One of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s big issues is internet safety, responsibility and accountability. Which is why Archewell teamed with the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund this year to bring more young people to the issue of making tech safer, fairer and more equitable. This week, the RT Youth Power Fund released a video of the Sussexes calling some of the people who were leading initiatives which will be joining the fund.

Even though Archie, 4, and Lilibet, 2, might be too young to appreciate it, Meghan and Harry have made promoting internet safety one of their main charitable endeavors since moving to the US in 2020. The couple recently helped the Youth Power Fund make its official launch by calling up a few of the 26 different honorees who in total will receive $2 million to help fund their projects, and on Wednesday, the fund shared some snippets from those conversations.

“It was a complete surprise. I had no idea I would be speaking with them,” Emma Lembke, the cochair of internet safety advocacy organization Design It For Us, told Vanity Fair. “The duke and the duchess, and all of their work, have been pivotal in moving so many social issues forward and bringing visibility to a lot of important areas, and specifically responsible tech.”

Both Lembke and her fellow cochair Zamaan Qureshi are rising college juniors, but they already have years of experience in advocating for better policy and design when it comes to tech aimed at young people. In February, Lembke became one of the youngest people to ever testify in front of Congress on the subject of technology.

“It’s felt like such a long journey, and it’s just been so inspiring and exciting to see momentum pick up over the past few months,” Lembke said. She added that the Youth Power Fund was a sign that stakeholders from across generations want to talk about how the internet can be better for its younger uses. “I think it will benefit society at large, and it will continue to build a digital ecosystem that will benefit us all.”

Receiving funding alongside Lembke, Qureshi, and Design It For Us, are 25 more organizations working on issues relevant to Gen Z’s experience with technology, from responsibility in designing AI, protecting human rights, improving access to education, and using tech to address social and environmental challenges, among others. “The fund is bringing together a huge number of movers and shakers in the responsible tech youth power movement—and it really is a movement,” Qureshi added. “These are young people who have a huge amount of ambition, and it’s an honor to represent that cohort.”

[From Vanity Fair]

I’m including the video below – it’s nice to see them in their garden. For those devoted Sussex-watchers, I believe they’re sitting on Meghan’s outdoor bench, the one she had in Toronto, moved to London and then Windsor, then packed and brought to Montecito. I love how much she loves that piece of furniture. They look happy and rich! It was cute to see how excited these kids were to talk to H&M. I like how the coverage is really centering the kids too.

Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund Announcement from RT Youth Power Fund on Vimeo.

Screencaps from the Vimeo video.

Here are some photos of Susan Sarandon at the Magna Graecia Film Festival in Catanzaro, Italy. This is film festival season, with the Venice Film Festival starting this week, followed by film festivals in Deauville and Toronto and other cities. The reason why we haven’t covered Venice this week is because there are basically no significant red carpet premieres, because SAG-AFTRA is on strike and actors are strictly prohibited from attending premieres or promoting their work in any way. So what the f–k was Susan Sarandon doing at this film festival? Per Variety, these are the strike rules:

Film and television productions will shut down, but the work stoppage has reverberations that extend beyond actors going to set. According to the guidelines, SAG-AFTRA members will not be able to attend premieres, do interviews for completed work, go to awards shows, attend film festivals or even promote projects on social media while the strike is in effect. They are also not allowed to attend conventions such as Comic-Con to promote any past or present work made under a SAG-AFTRA contract.

[From Variety]

Sarandon has already appeared at some of the SAG-AFTRA picket lines in New York. Then she hopped on a plane and attended a film festival? I’ve been trying to look into this to figure out exactly why the f–k she was there and if it’s in a blatant violation of strike rules. There isn’t a lot of coverage to base this on, but the Daily Mail did say that she was picking up the “Golden Column for Lifetime Achievement” at a festival which “works to promote auteur cinema and young Italian and international cinema.” I suspect that Sarandon sees “collecting a lifetime achievement award” as not a violation of strike rules and not specific promotion for struck work. I don’t know if she’s technically correct, especially when the better rule of thumb is simply “don’t attend any film festivals during the strike.” There’s a reason why striking actors are avoiding ALL promotion and ALL film festivals during the strike.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

When I was a tween and saw Gigi for the first time, the 1958 musical directed by Vincente Minnelli, I had one and only one take away: I want a red room! I’d never seen anything like it–a room where everything in it was the same color. It blew my mind. The closest I’ve come to recreating one for myself was when I had an upholstered red headboard that I paired with an all-red comforter. Needless to say, from a young age my compass was set to highly saturated color choices. Homes & Gardens, however, seem a little more cautious in bold colors for interior design. This week they brought in a color psychologist to dissect a crimson area carpet in an Instagram post from Lady Gaga:

Lady Gaga is instantly associable with her statement-making fashion choices, but a look inside her home suggests her interior design decisions are (almost) as bold.

The singer-turned-actress shared a look inside her Malibu mansion, once labeled her ‘sanctuary’, but her living room rug exhibits a hue that is far from therapeutic. So, how does this impact her home’s therapeutic energy? And, can we ever decorate with red to create a sanctuary-like space similar to Lady Gaga’s home?

While red has a controversial reputation – some color psychologists suggest that, in the right space, this tone can create positivity – and act as a talking point in the process. This is exactly what Lady Gaga has achieved. Here’s how.

‘The beautiful thing about red is that it raises the heart rate and even excites hunger,’ says color psychologist Michelle Lewis. ‘Of course, designers get nervous using it because it can sometimes be too stimulating’ – but in cloudier or color-less contexts, this color can work perfectly.

‘What if you live in a cloudy climate? Gray is known to cause certain depressions and to mute personalities when exposed to it over time, so imagine how helpful a red kitchen would be,’ she adds.

Admittedly, red isn’t ideal for every space, especially in homes where vibrant hues already reign supreme – however, as Michelle suggests, this color has its place in calmer settings. In Lady Gaga’s case, her room (rug aside) is primarily neutral, featuring white walls and marble accents – allowing her red rug to impress – without overwhelming the room.

‘Red isn’t always the way to go, but it certainly can be the perfect fit in certain situations to bring more energy, excitement, and action-taking to the home,’ Michelle says.

In cases where we’re already working with lots of colors – or still (understandably) nervous about flirting with red, Michelle recommends working with red undertones as a subtler alternative.

‘It also can be a much more flexible situation when we look at the undertones we may use with red,’ she says. ‘For example, will we choose to add a gray tone? A black shade? A white tint? Or keep it the true hue? The choice here can alter the feel dramatically.’

Michelle Lewis is a color psychologist, interior designer, and founder of The Color Cure.

[From Homes & Gardens]

Ok, I don’t mean to knock the writers at Homes & Gardens, but I noticed something so I know our faithful readers will too: the Instagram post they’re framing their article around is from March 2021, and in the caption Gaga thanks her manager for sending her flowers to her room where she’s filming House of Gucci. Um, the film was shot in Italy. This isn’t Gaga’s house! Now, that doesn’t affect any of the interior design commentary, I just find it hilarious after the intro of “how can you have red and call it a sanctuary?!”

Moving right along. This is all a matter of taste, no? I understand the note that the red rug (in whoever’s lovely room) works because it is surrounded by neutrals. I get why that works on a compositional level. I also know that personally I’m a “more is more” kind of girl and have an average of six dominant colors going on at once in any room of my (humble) home. Seriously, I had a vintage chair reupholstered and my bestie looked at it and said, “well she’s certainly not shy!” The important thing is color is emotional, so I say always follow your gut. Trust the instinctual responses you have when you encounter a particular hue. I also recommend the Fortune-Telling Book of Colors for some fun, light dabbling into various cultural, historical, even astrological color associations.

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A post shared by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga)

Madonna shared a photo of her daughters with Beyonce and Beyonce’s younger daughter Rumi. Rumi looks so much like Blue Ivy, omg. [Buzzfeed]
Tiffany Haddish threw a Gatsby-themed party? [Go Fug Yourself]
Jennifer Lopez gave her OnTheJLo subscribers some new content for her birthday. She loves a birthday celebration! [LaineyGossip]
Review of Theater Camp: the sincerity of theater kids. [Pajiba]
Beyonce pays tribute to O’Shae Sibley, who was murdered in a hate crime while dancing to one of Beyonce’s songs. [Socialite Life]
Hailey Bieber wore a LBD to Rihanna’s favorite restaurant. [Just Jared]
Would you stay in Gwyneth Paltrow’s guest house? [Seriously OMG]
Cindy Crawford swaps Pepsi for a margarita. [Egotastic]
Elon Musk wants people to stop pointing out how many Nazis are on his Nazi platform. He’s going to sue. [Towleroad]
Jennifer Lopez wore Gucci for her b-day. [RCFA]
This dude says he’ll become a drug dealer to avoid paying child support and I don’t think he understands how any of this works. [Starcasm]

I’m expecting some knee-jerk defensiveness over this, but it’s my hope you guys actually read this story and consider what’s actually being said and what isn’t being said. People Magazine’s cover story this week is about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, their business and what’s next for them, especially since the British media is very focused on making Harry and Meghan sound like failures. I still say that they should have done or said more to combat the bullsh-t that went down over their Spotify contract getting canceled, but I’ve had issues with their communications strategy for a while. I actually think that’s their biggest problem – what could have been a larger story about the industry’s fluctuations became a story about Harry and Meghan “failing” because they weren’t pushing back on anything. Some highlights from People Mag:

Not so solid footing? Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are coming off a record-breaking Netflix series, a hit podcast and a bestselling book — yet finding solid footing in Hollywood remains an ongoing challenge. In June, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “mutually agreed to part ways” with Spotify after delivering one podcast, Archetypes, under their reported $20 million deal, with executive Bill Simmons publicly criticizing the couple shortly after the announcement. Later that month, the Wall Street Journal took a critical look at their production company’s Netflix output. (That deal is worth $100 million.) In July, the entertainment industry itself was rocked by a historic writers and actors strike.

The Archewell brand: Joe Quenqua, a senior media strategist, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story that the latest headlines reflect “serious growing pains” for the couple’s nascent Archewell brand.

A five-year plan: But for Harry, 38, and Meghan, who turns 42 on Friday, “there wasn’t necessarily a five-year plan” — as one royal insider puts it — when they left the U.K. Royal life “wasn’t a world they wanted for their family,” says the royal insider, noting that their choices reflect that. “Everything else flows from that, for whatever time period it takes.”

Their deals with Netflix & Spotify: “The royal element and, in some ways, the drama around them inflated the price, deals and expectations,” says a top Hollywood insider.

Their other projects: While Prince Harry’s book and their Netflix show offered a glimpse behind palace walls like never before, so far it seems that Harry and Meghan’s projects without a royal component have struggled to capture the public’s attention. Their Netflix docuseries Live to Lead debuted to indifference, and an animated project they were developing called Pearl, about a girl inspired by female leaders, was quietly dropped last year. Some experts say Harry and Meghan are being held to a higher standard than others. “Very few other production companies are measured by what’s actually hit the airwaves,” says a source close to the couple, noting there are “plenty of things that are in different phases” under their shingle.

Spotify tea: Meanwhile, an Archetypes production source says the couple was not set up for success on Spotify: “They were given no formal lay of the land to kick things off, so they were already on unsteady footing even before the ink was dry.” Though Archewell Audio produced just 12 episodes of Archetypes for Spotfiy, the source noted, they “have a lot of ideas and did pitch them,” but said there was too much red tape between Spotify and the Sussexes. “Things moved very slowly on both ends.”

The future: “Has their final chapter been written? Absolutely not,” an industry executive tells PEOPLE. “Hollywood loves a comeback.”

[From People]

I’ve previously made a list of everything they’ve done in three years (now three and a half years), but it’s worth highlighting again: a bestselling memoir; a hit podcast; a successful children’s book; a massive hit docu-series; a post-pandemic Invictus Games; setting up a charity and production company simultaneously; investing in a latte company; joining BetterUp as a CIO; producing a successful AppleTV series; welcoming their daughter, and on and on. But even with all they’ve accomplished, I also think there’s room to say that they’ve flopped a few times and they were too slow out of the gate. Which is basically the point of this People Mag cover story – yes, they’ve had some major successes, but everything hasn’t been rosy, etc.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, cover courtesy of People.

Lizzo is facing a big lawsuit and some very serious accusations. The lawsuit? Hostile work environment and what amounts to sexual harassment and discrimination. Lizzo is being sued by three dancers from her most recent tour and they describe an extremely toxic work environment. This is soooo bad.

Three of Lizzo’s former dancers have accused the singer of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. They also allege that she pressured one of them to touch a nude performer at an Amsterdam club and subjected the group to an “excruciating” audition after leveling false accusations that they were drinking on the job.

The dancers accused Lizzo — a performer known for embracing body positivity and celebrating her physique — of calling attention to one dancer’s weight gain and later berating, then firing, that dancer after she recorded a meeting because of a health condition.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and provided to NBC News by the plaintiffs’ law firm, also accuses the captain of Lizzo’s dance team of proselytizing to other performers and deriding those who had premarital sex while sharing lewd sexual fantasies, simulating oral sex and publicly discussing the virginity of one of the plaintiffs.

The suit does not say if Lizzo knew about the allegations linked to the dance captain, Shirlene Quigley, but the plaintiffs believed the singer was aware of their complaints about her, according to their lawyer, Ron Zambrano.

The suit names Lizzo, whose real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, her production company and Quigley as defendants. In addition to accusations of a hostile work environment and sexual harassment, the suit brings claims for religious and racial harassment, false imprisonment, interference with prospective economic advantage and other allegations. Not every claim was brought against each defendant.

“The stunning nature of how Lizzo and her management team treated their performers seems to go against everything Lizzo stands for publicly, while privately she weight-shames her dancers and demeans them in ways that are not only illegal but absolutely demoralizing,” Zambrano said in a statement.

[From NBC News]

You can read more at NBC News – the stuff from Amsterdam is pretty bad, but what strikes me more than anything is that Lizzo had really selective boundaries with her employees/subordinates – in certain circumstances, she would treat dancers like they were all BFFs, but in other situations, she would lord her employer status over those same people and threaten them constantly. Anyway, this sounds like a pretty open-and-shut case of a hostile work environment.

That dance captain, Shirlene Quigley, responded to the suit by… prosthelytizing on her social media. Imagine that sh-t at work. I would have been out of there so fast, good lord. Additionally, filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison shared her damning story about trying to do a tour-documentary with Lizzo and leaving after a few weeks because Lizzo was “arrogant, self-centered and unkind” and how the environment was toxic AF.

Lizzo’s dance captain, Shirlene Quigley, takes to Instagram following lawsuit that alleges she attempted to convert dancers to Christianity and inappropriately simulated oral sex in front of them:

“I just wanted to get on here really quick and say God is so, so good!” pic.twitter.com/c8CuFf0LdF

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 2, 2023

Sharing this because validating other Black women’s experiences is deeply important to me. pic.twitter.com/gd2xEK6szq

— Sophia Nahli Allison (@SophiaNAllison) August 1, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

As we’ve discussed, the Duchess of Sussex’s old TV show is back in the headlines and a massive hit on streaming. Suits, the nine-season drama which originally aired on cable network USA, has accumulated billions of views on Peacock and Netflix. Every single day, there’s someone on Twitter talking about how Suits is a great show and Meghan Markle is fantastic on it. There’s simply been a huge revival this year in the show and in Meghan’s acting career. Instead of framing the story as a huge positive for Meghan and this popular show, you should see the pissy, angry way the British media is writing about it. Take, for example, this Telegraph headline: “Americans are bored of Meghan Markle – so why are they binge-watching Suits? The Duchess of Sussex finally has a huge Netflix hit, thanks to the vacuous legal drama she left behind. What’s the appeal?” These freaks think that if they scream “Americans hate Meghan” into a mirror 20 times, their wish becomes real. Literally tens of millions of people are discovering or rediscovering a pleasant legal drama and supporting Meghan. Some highlights from this BITTER Telegraph piece:

Meghan Markle is riding high in the ratings – and for once, it has nothing to do with Prince Harry, Oprah Winfrey or her stormy relationship with the Windsors. The Duchess of Sussex occupies four of the top 10 places on Netflix USA’s “most watched” charts thanks to her old legal drama Suits, in which she plays spiky paralegal Rachel Zane.

It’s quite the turnaround, given the recent narrative around America going off the Sussexes. Their Hollywood friendship group is reportedly dwindling; not too long ago Meghan and Harry were mocked by South Park, in which they were shown holding signs demanding “stop looking at us”. They were also on the receiving end of several cruel jokes in Chris Rock’s recent Netflix comedy special, in which he suggested that Meghan’s strife with Harry’s family was nothing more or less than a retelling of the timeless story of in-laws not getting on.

But nobody is joking about the remarkable performance of Suits. It has broken records since arriving on US Netflix on June 23 (in the UK, it’s come and gone from the streamer and has always had a loyal following) and, according to Nielsen, was watched for 3.14 billion minutes in the week of June 26-July 2. No matter how much the reruns cost Netflix, Suits is inarguably better value than the $100 million the streamer reportedly threw at the Sussexes for a couple of documentaries.

There is even talk of Suits returning following its cancellation in 2019, although the producers acknowledge that Markle is unlikely to be part of any potential reunion.

It’s the Friends phenomenon all over again….Suits is different in that, unlike the peerless Friends, it is definitely no classic. But that’s possibly part of the charm. The show is slick and silly, while the acting is stiffer than the upper lip which Harry flexed in that interview with Oprah.

The appeal of Suits is partly down to Meghan – an unknown when initially cast in Suits and now one of the world’s most recognisable celebrities. She has a key part as Rachel, a deadpan striver making her way in the hyper-macho world of Manhattan law. True, nobody could mistake Markle as the second coming of Meryl Streep. But she brings a spiky energy to the likeable Rachel. Hard-working uncompromising, you can see why she was a fan favourite even before the Sussex factor. Still, the true magic of Suits lies in the bromantic energy between its lead characters, Mike Ross and Harvey Dent. They are the Mick and Keith of silly New York legal dramas, and their crackling chemistry has Suits fans bingeing until their eyeballs pop.

[From The Telegraph]

“Vacuous legal drama” in the headline, and then this person spends most of the piece praising the male performances. Typical. Like, I’ve never thought that Suits was some ground-breaking drama, but there’s absolutely an enormous appetite for a flashy and fun escapism. This person was just trying to act like Meghan isn’t the reason why Suits is the surprise hit of the summer. They have to denigrate every single thing she does or ever did, like they weren’t blessed to have someone beautiful, talented, hard-working and accomplished join that fakakta family. They fumbled the bag and instead of acknowledging it, their cope is to seethingly obsess about her.

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

WE DID IT! Two and half years after Donald Trump openly incited the January 6th insurrection, Trump has been indicted by a grand jury following a lengthy and methodical DOJ investigation. There are four counts in the indictment against Trump, and there are also (as yet unnamed) co-conspirators cited in the indictment. Meaning, more charges to come and more arrests to be made, especially for fart-soaked Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s whole cracked-out team of ratf-cking helper-monkeys.

Former President Donald J. Trump was indicted on Tuesday in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election following a sprawling federal investigation into his attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency to Joseph R. Biden Jr. The indictment was filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington.

It accuses Mr. Trump of three conspiracies: one to defraud the United States, a second to obstruct an official government proceeding and a third to deprive people of civil rights provided by federal law or the Constitution.

“Each of these conspiracies — which built on the widespread mistrust the defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud — targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election,” the indictment said.

The indictment said Mr. Trump had six co-conspirators, but it did not name them.

Mr. Trump now faces two separate federal indictments. In June, Mr. Smith brought charges in Florida accusing Mr. Trump — the current front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — of illegally holding on to a highly sensitive trove of national defense documents and then obstructing the government’s attempts to get them back. He is scheduled to go on trial in that case in May. In addition to federal charges in the election and documents cases, Mr. Trump also faces legal troubles in state courts.

He has been charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office in a case that centers on hush money payments made to the porn star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election. The efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to reverse his election loss are also the focus of a separate investigation by the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga. That inquiry appears likely to generate charges this month.

[From The NY Times]

If you subscribe to the NYT, you can read the indictment here. It spells out in concise terms what Trump actually did, and how the criminal conspiracies came together. This feels cathartic – this is the one a lot of us were waiting for. Trump getting charged under the Espionage Act was amazing too, don’t get me wrong. But I still say Trump and every single one of his co-conspirators, including the January 6th terrorists, should be charged with high treason, murder and attempted murder. These should be death penalty charges. Those f–kers smeared feces on the walls of the Capitol. They made a noose to hang Mike Pence. Speaker Pelosi was in that secure underground bunker for hours. They planted pipe bombs. Trump assaulted his Secret Service detail because he wanted to go to the Capitol to join his people.

Jack Smith is hot, right? I would.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

I went to see Barbie with my lovely wife; she said pink is my color. #imkenough pic.twitter.com/4E0LJMQpmC

— George RR Martin (@GRRMspeaking) July 31, 2023

George RR Martin dressed up in pink to see Barbie. This Barbie is never going to finish Winds of Winter! This Barbie is a procrastinator. [Buzzfeed]
Shawn Mendes got sunburnt in Ibiza. [OMG Blog]
Balmain’s Resort collections are so fussy. [GFY]
Offset addresses the rumor (which he started) that Cardi B cheated. [JustJared]
Barbie is such a huge success by every metric. [LaineyGossip]
Review of Talk to Me, a horror film I will not see. [Pajiba]
Natasha Lyonne’s bangs, you guys. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Elon Musk took down that stupid strobe-light X sign. [Jezebel]
The Da Vinci Code & the MAGA cult. [Towleroad]
Kylie Minogue wore Mugler to promote her Las Vegas residency. [RCFA]

As we discussed yesterday, Prince William (barely) did a thing to highlight some Earthshot Prize winners’ innovations. The thing in question was a video with food-vloggers Ben Ebbrell and Kush Bhasin of the YouTube channel Sorted Food – William turned up at the beginning to explain the innovations, then William left Kush and Ben to work out the applications and develop the veggie burger. Then William showed up at the end of the video to do a little skit with a food truck – William “served” the burgers to “unsuspecting” people and gave them a lecture about Earthshot. I’ve cued the video to that part:

As you can see, this isn’t really a city street available to passerbys. They set up the foodtruck in an alley or some kind of closed-off area, and then they brought people up to the foodtruck. Well, there’s a rumor going around that Sorted Food and/or Kensington Palace basically set up every part of the foodtruck skit, meaning those people were hand-selected and told how to give “surprised” reactions to William’s presence. It looks like the palace’s screenwriters are not on strike. Did they film this on some studio backlot?? Were those people paid for their acting performances?

The royals produce a staged video and @ITV and @SkyNews report it as if it were a genuine moment of surprise from ‘diners in london’. https://t.co/Zn2tLwycKz

— Republic (@RepublicStaff) July 31, 2023

They certainly missed the corruption and hypocrisy of the royals. Talk about that. https://t.co/omnpTuv6WM

— Republic (@RepublicStaff) July 31, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.