While Princess Anne doesn’t get a lot of attention during her tours and trips, I would imagine most countries, especially commonwealth countries, are welcoming to Anne and her low-drama energy. Anne is currently on the Windsors’ first royal tour of 2024. She arrived in Sri Lanka on Wednesday and she’s flying back to Britain on Friday or Saturday. This is a no-nonsense tour with Anne, her husband Tim and their very small staff. She doesn’t need hours for hair and makeup. Of course not. Just wear a sensible bun and some flats and let’s get to work. Anne’s arrival in Sri Lanka ended up getting headlines because she was photographed carrying her own bags off the plane.

The Princess Royal has been welcomed to Sri Lanka with a dazzling performance by traditional dancers – and in true Princess Anne style, she took it all in her stride by carrying her own bags off her commercial plane. The no-nonsense princess was photographed in a warm jacket, trousers and sensible shoes as she thanked SriLankan Airlines staff before walking off the plane carrying two heavy bags.

Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, her husband, followed, also holding a couple of bags, as the couple began an official three-day visit celebrating the UK’s ties with the Commonwealth country.

The Princess is famously businesslike on her tours, as in everyday life, with a packed schedule of events covering as much ground as possible in each day. She travels with a compact team of staff, known for their organisational skills, and tries to visit as many of her patronages as possible on any overseas visit as well as representing Britain.

The Princess, 73, is now known as the King’s “right-hand woman” thanks to her support for her brother, and her reputation as one of the hardest-working royals in the King’s slimmed-down monarchy. The trip is the Royal family’s first overseas tour of 2024.

The Princess is visiting the country at the request of the Foreign Office and will begin a whistle-stop tour to mark the UK’s bilateral relations with the nation, including a meeting later with Ranil Wickremesinghe, the president, and Maithree Wickremesinghe, the First Lady.

[From The Telegraph]

Anne is 73 years old and she runs circles around William and Kate in every sense. Since QEII passed away, we’ve also seen how much King Charles relies on Anne, that she is his “rock,” possibly more than Camilla. Anyway, I know her thing is being no-nonsense and unfussy, but I would love it if someone could convince her to wear a different style of sunglasses. These are so unflattering. She would look good with some oversized square-framed Jackie O-style sunglasses.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

We barely talked about Emily Blunt at the Golden Globes on Sunday, where she wore an ice-skater-looking McQueen gown and walked the carpet with her husband John Krasinski. Is it just me or does Emily just sort of float through these awards seasons all the time? She gets nominated consistently but never wins anything, so she dutifully shows up all the time and it’s just…whatever. Maybe she’s turning into another Amy Adams, always a nominee and never a winner. Anyway, I know I’m late to this but it’s been all over social media this week. While Emily and John were on the Globes carpet, someone got a video of them where it looked and sounded like John said something about how he couldn’t wait to divorce her.

That’s the debate. Did he say something about “divorce” – as in “I cannot wait to divorce you” – or was it something else entirely? Some people think he was saying something about the weather. Watching it for the tenth time, I think he said something was “the worst,” not “divorce.”

Like, say what you will about John and Emily and maybe they’re nowhere near the perfect transatlantic couple their fans hope they are, but I seriously doubt that John would be so cruel as to say something about divorce to Emily on the carpet of an awards show in which she was nominated! Like, even if you make the leap to say that they’re splitting up, he wouldn’t do that to her in public. Also: on Tuesday night, Emily went solo to the Governors Awards. No John. I suspect it’s less about “they’re getting a divorce” and more about “John is tired of the awards-season rigamarole.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

People are still talking about how badly Jo Koy bombed as the Golden Globes host on Sunday. One of the most offensive jokes – in an opening monologue full of terrible jokes – was Koy’s comment about Barbie, the most successful movie of 2023: “Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies.” The producers cut to Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s reaction to that joke and they both looked frozen and bewildered. Margot hasn’t said anything about Koy’s performance, but Greta was asked about it in an interview this week, and she spun it into Barbie’s favor:

“Barbie” director Greta Gerwig isn’t letting Jo Koy’s Golden Globes jokes about the record-breaking film get to her. During an interview with BBC Radio on Wednesday, she gave her stamp of approval to the comedian’s polarizing comparison of “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.”

“‘Oppenheimer’ is based on the 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project — and ‘Barbie’ is about a plastic doll with big boobies,” he said during his opening monologue, rubbing some fans the wrong way.

“Well, he’s not wrong,” Gerwig, 40, bluntly stated. “She’s the first doll that was mass-produced with breasts, so he was right on…And you know, I think that so much of the project of the movie was unlikely because it is about a plastic doll. The insight that [Barbie’s creator] Ruth Handler had when she was watching her daughter play with baby dolls, is she realized, ‘My daughter doesn’t want to pretend to be a mother. She wants to pretend to be a grown woman.’”

Of course, she opposed the hundreds of fans who were disgusted by Koy’s “Barbie” jabs. Viewers rushed to social media to express their dismay with his comments during the Golden Globes, labeling them as sexist and claiming they proved the entire point of the “Barbie” movie, which was to highlight women’s struggles in a male-dominated world.

“Saying ‘Oppenheimer’ was based on a great work and dismissing Barbie as a movie based on a doll with big boobs was so aggressively misogynistic in the face of all that Greta Gerwig and Margo Robbie accomplished it just turned me against Jo Koy the rest of the show,” one X user penned after hearing 52-year-old Koy’s opening monologue.

[From Page Six]

Yeah, Koy lost me with that as well, and it was one of the first jokes of his opening monologue! He said it with his whole chest, like he thought everyone in the room would agree with it and laugh because hahaha, isn’t it funny to dismiss women because they have boobs? Greta’s response is fine and the Barbie movie includes that too – that Ruth Handler created Barbie so little girls could dream about becoming astronauts and businesswomen and surfers and presidents. It’s really exhausting that the Barbie movie did this huge thing for the industry and it’s still being dismissed, marginalized and mocked.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Several days ago, Alan Dershowitz decided to stand up for Prince Andrew. Dershowitz claimed that Andrew made a mistake by settling out of court with Virginia Giuffre in 2022, and that Andrew basically only decided to settle because his mother made him. Keep in mind, Andrew and his lawyers believed that they could get Virginia’s civil suit thrown out of court, and when the judge said it could go ahead to trial – and Andrew was looking at taking the stand and having to face cross-examination in an American court – suddenly, Andrew couldn’t settle fast enough. That was supposed to be the end of Andrew – he was supposed to be shuffled off and never heard from again. Instead, he’s been trotted out over and over in the past two years at public events. It’s clear that all of the current royal sturm and drang is nothing but performative BS for the cheap seats. Now a source tells the Times the same thing: King Charles isn’t going to do jacksh-t to Andrew.

The King will not force Prince Andrew to move out of his home on the Windsor estate, an associate of the duke has said, because “blood is thicker than water”.

Reports last week suggested that the King was preparing to put pressure on his brother to move out of his home at Royal Lodge by making him fund his own security needs. However, the associate, who is in regular contact with the duke, said that although some palace officials favoured such an aggressive approach, the King would never authorise it. The source said the duke was uncomfortable with the renewed coverage of his friendship with the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, but that the latest disclosures would have no bearing on the duke continuing to live at Royal Lodge.

“The duke has rights like any leaseholder in relation to that property so it’s not like anybody can say, ‘I’ve decided you’re going to move out’, ” the source said. “It’s a very unattractive proposition to withdraw security to kick out your brother and I’m sure the King would never allow that, even if it was suggested to him.”

“The King is somebody with a high level of integrity. There are people in the royal household who would take a more aggressive stance, but in that family, blood is thicker than water.”

The source said that the duke did not expect to return to public life “unless there is a significant turnaround in the public perception of him…If [people believed] he was wrongly accused, I’m not sure that would be enough because of the association with Epstein,” the source said. “The stigma of Epstein would have to wear off.”

[From The Times]

Okay, this is actually Andrew lavishing praise on his brother and publicly reminding Charles that “blood is thicker” and “a man of integrity would never evict his brother!” Please, Charles has no integrity, and he evicted his own “blood” relation, his son. All that being said, the end result will be the same – Charles does nothing but make a lot of noise about “punishing” Andrew and then nothing ever comes of it.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Most years, the Golden Globe nominations are a free-for-all which ultimately have little bearing on the Oscar races. Most years, the guild awards are much better indicators – the Producers Guild nominations usually match the Best Picture Oscar noms, SAG is a good predictor of the Oscar acting noms, DGA noms are a predictor for Directing Oscar noms and on and on. But this year’s SAG Award nominations are flat-out crazy and the Globes actually had better noms. I was overcome with schadenfreude at the fact that Leo DiCaprio got “snubbed” for a nom for Killers of the Flower Moon, I missed the fact that soooooo many amazing performances were also snubbed. Here’s a list which is by no means comprehensive:

*No Sandra Huller for Anatomy of a Fall. Arguably, Huller gave one of THE acting performances of the year, and before this SAG snub, I would have considered her a low-key threat to Lily Gladstone’s Best Actress chances. You can argue that Anatomy is a “foreign film” and less likely to be seen by a mostly-American guild, but half of the film is in English! I also believe the child actor Milo Machado Graner should have been in the awards mix but apparently no one from Neon thought that.

*No Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things, but Willem Dafoe and Emma Stone did get nominated. I haven’t seen Poor Things yet but I believe the critics who said that Ruffalo’s role is the showier part and that he kills it.

*No Greta Lee or Teo Yoo from Past Lives. I kind of felt like Greta Lee was more of a critics darling and Teo Yoo was definitely not going to get nominated, but still – Greta’s performance was great and blanking Past Lives feels anti-Asian!

*No Charles Melton or anyone from May December. Real talk, I’m sort of fine with Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore being ignored for nominations – while I thought they were both great in May December, they’ve been there and done that and it’s fine. Charles Melton really deserved a lot of love for his role though, he was great and he was already picking up big critics’ awards for the movie. I also sort of think May December should have been considered for ensemble, because it really was a great ensemble performance??

*No Fantasia Barrino or Taraji P. Henson from The Color Purple. I haven’t seen it so I can’t speak on the quality of their performances, but it’s more than possible that The Color Purple simply came out too late for most people to appreciate the performances (Danielle Brooks was nominated, as was the ensemble).

*No Zac Efron for The White Claw. Haven’t seen it, don’t want to, but people say he’s great. Did anyone really expect a nomination though?

* No Leo DiCaprio, which I’m fine with because he was f–king exhausting in KOTFM. That being said, it’s a joke that Leo was snubbed and yet Bradley Cooper got a nomination for Maestro.

*Speaking of KOTFM bulls–t, the film did get a SAG nomination for ensemble, but apparently by some SAG rule/technicality, it’s almost exclusively white actors being recognized for the ensemble and very few of the Native American actors. The Wrap says more than a dozen Native American actors were excluded from the ensemble nomination.

*No Andrew Scott for All Of Us Strangers. Eh. I kind of felt like that might happen.

*No one from Saltburn, which seemingly everyone watched over Christmas. Maybe people thought it was stupid??

*The Gilded Age’s second season got an ensemble nomination but no individual noms. Which I’m sort of fine with? Y’all can rave about Carrie Coon – and she is great in the show – but it’s just a fancy soap opera. Same with Christine Baranski – she’s wonderful on the show, but I’m fine with her not being nominated.

*The eldest boy got snubbed!! It’s insane that Jeremy Strong missed out on a Lead Actor nomination for Succession and yet they nominated Brian Cox (who wasn’t even in the show past the third episode of the last season). While the fourth season really did belong to Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook, Strong turned in another fantastic performance, as he did every season.

Anyway, we’re currently in the middle of the Oscar-nomination voting period, and the Oscar noms come out on January 23rd. Let’s hope the Oscars correct some of these mistakes.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, AppleTV+, Avalon Red and HBO/Max.

Something I’ve thought about a lot in the past two years is how the British royal family is so singularly hateful about every single thing connected to Prince Harry that they’ve gone out of their way to snub wounded warriors, veterans and Invictus Games competitors. The Windsors, en masse, blanked on the British Invictus team during the Hague Invictus games in 2022. The Windsors’ grudge against veterans grew even more noticeable during the Dusseldorf games last September, with the Telegraph and Mail even publishing some quotes which explicitly criticized the Windsors for looking “mean-spirited and petty.” The British Invictus team was aghast that the Windsors seemed hellbent on ignoring them. Not only that, there was a concerted effort by Prince William, Kate and Charles to “torpedo” the positive coverage of Invictus domestically and internationally. The Windsors looked incredibly foolish, short-sighted, anti-military and anti-veteran.

Well, funny story! Prince William and Kate have decided that their new 2024 cause will be a renewed focus on the British military. They’re even planning to make some kind of special trip to visit servicemen abroad.

The Prince and Princess of Wales will kick off their year with a “renewed focus” on the military. William and Kate are set to make their first tour of 2024 to a foreign country where British armed service personnel are stationed. Royal sources confirmed the couple are in advanced discussions to travel outside of the UK to thank British troops on behalf of the nation.

The Mirror is not revealing the location for security reasons but the trip is set to take place next month. William last year visited British troops in Poland on operations concerning the war in Ukraine.

The first trip of the year will not focus on Ukraine, but sources say this will continue to be a pillar of their work for the next 12 months. A royal source said: “It’s no secret about the Prince and Princess’ affection for the military but 2024 is about celebrating the efforts of those personnel abroad, often away from their family and friends, fighting in conflicts that are a long way from home. This is about a renewed focus to recognise their dedication and the royals feel very strongly about their role in representing the armed forces.”

[From The Daily Mirror]

A “renewed focus” on the military after Peg and Buttons were too stupid to simply send out a warm tweet wishing the British Invictus team well. A celebration of the British military after ignoring the veteran community for years out of spite for Harry. Sounds like Will and Kate were really triggered by NATO Joint Force Commander General Guglielmo Miglietta bringing a 1100-person NATO delegation to the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf. We knew that already – William was incandescent with rage about Harry and Meghan’s wonderful NATO photo-op with the delegation. Ten bucks says that Will and Kate’s very special international trip is to Germany and maybe even to a NATO base. If so, that means it took William four solid months of shrieking hissy fits to get NATO to agree to a photo-op. Pathetic.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red.

I don’t know much about Pat McAfee other than “he’s some kind of successful sports commentator/analyst.” McAfee currently runs the successful The Pat McAfee Show, which airs on ESPN and their streaming service. Aaron Rodgers basically signed a contract to come on the show every Tuesday and provide analysis of football and sports culture. Aaron’s Tuesday appearances have been a descent into madness, with Aaron becoming radicalized before our eyes over the course of about four years. Rodgers was once seen as an intelligent, attractive football “hunk.” He’s now an anti-vaxxer, a QAnon dumbass and someone who gleefully spreads rumors about how his enemies are pedophiles.

Two Tuesdays ago, Rodgers did just that on McAfee’s show, insinuating that Jimmy Kimmel’s name would appear in the Epstein files. Kimmel clapped back HARD and threatened to sue. McAfee was so flummoxed that he had to put on a long-sleeve shirt and walk back Rodgers comments. Then Rodgers appeared on McAfee’s show two days ago and Rodgers refused to apologize to Kimmel and instead went on another anti-vaccine tirade. Pat McAfee has had enough. He said Rodgers is done (on his show, at least).

Aaron Rodgers will not be returning to The Pat McAfee Show in the near future following comments he made insinuating that Jimmy Kimmel could be linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

On Wednesday, sports analyst McAfee, 36, announced that the weekly segment “Aaron Rodgers Tuesday” would no longer be featured for the remainder of this football season.

“I’m pumped that that is no longer gonna be every single Wednesday of my life,” McAfee said as he and two others on his show applauded.

“So ‘Aaron Rodgers Tuesday,’ season four, is done. There’s gonna be a lot of people that are happy with that, myself included. To be honest, the way it ended, it got real loud… I’m happy that he’s not gonna be [in] my mentions going forward, which is great news.”

[From People]

A source also told CNN that McAfee ended Rodgers’ segment “due to his recent behavior, not the conclusion of the regular NFL season.” They want to underline that for ESPN/Disney – Rodgers is out specifically because he’s a nutjob, not because of any football reasons. While McAfee could probably find success somewhere other than ESPN, you could actually tell that he was uncomfortable with Rodgers using the show as a platform for an increasingly bonkers worldview. I suspect ESPN/Disney went to McAfee and they were like “Rodgers should go” and McAfee was like “I totally agree, I’ll do it ASAP.”

Here’s a supercut of Aaron Rodgers obsessing over COVID-19, Fauci and vaccines during today’s Pat McAfee appearance. pic.twitter.com/0guNeUDA2m

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) January 9, 2024

Photos courtesy of Aaron’s IG, Avalon Red.

From CB: I was so convinced by Rosie’s post about E.L.F. dupes that I bought a bunch of E.L.F. products. I really like the Poreless Putty Primer and my favorite purchase is the E.L.F. Lash n Roll mascara. It gives great coverage and long-looking lashes and it doesn’t clump at all! Plus it’s vegan and doesn’t irritate my eyes. And the Halo Glow makes my skin look amazing, but I’ve been using that for a while. Here are some more things that Rosie and I are looking at on Amazon.

Looks like we might see the Duke and Duchess of Sussex leave their Montecito home in January after all. Everyone was carrying on and arguing about whether Meghan should leave the house to attend the Golden Globes – she was invited, but was apparently too busy to attend – and I wasn’t looking forward to another round of “will the Sussexes go to the Oscars.” We were looking at another bleak Sussex Undercover Season. But no more – Prince Harry will be honored at the 21st Annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards on January 19th. Check this out:

Prince Harry is flying into a special group. The Duke of Sussex, 39, is among the four people who will be inducted at the 21st Annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards in Beverly Hills on Jan. 19, it was announced on Wednesday. The event, hosted by John Travolta, will honor “those who have made significant contributions to aviation/aerospace.”

Prince Harry served as a helicopter pilot during his military service in the British Army, flying training missions in the U.S., U.K. and Australia as well as combat missions in Afghanistan.

He was awarded his Flying Wings in 2010 following completion of the eight-month Army Pilot Course with the Army Aviation Centre, learning to fly the Firefly fixed-wing aircraft and the Squirrel helicopter and accumulating approximately 220 flying hours. Harry spent 3½ years in training and operational service with the Apache Force during his time with the Army Air Corps, winning the prize for best co-pilot gunner during training and becoming a fully operational Apache pilot in February 2012.

The Living Legends of Aviation also praised Prince Harry as the creator of the Invictus Games, the Paralympics-style sporting competition for wounded service personnel and veterans.

[From People]

I can already hear the incandescent rage-shrieking from England! While Sanhurst is playing a losing game of royal politics, Harry will be feted alongside Navy pilot Fred George, CAE CEO Marc Parent and world speed aviation record-holder Steve Hinton. While Harry’s pilot credentials are great, I would assume that Harry’s work on Invictus was what really got him this honor. God, I hope Harry’s hostage gets to leave the house on the 19th!!

PS… Some people already brought this up, but go here to read that story about how Prince William wore special airplane-embroidered slippers to the Top Gun: Maverick premiere, and William repeatedly pointed out his airplane slippers to all of the Top Gun actors. So, on one side, we have a violent, petty idiot who is obsessed with planes that go VROOM, and on the other side we have a prince who served two tours in combat, who then founded an Olympic-style event for wounded warriors. Pick your fighter.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.

January is a natural time for considering our own behavior and what we want to change for the new year. Like Brooke Shields, I shy away from setting firm resolutions. Really it just comes down to a tedious mental game for me, where if I declare a change another part of me will rebel and say “you’re not gonna tell me what to do!” It’s noisy in my head. Instead I try to make gentle suggestions to myself, and convince myself it’s hugely different from making resolutions. (I know I’m ridiculous, I know.) A similar popular new year’s practice is Dry January, wherein you abstain from drinking alcoholic beverages for the duration of the month. People Mag spoke to Dr. Rocco Iannucci, MD — director of the Fernside Residential Treatment Program at McLean Hospital and Psychiatry Instructor at Harvard Medical School — about the benefits of Dry January, both mental and physical.

Your liver will thank you: First and foremost, Dr. Iannucci points out that abstaining from alcohol throughout January is “helpful for your liver.” He adds that abstaining for “relatively short periods of time” can have a positive impact. “People with significant liver inflammation related to alcohol will oftentimes see their markers of inflammation go back to normal within the course of a month, and that’s people who have a significant level of alcohol intake,” he explains. “Alcohol is a toxin to the liver,” Dr. Iannucci continues. “The good news is the liver up to a point has a lot of capacity to heal and so giving it that chance to heal can be really helpful.”

Alcohol disturbs our sleep rhythms: “The thing that I think many don’t realize is that even small amounts of drinking do disturb your sleep… Most people will notice the immediate effects of alcohol,” Dr. Iannucci says, citing the ability to fall asleep earlier as an example. But while this is true for many people, he says alcohol consumption can also cause “morning awakening and fitful sleep… That can happen with half a drink,” he explains. “It doesn’t take much for alcohol to start to disturb our sleep rhythm so that our sleep isn’t as restorative as it would be otherwise.”

The potential for weight loss: “I think we can underestimate the degree to which alcohol adds calories — and they’re ‘empty’ calories, meaning they really don’t have any nutritional value,” he explains of the oftentimes “quickly consumed” beverages. “Especially in the forms of sugary drinks, you don’t really notice how much you’re taking in.” While the amount of weight lost during Dry January differs per person… Dr. Iannucci says that “many people find that they lose weight during the course of a Dry January.” Drinking aside, new activities during Dry January can aid in weight loss, especially if your weekends or weeknights usually revolved around alcohol.

Strength in numbers: And while “stopping alcohol” may cause “younger people or people who are dating” to fear “isolation” during Dry January, Dr. Iannucci says joining forces for the month of abstinence can make things easier. He suggests convincing some friends to participate or finding support online. “People will do that through social media and or through apps to help support Dry January and can give you that sense of being connected a little bit more.”

The attempt is beneficial, whatever the results: Whether people fully committed to Dry January or opted for a Damp January (cutting back on alcohol over the month), Dr. Iannucci says “both” attempts “offer benefits because you make a change in your behavior… People can sometimes see themselves as having failed it,” a mindset he doesn’t view as helpful because the attempt is beneficial alone. “I think it’s really kind of a win-win,” he says. “Whether you are able to not drink the entire month or whether you do sometimes drink in that month, you’re still likely to see some benefits in terms of psychological health and physical health,” Dr. Iannucci explains. “So it’s worth doing… What we don’t want to do is beat ourselves up over trying to do something good.”

[From People]

Full disclosure: I barely drink, so I actually have done a Dry January, completely unwittingly. For me personally, I just substituted Coca Cola (which I’ve been imbibing way too much lately) for all of the merits Dr. Iannucci lists above. The benefits still hold up for soda! And I’ve already failed for a soda-less January! Sorry Dr. Iannucci, I know you said not to use that word. Most of what Dr. Iannucci says here makes sense. It’s stuff we probably know already, but it’s still a helpful boost to see it presented together in a compelling argument. Elsewhere in the interview Dr. Iannucci stresses that it’s important to acknowledge that everyone is different and will therefore have a different Dry January experience. Your relationship to alcohol before trying a Dry January is a big factor, as is, well, pretty much everything else. Which is why Dr. Iannucci also notes that consulting with your doctor first is the safest way to start a Dry January.

Whatever your goals are for January and beyond (I’m intrigued by CB’s article on thinking about doing less), be kind to yourself along the way. Cheers Bitches, I raise my glass of seltzer in toast to you all!

Photos credit: Cottonbro studios on Pexels