Kourtney Kardashian gave birth to her fourth child! This is some kind of miracle baby – Kourtney and Travis Barker wanted to start trying to get pregnant before their wedding. Kourtney did fertility treatments and all kinds of fertility diets. Nothing happened. Then she decided to hit pause on all of the medical stuff and she got pregnant right away. At least, that’s the version I read in a recent profile of Travis. Anyway, People has the confirmation:

Kourtney Kardashian Barker and Travis Barker are parents again! The Lemme founder, 44, and the Blink-182 drummer, 47, have welcomed their first baby together, sources confirm exclusively to PEOPLE.

Kardashian Barker and Barker — who wed in 2022 — revealed that they would be welcoming a baby boy during a sex reveal party in June. The rocker then spoke about his son on the One Life One Chance with Toby Morse podcast late last month.

The couple is already parents to six children between them. Kardashian Barker shares Reign Aston, 8, and Mason Dash, 13, plus daughter Penelope Scotland, 11, with ex Scott Disick.

Barker is already a father to son Landon, 20, daughter Alabama, 17, and stepdaughter Atiana De La Hoya, 24, with his ex-wife Shanna Moakler.

[From People]

Just FYI, I like that People Magazine counts Atiana De La Hoya as one of Barker’s kids too. He raised her, he was the father who stepped up, and they’re still in each other’s lives. I’ve said this before, but I watched his old reality show with Shanna and he always came across as an attentive father who loved his kids. I’m sure he’s over the moon right now that he gets to start over with a new wife and baby. It’s crazy that it’s been seventeen years since he’s done this! Anyway, I hope Kourtney’s kids love their new half-brother and I hope Scott isn’t a huge f–king nuisance.

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Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Instagram and Avalon Red.

Millie Bobby Brown is a lot. She’s 19 years old, she’s been super-famous for half of her young life, and she’s engaged to Jon Bon Jovi’s son. She’s also an author, an actress, a producer, a soon-to-be screenwriter and on and on. It’s a lot, and this kind of frenetic energy makes me want to take a nap! No, I actually like MBB and I don’t blame her for striking while the iron is hot and figuring out a way to do things on her terms. There’s a boldness there which I appreciate and respect, even if I think she would find it beneficial to go to college for a few years. MBB is currently promoting Nineteen Steps, her novel which is sort of based on her grandmother and London during WWII. She’s also Glamour’s Global Woman of the Year. Some highlights from a somewhat overwrought cover story:

How she starts her day: “I’m somebody who wakes up, drinks a kombucha, pets my donkey, you know?”

Being criticized for talking too much when she was a kid: “We’re kids—we talk over each other. I was just penalized for overtalking and oversharing and being too loud.” She was accused of, as she recalls it, “trying to steal the thunder” of her castmates. Grown adults called her “an idiot,” “stupid,” and “a brat.” “It’s hard to hear that at 13. You’re like, ‘I don’t want to ever talk again. I don’t want to be the loud person.’ In interviews I couldn’t help but think of all the comments. So I just remembered to stay silent and speak when I was spoken to, even though I was dying to join in. I just felt it wasn’t my turn.”

She tries to look out for other child actors: “You cannot speak on children that are underage. I mean, our brains physically have not grown yet. To diminish and practically stunt someone’s growth mentally, strip them down, tell them, ‘Hey, listen, you don’t look that great. Why are you wearing that? How dare you think you can wear that? How dare you say that?’”

She’s put up gates: “Nobody’s allowed in. Nobody can say sh-t. This is my life, and the only people that are allowed are the people that I open the gate for. Other than that, everybody’s out. And yes, it’s sad. There are trust issues. And yes, I have issues with having friends. I don’t have a lot of friends. Yes, I block out a lot of people. I’m a reserved person, socially. I will never let that gate open again. Because everyone’s crossed it.”

Falling for Jake Bongiovi: “I think I was so afraid to be a strong woman in a relationship,” Brown says of her past relationships. Being attractive to men, she thought, meant not taking up too much space. “When I met Jake. I just felt I could be loud. He embraced that and encouraged that. And I fell in love with myself while being with him.”

She has always known she wants children. “I wanted to be the woman that my mom is to me and I wanted to be the woman that my grandmother was to me. So that was never my, like, intention, to be a wife. But after meeting Jake and seeing, ‘Oh, I don’t have to be this stereotypical wife for him. He doesn’t want me to be that either. He wants me to go and do my thing and live my life, and he will hold my hand in the process of that.’ I was like, ‘Oh, I do want this.’”

Her feminist awakening: She credits her feminist awakening to a visit to a psychic, who informed her that she was, in fact, a feminist. Brown went home and googled “How do I know if I’m a feminist?” After reading articles and books, she “really grasped the idea of feminism and what it means to me,” she says. “Ultimately it’s about opportunity.”

[From Glamour]

She also talks about Jake’s family and how she and Jake both come from happy families with long marriages, and I genuinely winced because she just jinxed herself so hard. But I generally feel like she’ll survive whatever happens. Jake sounds like a nice guy and it sounds like a healthy relationship (for her age). She thinks that being married will make her more settled, that she’ll have a real home and that this is, finally, the answer. And that’s a lot to put on a marriage at 19 years old! But again, she’s a survivor and she’ll figure that out in real time.

Covers courtesy of Glamour.

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Tom Hiddleston went to see Kenneth Branagh in King Lear in London on Halloween. Tom looks good in these pics but I wish his hair was longer. [Go Fug Yourself]
Gerard Butler has blonde hair now! [Just Jared]
Marjorie Taylor Greene & Lauren Boebart are fighting. [Jezebel]
Should I start caring about Jacob Elordi? [RCFA]
Kirsten Dunst went to a CBD shop. I like CBD gummies and they absolutely help me sleep, although I rarely use them. [LaineyGossip]
HBO has a big 2024 slate. [Pajiba]
Hugh Jackman enjoys a single-guy Manhattan (cocktail). [OMG Blog]
Did a 90 Day Fiance couple break up? [Starcasm]
Michael Weatherly made an album? [Seriously OMG]
Friends’ director reveals the cast’s texts after Matthew Perry’s passing. [Hollywood Life]
Gen Z is learning about the Coppola family. [Buzzfeed]

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Here are more photos from the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay’s big day-trip to Scotland on Thursday. They visited Burghead, Inverness and Moray. Their events were centered on youth mental health and agricultural life. Per usual, Kate and William were asked to perform some skits – helmets and bikes were provided, and they dutifully biked through some kind of light obstacle course. You can read more about all of it here at People.

Obviously, biking and youth mental health is all very well and good, but the biggest discussion online is Kate’s increasingly distracting wigs. Even LaineyGossip wrote about the dysfunction happening on Kate’s head, although Lainey’s hair professional thinks this situation is just a case of really bad weaves. I honestly don’t think so. Someone, somewhere thinks Kate looks fine and I want to know who that person is because they clearly hate her. She looks like she just plopped a cheap 1970s wig on her head and no one double-checked it. One of these photos is angled so you can see the mess happening in the back – you can easily see what her real hair looks like underneath that ridiculous hairpiece.

More thoughts about the jeans – literally, all she needs is like two more inches on the inseam and these jeans would be super-cute and flattering. Don’t give me any arguments about this being the trend – the highwater look might be “trendy” in the UK this season, Kate’s execution is so bad, it effectively killed the attempted trend. It’s a shame because I’ve been praying for a return to dark-wash bootcut jean styles. Just two more inches, I swear! The jeans would have been close to perfect! (She still would have needed a better boot though.)

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Prince William actually was handsome at one point, many years ago. People used to talk all the time about how much he looked like Diana. He seemed blessed with Spencer genes. Then something shifted in his 20s and the Windsor genes began to consume the Spencer genes. Nothing has ever been the same. I also think that William’s inner evil seeps out onto his looks – that man is ashy, awkward and full of rage. He does not carry himself like a man who is comfortable in his own skin. Well, during William and Kate’s day-trip to Scotland on Thursday, William told a group of primary-schoolers to guess his age. Their response was amazing.

The Prince of Wales has protested he is “not that old” after a child said he looked as though he was 57.

During a tour of the north of Scotland, the Prince and the Princess visited Burghead, Moray.
While speaking to pupils at Burghead primary school, the Prince answered questions from pupils, including from one pupil who asked if he had brought any soldiers of the King’s Guard with him, while the Princess of Wales volunteered to time a bike race between some of the other children.

One child asked the Prince how old he was and when he prompted the child to guess his age, they said they thought he was 57.

The 41-year-old Prince, feigning shock, said, “I’m not that old.”

[From The Telegraph]

Two things, in all honesty – William does look much older, and if you didn’t know who he was, most people would peg him (heh) at “late 40s,” very easily. Secondly, kids are just terrible at guessing ages and kids tend to think anyone over 25 is “really old.” It doesn’t matter if William is 41 or 57 or 33. He’s still an old man to kids that age. Last thing: never set yourself up like that. Never ask a kid to guess your age, weight, job, marital status or anything else. That child will absolutely brutalize you and your self-worth and then go play with their Legos like nothing happened.

PS… I really hope he didn’t try to sound hip and tell those kids about his favorite emoji.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I’ve said this time and time again, but it bears repeating: if the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were the real linchpins of the monarchy, perhaps the other Windsors should have treated them better from the start. Instead of simply treating Harry and Meghan like vital and important working royals, the Sussexes were smeared, attacked, assaulted and abused and then Charles cut off their finances and security to “bring them to heel.” Four years later, the Sussexes aren’t coming back and the remaining “working royals” are either well past retirement age or lazy as hell. Which brings the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden to his latest suggestion: Princess Beatrice and Eugenie must become working royals!

It’s time that an ageing British Monarchy promoted Prince Andrew’s daughters to front-line royal duties, says Richard Eden. Because with His Majesty the King approaching his 75th birthday later this month, ‘the Firm’ is already over-stretched.

‘As I have watched the King and Queen carry out engagements in East Africa, what has struck me most is that they need help,’ writes Eden in the latest edition of his Palace Confidential newsletter. ‘If we want the monarchy to continue to be as strong as it was under the late Queen, we need new recruits to “the Firm”.’

While it is no one’s fault, there is, he says, a straightforward shortage of youth and energy at the heart of the monarchy – a situation made significantly worse by Prince Harry’s unexpected departure to America.

Eden points out that the King has already been the throne for 14 months but is yet to visit any of the 14 Commonwealth realms (aside from Britain) of which he is monarch. Kenya, a republic, is the first Commonwealth country he has visited as King. While Charles and Camilla are friendly and enthusiastic ambassadors for Britain overseas, it is clear that long-haul foreign visits will be few and far between, he writes. Camilla, 76, is no fan of flying.

‘After his mother, Queen Elizabeth, succeeded to the throne at the age of 25, she embarked, with Prince Philip, on her longest ever Commonwealth tour, lasting six months and covering 44,000 miles. There will be nothing remotely on that scale for the King and Queen. This means that other members of the Royal Family will be called upon to share the burden of foreign travel. Prince William, for example, is expected to visit Australia and New Zealand before his father goes Down Under.

‘King Charles should ask his sensible nieces, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, if they would like to become working royals.I know they have a great sense of duty, so they would be likely to agree.A Commonwealth realm that does not expect to see the new monarch in a hurry would, I’m sure, welcome a visit from one of his nieces.’

[From The Daily Mail]

In the past 14 months, it’s been fascinating to watch as the new king moved the goalposts and the sycophantic press held their tongues – Charles and Camilla were supposed to travel to ALL of the Commonwealth realms in his first few years as king. That was always the plan, that was always an integral part of any new monarch’s reign, a significant commonwealth tour of all of the countries which call Charles “king.” Instead, he only traveled to Romania, France and Germany in 14 months. As for the York princesses, this is not new speculation and the press has been trying to convince Charles to bring in B&E for months if not years. The fact that Charles has made zero moves to do so is not because the issue slipped his mind. Again, Charles is fine with the working royals being so ancient and/or lazy, because it’s “more attention” for him and Cam. Charles has always seen his family as zero-sum, so no, he doesn’t want to “share” anything with his nieces. Besides, I think only Beatrice would be up for it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.

Here are some photos of King Charles and Camilla in Kenya on Day 3 (Thursday) of their royal tour. Most of the pics are from their trip to Mombasa, where Charles visited Nyali Beach, wore sunglasses and checked out some environmental group which repurposes plastic found on the beach. I can truly picture William rage-shrieking “that’s EARTHSHOT, that belongs to me, DAD!” At the beach, he also checked out a coral restoration project and he sat around a “meeting” with some community elders. Charles’s dark socks are killing me a little While I’m loath to give Charles any credit for anything, I’m actually impressed with the fact that he’s been able to keep up a whirlwind schedule at his age. His wife, on the other hand…

Camilla mostly stayed in the shade, pursing her lizard lips and trying to manage the heat. She wore another Indian-style ensemble, a flattering white kurta and loose pants, probably cotton or a cotton-blend. If you look closely, I think her orthopedic wedges of doom are back. A few days ago, she wore work boots with her dress, probably because she knew she was going to be mucking around with donkeys and she didn’t want to get donkey sh-t on her wedges. It’s really interesting to me that Camilla doesn’t travel well and no one can even bring themselves to say it at this point. She’s not an “asset” to the king. She’s a dogs-t consort.

On their first day in Kenya, Charles slipped on some grass but he didn’t fall. Still, the photo of his slip made news, but… IDK, sometimes grass is slippery? It’s not some big PR fail for anyone. However, the optics of this moment should be discussed in greater depth:

This Photo of King Charles III on his visit in Kenya has gone viral.

What are your thoughts on this Photo. pic.twitter.com/eWqoTXYpb5

— Africa Archives (@Africa_Archives) November 2, 2023

I desperately want to know if the palace arranged for a red carpet or whether the Kenyan government thought they should do this or what. It’s giving Imperial Viceroy whose precious feet cannot touch the Kenyan dirt.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

After staying mysteriously quiet on all things royal for a month or longer, Camilla Tominey has a curious and neo-colonialist piece in the Telegraph this week. While it includes one jab at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, it’s mostly about how the old British Empire has fallen apart at the seams and many countries are either hostile to the British monarchy or completely apathetic towards them. She basically listed a handful of countries and described whether they’re “still loyal” or whether relations are “tricky” or “hostile.” Some highlights:

Canada is tricky: Republican sympathy has also been simmering away in Canada, despite Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pro-monarchy stance, particularly among young Canadians. Trudeau’s Millennial and Gen-Z supporters would like him to press ahead with a referendum to create a Republic of Canada, with polls suggesting that a majority of the electorate would support the replacement of constitutional monarchy by an elected president, although only the separatist Bloc Québécois has actually proposed and voted for abolition in the Canadian parliament.

Canada’s First Nations people: First Nations people have called on the King to renounce the Doctrine of Discovery, the law they claim sanctioned “the colonial possession of Indigenous lands and has justified violence against Indigenous people”. Any imminent royal visit to Canada is inevitably going to have to address this as well as the as yet unsubstantiated claim that indigenous school children were killed and placed in mass graves as part of a “genocidal” plan devised by John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first prime minister. With the Liberals threatening to make it a hate crime to “deny” this alleged mass murder took place – despite there being no supporting evidence of it whatsoever – Canada could prove to be an exceptionally difficult royal nut to crack.

Tominey lists The Bahamas as “hostile”: No sooner had William and Kate arrived in the Caribbean for an eight-day visit in March last year than the Bahamas National Reparations Committee had demanded an apology for slavery. In what was later dubbed a “PR disaster” for the couple, the Caribbean charm offensive was knocked off course by repeated calls for reparations from the Royal family and British Government. In an open letter, the committee wrote: “The people of The Bahamas have been left holding the bag for much of the cost of this extravagant trip. Why are we footing the bill for the benefit of a regime whose rise to ‘greatness’ was fueled by the extinction, enslavement, colonisation, and degradation of the people of this land? Why are we being made to pay again?” Any return to the Bahamas is likely to face a similarly frosty response.

Jamaica is listed as “hostile” as well: William and Kate were met with a lukewarm welcome when they touched down in Kingston to tour Bob Marley’s old neighbourhood of Trench Town, only to be told: “We see no reason to celebrate 70 years of the ascension of your grandmother to the British throne because her leadership, and that of her predecessors, has perpetuated the greatest human rights tragedy in the history of humankind.”

Belize is listed as hostile: William and Kate’s visit to the central American Commonwealth country didn’t get off to the best start when they were forced to cancel their first engagement following opposition from villagers who cited a range of issues including objections to their helicopter landing site. The couple were scheduled to tour a cacao farm in the Maya Mountains but had to divert after residents in the Indian Creek area complained to Flora and Fauna International, a conservation organisation of which William is a royal patron. Amid reports tensions had mounted over the “meaning of consent in the context of communal land rights, rights to lands that were expunged in the colonial period by the British”, the chair of Indian Creek village, Sebastian Shol, told journalists: “We don’t want them to land on our land, that’s the message that we want to send. They could land anywhere, but not on our land.”

The woke royals: Even the wokest royals can run into trouble overseas. When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex toured South Africa in 2019 they were criticised for their insensitivity after Meghan opined to ITV’s Tom Bradby: “Not many people have asked if I’m okay” after visiting a township of the world’s poorest people.

[From The Telegraph]

She couldn’t help herself with that line about Meghan, who was at the time only five months postpartum and about six months from the darkest moment of her life (when she was suicidal), having been targeted by one of the most disgusting national hate campaigns for more than a year. I guess Tominey missed the fact that Meghan and Harry’s African tour was successful, as was their South Pacific Tour the year before. Meghan and Harry were the international assets to the institution, and the Commonwealth countries watched as the first woman of color in the royal family was smeared, denigrated, harassed, tormented and exiled. That’s a factor here as well, it was a real turning point for many people who had previously been supportive or lukewarm about the crown. As for William and Kate leaving a legacy of hostility to the crown in every Caribbean nation they visited in 2022… lol. God, their Caribbean Flop Tour was amazing, just flop after flop after flop. It went so badly that all of the countries they visited are all going to ghost the crown.

Photos courtesy of Instar, Backgrid.

President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden no longer have any dogs at the White House after the Secret Service pulled some kind of bizarre stunt, including falsifying records and openly briefing the media, to get the Bidens’ German Shepherds out of the White House. So nowadays, the Bidens’ only White House pet is Dr. Biden’s cat, Willow. You know some Secret Service agent is already preparing a report about how Willow Biden attacked him too, a report which will be leaked to CNN soon after it’s handed in.

But I digress. The Bidens celebrated Halloween at the White House this week, doing a traditional trick-or-treat session for White House staffers & their kids, military families and kids from DC public schools. President Biden didn’t wear a costume, but Jill did – she dressed up as WILLOW! She dressed up as her cat for Halloween. This is, frankly, the most “teacher” thing she’s ever done. And I’m including all the times she decorated the White House for her favorite holiday, Valentine’s Day. We have a FLOTUS who dresses up like her cat for Halloween. I love it so much.

Jill also named the event: Hallo-READ. The Bidens passed out candy and books, plus they invited the National Confectioners Association to set up booths to hand out all kinds of treats. Scholastic donated all of the books which were passed out. I was wondering about the candy passed out by the Bidens – most people know about the M&Ms with the seal of the president, but did you know that the White House also has big Hershey’s Kisses packaged with the seal of the president? It’s true, and President Biden was handing out both.

Obligatory mention, anytime the White House and Halloween comes up, of the time Barack Obama couldn’t stop laughing at the Baby Pope. He was so tickled!

That time Obama met a baby pope on Halloween pic.twitter.com/nbrKmcGCif

— Colin Jones (@colinjones) October 31, 2016

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Here are more photos of King Charles and Queen Camilla on Day 1 of their four-day visit to Kenya. There was a state dinner in Nairobi on Tuesday, but Camilla skipped the tiara and gaudy jewelry this time. She did that on purpose – she didn’t want to wear any diamonds looted from the continent of Africa while she was actually IN Kenya. She also didn’t wear a formal dress, opting instead for a clownish two-piece look by Anna Valentine – palazzo pants and an Indian-style kurta/tunic. Per People Magazine, “By leaving her tiara at home, the Queen eliminated potential outcry around accessorizing with a visual symbol of the monarchy in a country formerly under British rule and scarred by The Emergency or the Mau Mau rebellion, which was met with a violent and brutal British-led crackdown in the 1950s.” As if “not wearing a tiara” would make people forget about the decades of systematic oppression and the looting of their national resources and treasure. Speaking of, at the state dinner, King Charles refused to apologize in his speech:

“It is the intimacy of our shared history that has brought our people together. However, we must also acknowledge the most painful times of our long and complex relationship,” the monarch said.

“The wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret,” he continued. “There were abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence committed against Kenyans as they waged, as you said at the United Nations, a painful struggle for independence and sovereignty – and for that, there can be no excuse.”

“In coming back to Kenya, it matters greatly to me that I should deepen my own understanding of these wrongs, and that I meet some of those whose lives and communities were so grievously affected,” he said. “None of this can change the past. But by addressing our history with honesty and openness we can, perhaps, demonstrate the strength of our friendship today. And, in so doing, we can, I hope, continue to build an ever-closer bond for the years ahead.”

“It means a great deal to my wife and myself that, in our coronation year, our first state visit to a Commonwealth country should bring us here to Kenya,” he said. “We both take considerable pride in renewing the ties between the United Kingdom and Kenya, a country that has long held such special meaning for my family.” He then said in Swahili, “Today, I don’t feel like a visitor.”

“It is well known, I think, that my dear mother, The late Queen, had a particular affection for Kenya and the Kenyan people. She arrived here in 1952 a princess but left as Queen,” the King continued, speaking about how Queen Elizabeth acceded to the throne during a tour there when her father, King George VI, died unexpectedly. “It is extremely moving to read her diary from that visit, in which she wrote that she did not want to miss a moment of Kenya’s extraordinary landscapes. I really cannot thank you enough for the support Kenya gave her through that difficult time.”

King Charles also recalled how his father, Prince Philip, attended the celebrations of Kenya’s independence in 1963 as well as when Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton in Kenya in 2010. “It was here, in sight of Mount Kenya, that my son, the Prince of Wales, proposed to his wife, now my beloved daughter-in-law,” he said.

[From People]

I wonder if any Kenyan will ask him about what he did to his other daughter-in-law, the Black one he put in mortal danger as a way to bring her “to heel.” Which speaks to the colonialist attitudes of Charles in particular and the institution generally, which is why the careful wording of his statement falls flat. As always, beware of the historical passive voice- instead of “mistakes were made,” Kenya gets “There were abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence committed against Kenyans.” Who can even say by whom, amirite?? Also: does anyone buy that William actually proposed to Kate in Kenya at this point?

“By addressing our history with honesty and openness we can, perhaps, demonstrate the strength of our friendship today. And, in so doing, we can, I hope, continue to build an ever-closer bond for the years ahead.”

The King speaks at a State Banquet on Day 1 of #RoyalVisitKenya. pic.twitter.com/y96ZaBZ1Um

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) October 31, 2023

PS… Charles’s hands look extremely painful at this point.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.