Here are photos of Day 3 and Day 4 of Prince William’s big, keen trip to South Africa. I have no idea who is paying attention to this at all, even within the British media. Thankfully, today is William’s final day in South Africa, and last night was the big Earthshot Prize ceremony in Cape Town. Heidi Klum was there, so was Nina Dobrev. I honestly wonder if Eartshot pays appearance fees to celebrities for coming out. I feel pretty confident that Earthshot picks up the celebrity guests’ travel costs and accommodations. Which begs the question – why are they wasting all of that money just to have some “celebrities” at these stupid events?
Anyway, unlike the previous Earthshot Prize ceremonies, William didn’t wear a tuxedo or any kind of formalwear indicating that this was an evening event. He wore a vintage blazer from a local store (in London, I guess) and he wore sustainable sneakers which are “zero-plastic and biodegradable.” I get that William is making a point to highlight sustainable men’s fashion, but it also looks like he didn’t care enough to get dressed up for the one time Earthshot was held in an African country. The women are in formalwear – William is in sneakers.
The Prince of Wales, 42, was the guest of honor at the awards night in Cape Town, South Africa on Nov. 6. It was the focal point of his four days in South Africa, which began on Monday, Nov. 4 and conclude on Thursday, Nov. 7.
“I’m feeling good. I can’t quite believe we’re here, fourth year, in Africa,” Prince William said on the green carpet. “But I’m really pleased because I’ve been looking forward to an Africa Earthshot for a long time. I love the continent, and I’m so pleased we’ve managed to get here to Africa.”
“Africa’s been a big part of my life since I’ve been a young boy, since I first came to Africa,” he continued. “I felt really connected to the place spiritually and kind of from an environmental and people point. And every time I come here I get a warm welcome. Every time I come here I can be myself and get away from all the stuff that happens in my normal life. And so it’s a really special place, a home from home for me.”
He’s copying Harry, etc. I find it interesting that Harry has spent so much time on the ground in Lesotho and Zimbabwe, not only working but building friendships and a surrogate family. And then William just… pops into Jecca Craig’s estate in Kenya every three years or so and that’s about it.
George Clooney wrote his now-infamous New York Times editorial in July, wherein he insulted President Biden for being too old and said that Biden should step aside and the Democrats should pass over the sitting vice president and hold a mini-primary before the convention. Clooney’s delusion became THE talking point for many Democratic donors as they dreamt of installing someone like Wes Moore or Mark Kelly as the nominee with zero money and zero credibility with average Democratic voters nationwide. Many elected Democrats publicly echoed Clooney’s words, including Nancy Pelosi and a dozen senators. Then, eleven days later, Biden dropped out and endorsed Kamala Harris, and the party quickly coalesced behind her and she raised a billion dollars. When Clooney was in Venice, he was asked about his NYT op-ed, and he said that “none of that is going to be remembered.” Guess who remembered? Everyone.
Democratic voters would like a quick word with movie star George Clooney. Clooney, the movie star whose New York Times editorial heralded the ouster of President Joe Biden from the 2024 presidential race, was the subject of some frustration after former President Donald Trump secured the nation’s highest office.
“Someone bring me George Clooney,” wrote altNOAA, the veteran-led political commentator group launched in response to the Trump administration’s so-called “gag order” on the Environmental Protection Agency. “We need to have a… talk.”
Clooney was among a slew of high-profile Americans who urged Biden to walk away from the race after his lone debate against Trump raised concerns about the 81-year-old’s ability to defeat the MAGA Republican.
Biden later claimed he had a cold, but Democratic critics such as Clooney argued that was beside the point considering the stakes if he continued — and what he said was the likelihood that another candidate could easily defeat Trump.
“We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign,” Clooney wrote. “All of the scary stories that we’re being told about what would happen next are simply not true. In all likelihood, the money in the Biden-Harris coffers could go to help elect the presidential ticket and other Democrats.”
The tweets are there, the outrage is there. It will be one of the great political unknowns in American history, “what if Democrats hadn’t been such bedwetters and stayed in lockstep behind an enormously successful president?” While Biden’s approval rate was very low six months ago or whatever, I maintain that most people were not paying attention to Biden or anything else before Democratic turncoats began screaming about his age. Democrats have to reckon with how they mishandled all of that, because they looked disorganized and incredibly eager to stab Biden in the back. But yeah… Clooney can f–k all the way off.
Bradley Whitford is a big Democrat and Democratic activist. He did appearances and speeches for the Harris-Walz campaign, and he and his old coworkers from The West Wing reunited to do some stuff to support the Democratic Party. Whitford happened to be in Washington DC on Wednesday, and he spoke to the Independent outside of the White House just hours after the election was called for Donald Trump:
Actor Bradley Whitford from The West Wing and The Handmaid’s Tale wants Democrats to avoid falling into “despair” after Donald Trump’s second victory, he told The Independent in an exclusive interview. Whitford, known for his Emmy-winning West Wing performance as the firebrand political strategist Josh Lyman, said he was surprised by Trump’s decisive win. The 65-year-old has long been a Democratic ally, and most recently spoke at a Harris rally in Wisconsin on October 22.
“I absolutely thought we were going to win,” Whitford told The Independent outside the White House on Wednesday afternoon, less than 12 hours after Donald Trump secured his second term. “I thought it was going to be closer. But whenever any of my friends asked me, I would end it with, ‘You can never underestimate how you know, racist and sexist this country is.’”
Whitford then called on Democrats to take action in response to their historic losses this Election Day.
“Despair is a luxury our children cannot afford, and action is the antidote to despair, and we will continue the fight to hold this country up to its spectacular, unfulfilled aspiration,” Whitford said.
“Cynicism and despair is what they want you to feel, and despair is a luxury that the future can’t afford,” he added.
When The Independent asked what he would tell Trump if given the chance, Whitford took a beat to consider his answer. “Blend your makeup,” he said with a laugh.
Whitford also shared a 40-year-old anecdote about the first time he learned of Trump. “My first awareness of Donald Trump: I went to college, and then I went to acting school in New York,” Whitford told The Independent. “And when I got to acting school, there were some fourth-year guys who were really upset, because they’d spent the summer working for this real estate guy who had never paid them. They had confronted him — this is 1981 — and he said, ‘What are you going to do? Going to sue me? You know, you’re effing actors.’ It is completely bewildering to me, the cult that has formed around a narcissist like this, the worst person in show business, and that’s a tough category,” Whitford concluded.
“Cynicism and despair is what they want you to feel, and despair is a luxury that the future can’t afford.” I’m seeing a lot of white Democrats talk this way in the wake of Trump’s victory. They’re trying to get the band back together and rally the Resistance. It’s hard to see a path forward this time around, but I understand the urge to feel like doing something, anything. “You can never underestimate how you know, racist and sexist this country is.” It’s true. It’s crazy that Barack Obama won two times so handily, so comprehensively, but in some sense, everything that’s happened post-Obama has been a national backlash to the sheer fact that we had a Black president. I would also argue that in 2024, this is more about the sheer hatred of women. But racism played a part too.
President Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith in November 2022. Smith was given the assignment of overseeing and prosecuting the two federal cases against Donald Trump. One case for inciting the January 6th insurrection, and one case for the theft of highly-classified documents from the White House. The cases have been handled methodically and slow-walked by the courts, with the implicit understanding that if Trump lost the election, the prosecutions would have an easier path to move forward. Well, now that Trump has won, guess what’s happening with the federal cases?
Donald Trump started this year fighting two federal prosecutions that threatened to send him to prison. But he will end it free and clear of his most significant criminal legal problems. With his resounding victory at the polls, and a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president, the key question is not if, but when, prosecutors move to dismiss or delay his federal election interference case in Washington, D.C.
Trump recently said he would fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” after he returned to the White House. Now, that won’t be necessary to bring his federal criminal troubles to an end.
Smith is taking steps to end both federal cases against Trump before the president-elect takes office, according to a source familiar with the Justice Department deliberations.
A grand jury in Washington indicted Trump this year on four felony charges in connection with his effort to cling to power in 2020, culminating in the violent siege on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Judge Tanya Chutkan had set a trial date for March 2024, but that date came and went, after the Supreme Court accepted the case and ultimately handed Trump significant immunity from prosecution for official actions he took in the White House. The judge is just now beginning to consider what parts of the prosecution’s case amount to official acts, and which are private conduct of a person seeking rather than holding office.
The Justice Department has appealed in a separate criminal case against Trump that accuses the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and refusing to the return them to the FBI. Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, dismissed the documents case on July 15, the first day of the Republican National Convention this year, reasoning that the way the special counsel had been appointed violates the Constitution. The Justice Department has been seeking review by a higher court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
NPR points out that it’s unlikely that Trump will even need to fire Smith on Day 1, because Smith will follow the legal precedent that sitting presidents can’t face federal prosecution. NPR also notes that the insurrection case will likely be folded up first, but the classified documents case is trickier because Smith is also prosecuting two other defendants – Trump’s aide and the property manager at Mar-a-Lago. Are we ready to have a conversation about how Merrick Garland f–ked up by not appointing a special counsel a lot sooner?
Vanity Fair released this new cover of Donald Trump on Wednesday, hours after he officially won (or “won”) the election. He looks half-dead and decrepit, like he’s rotting from the inside (just like America). Which reminds me of something I noticed during the election cycle – Trump was not being photographed as much this year, and photo agencies were not buying most Trump photos. I took it as a signal that no one wanted to see his ugly face at this point, but maybe it was all part of the larger image-management of the Trump campaign. It worked – a weak, enfeebled, demented 78-year-old man won because his “brand” is “strong, tough.” Speaking of, the first item on the Trump agenda is mass deportation.
Donald Trump has called immigrants “animals,” “monsters,” and “murderers,” and said they are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He falsely claimed they are responsible for a “surge in crime,” because “it’s in their genes,” and claimed they’re “eating the pets.”
Trump, now the president-elect, reportedly plans to conduct a massive deportation operation of undocumented immigrants on his first day in office.
“The American people delivered a resounding victory for President Trump, and it gives him a mandate to govern as he campaigned, to deliver on the promises that he made,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s national press secretary, told Fox News Wednesday, Newsweek reports. “Which include, on Day 1, launching the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants that Kamala Harris has allowed into this country.”
Axios reports Leavitt says that “mass deportation operation” includes “millions of undocumented immigrants.”
Back in September, Trump infamously attacked President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and immigrants.
I remember when he started deporting people in 2017 and putting babies in cages throughout his first term. I remember one Hispanic woman, a Trump supporter, crying because her husband was deported and she never thought the leopards would eat her face. Seven/eight years later, Trump managed to make significant inroads in the Latino vote in this election. Clearly, this is what the people want.
For years, Donald Trump has made nasty comments about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. This was back in his first term, but it kicked up a notch when Harry and Meghan fled to California just as pandemic lockdowns began in 2020. That’s something that kills me too – Harry clearly applied for a visa to stay in America in 2020, when Trump was president. The Trump administration clearly approved his visa. That hasn’t stopped the Heritage Foundation – aka the authors of Project 2025 – from waging a nearly two-year legal battle to get their hands on Harry’s visa files. This fall, a federal judge shut down Heritage’s latest attempt, but they’re still trying to scam their way into getting Harry’s files. Now that Trump is coming back into office, you think he’s going to target Harry? Trump is surrounded by British wingnuts like Nigel Farage, wingnuts who absolutely have a “deport Harry back to the UK” agenda.
A royal risk. Long before Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, he was vocal about Prince Harry’s move to the US. Trump, 78, has gone on record saying he’d consider deporting Harry, 40, because of drama over the Duke of Sussex’s US visa.
Harry is currently in a legal battle involving his immigration status. He admitted he took illegal drugs (cocaine, cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms) in his memoir “Spare,” which would be grounds for his visa application to be rejected.
The father of two and his wife, Meghan Markle, have been living in California since they quit their royal duties in the UK in 2020. Meghan, 43, is a US citizen, while Harry has been fighting to become one.
The Heritage Foundation conservative think tank has sought Harry’s visa records, arguing that the second son of King Charles III and the late Princess Diana could not have legally entered the US due to his drug use. In “Spare,” Harry wrote that cocaine “didn’t do anything for me,” but “marijuana is different, that actually really did help me.”
A judge has since ruled that Harry’s visa application is to remain private — making Trump’s mission to deport the duke a harder feat. Trump first threatened to throw Harry out of the country in February while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md.
“I wouldn’t protect him. He betrayed the Queen. That’s unforgivable. He would be on his own,” the 45th president said.
Harry actually hasn’t been “fighting” to become an American citizen. He was asked about that point-blank this year, if he ever considered naturalizing, and he said he had considered it but he made it sound like he wasn’t in the process of naturalizing. In any case, the Sussexes’ purchase of a home in Portugal sounds like one of the wisest investments ever right about now. All they would have to do to get an EU Golden Visa is invest about $500K-600K in Portugal. They could move Archewell over there too, or create a second base for their business/charity.
This is apparently the first election since 2004 where the Republican won the popular vote. What’s so weird about that is Donald Trump will likely win the popular vote having won two-million-plus fewer votes than he won in 2020. It’s also weird that Kamala Harris apparently lost fourteen-million-plus votes from Joe Biden’s win in 2020. None of the national vote counts make any sense to me, nor do the trendlines in certain states, like North Carolina. This was supposed to be another historic-turnout election, with fifty-million plus Americans voting early, etc. I wish Kamala Harris had an appetite to demand a national recount. But she conceded mid-day on Wednesday, and she addressed supporters at Howard University in the late afternoon. Note: I am not watching this, and I never watched more than a few minutes of Hillary Clinton’s concession speech in 2016. It’s too painful for me, but if you want to watch it, here you go:
She looks so tired and sad. She looked like she hadn’t slept at all and she had been crying most of the day. I maintain that the American people let her down. I feel the same way about Hillary Clinton and even Joe Biden. Hillary would have been an amazing president who worked hard for the country. President Biden wrested control of the country from a fascist lunatic and delivered a remarkable economic prosperity for the country, yet Trump supporters are still saying that Democrats lost because of “the economy.” Anyway, all of this is bullsh-t. I hope Kamala takes her bag of Doritos, goes home to California and tells everyone to f–k off forever. In 2016, it felt like we were bravely forming a resistance to hold Trump to account. 2024 is different – there will be no resistance, and Kamala, Hillary, Joe and Barack are not coming to save anyone. No one is being saved because the majority of the electorate signed up for this. Trump even said this would be the last election, and he would fix it so people never have to vote again. That’s what people wanted, so here they go.
Obviously, Tuesday did not go as we wanted or were hoping that it would. I know we’re all devastated. I’m devastated. I’m scared. I’m pissed. I can’t even properly enjoy that my adopted state, North Carolina, went blue in all of the big races, including defeating a member of Moms for Liberty for school superintendent. It sucks. We even gained two Democrats in our State House and broke up the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly!
So while there’s some, but not much, good news from yesterday, there is one story that I wanted to highlight. Paul Rudd made surprise appearances at both Temple University in Philadelphia and Villanova University in Villanova, PA to hand out water bottles to students who were waiting in line to vote. When asked by MSNBC what he was up to, he said that he thought it was “wonderful” that so many young people were voting and he just wanted to make sure they knew how awesome he thought it was that they were waiting in hours-long lines to do their patriotic duty.
Paul Rudd made a surprise appearance at universities in Pennsylvania to hand out water to students waiting in hours-long lines to vote. While reporting live from Philadelphia’s Temple University, MSNBC National Correspondent Jacob Soboroff spotted the “Ant-Man” and “I Love You, Man” star and sprinted over to him.
“Hey, Paul, I’m on live with Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC!” Soboroff said before asking the actor what brought him out to Pennsylvania voting lines.
“I just wanted to give people water,” Rudd said. “They’re waiting in line for a long time, and it’s a wonderful thing that all these young people are out voting.”
When Soboroff told Rudd that some people have waited up to two hours to vote, Rudd said, “That’s impressive.”
“We’ve been doing lots of stuff today here in Pennsylvania,” Rudd said. “We wanted to come out and tell these students they’re doing really great things.”
Soboroff then asked Rudd how he felt about the election, prompting Rudd to laugh and say, wryly, “I feel good about handing out some waters!”
Soboroff left Rudd and continued to interview voters, stopping to talk to a first-time voter, a young Black woman, who said it wasn’t hard to make up her mind. “It’s been ready to go, out the gate,” she said. “I didn’t need to hear people talking in my ear.”
Rudd then appeared behind them. “Want a water from Paul Rudd?” Soboroff asked. “Yes, I do!” she exclaimed, and handed her phone to Soboroff so he could take a photo of the two of them.
Based on photos posted to X, Rudd also showed support for students waiting to vote at Villanova University, which is located less than an hour from Temple. During the 2020 election, Rudd made headlines for handing out cookies to people standing in the rain while waiting to vote in Brooklyn, N.Y.
I had completely forgotten about Paul handing out cookies in Brooklyn in 2020. He’s such a sweetheart. It’s pretty awesome that he does these things without being invited or announcing it to draw attention to it. And now those students at least have a cool story to tell about an otherwise depressing day.
When I heard about Paul’s good deeds, it got me thinking. I don’t know what comes next, but I do know this: It’s dark right now, but there are always going to be good people like Paul Rudd who are going to be there to help. We (Kamala voters) need to do that for each other right now. Look for the helpers when you need one. When you’re feeling up to it, try to be a helper for someone else who’s struggling. There are still almost 68 million people in this country who came out to do the right thing. We have to find each other and stick together because it’s the only way that we’ll get through whatever the next four years are going to bring.
Photos credit: Oscar Gonzalez/Wenn/Avalon, Imago/RW/Avalon
The inimitable Catherine O’Hara just spoke with the consummate Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Julia’s Wiser than Me podcast, which got me wondering: have those two powerhouses ever worked together? My quick Google search yielded no results. How can this be?! It would be an improv for the ages! Catherine and Julia obviously discussed their shared comedic backgrounds, but Catherine also shared a sweet story about Tim Burton. While Tim wasn’t exactly a matchmaker, it was on his 1988 Beetlejuice set that actor Catherine met production designer Bo Welch, who is now her husband of 32 years. And now Catherine has revealed what the artistic auteur gave them as a wedding gift: a tour of the Vatican. That’s certainly different from your average kitchen appliance!
“Tim gave us an amazing wedding gift, which was a private tour at the Vatican,” O’Hara said, prompting Louis-Dreyfus, 63, to reply, “Yeah, only Tim Burton would give us a present like that.”
“Somebody had given [Burton] the gift, and he’d been blown away, so he passed it on, which is really wonderful and generous,” O’Hara continued. “So this lovely priest or cardinal took us all around the Vatican, and he was wild.”
She recalled how their tour guide took them “everywhere” — “including, I swear, the Pope’s closet.”
“He took us on the elevator that the Pope takes down to the St. Peter’s Basilica to his dead mass. He took us in this beautiful, little private museum full of, in glass cases, all the gifts given to the Vatican from all over the world,” O’Hara said. “And he let us open the case and take out crowns and pretend to be putting them in my husband’s backpack.”
The actress also told Louis-Dreyfus that she has Burton to thank for pushing her husband to finally ask her out when the three were on the set of 1988’s Beetlejuice. Burton directed the film, and O’Hara starred as Delia Deetz. Welch, 72, worked behind the scenes as a production designer.
“Tim Burton basically made him ask me out. Because I was grousing to Tim that this guy was talking to me every day, and never asking me out,” O’Hara told Louis-Dreyfus. “So Tim said, ‘Let me see what I can do.’ He did talk to him, and Bo begrudgingly asked me out. And now we’re still married, thank goodness.”
Back in August, the Schitt’s Creek star told PEOPLE that the day Welch invited her on a date was her favorite part of filming Beetlejuice. She recalled that he finally made the move when they were out shooting the exteriors of the iconic Beetlejuice house in Vermont.
“Bo came up to me that day and said, ‘Our department’s going to a swap meet. You want to come?’” she said.
Oh, Bo, honey. That pick up line is so lame it kind of swings back around to being fabulous. And that was after Tim already gave him the nod that Catherine was interested! There’s so much to enjoy about this story. It tickles me that Catherine involved Tim Burton in getting Bo to make a move, like Tim wasn’t otherwise heavily preoccupied directing a movie. I love that the Vatican tour guide was like, “Si si, go ahead and pick up the priceless artifacts to make a funny picture, va bene.” But I think what I appreciate most is the detail that this was an experience that had been given to Tim, and he found it so powerful that he wanted to pass it on. For one thing, it’s another example of Tim being an endearing emotional monster. And on a personal note, it reminded me of my late father, who ardently preached that “you should always give a gift you’d like to receive yourself.”
And on that note, Catherine and Julia: would you please treat us by doing a series or movie together asap? Cause heavens to Betsy are we in desperate need of some laughter.
Note by Celebitchy: this story was written before the election was called
Catherine O’Hara and Tim Burton are shown in 2012 at the Frankenweenie premiere. Credit: PacificCoastNews.com/Avalon. 2024 photos credit Getty, James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon
Last week, several of the Avengers assembled for a video conference endorsement of Kamala Harris. Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Paul Bettany and Don Cheadle were on it. RDJ’s involvement mildly surprised me because he’s indicated plenty of times that he’s voted for Republicans in some elections. Chris Pratt was noticeably absent from the call. The Worst Chris has long been aligned with conservatism and Evangelical politics. It doesn’t matter that he married into the Kennedy family, he’s always shown more of an interest in right-wing messaging and culture. Well, just before the election, he published an op-ed on his mother-in-law’s website:
Chris Pratt published an op-ed a few days before Election Day on his mother-in-law Maria Shriver’s website, Sunday Paper, in which he said that he’s focused less on who becomes our next president and more on making sure Americans continue to help one another regardless of the election outcome. Pratt did not publicly endorse either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in his op-ed, which resulted in some fan disappointment on social media.
“I write this now because about half of the voting population is going to be incredibly disappointed on November 6th,” Pratt wrote. “But for me, the question is not, ‘Did your candidate win or lose?’ but rather, ‘Will you wake up the next morning and help an old lady move?’”
“It’s OK to take a moment to lick your wounds when you lose. Heck, go ahead and cry in the mirror. But if we become too paralyzed by defeat or too pompous in victory, allegiance to our ‘team’ can blind us to the fact that we are fellow countrymen. How do we become a nation of honorable winners and graceful losers? It starts with remembering no matter who wins or loses, there are still going to be people who need help in this country. Find them. Be of service.”
Pratt said that America’s greatest strength as a country is “our unified communities,” citing “places of worship, Elks clubs, Rotary clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the Salvation Army and in our service members.”
“Our strength lies in our people who step across the political aisle not just with the handshake of a good sportsman, but a helping hand to anyone in need,” Pratt wrote. “So, be a good sport. We need you. Our country needs you. Team Red, Team Blue, and Team ‘Didn’t Even Vote,’ too. Your civic duty can be uniquely exercised on November 5th, but there is an even bigger civic duty required the next day: which is to accept the results and focus instead on showing up for each other.”
Pratt concluded, “Check in with your neighbor — especially if they voted for the other guy or girl. Ask how they’re doing. See how you can help. And while you’re at it, see if they know any old ladies who need help moving.”
This is what kills me: Pratt and the other right-wingers were already striking this kind of tone before the election because they thought Trump was going to lose. Not just that, they thought Trump was going to get obliterated, and after nine years of Trumpism, chickens were coming home to roost. I wonder if Pratt feels like singing Kumbaya with Democrats now that his people won, now that angry white men smashed the republic into a million little pieces. “Our strength lies in our people who step across the political aisle not just with the handshake of a good sportsman, but a helping hand to anyone in need” – Trump promised to throw his critics in prison. Women who have miscarriages will be prosecuted. Trump said Liz Cheney should face a firing squad. F–k all the way off, Chris Pratt.