I think Heather is correct here and InStyle’s Day of Indulgence has been rebranded (or un-branded) so as to fly under the radar. [GFY]
That Selena Gomez photo has become a great meme. [Buzzfeed]
Lori Harvey can really wear anything. [RCFA]
Review of Red, White and Royal Blue. [LaineyGossip]
Bryan Johnson’s youth-quest has got him looking sickly & old. [Pajiba]
Kelly Rowland looks amazing in Georges Hobeika. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Matthew McConaughey’s son Levi looks so much like his mom & dad. [JustJared]
Southern gay folks are amazing. [Towleroad]
Genie Bouchard will do anything but play tennis. [Egotastic]
Is Whoopi Goldberg leaving The View? [Seriously OMG]
Madonna has new tour dates. [Socialite Life]

I was rooting for Christine Baumgartner but that poor woman is getting torn up by Kevin Costner, Laura Wasser and the entire family court system of California. Christine might have gotten the upper hand by filing for divorce and surprising Costner, but it’s been bad news ever since. Costner’s lawyers are taking Christine to the woodshed and it does not look like this woman has any sort of plan or strategy to nullify the prenup she signed 19 years and three children ago. Basically, Christine is getting hosed and Costner is calling all of the shots:

Attorneys for Kevin Costner accused the actor’s estranged wife Christine and her legal team of “gamesmanship of the worst sort” in new court documents relating to their divorce. In a request for order filed in California Superior Court Aug. 10 and obtained by PEOPLE, attorneys for the 68-year-old Yellowstone star have asked the court to compel Christine — who filed for divorce May 1 after 18 years of marriage — to explicitly answer a number of questions they have put to her about the Costners’ premarital agreement.

The lawyers claim Christine, 49, has avoided answering questions — including whether or not she understood the agreement before she signed it — throughout the discovery process as both legal teams prepare for the November trial to determine the validity of the prenup. Under the prenup’s terms, Christine received a $1.5 million payout, which she risks forfeiting by challenging the agreement.

“Four months into this matter, and three months away from the commencement of the trial on the validity of the PMA, Christine refuses to make known all of her contentions regarding the validity of the PMA,” an attorney for Kevin claimed in the new documents.

“The objections she has mustered in an effort to not disclose her contentions are frivolous. She says she does not understand words like ‘understood’ or ‘negotiation,’ so she cannot answer this discovery,” the document further stated. “She says she does not know what commonly legal phrases like ‘legal effect’ and ‘supersedes’ mean, so she cannot answer this discovery. She refuses to admit (or even deny) that the specific factual representations she and her attorney made in the PMA itself are accurate, to wit, that she understood the PMA, that it was explained to her and that she acknowledged she understood the meaning and legal effect of the PMA,” the lawyer continued.

In a separate statement filed in court the same day, Kevin’s lawyers called Christine’s tactics “gamesmanship of the worst sort.”

“‘Understood’ is not a technical or arcane word. It is not ground for objection that a request is ambiguous, unless it is so ambiguous that the responding party cannot in good faith frame an intelligent reply,” wrote the lawyer. Kevin is also seeking around $14,000 in legal fees he accrued as a result of his legal team trying to elicit answers from Christine. “Discovery is not a game of chicken. Kevin should never have been required to spend money to file a motion,” the request for order stated.

[From People]

Lawyers, help me out here – Costner and Baumgartner are headed to a bifurcated divorce trial where Christine is challenging the prenup (the PMA), and Costner’s lawyers are throwing a huge hissy fit because Christine won’t answer questions in discovery? Is that right? She’s being purposefully obtuse about what she “understood” about the PMA. Apparently, the trial is set for November 27 and the discovery cutoff is October 27. Meaning, she has another two months before she has to really answer these questions from Costner’s lawyers. So, when you see the schedule… Costner really comes across as bullying and hectoring, like “why don’t you have all of this done NOW” and the deadline isn’t for another two months. I hope Christine and her lawyers have a larger strategy at play here because Costner is using the court to publicly bully and berate her.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Here are some photos of Angelina Jolie out and about last night in New York. Apparently, she flew into NYC with Vivienne and Pax on Monday or Tuesday, and the Mail also has photos of Jolie out with Vivienne during the day on Tuesday. Angelina has been spending so much time in New York lately, and from what I can tell, she’s always staying in hotels. She hasn’t quietly bought a place in the city, but that might be coming, sooner than we think. Her fashion collection, Atelier Jolie, is now based in New York. And Angelina is set to produce a Broadway-bound stage adaptation of The Outsiders. It turns out, we were right – Vivienne is the one who told her mom about the play. Vivi is a little theater geek:

Angelina Jolie is turning her upcoming Broadway venture into a mother-daughter collaboration. Last week, Jolie announced she will serve as lead producer bringing the musical The Outsiders, an adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film, to Broadway.

On Monday, PEOPLE confirmed that Jolie’s daughter Vivienne, 15, inspired her to take on the project — and will help mom, closely involved in the production as Jolie’s volunteer assistant.

“Viv reminds me of my mother in that she isn’t focused on being the center of attention but in being a support to other creatives,” Jolie said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. “She’s very thoughtful and serious about theatre and working hard to best understand how to contribute.”

The pair saw the world premiere of The Outsiders at La Jolla Playhouse in California earlier this year and later met with author Hinton, who wrote the book as a teen around Vivienne’s age.

A source close to Jolie says, “Angelina is excited about this new venture. She believes this is a musical for all ages but particularly resonates with young people. She wants to ensure the team is listening and working with young people every step of the way and that their voices are leading in bringing this production to life on Broadway.”

[From People]

Something I’ve always appreciated about Angelina is that she has absolutely zero stage-mom sensibilities. Yes, she’s put her kids in her movies and she’s given them jobs behind-the-scenes, but it’s clear that none of those kids are interested in acting and she’s fine with that. She’s not nepotizing them into a celebrity life. Vivienne doesn’t sound interested in the process of being a stage-actress, but she loves the theater and she’s probably fascinated by what goes into live theater. Well, now Vivienne gets to work as Angelina’s “assistant” as Jolie produces a Broadway play.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Late last year, I learned Sophie Winkleman’s name and her (lowly) status within the Windsor clan. Sophie is married to Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of Prince Michael of Kent and Princess Michael of Kent. He has next to no status within the royal family, and he works a real job at JP Morgan in London. Meanwhile, Sophie is a working actress. She’s appeared in TV shows in the UK and America, and for several years, Sophie and Frederick did live in LA while she worked. Now they live in London and they gleefully accept whatever crumbs they’re given from the family. Around Christmas, Sophie got her brief and she dutifully wrote a column in the Spectator, and claimed with a straight face: “the senior members of the royal family who are so hardworking, uncomplaining and brave in the face of relentless and brutal media attention, criticism, lies, undermining and fictional TV programmes.” LMAO, she really thought she was doing something. Well, in case you’re in the mood for more shady bullsh-t from this woman, here you go:

Prince Harry claimed in his tawdry memoir, Spare, that his father advised him that Meghan Markle could stick to her acting career rather than serve as a working royal after their wedding. Harry and Meghan rejected King Charles’s suggestion, but another member of the Royal Family has shown that it’s possible to pursue a successful acting career.

Sophie Winkleman, best known as Big Suze in Channel 4 comedy Peep Show, is married to Lord Frederick Windsor, son of Prince Michael of Kent, and continues to win starring roles. However, she’s now revealed that she turned down lucrative television parts in the U.S. to stay close to her daughters, Maud, who turns ten today, and Isabella, seven. The couple had lived and worked in California, where Winkleman landed herself a recurring role in the hit sitcom starring Charlie Sheen, Two And A Half Men, for five years until 2015.

‘After Two And A Half Men, I got some wonderful offers of work in America which I didn’t do because I couldn’t imagine just vanishing to another country for months,’ says Sophie, 43, the half-sister of Strictly Come Dancing co-host Claudia Winkleman. ‘You have to make compromises in your career when you have a family. So I do jobs in Britain where I see them every week.’

The actress, who attended Queen Elizabeth’s funeral as well as royal events including Prince William and Catherine’s wedding, jokes that her household is run more efficiently when she is on a shoot. ‘It does work well when I’m away, though,’ she says. ‘They [her children] have some order because whoever is looking after them is never as chaotic as I am.’

[From The Daily Mail]

“…Another member of the Royal Family has shown that it’s possible to pursue a successful acting career.” Meghan literally had a very successful career as an actress. She was pulling down a seven-figure annual salary between Suits, Lifetime movies and The Tig. She gave up her career because she believed she was stepping into a full-time role as a working royal. Sophie Winkleman works because she has to, because no one is asking her or her zombie-looking husband to work for the Firm. Kind of a dodgy way to insult Meghan – look, we totally accept actresses into the royal family, but only if they’re white and married to the 53rd in line to the throne!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Over the holidays last December my friend had a yen for watching the 1999 tv version of Annie. We’re not even ten minutes into the movie and who pops up as orphan Molly but a baby, doe-eyed Sarah Hyland! She really has been working forever. Both her parents are New York actors, so that must have helped her get started. Her resume is doubly impressive considering the extensive health issues she’s had her whole life. Born with kidney dysplasia, a condition where the kidneys don’t form properly in utero, she’s had more than 16 surgeries, two of which were kidney transplants. In 2012 her father donated a kidney, only for her body to reject it and in 2017 she had another transplant, this time donated by her brother (which *knock wood* has taken). While appearing on the Dinner’s on Me podcast, hosted by her Modern Family costar (and wedding officiant) Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Sarah spoke more candidly about the pain she was in when they were shooting the series:

I don’t know how she did this: “There are some episodes of Modern Family where I do not remember filming because I was asleep. Dead-ass asleep,” she said. “I was not able to be awake for eight hours at a time. I was so exhausted all the time,” she explained, noting that she was only able to stay awake from the very moments scenes began and finished shooting. “I’d be on the set, we’d be filming, I’d be dead asleep, my head on the table, I would hear, ‘and…’ and my head would go up.”

F—ing high heels: She and Jesse went on to recall a specific day that they were shooting a scene that involved her pushing a car. Jesse begins, “I remember a day when we were shooting—I don’t remember the specifics of the scene, and you might not remember it because I think you were in an intense amount of pain that day—but we were pushing a car?” In response, Sarah revealed that she actually had gout in her foot at the time, which meant that she had to use crutches on set. “I was on dialysis, I had gout. It was wild,” she said, before later explaining that she got gout after being put on medication for retaining too much water. Then, Sarah revealed that despite being in the “most excruciating pain,” the Modern Family producers “insisted” that she film the scene in high heels. “They put me in high heels,” she said. “They had not established my outfit yet, and they insisted that I was wearing heels.”

Jesse took care of her: “I remember there was a day on set… I think I was in rejection on dialysis, and I was just in an extreme amount of pain,” she said. Explaining that “there wasn’t enough time” to go back to her trailer in between takes, Sarah said, “But I also could barely move. So I found a little corner, I sat in a chair… and I was just kind of curled up into a ball.” Sarah told Jesse, “You came up to me and very lightly touched me on the shoulder… You were just like, ‘Can I get you anything? Is there anything you need? I’m here for you.’”

Her coping was to ignore the pain: Noting that she has a “workhorse mentality,” which she said she gets from her parents, Sarah went on, “You don’t know when the next job is going to be, and if you don’t work hard and if you complain, you get the boot. So for me, I ignored how I felt.” And Sarah added that while this mentality was “most definitely not healthy,” it was “the only way” she knew how to deal with the pain.

[From BuzzFeed]

By my internet sleuthing, the episode where Sarah and Jesse had to move a car is from Season 8 which aired between 2016-2017. By that point Modern Family had won 22 Emmy Awards. My point? The f—ing high heels weren’t necessary, what a dickhead thing for the producers to do. Truly, I don’t know how she did any of what she did based on what she describes here. She was passed out from pain but able to snap into character the minute the cameras rolled? And be funny?! Nailing comedic timing is no joke. (Har har, yes pun intended.) I’m glad she’s feeling well enough to talk about her experiences, and I hope she’s enjoyed her first year of marriage with a good hubby. She’s earned some good times. As for MF producers Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, how about you film yourselves walking around in high heels for a day, as a way to step back into her good graces.

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Photos credit: Faye’s Vision/Cover Images, JPI Studios / Avalon and via Instagram

While I think the USA Network was a great home for shows like Suits, White Collar and Monk in its day, I do wonder if, in retrospect, Suits would have done amazing on network television like NBC. It was glossy and fun, a breezy hour-long drama with attractive people and a diverse cast. In this sliding-doors situation, I have to think that NBC probably would have canceled it though, which is why USA was a better home – Suits was allowed the time and space to tell its story and pace itself the right way without NBC executives breathing down their necks. Still, I’d like to know if NBC does have any regrets about not picking up Suits back in 2010-11. Anyway, the story in 2023 is still that people are rediscovering Suits, so much so that the Suits Renaissance is practically responsible for fueling what Deadline refers to as a “grim milestone.”

It’s a streaming world, and we’re just living in it. It is no secret that streaming dominates the TV landscape, but Nielsen measured a new (and somewhat grim) milestone for broadcast and cable in July’s edition of the company’s monthly state of TV report, The Gauge. For the first time, linear TV viewership accounted for less than 50% of all TV usage in a measurement month.

According to Nielsen, broadcast and cable each represented record low shares at 20% and 29.6% of total TV usage, respectively, to combine for a linear television total of 49.6%. Compared to this time last year, broadcast viewing was down 5.4%, and cable viewing was down 12.5%.

On a month-over-month basis, broadcast viewing fell 3.6% in July and cable viewing was down 2.9%. Nielsen reports that dramas remained the top broadcast genre, but the top programs of the month were actually ABC World News Tonight and the MLB All Star Game on Fox. As for cable, sports took the cake as usual, with ESPN’s Home Run Derby and College World Series at the top.

Then, there was streaming. Viewing across streamers increase by 2.9% from June to July and has ballooned 25.3% in the past year. It now represents 38.7% of total TV usage, which is a new record-high for the second consecutive month.

Netflix was a major contributor to the increase in streaming viewership (with a 4.2% increase in its share of total TV usage), assisted by none other than Suits. The legal dramedy has taken over screens across the U.S. since it debuted on Netflix and Peacock simultaneously in June, breaking Nielsen records with nearly 4B minutes viewed in just one measurement week.

In July, Suits accounted for 18B viewing minutes. To put that into perspective, Nielsen says that Stranger Things also managed 18B viewing minutes last July with the conclusion of Season 4. Put more plainly, people are watching a lot of Suits.

[From Deadline]

Basically, people would rather watch Suits on Netflix or Peacock rather than whatever is scheduled on NBC, CBS and ABC. And for the first time, more people are opting out of network and cable television than opting in. I mean… my TV is almost always set on Tennis Channel, the Food Network or the Cooking Channel, but I get it. I also get why this has become the Summer of Suits – people enjoy watching completed, multi-season TV shows. Over 18 billion minutes of Suits watched on streaming… I can’t even comprehend those kinds of numbers. Definitely wish that Meghan, the cast and the writers were being paid residuals for it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, ‘Suits’/Instagram.

It’s difficult to even unpack all of the layers of racism, white supremacy, white-saviorism and regular old fraud when it comes to this week’s revelations about Michael Oher and the Tuohy family. When Oher was a gifted-but-poor teen, the Tuohys were one of several Memphis families taking him in and looking after him. They offered to adopt him, they had him sign some papers and up until February of his year, Oher believed that they were his adoptive parents. Turns out, it was all a lie – they never adopted him, they scammed him into a conservatorship which defrauded Oher out of millions of dollars. He received no money for his life rights, which were used to make The Blind Side. Oher released a new statement the day after he filed a lawsuit against the Tuohys and petitioned to have the court remove the conservatorship.

Former NFL player Michael Oher has released a statement after he filed a legal petition to terminate a conservatorship, in which he alleges Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy lied about adopting him while making millions off his name. On Monday, Oher, 37, filed a petition claiming that the Tuohy family did not legally adopt him but tricked him into making them his conservators before earning millions from his falsified life story, which was depicted in the film The Blind Side.

“I am disheartened by the revelation shared in the lawsuit today,” Oher said in a statement issued to PEOPLE by a representative for the former NFL player. Oher’s statement continued, “This is a difficult situation for my family and me. I want to ask everyone to please respect our privacy at this time. For now, I will let the lawsuit speak for itself and will offer no further comment.”

[From People]

Yes, let the lawsuit speak for itself. Not only that, but let the Tuohys incriminate themselves by lying their asses off all over the place. Sean Tuohy – the patriarch of the Tuohy family and the man who lied about adopting Michael Oher for years – spoke to the Daily Memphian on Tuesday and these quotes are a lot:

Sean on Oher’s lawsuit: “We’re devastated. It’s upsetting to think we would make money off any of our children. But we’re going to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16.”

On the accusation that the Tuohys made money off of the movie: “We were never offered money; we never asked for money. My money is well-documented; you can look up how much I sold my company for. The last thing I needed was 40 grand from a movie. I will say it’s upsetting that people would think I would want to make money off any of my children.”

The conservatorship, Part 1: Tuohy insisted the conservatorship that prompted the filing of Monday’s petition was unrelated to the movie. Rather, it was a way to appease the NCAA, the nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics, when it appeared Oher was likely to play football at the University of Mississippi. Tuohy was an All-American point guard at the Southern university known as “Ole Miss” and an active supporter of the school. As such, he would qualify as a “booster” under NCAA rules.

The conservatorship Part 2: “Michael was obviously living with us for a long time, and the NCAA didn’t like tha. They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family. I sat Michael down and told him, ‘If you’re planning to go to Ole Miss — or even considering Ole Miss — we think you have to be part of the family. This would do that, legally.’ We contacted lawyers who had told us that we couldn’t adopt over the age of 18; the only thing we could do was to have a conservatorship. We were so concerned it was on the up-and-up that we made sure the biological mother came to court.”

What happened after the movie came out: Tuohy said that while he and his family had remained close with Oher following the film’s release in 2009, he began to notice some distance “maybe a year and a half ago…It’s upsetting, but it’s life, what are you going to do? Certain people will believe us and certain people won’t. No question, the allegations are insulting, but, look, it’s a crazy world. You’ve got to live in it. It’s obviously upset everybody. It’s hard because you have to defend yourself, but whatever he wants, we’ll do. We’re not in this for anything other than whatever he wants. If he’d have said, ‘I don’t want to be part of the family anymore,’ we’d have been very upset, but we absolutely would have done it.”

Whether he’s willing to end the conservatorship: “I want whatever Michael wants.”

[From People]

There are so many sketchy parts of Sean Tuohy’s story – if everything was completely above-board with the conservatorship, why didn’t Oher know about it at the time? Why was he told it was an adoption? Why did the Tuohys tell people – including the filmmakers and journalists – that they adopted him? If the conservatorship was just an NCAA work-around, why wasn’t the conservatorship removed after Oher left Ole Miss and joined the NFL? Why was Oher not consulted about his life rights and why did he not profit whatsoever from the film? This whole thing is so unsettling.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

On Monday, the Daily Mail’s Eden Confidential column scooped everyone by revealing that the Princess of Wales had dinner with her rural rival Rose Hanbury, and Rose convinced Kate to attend the 24-hour “rave” music festival which was being hosted on the Houghton Hall estate. Everything about Eden’s report was sketchy, including the emphasis on William’s absence, the fact that Kate and Rose are making a point of “being friendly,” the fact that Rose is perhaps Kate’s only friend in Norfolk (which is sad because Rose also got peggy with William) and on and on. Well, would you like an even weirder addendum to the story? Kate and her “party” made a point of tipping well at the on-site pop-up restaurant at the Houghton Festival.

The Princess of Wales attended her first music festival last weekend, as I disclosed in the Daily Mail on Tuesday, and staff will hope it won’t be her last. For it has been revealed that her party left a £700 tip.

Catherine joined revellers at the Houghton Festival in Norfolk, where DJs played music 24 hours a day. During her night out, she is said to have avoided the festival food trucks, instead opting for the on-site Turntable & Napkin restaurant, where diners pay £60 each for a four-course meal.

‘[Catherine] was in high spirits, ordering spicy margaritas, eating affogato [an Italian coffee-based dessert], and speaking affably with the other members of her party,’ reports the London Evening Standard.

‘Her companions apparently carted in a huge, balthazar-sized bottle of AIX rosé and, together with Kate, left the festival restaurant staff a £700 tip.’ A balthazar is a 12-litre bottle and it would cost about £500 from a wine shop.

Catherine, 41, is understood to have made her first ever visit to a music festival at the weekend, albeit a very upper-class one. She was dining with her Norfolk neighbours, the Marquess and Marchioness of Cholmondeley, David and Rose, at their Palladian stately home, Houghton Hall. At the time, the Houghton Festival was taking place on their 1,000-acre estate.

‘After dinner, one of the guests suggested that Catherine go to the festival,’ a source told the Daily Mail yesterday. ‘Catherine was nervous about the idea, but, after much discussion with her protection officers, she went with lots of security. William wasn’t there.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Something I think about a lot is how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex seem to have a lot of pity for Kate and that drives her crazy. My take is that most people in Kate’s life do see her as this pitiful person. The vibe with this whole story is that Rose and David are extremely cool, avant-garde, bohemian people and they took pity on the poor, friendless, hopelessly uncool Kate. The group Kate was with – I guarantee those were Rose and David’s friends and I guarantee that Rose was like “do look after that poor sausage, make sure her wig stays glued on at the festival.” What does it feel like to have your husband’s mistress pity you??? I also guarantee that Kate does not tip that well, that was absolutely someone else in the group, probably one of Rose’s friends. Kate doesn’t seem like someone who tips or knows what things cost. Also: spicy margaritas AND rosé? She was puking her guts out the next day.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Happy Indictmas Season, everyone! Spread the Indictmas goodwill far and wide! Wish your friends and family a very pleasant Indictmas! Tuesday was special because we celebrated the new high holy day, RICO Charges Day. Fun story: no one can be pardoned on RICO charges/convictions in the state of Georgia. Which might explain why Mark Meadows (one of the indicted co-conspirators) is trying to make the Fulton County case into a federal beef. There are question marks all around that weasel Meadows too – it’s widely assumed that he’s singing like a canary to Special Council Jack Smith, only to get caught up in the Georgia Indictmas. Anyway, the Fulton County sherif’s office says Donald Trump will not get special treatment and he can come in for booking any time, where he will have his mugshot taken.

Former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants will be booked at the Fulton County Jail, the sheriff’s office said Tuesday.

“At this point, based on guidance received from the District Attorney’s office and presiding judge, it is expected that all 19 defendants named in the indictment will be booked at the Rice Street Jail,” Fulton County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Natalie Ammons said in a statement.

Prosecutors say the former president orchestrated a sweeping criminal enterprise, committing more than a dozen felonies, as he tried and failed to overturn his defeat in Georgia’s 2020 election. Trump was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury Monday evening, alongside co-defendants including his lawyer and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former state Republican Party chairman David Shafer.

District Attorney Fani Willis said Trump and his co-defendants have until Aug. 25 at noon to turn themselves in.

“Keep in mind, defendants can turn themselves in at any time,” the sheriff’s office said Tuesday. “The jail is open 24/7. Also, due to the unprecedented nature of this case, some circumstances may change with little or no warning.”

The sheriff’s office also said it is creating a designated media space in the jail’s parking lot to accommodate the local and national networks sure to descend on the facility.

[From The Atlanta Journal Constitution]

I wished for handcuffs and shackles, but here we are and this is fine. That f–ker will have to pose for a mugshot and be treated like every other f–king criminal. I honestly cannot wait to see Trump’s unhinged mugshot. Please, I’ll be publishing that in every Trump story forever.

This clip of Kimberly Guilfoyle comparing Trump to John Gotti is quite extraordinary. She ends up highlighting the fact that Trump is an even bigger criminal than JOHN GOTTI.

lol this is quite the self-own here pic.twitter.com/h10tIlfbOg

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 15, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Bradley Cooper waited a few years before trying his hand at directing again following A Star Is Born. ASIB was a success by most metrics – Cooper was nominated for multiple Oscars, Lady Gaga won an Oscar for the song, and the film made a lot of money. Personally, I hated the movie, but whatever, it was fine. Apparently, during ASIB’s promotion, B-Coop was already setting up his next project, but it took him a while to get it going. The film? Maestro, a sort of bio-pic about the conductor Leonard Bernstein. It’s about his life and work and his marriage to Felicia Montealegre. The first trailer was released this week:

So… people are mad and I get why. My first thought was “what accents are they TRYING to do?” It sounds like they’re both trying and failing to do a Katherine Hepburn impression. Other people were more focused on Bradley’s prosthetic nose, and I see why. It’s distracting and really unnecessary. It’s not even like Leonard Bernstein was known for having a huge nose? Why did B-Coop insist on this? People have made the argument that the prosthetic nose in this case is antisemitic – Bernstein was Jewish and goyim Bradley wanted to “signal” Bernstein’s Jewish ancestry visually. When you see the comparison pics between Bradley’s regular face and Bernstein’s face, it does feel extremely strange that Cooper decided to wear this ridiculous prosthesis.

PS… This argument will come up again if and when goyim Helen Mirren promotes Golda, where she also wears a prosthetic nose to play the famed Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. The only thing I’ll say in Helen’s defense is that with her prosthetics, she actually LOOKS like Meir. Bradley’s prosthetic nose doesn’t make him look any more or less like Bernstein.

Left: Bradley Cooper with his prosthetic nose, playing Leonard Bernstein.

Right: The actual Leonard Bernstein.

This isn’t about making a non-Jewish actor look more like Leonard Bernstein; it’s about making a non-Jewish actor look more like a Jewish stereotype. https://t.co/WrYWuweosW pic.twitter.com/WxspPtHktj

— Joel S. (@jh_swanson) August 15, 2023

Bradley Cooper faces backlash for wearing a prosthetic nose in ‘Maestro,’ his upcoming biopic of Jewish conductor Leonard Bernstein.

Critics say the larger prosthetic reinforces an antisemitic stereotype about Jews. pic.twitter.com/24y6ag3iCo

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 16, 2023

This feels especially sinister because Bradley Cooper’s nose is already the same shape and size, if not slightly larger, than Leonard Bernstein’s was. https://t.co/4GbCEFqvnG pic.twitter.com/bnOLLFn6JT

— Sarah McGonagall (@gothspiderbitch) August 16, 2023

Photos/screencaps courtesy of Netflix and Jason McDonald/Netflix.