From CB: There are so many great sales for Labor Day on Amazon that I’m having a hard time figuring out what to buy! I really want this set of vacuum sealed canisters for my pantry and refrigerator. The set of three now on sale for 30% off. Here are some sales and some things Rosie and I are looking at on Amazon.

All the Labor Day Sales
Up to 30% off premium beauty products from Laneige, The Face Shop, and more
Up to 39% off Samsung Galaxy A8 Tablets
Up to 41% off Waterpik Oral Care
Up to 45% off DEWALT Tools and Accessories
Up to 21% off Bose Headphones, Speakers, Frames and Soundbar
Up to 21% off Gillette & Venus
Up to 50% off Echo Devices
Up to 43% off Bio Bidet Seats and Attachments
Up to 34% off LifeStraw Water Filtration Products
Up to 30% off Stanley Drinkware and more
34% off Bissell CrossWave Cordless Max All in One Wet-Dry Vacuum Cleaner and Mop
17% off Dyson Cordless Vacuums
Up to 30% off Ninja Blender, Kettle and countertop fryer
29% off Ninja AF161 Max XL Air Fryer
33% off Jackery Solar Generator 500 for Outdoor RV/Van Camping, Overlanding

68% off Neutrogena Rapid Firming Peptide Eye Cream

CB: Neutrogena Rapid Firming Peptide Eye Cream is formulated with cucumber extract, camellia leaf extract and peptides to depuff and brighten the delicate undereye area. It’s currently on deep discount for under $15. This listing has over 6,000 reviews, 4.3 stars and a B on Fakespot. Reviewers say it really works to depuff their eyes and fade dark circles. “The past year I’ve dealt with puff under eyes and horrible bags. I’ve tried several different things. Nothing has worked until this. I noticed a slight difference after the first application. I’ve been using it a few days now and my bags are almost gone.” “I love this eye cream! Other products can dry the area around my eyes out , this one really moisturizes and I think it’s helping with puffiness and dark circles.”

30% off The Face Shop’s rice water foaming facial cleanser

From CB: I’m always looking for new face washes to try. The Face Shop rice water foaming cleanser is on sale for under $9 for Labor Day! This is a gentle cleanser that is suitable for sensitive skin. This listing has over 16,000 ratings, 4.5 stars and a B on Fakespot. People say it cleans really well and leaves their skin smooth and soft. “I love this cleanser. You only need a little bit of it every wash and it cleanses your face really well. It leaves your face feeling so smooth and silky!” “My skin is smooth, bright, and has virtually zero blemishes after only 2 weeks of using this. I’ve even gotten compliments.”

30% off a Surge Protector, Multi Plug Outlet Extender

From CB: I have so many devices charging near my bed. This surge protector fits over your outlet and comes with three USB plugs, a USB C plug and five more outlets. It’s currently on sale for 30% off at under $14. It has over 5,700 ratings and 4.5 stars on ReviewMeta. Reviewers say the night light is not annoying and that it’s just what they need to charge everything. “These give off an awesome ambient light. Low enough not to annoy, but bright enough to get bearings at night. The multi outlet access it great when your a tech guy like me. I never need to go far if I can’t find a wall adapter for my USB cord.” “This is great quality, has a cool “backlight” effect, and works like a champ. It’s nice to have all our devices in one spot now. Very convenient.”

45% off LilyAna Naturals Retinol Cream

From CB: LilyAna Naturals Retinol Cream is a bestseller and is a vegan formulation with retinol, hyaluronic acid and jojoba butter. It’s currently on sale for almost half off at under $17 for 1.7 ounces. This listing has almost 39,000 ratings, 4.5 stars and a B on Fakespot. I’m going to pick some up when it’s on such deep discount. People say it reduces wrinkling and that they’re surprised at how well it works. “I have been using this faithfully since April and I just noticed this week that I no longer have parenthesis wrinkles around my mouth. It feels very moisturizing as well.” “I am new to the retinol game. I bought this to try and I absolutely love it! I am 52 years old and have definitely noticed a difference in my fine lines.”

20% off Vintage-style, embossed glass coffee mugs that make perfect gifts

From Rosie: This gorgeous set of 14oz embossed glass cups come in 7 different styles and are currently on sale for around $21 per set. They’re versatile, as well, and can be used for hot or cold coffee, tea, ice cream, etc. They have a 4.7 star rating, more than 2,200 reviews, and an A on Fakespot. People love how beautiful yet sturdy they are. “Love the designs on the side and that they are stackable, so I don’t have to worry about them slip-sliding in the cabinet. They are great for coffees, ice cream, puddings, etc.” “Charming vintage glass cups – a perfect addition to my coffee bar! These cups not only evoke nostalgia but also elevate the aesthetics of the space. Their timeless design adds a touch of elegance to my coffee corner.”

33% off Magnetic tiles for hours of STEM fun

From Rosie: My older son could entertain himself for hours with these magnetic tiles. In fact, he still plays with the set that they have at his after-school program. They come in sets of 60 or 100, and right now, the 100 piece set is on sale for $20 off. They have a 4.9 star rating, more than 29,600 reviews, and a B on Fakespot. Reviewers also rave about how much their kids love them. “I love the Picasso magnetic tiles! My two-year-old absolutely loves them and asks me to build a house with him every single morning.” “My grandchildren ages 9,7 and 5 enjoy these magnetic tiles so much. They make new things every time they play with them. From castles to spaceships. I will be buying another set so they can build bigger buildings!”

$70 off an ice maker that makes nugget-sized ice cubes

From Rosie: My MIL has one of these and she is absolutely obsessed with it. I know they can be pretty expensive, but this one is on sale for $70 off right now. It comes in 7 different colors, but not all of them are currently on sale. It has a 4.3 star rating, almost 600 reviews, and an A on Fakespot. In reviews, people are impressed with how nicely it makes pellet-sized ice. “This is the perfect ice maker if you love the small soft ice to eat. I absolutely love it.” “I absolutely love this machine. It is easy to use makes some noise but not bad. The ice is just the right size for chewing (almost like sonic ice). I freeze any ice that is left over and just as good out of the freezer. Easy to clean with the self clean feature. I am so glad I finally made this purchase!”

30% off bamboo serving trays for breakfast in bed, TV dinners, and more

From Rosie: These bamboo trays remind me of what my mom used to use when I was a kid and she’d let us sit on the floor and eat for family movie nights. They are currently on sale for 30% off. They have a 4.5 star rating, more than 1,500 reviews, and a B on Fakespot. People comment about how lightweight and sturdy they are. “I needed this post surgery and it became one of my favorite items! Its lightweight yet sturdy. The legs fold easily and is well made.” “Absolutely love how compact and light these are to carry, store and fold up. We use these regularly while we eat midnight snacks in bed or watch movies and eat.” “These are lightweight yet sturdy trays. Large enough to hold dinner plates, yet not too big and cumbersome.”

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell froze up again on Wednesday. I’m sure there’s a more technical medical term we should use, like “a neurological incident” or “he sh-t his pants,” but most media outlets are going with “freezing up,” so there you go. It was a little more than a month ago when McConnell froze up and went dead-silent in front of a media scrum within the Capitol. At that time, we also learned that his health has seemingly deteriorated significantly this year and that he’s been falling a lot. He face-planted on a plane (which got covered up) and he was away from the Senate for months as he “recuperated” from a mysterious fall this spring. Well, I don’t know who’s treating him, but they’re not doing a very good job. LOL.

This was during another little press conference, this time in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky. He had apparently just met with “business leaders” in the area. That meeting was probably a mess. It feels perfect that he froze up this time when asked about reelection. The woman who came up and put her arm around him… you know she pinched him or elbowed him in some way to try to get him to snap out of it.

Anyhoodle, I don’t feel bad. This man is the reason why Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett are on the Supreme Court. This man is the reason why Obama’s agenda was largely suffocated in his second term. This man is decrepit, nasty old turtle and if he wants to stroke out on national television, let him. Oh, look, a different angle!

Biden’s reaction!

@willfulchaos pic.twitter.com/7wHZX4uZw7

— willfulchaos media (@willfulmedia) August 30, 2023

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

So, I finally started Heart of Invictus. I made the mistake of watching it on my ipad at a car dealership, so I was weeping in a corner as people buzzed around me. What struck me, first of all, is how Harry is still the heart of Invictus. I don’t mean that he centers himself or that the show is all about him, but Invictus is his baby and it’s his vision that people are buying into. I loved the glimpses of the Invictus Games team, like the corporate team, and all of the team leaders in other countries. Early in episode one, during the pandemic, one of the team leaders asks somewhat softly if Harry and Meghan are both confirmed for The Hague games and she’s so pleased when she’s told that they are 100% coming. The star power they have.

The next thing that blew me away was how the series is simply done beautifully. It’s a slick series, and I don’t mean that as a negative. The wounded warriors’ stories and biographies are front and center, but it’s done in a matter-of-fact yet glossy way. I have some early favorites among the veterans – the Korean veteran Na Hyeongyoon, who speaks in poetry, not prose. Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, the Ukrainian medic who makes dirty jokes, has tattoos and smokes like a chimney. Gabe George, the American who is living in agonizing chronic pain but greets everyone in his life with love and positivity.

Heart of Invictus centers the veterans’ stories and the uplifting and powerful message of hope, transformation, healing and building a new life after military service and injury. But it also does something else: it shows that this is Harry’s legacy, that he had the vision for this, that he built this extraordinary thing which gives wounded warriors a path to find healing. This is why the British media has been ranting and raving about Harry “slamming his family” in the series – the Windsors are desperately trying to attach themselves to Harry yet again, because this is a showcase for why the family was contemptibly stupid to treat him the way they did.

Netflix released another teaser:

Everyone is here — and the world is watching. The Heart of Invictus is now streaming. pic.twitter.com/4yQAZHzUPW

— Netflix (@netflix) August 30, 2023

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

I love rom coms and am always down for a good Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, JLo, or the non-Hallmark holiday movie. The Queen of Rom Coms, Meg Ryan, is back in a romantic comedy that she directed and co-stars in with David Duchovny called What Happens Later. The movie takes place in an airport with a former couple running into each other when their flights are delayed. It’s based on Steven Dietz’s play Shooting Star and Ryan co-wrote the screenplay with Dietz and playwright Kirk Lynn.

Meg Ryan is throwing it back to her rom-com heyday. On Wednesday, Bleecker Street debuted the first trailer for What Happens Later, in which Ryan, 61, and David Duchovny, 63, star as a former couple who unexpectedly reunite after decades apart when a snowstorm strands them at the airport. Their separate flights delayed indefinitely due to weather, Willa (Ryan) and Bill (Duchovny) catch up on the more than two decades that have passed since their breakup.

A synopsis for the film describes Willa as a “magical thinker” and Bill as a “catastrophic one.” When they reunite, they “find themselves just as attracted to — and annoyed by — one another as they did decades earlier.”

“But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence, or something more enchanted.”

What Happens Later was made to recapture the “cheeky magic of Ryan’s rom-coms of the 90s,” according to the synopsis. Ryan told Entertainment Weekly that rom-coms “really work when the two characters are somehow opposites and yet have a rhythm of intellect and humor and dialogue and banter that sort of indicates their compatibility.”

“It’s just been really fun to see David embrace this guy who I don’t think is anything really like David. Whereas the Willa thing I can really relate to,” she added in the interview conducted prior to the actors’ strike. “To see him dive into every single scene in the fullest way, he’s funny, and he’s smart, and he’s dear, and irresistible.”

The star also shared how What Happens Later “evolves” the familiar genre.

“Sometimes there’s a question of: Will they be together? Will they not be together? For that reason, [What Happens Later] sort of evolves the rom-com genre just a little bit,” she said. “It’s also about old people, and it’s still romantic and sexy.”

At the Tribeca Film Festival in June, Duchovny teased the movie to PEOPLE: “It’s really good. What Happens Later, and it’s really a good movie. I mean, it’s just me and her, the whole damn movie, and it’s just a kind of throwback sweet film.”

[From People]

The trailer looks super cute. Sign me up! I have seen every single episode of “The X-Files,” so you had me at “Mulder in a rom com.” Anyone else love a good rom com and plan on seeing this? Even the film’s tagline of “They missed their connection” is hooking me.

I also kinda love that this new generation of romantic comedies just kinda picks up with the same actors who were doing them 20-30 years ago and adjusts for their age/place in life. (See also: Ticket to Paradise.) Oh, and for all of you X-Files nerds out there, What Happens Later is out in theaters on October 13, which coincidentally happens to be Fox Mulder’s birthday. Yup, I knew that fact off the top of my head. Anyway, in keeping with our theme of rooting for female directors, I hope this movie is successful for Meg’s sake. I’m definitely planning on seeing it.

photos credit: Avalon.red and screenshots via YouTube

Pope Francis laments the politicizing and “reactionary” Catholic Church in America. He’s not wrong, but… it’s not just in America, dude. [Towleroad]
Bradley Cooper & Irina Shayk will attend the Venice Film Festival? [LaineyGossip]
What is Temu? I’ve literally never heard of it. [Pajiba]
Lily Allen really loves to dress up to leave the theater. [Go Fug Yourself]
Josh Seiter is not dead, it was all fake. [Socialite Life]
I did not know that 80-year-old Calvin Klein has a “longtime” 35-year-old boyfriend. The boyfriend’s name is Kevin Baker. [Just Jared]
Handmaid and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett thinks people have “misimpressions” of the SCOTUS. [Jezebel]
Yara Shahidi wore Anonlychild. [RCFA]
Miley Cyrus was in Big Fish when she was a kid. [Seriously OMG]
Camila Mendes is vacationing in Capri. [Egotastic]
Sheryl Lee Ralph skipped her college graduation. [Buzzfeed]
A 90 Day Fiance star got bigger implants. [Starcasm]

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Jessie James Decker is a country music singer who is married to Eric Decker, a former NFL player. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of either of them. They weren’t ringing any bells for me, either, until I did some Googling and had a moment of, “Ooooh, these are those people!” You may remember Eric and Jessie from headlines back in 2017 when they spoke out against taking a knee at football games. Yeah, those guys.

Anyway, Jessie and Eric have been married since June 2013 and have three children, ages 9, 7, and 5. They recently announced that they’re expecting their fourth child and shared during an Instagram Q&A that the pregnancy was unplanned. Apparently the news was so unexpected that even Eric didn’t believe the news when Jessie told him.

Eric thought she was joking. [Eric] didn’t believe me, actually. He thought I was playing a joke on him … but I would never joke about something like this,” she told fans. “He literally thought [my sister] Sydney peed on a stick and we were, like, messing with him.” (Sydney and husband Anthony Bass welcomed their baby boy, Sonny, on July 27 and also share two daughters.)

He got there eventually. It took some time for Eric, 36, to fully come to terms with the situation. “I was like, ‘I’m not joking. This is real,’” Jessie recalled. “It was a shock for a while there, but then as soon as he knew it was real, I mean, you know him. … We love kids, so we’re like, ‘Yeah!’”

Surprise! The couple, who already share Vivianne, 9, Eric Jr., 7, and Forrest, 5, weren’t trying for a fourth baby. “I’ve gotten this question the most, probably. It was not planned,” Jessie explained during her Q&A. “We were very, very surprised.” Jessie reminded her followers that she’d “been telling Eric it was probably time to get a vasectomy,” but he never went through with the procedure. “I felt like we were done and I just feel like God always has other plans. So it was extremely shocking and surprising, but like, [we’re] happy [and] excited,” she said.

Eric has weird feelings about vasectomies. Last year, Jessie exclusively told Us Weekly that she had “no plans for a fourth” baby after previously attempting to convince Eric to get a vasectomy. “He won’t book it. … Just the idea freaks him out,” she said in January 2022. At the time, Eric acknowledged that “the papers are filled out” while he tried to come to a final decision. “It’s a little power being taken. That’s how I feel,” he told Us. “I’m a little nervous about it, to be honest. … You don’t know where life will take you in the next five years.”

Eric has even weirder opinions about vasectomies. One year later, Eric’s mind still hadn’t changed. “I keep asking him, ‘Go make that appointment’ and he won’t. He just won’t do it,” Jessie told Us in January. “He says it takes, like, his manhood away from him. So he’s just gonna leave it, I guess.”

[From US Weekly]

First off, congratulations to Jessie and Eric. I’m glad that when faced with a surprise pregnancy, they were able to look at their situation and make the choice that is best for their family. Everyone should get to do that. Niceties out of the way, I’m simultaneously side-eyeing and rolling my eyes at Eric Decker. Getting a vasectomy “takes his manhood away from him?!” Gag, miss me with that ignorance. I bet he’s one of those dudes who think it’s solely the woman’s responsibility to prevent pregnancy. The Deckers have also said in interviews that they don’t use any form of birth control. If you don’t want to get a vasectomy, it’s your choice not to, but if you’re not using any form of birth control, don’t act “shocked” when you end up with an oopsy baby, FFS. And don’t be surprised when you end up with baby #5, either.

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I will start watching Heart of Invictus later on today, because I have a car appointment and I’ll probably be there for hours. I’ve been slightly surprised by the lack of promotion for the docuseries this week, but maybe Harry will do a bigger push next week ahead of the Invictus Games. I’m just saying, we’re due for some disruptor interviews from Harry. Harry saying ANYTHING in print or on TV always causes a full meltdown on Salt Island. I’m ready for it.

In the meantime, it turns out that Harry visited San Diego on Monday, all to attend a screening of Heart of Invictus. He spoke to the theatergoers and posed for selfies! He really flew under the radar too. No one had any idea that he traveled down to San Diego – Chula Vista, to be exact – until he appeared at this theater. The selfie and video is from IG user bonnie_pham.

Kind of wonder if Harry has some good friends in San Diego. Back in June, he also turned up in the city for the Warrior Games. He also spent time in Southern California in 2011, back when he was based at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro, California and training to fly Apache helicopters.

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Photos courtesy of the Today Show, Instar, Cover Images and Instagram.

In Spare, Prince Harry wrote about how Meghan’s last year on Suits was unpleasant because “the palace” kept calling up the producers and writers and vetting and vetoing storylines, dialogue and what have you. If I’m being honest, I mostly blame Meghan and Harry for that sh-t – Harry should have shut that down with the palace staff and said “are you f–king nuts, you can’t do that, you can’t make demands on an American TV show.” Meghan should have done the same – that was a huge red flag and the palace really crossed a professional boundary. But they were in love and eager to please, so they didn’t enforce that boundary. Well, Suits creator and writer Aaron Korsh has a gossipy piece in the Hollywood Reporter about the Summer of Suits – everyone’s watching it, everyone loves it and everyone loves the cast, especially Meghan. Some highlights from this THR piece:

Korsh believes that “Meghan Markle intrigue” fueled interest in the show, and he remembers when the news came out about Meghan and Harry dating: “Oh, I was as excited in some ways as everybody else… I mean, your initial reaction is, like, “We’re dating a prince!” (Laughs.) But the security and all that stuff, we shot in Toronto and the writers room was in L.A., so other people were dealing with that. I will say, and I think Harry put this in the book, because I heard people talking about it — [the royal family] weighed in on some stuff. Not many things, by the way, but a few things that we wanted to do and couldn’t do, and it was a little irritating.

What changes the Windsors wanted: “I remember one was a particular line of dialogue and, look, I’ll just say what the line was. My wife’s family, when they have a topic to discuss that might be sensitive, they use the word, “poppycock.” Let’s say you wanted to do something that you knew your husband didn’t want to do, but you wanted to at least discuss it, and in just discussing it, you wouldn’t hold him to anything he said, you’d be like, “It’s poppycock.” So, in the episode, Mike and Rachel [Markle’s character] were going to have a thing, and as a nod to my in-laws, we were going to have her say, “My family would say poppycock.” And the royal family did not want her saying the word. They didn’t want to put the word “poppycock” in her mouth. I presume because they didn’t want people cutting things together of her saying “cock.” So, we had to change it to “bullsh-t” instead of “poppycock,” and I did not like it because I’d told my in-laws that [poppycock] was going to be in the show. There was maybe one or two more things, but I can’t remember.

How was the royal family getting or reading scripts? “I don’t know how they got ’em. I was aware that they were reading them because I got the feedback, but I don’t remember the process by which they got them.

Whether Meghan told him that she wouldn’t or couldn’t say certain things: “No, Meghan did not call me. I can’t remember. It might have been the directing producer at the time, or her agent. Whoever it was, they didn’t like having to tell me any more than I liked having to hear it. But listen, when they explained it that way, and I’m pretty sure it got explained to me that it was about that [splicing potential], I had some sympathy because I wouldn’t want somebody doing that to her either. And the thing is, I didn’t think anybody really would, but also I don’t know. People are crazy.

[From THR]

If anything, he’s being too generous towards the palace. They were trying to exert control over Meghan and her career just because they were drunk with power. They did it because they could, because they loved the idea of micromanaging this woman before she even had a ring on her finger. I’ve said this many times, but I don’t know how the hell Meghan managed to navigate this bullsh-t, especially in the early years. Knowing what we know now, about how they were going out of their way to ruin M&H’s relationship and engagement, it feels like this kind of micromanaging was designed to actually scare the sh-t out of Meghan and get her to pull the ripcord on the relationship. And honestly, she would have been well within her rights. They were also, as I said, testing her boundaries and seeing what they could get away with.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, NBC/USA/Suits.

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Yesterday I covered an interview Jessica Simpson gave recently, but we didn’t get into the actual event she was attending, which was the PetSafe Unleashed contest launch. PetSafe is a group that facilitates the creation of dog parks across the country, and they’re holding a contest to celebrate their 25th anniversary. You can find details here, but the gist is that one community will be winning a brand new dog park. Last Friday’s event marked the first day you could enter the contest, and coincided with International Dog Day. I never knew that August 25 was International Dog Day. In my house Dog Day runs from January 1 – December 31, and it seems the same is true for Jessica Simpson. She shared with Extra how it’s Santa’s fault her family now has eight dogs:

On Friday, Jessica Simpson brought her doggy Penny Lane and her daughter Maxwell, 11, to PetSafe Unleashed in L.A. for pet owners and their furry friends.

“Extra’s” Terri Seymour spoke with Jessica, who told us she is making some new music.

She teased she will “have some of my southern roots back while I am in the recording studio.”

As for how she feels to be back in the studio, Simpson admitted, “It gives me chills thinking about it because I know that whenever I open this big old trap of mine, a lot is going to come out and it’s going to be really powerful. I finally feel connected enough to my purpose in music, and I know exactly what it is I want to do. It’s very exciting.”

Simpson said she feels like it is the perfect time to return to music. “I really wanted my kids to be raised as normal as possible in the first 10 years,” she said. “Like, I didn’t want to be on the road all the time, I didn’t want to be gone all the time, and I feel like I’ve given that to them.”

Terri also spoke to Maxwell, who is ready to follow her mom’s showbiz footsteps in singing, business, and fashion!

Jessica praised Maxwell’s singing, saying, “She has an unbelievable voice.”

While Maxwell noted that she’s “not a big stage person,” Jessica is gonna let her “test some waters” once she starts “touring next year.”

For now, Maxwell is all about the dogs!

Jessica shared, “Maxwell is a dog person, so we wanted to bring Penny here to see if she would socialize.”

As for how she ended up with eight dogs, Jessica explained, “When Max was younger, she asked Santa for a dog, and it’s happened every year for eight years, so Santa brings a dog every year.”

Between the kids and the dogs, is it complete chaos at home? Jessica quipped, “I don’t even know what life would be without chaos. I think I’d be very bored. I’m sure I complain at times that there’s too much going on, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

[From Extra]

I guess it’s lucky they celebrate one day of Christmas and not eight nights of Hanukkah, or they’d be overrun! I love love love my dog, but I can’t imagine having eight at once. If you have the space and money to handle it, though, and take in rescues, then more power to you. Penny Lane is a great name for a dog. I tried looking up the names of the rest of Jessica’s dogs, but could only confirm one, Dixie.

As for her human babies, I hope Jessica is being a proud mama but not a stage one. Just from reading the interview, it’s hard to get a sense of how much Maxwell is genuinely into singing.

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2023 has been a good year for Miley Cyrus. Her album Endless Summer Vacation was well-received and the single “Flowers” was a runaway hit. Most pop stars of Miley’s status would follow up an album release–especially a successful one–with a tour of some kind, but Miley doesn’t want to. She’s scaled back her touring dates a lot in recent years–she did a five city tour in 2022, and before that her last tour was in 2015. In her ABC special Miley Cyrus: Endless Summer Vacation, she explains her decision not to tour anymore. She says that it’s hard to get enough rest while on tour, and also that it “erases her humanity” to be seen as a “subject” by her fans when she’s performing. Okay, Miley. While there’s a grain of truth in what she’s getting at, she comes off really disconnected from reality.

Miley Cyrus is getting candid about the pitfalls of performing. The 30-year-old pop star says that touring “isn’t healthy for me” as she opens up about the demands of putting on a long-running production.

In her ABC special, Miley Cyrus: Endless Summer Vacation, as documented in her “Used to Be Young” series on TikTok, Cyrus says that serving as a cheerleader before becoming famous set a precedent for the expectations of life on the road.

“Traveling as a cheerleader really set me up for touring,” she shared. “The show or the competition may only be a day, and that’s what people don’t really understand about touring. The show is only 90 minutes, but that’s your life.”

Cyrus said that the wellbeing of the performer is not always paramount to keeping the show moving.

“If you’re performing at a certain level of intensity and excellence, there should be an equal amount of recovery and rest,” she said.

The “Jaded” singer also noted that she struggles to balance her ego with her humanity when constantly entertaining.

“There’s a level of ego that has to play a part that I feel gets overused when I’m on tour. And once that switch is on, it’s hard to turn it off. I think when you’re training your ego every single night to be active, that’s the hardest switch for me to turn off,” she admitted. “Having every day the relationship between you and other humans being subject and observer isn’t healthy for me, because it erases my humanity and my connection. And without my humanity, my connection, I can’t be a songwriter, which is my priority.”

[From Entertainment Tonight]

The part about not getting enough rest on tour? I can completely see that. I think that’s why Taylor Swift did the Eras tour on mostly Fridays and Saturdays. Miley has enough power in the industry to pull off something similar if she wanted to. But the rest of what she says is rather silly. It isn’t automatically egotistical to perform in front of a live audience. I grew up taking theater classes and I liked it because I got to be a storyteller and try on different personalities. Getting attention is fun but it’s not why I liked performing. The fact that Miley says she gets stuck in that ego state is perhaps…unintentionally revealing. It comes off so out of touch for her to talk this way about touring because with the advent of streaming and the decline in record sales, touring is how most musicians make a living. Miley gets to opt out of it because she’s already rich. I really can’t get over her statement that performing in front of an audience causes her to “lose her humanity.” By her logic, the act of singing live is dehumanizing because people are observing her, which is such an overstatement. I get that she’s talking about her own experience, and if she doesn’t want to tour, that’s her right. But it’s off putting how she describes it, when so many other music artists would do anything to have an audience like hers and be able to tour in arenas and stadiums.

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