, Luke always treated Chapman and her song with the utmost respect (he didn’t even change the “checkout girl” lyric) and I hope he knows what a big deal this is! He got Chapman on stage for the first time in fifteen years!!

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I’ve been steadily falling for Jamie Dornan ever since he admitted to kissing a horse, knowing full well he was highly allergic. It’s like some reverse Pepé Le Pew moment where he was smitten with the repellent partner. Then my emotions kicked up a notch when we learned he had to be hospitalized after being bitten by toxic Portuguese caterpillars during a golfing vacation. So while the rest of the world may be hung up on his heartthrob status or (underrated) acting chops, I’m waiting for word of Jamie’s next close encounter with the animal kind.

One aspect Jamie might appreciate about my peculiar focus on him is that I come to the table with no opinion on his role in the Fifty Shades franchise. Christian Grey seems to haunt him, as the part is addressed in basically every interview he gives. For those who need the refresher, the film came out in 2015. Jamie just appeared on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs podcast, and this time he talked about hiding out in the country when the bad movie reviews started pouring in:

During an episode of BBC Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs” published Sunday, the actor revealed he “hid” as “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the film adaptation of E.L. James’ popular romance novel, was receiving an onslaught of negative reviews in 2015. Critics largely panned the movie, which earned a 25% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Amid this negativity, Dornan weathered the storm at director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s house.

“We went to Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron (Taylor-Johnson), her husband, their place, and they weren’t there,” he said. “They let us have their place in the country, and we sort of hid there for a while and shut ourselves off from the world for a bit.”

Despite the poor reviews, “Fifty Shades of Grey” was a hit at the box office, grossing over $500 million worldwide and leading to two sequels, released in 2017 and 2018. Dornan recalled it was a strange sensation for him to receive so much mockery for a movie that was also wildly successful.

“Then you’re like, ‘Alright, there’s a bit of ridicule here, and I’m now contractually doing two more of them,’” he said with a laugh. “And knowing that there’ll be much more of that damnation to come.”

But Dornan stressed that he doesn’t regret taking on the role of Christian Grey opposite Dakota Johnson, although he bemoaned that the role is still often brought up, even when he’s receiving positive reviews for other projects. “A lot of reviews are like, ‘He’s great, but lest we forget when he wasn’t great here,’” he joked.

Since the “Fifty Shades” trilogy ended, Dornan has gone on to star in numerous acclaimed projects, including Kenneth Branagh’s 2021 romantic drama “Belfast,” which was nominated for seven Academy Awards. He received a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor in 2022. In 2023, Dornan reunited with Branagh on the mystery “A Haunting in Venice,” which received mostly positive reviews.

[From USA Today]

I can’t tell if interviewers simply won’t stop bringing up Fifty Shades, or if it’s Jamie who feels compelled to apologize for it. For the rest of his life, it would seem. But he shouldn’t feel the need to go into witness protection for a film character! He’s said in the past that he’s still “paying penance” for playing Christian Grey, and to still be talking about it nearly 10 years later… Honey, stop punishing yourself! You need all your strength for when you cross paths with a moose who gives you hives! (I’m just spitballing here, surprise me with the next creature confrontation.) But Jamie has been candid lately about his self-doubt, and in another part of this podcast he said “I’m happier with my self-doubt because it always gives you something to try to prove.” Is this a sensible pep talk, or not giving yourself a break?

Side note: when the book Fifty Shades of Grey first came out my aunt warned us against it right away. “Not because of the p0rn. Because of the prose!”

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Emma Stone lives in New York, but she was seemingly in town this week just for a quick promotional blitz, and then she jetted off… somewhere? Maybe to London, because the Cruella sequel is in pre-production. (Incidentally, I loved the first Cruella film and I’m so glad a sequel is coming.) Emma appeared on Good Morning America, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and probably several other shows. I’ve never been crazy about Emma’s style, but I really love her sad-beige outfit in these photos. It’s very ‘70s, very Ralph Lauren. The tuxedo dress is meh, and her airport outfit looks like my winter uniform, minus the red loafers.

Emma’s still talking about Poor Things, for which she’s nominated as an actress and producer. This is also Oscar-campaigning for her, by the way. Poor Things made a surge at just the right moment. I don’t know if her late surge will translate into any Oscar statues though. While Emma is beloved by Oscar voters, I think the Best Actress Oscar is Lily Gladstone’s to lose. Now, could I see a situation where Emma gets a surprise win because Lily and Sandra Huller split the vote? Perhaps. But Emma is not “campaigning” like a frontrunner, she’s just hustling to promote the movie in general, which is probably the smartest way to campaign.

Meanwhile, Emma did a cute Jeopardy thing on The Late Show. She talked before about how much she wants to appear on regular Jeopardy.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Hey Swifties, has Taylor Swift ever attended the Grammys with any of her boyfriends? Going purely from memory, I don’t think she has. Let me look through some photos archives…Joe Alwyn never walked a red carpet with Taylor, but he did sit with her at 2020 Golden Globes. Also: the 2015 Billboard Music Awards, where Taylor sat with Calvin Harris and they were clearly together throughout the show. But they never also walked a carpet together either. It’s not like Taylor is J.Lo, with a constant stream of red carpets with various boyfriends and husbands. All of which to say, I didn’t expect Travis Kelce to show up at the Grammys this weekend, and TMZ confirmed his absence:

Taylor Swift’s been showing up to her boo Travis Kelce’s games to cheer him on … but he won’t be returning the favor during her big night at the Grammys — but for good reason.

Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ … the Kansas City Chiefs tight end will actually be arriving in Vegas the same weekend as music’s biggest night … where he and the team will be on a strict schedule ahead of squaring up to the 49ers for the Super Bowl.

This kills any hope from Swifties that TK would show up as Taylor’s plus-one at the Grammys — as they all realized his spot in the SB meant he’d no longer play in the Pro Bowl the same day … and would therefore technically be free to hit up the Grammys with Tay Tay.

Alas, it ain’t gonna happen — our sources say there’s no chance Travis shows up in L.A. this weekend. So, it looks like Taylor’s gotta find company elsewhere or even ride solo for the glam evening this weekend. … where she’s up for 6 awards.

[From TMZ]

Yeah… he’s busy, she’s busy and they both understand that. It’s one of the best parts of their relationship, if you ask me. They respect each other’s careers and they give each other space to work. Another thing I enjoy about Traylor is that she hasn’t spent the past two months camped out in Kansas City, waiting around for him. Sure, she travels to see his games, but she flies back to New York or LA during the week to do her work or see her friends. The dynamic will change again post-Super Bowl, during Travis’s off-season, and I hope he travels around to spend time with her then.

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Queen Camilla really is glowing these days, lmao!!! She looks so happy, she’s looked happy for the past two weeks. For the past two weeks, she’s been the only senior royal out and about, doing events and being photographed. King Charles was dealing with his prostate issue – which will see him out of public view for the next month – and Prince William and Kate will be out of public view for an unknown length of time. Today, Camilla opened a new cancer support center at a London hospital. While she was there, she answered some questions about how Charles is doing.

Queen Camilla stepped out for a second solo engagement as King Charles and Kate Middleton rest up after surgery. On Wednesday morning, the Queen, 76, visited Maggie’s Royal Free to officially open the new cancer support center at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

And asked how Charles was doing in his recuperation, Camilla said, “He’s getting on, doing his best,” royal correspondent Richard Palmer reported on X/Twitter.

The outing came ahead of World Cancer Day on Sunday, Feb. 4, and marked Queen Camilla’s 17th visit to a Maggie’s center in the U.K. As the Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla became patron of Maggie’s Centres in 2008, shining a light on the hubs that provide free support and expert care to anyone navigating cancer.

The Queen was welcomed to the new space by Maggie’s executives Dame Laura Lee and Stuart Gulliver, architect Daniel Libeskind and Royal Free London representatives, and moved to meet the architectural team who brought the new space to life.

Maggie’s Centres are designed to be safe and welcoming havens on the grounds of the National Health Service hospitals for people to connect or take a quiet moment, and Maggie’s Royal Free becomes the charity’s 24th center in the U.K. The organization opened its first center in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1996, and has provided resources to support anyone with cancer, and their loved ones, ever since.

[From People]

The event itself is great and important – those centers are enormously helpful for family members of patients. It’s exactly the kind of bread-and-butter event royals should do. Camilla knows that too. I’ve said before, but I really have so much hate-respect for the way Camilla continues to play the royal game. She’s come out ahead for decades now. Now the visual is: Camilla is the last one standing.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Several days ago, the trailer for the remake of Road House came out. The remake stars Jake Gyllenhaal and I still haven’t watched the trailer because… I really can’t stand Jake anymore. Maybe he’s a great actor, but his general vibe is so sleazy, plus I’ve never been able to look at him the same way after Domenica Feraud’s story. Plus Jake’s own comments about how he doesn’t bathe. All combined, I’m left feeling slightly nauseated whenever I think about Jake. Well, here’s another horrible story about him. People in the French film industry have started talking about how Jake completely torpedoed a film production in 2021.

Whether it’s Val Kilmer’s antics on the set of The Island Of Doctor Moreau or Sly Stallone demanding last-minute changes during the filming of Rambo 3, cinema history is littered with stories of star power gone wild. According to a report in France’s Technikart magazine (and spotted by World of Reel) we can add the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring survival drama Suddenly to the list.

The film – essentially a two-hander about a pair of lovers trapped on an inhospitably cold island – was originally due to begin filming in the autumn of 2021. It was to be directed by Thomas Bidegain, with the script co-written by newcomer Valentine Monteil. For Bidegain, known for writing such films as A Prophet and Rust And Bone, it would have been his first step into Hollywood filmmaking, with Jake Gyllenhaal starring alongside Vanessa Kirby (Margot Robbie, Ana De Armas and Jodie Comer all passed). With the script written, everything seemed to be on track, with locations already chosen in a quiet part of Iceland and construction set to begin on an expensive set – some sort of whaling facility – on the nearby coast.

It was when Gyllenhaal – who’d also signed on as producer for the $26m film – arrived in Iceland that things began to go awry. Technikart’s report – which includes extensive quotes from Bidegain – describes some distinctly erratic behaviour from Gyllenhaal, including demands that the script be rewritten to a curious moment in which he stripped down to his underwear and jumped in the freezing cold sea in front of the whole crew. The magazine even has a candid photograph, appearing to show Gyllenhaal wading into the icy waters. “When I see the sea, I swim in the sea,” the star reportedly said.

Other curious moments described in the feature include Gyllenhaal specifying what colour his hire car should be (“neither red nor white”), Gyllenhaal and Kirby reading the script aloud in mock French accents like Pepe Le Pew, and Gyllenhaal arguing that the script should be rewritten to make his character an ex-soldier.

“For a scene on a boat, [Gyllenhaal] sells us the idea that he slaps a fish,” one passage reads.

Eventually, matters came to a head on day four of the project, with Gyllenhaal still demanding changes to the script and even – allegedly – saying that the production’s set builders had to sleep in their cars in order to prevent the spread of Covid. When producer Alain Attal dug his heels in and refused to change the script, the entire project fell apart.

“I’m going to talk to Jake and we agree that there’s no point in persisting, our visions diverge too much,” Bidegain told the producer. Weeks after the project came to an abrupt end, Vanessa Kirby reportedly tried to buy the script off Bidegain so she could embark on another attempt to make the film with Gyllenhaal – but without Bidegain. Bidegain and his producer refused.

The story does have a happy ending, of sorts: Bidegain rewrote the script in French, and cast actors Gilles Lellouche and Melanie Laurent in the lead roles once occupied by Gyllenhaal and Kirby. Now called Suddenly Alone, it sounds as though production on the new iteration of the story went much more smoothly the second time around – the completed film is due for release in December.

[From Film Stories]

The original stories/reports are in French, but English-language outlets are picking up the stories – World of Reel had more coverage, but it looks like they’ve got the same basic facts as Film Stories. As for Jake’s behavior… yeah, I believe this story. I believe that he behaved this way and I believe that his behavior has been problematic and unprofessional on other sets too.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

In the years before QEII passed away, then-Prince Charles would often brief the media about his big plans once he was in charge. In 2021, Charles even unveiled his plans to do a big real estate shuffle as king, and one of his notable suggestions was that he would downsize his own portfolio and basically “give” Windsor Castle to Prince William and Kate. Then QEII passed away and suddenly all of those plans fell by the wayside. Not even a full year into his reign and his aides were telling the royalist media that Charles is newly committed to never giving up any of his twelve castles and palaces. William and Kate received no real estate upgrade, although William now has access to the vast Duchy of Cornwall real estate empire, so god knows where William even lives now, but it’s certainly not Windsor Castle! Well, now that King Charles, the Princess of Wales and Prince William are all taking steps back from work for a while, all of the palace/castle staffers are like “wait, what are we supposed to do now?”

Staffers are at loose ends: While the royals are expected to continue working behind the scenes, perhaps even holding some private audiences, it seems inevitable that many of the vast army of people who work in the various royal households will be at a looser end than they might otherwise have been in the weeks ahead. Charles is likely to remain publicly invisible for up to another month, having already taken ten days off frontline duties for treatment for an enlarged prostate. William and Kate are likely to be out of action for a staggering three further months as they focus on her recovery and attending to their family, having already been out of sight for two weeks.

William has been seen! Kate is likely to have been ordered to try and stay in bed as much as possible following her planned abdominal surgery. William is taking time off his royal duties to care for her and their three children, and has been spotted doing the school run in recent weeks, sources have told The Daily Beast. Courtiers have said they expect the Waleses to be largely out of the public eye until after Easter.

One former courtier told The Daily Beast: “Serving the royals can be a precarious business, as Queen Elizabeth’s staff found out when she died. (Royal staff) are not exactly twiddling their thumbs, but there is never going to be the usual volume of business to attend to if your principals can’t do royal jobs. For instance, it takes dozens of people to plan and execute a foreign tour, and those have all been canceled. (Courtiers) devote their lives to serving these people, and one does assume it will just carry on forever. But of course, it doesn’t, and hiatuses like this come as a very stark reminder of the extremely contingent nature of their roles.”

A friend of the king’s however, said: “It really is nonsense to suggest that everyone is going to be at a loose end. The public engagements are a huge part of the job, but much, much more happens behind the scenes, and that won’t stop. The king’s people are kept incredibly busy and I suspect if they only have a chance to catch up they will be jolly happy.”

Kate & William aren’t in a rush: Kate, however, took a different approach to her father-in-law. Not for her the public wave on the hospital steps. Instead, she left hospital quietly and without fanfare, slipping out without getting photographed by the waiting media. This perhaps points to a difference in how the two offices intend to handle their respective principals’ time off in the days ahead. A friend of William’s and Kate’s said, “I think they have made it very clear that the next few months are about the family. They are taking time off and no-one begrudges them that. I’m sure the office will be a bit quiet over the next few weeks; that is kind of the whole point.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Let’s be real – Kensington Palace is used to a more “genteel pace,” as we were told repeatedly during the “Hurricane Meghan” years. KP staffers regularly wept in closets because they had to work eight-hour days when Harry and Meghan were around. It was often said, separately from the Sussex stuff, that KP was a nice place to work because there was nothing to do and no expectations. Look no further than what KP did for William and Kate in the years before Kate’s health drama – idiotic busywork and word-salad speeches, William proclaiming to be the savior of homeless people, and W&K’s belief that they both had to be “out of the office” for twenty weeks a year during their kids’ school holidays. Kate once went a full eleven weeks without being seen or photographed or doing one stitch of work (that was in 2021).

Now, it’s different for the king – he made such a big deal about how he was going to spend time in all of his palaces and castles, and I bet you anything he’s just recuperating in Highgrove right now. I also think they’ll end up saying that Charles needs an “easier” schedule when he does come back. Oh well!

I’m trying not to take this onslaught of celebrities sharing how much they get done between 3-7am personally, but the struggle is real. I understand that people tend to fall into one of two camps, early bird or night owl, and I’m also aware that some studies say there are people who simply need less sleep. I grew up with one of those people, an early bird who functioned on fairly little sleep. My father, like Dolly Parton (first time I’ve uttered that statement), would wake up in the wee hours and pretty much get a whole day’s work in by the time my mother and I, night owls, would be rising for the day. It was hard not to feel like a schlub by comparison. Rachael Ray is among that anointed, productive crowd, as she described to People Mag while chatting up a new partnership with A&E:

Rachael Ray has been cooking up something big.

Ray’s production company, Free Food Studios, formed a partnership with A&E Networks. The deal will bring “in the kitchen” content and various new shows from both Ray and other talent over the next two years.

The project means Ray, 55, is having a hard time finding a moment to relax — but she’s just fine with that.

“I’m not really good with downtime. I love to work. I love it. I love to have my brain very active, and if I’m not writing shows, I’m drawing ‘foodles’ I call them — recipes on paper — and writing books and things,” the iconic television cook tells PEOPLE. “I don’t like being idle. I’ve never been good at it.”

She even jokes that she wrote “120 pages” of one of her cookbooks on her honeymoon. “I really am bad at doing nothing!” she says proudly.

Ray says she starts as early as 3 a.m.

“I can’t sleep. I wake up at three or four in the morning, and I just start working because I can’t stop thinking about it,” she says. “I’m not very good at sleep. I never have been. Even when I was a little girl. My nickname was Little Hoot because I was a night owl.”

Her husband of over 20 years, John Cusimano, prefers a little more R and R. “He loves to sleep. Unfortunately, once I get up and turn all the lights on and start typing and turn the coffee on, he’s forced to get up pretty early, too,” Ray quips. “He’s usually up between five and six…The other morning he said, ‘You realize it’s three o’clock in the morning, right?’”

Another main reason Ray likes to stay hyperactive is that she’s always curious about trying out new things and taking on reimagined business ventures.

“I’m always game for anything, and I’m a person who’s over 50 years old. I’m trying to still remain relevant, which is an honor,” she says. “It’s cool to be over 50 and get new opportunities that keep getting thrown at me.”

[From People]

Real question here: do Rachael and her husband live in a studio apartment now? Why is she turning on the lights in the bedroom if he’s still sleeping? At the very least she could flip them on for getting dressed and then turn them back off when she’s done. And is the coffee being made in the bedroom?! Why must he be forced to wake up at the same time?! My vehemence stems from empathy!! Rachael may start her day before daybreak, but she should leave the hubby to his own circadian rhythm. Also, is it me or was that quip about her honeymoon a little rough? Not working doesn’t necessarily mean doing nothing. Rachael and John have been married for nearly 20 years, though, so if they butt heads I’m sure they’ll have one of their signature vents and move on. As for her new A&E shows, she’s working on one where she’ll be cooking from her home in Italy. I’m gonna need several boxes of pasta handy when that airs.

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