Katie Holmes still dresses like it’s the ‘90s (and I love it). This was actually a “dressed up” look circa 1994 and I would wear this whole ensemble. [Socialite Life]
An interview with Olympian Noah Lyles. [Buzzfeed]
Please take all of Jennifer Lopez’s pain and give it to Joaquin Phoenix. [LaineyGossip]
Reported couch-f–ker JD Vance has accused Democrats of bullying him! [Jezebel]
Spoilers for the ending of Cuckoo. [Pajiba]
Taylor Swift’s ex Conor Kennedy (remember that?) is engaged. [JustJared]
Vanessa Bryant revealed a “Kobe logo” for the LA Olympics. [Hollywood Life]
Californians are such pros about earthquakes. [Seriously OMG]
Blake Lively’s other premiere look. [RCFA]
Orlando Bloom stretches on the beach. [OMG Blog]

After so many years, you would think that Prince William, his palace courtiers and his friends would have some awareness about how pathetic it is to continuously mention Prince Harry. While the “mentions” are never flattering for Harry, the sheer fact that William and his allies can’t keep Harry’s name out of their mouths is more revealing of William than Harry. It’s especially funny because William tries to maintain the hilarious feint that he cannot defend himself against Harry’s “attacks,” all while William regularly trashes his brother off the record. I’ve long believed that one of the biggest issues of King Charles’s reign is that the entire family seems to base a lot of their words and actions on an audience of one: Harry. They don’t even understand how f–king bonkers they look to everyone else. Well, as we discussed, William has a vacation beard. It’s gross and it makes him look like he just crawled out of a two-week bender. The beard is a reminder that William has been on vacation for a full month and that he’ll be on vacation for two more months. But according to William’s “friend,” the audience for the beard was one person alone: Harry. William thinks that he just restarted the Beard War with his brother.

Prince William’s new vacation beard, displayed in a short clip to mark the closing of the Olympics, is being seen by friends as a “new installment of the beard wars” with Prince Harry. One friend of William’s told The Daily Beast: “It was a slight surprise to see William do a public video with the beard. It’s an unexpected new installment of the beard wars.”

The phrase refers to the bad-tempered argument about Harry’s beard between William and Harry that fed into the collapse of their relationship in the tense run-up to Harry’s wedding. In his memoir, Spare, Harry explained how he first ­­grew his beard while on an expedition in the South Pole and had come to rely on it as a “Freudian security blanket,” saying it made him feel “calmer.” Harry wrote that he asked his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who was reputedly not overly keen on beards, for permission to keep it for his wedding to Meghan Markle, and that she “understood.” But he said that when he told his brother, William “bristled” and said it was inconsistent with military rules—relevant as he was getting married in uniform—and precedent.

Harry then said, “When I informed him that his opinion didn’t really matter, since I’d already gone to Granny and got the green light, he became livid. He raised his voice.” William accused Harry of putting Elizabeth “in an uncomfortable position,” saying she had “no choice but to say yes.” Harry said the argument “went on, in person, on the phone, for more than a week…At one point he actually ordered me, as the Heir speaking to the Spare, to shave.”

Friends of William have long disputed Harry’s characterization of many events in his book but point out that William is in no position to publicly refute Harry’s claims. The “beard wars” are no different. One source, a former courtier who worked in the palace at the time of Harry and Meghan’s wedding, told The Daily Beast: “What the courtiers got so annoyed about with Harry is that over and over again he approached his grandmother personally to get special treatment and then he would turn around and say, ‘Well, Granny said so, so there.’ He was no great respecter of the line between monarch and grandmother, between the institutional and the personal.

“The beard was a case in point. It was a ridiculous argument but ultimately, William was right, frankly; he shouldn’t have gone and put his grandmother in the position. That was why after the split, people went to great efforts to block him from seeing her, because they were terrified he would wheedle concessions out of her.”

A senior publicist who has previously worked with the royal family told The Daily Beast: “William and Kate are always very keen to present themselves as normal, and normal guys, when they go on holiday, don’t shave for a week or two. Their whole brand is about being normal, being just like us, so coming out in a craggy beard and a polo shirt while on holiday is much smarter than putting on a suit and tie. They have perfected normal as brand image.”

[From The Daily Beast]

So… does Kate also stop shaving on holiday? Does she grow out her leg hair and her pit hair? Does she grow out a ‘70s-style bush? Questions for another time, apparently. Yes, there’s nothing more normal-guy than growing out a greasy, sleazy-looking “beard” for a video supposedly praising Olympians (who you ignored throughout the games) and then immediately briefing your media allies: THIS WILL MAKE HARRY JEALOUS! Harry’s not jealous. He’s had a beard for more almost a decade. And all of this fussing over Harry’s beard at this point is hilariously out-of-touch. William shows up with a beard and suddenly everyone is… mad at Harry?? “He was no great respecter of the line between monarch and grandmother, between the institutional and the personal.” IT WAS FACIAL HAIR NOT A NUCLEAR WEAPON.

Photos courtesy of KensingtonRoyal and Avalon Red.

There was a constant stream of stories in 2022-23 about the Princess of Wales not wanting Prince George to attend Eton, the elite prep school. Kate has been visiting other boarding schools for a while, and reportedly she’s not even sold on sending George to a boarding school at all. She would prefer to have all of her kids at home for as long as possible. Reportedly, before her abdominal surgery in January, she even went to see another school for George. She has really been doing the most to show that Eton is not a sure thing. This is not an urgent problem really – it would be another two school years before George would potentially go to Eton anyway. But someone wants to keep this as a topic of conversation.

Unlike many 11-year-olds around the country, Prince George won’t be going to secondary school in September. The young royal will instead continue his education at Lambrook School, where he currently attends alongside Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six. The Berkshire-based prep school educates children up to the age of 13 (Year 8), meaning George will have two years before he moves on to his next school.

While the palace hasn’t confirmed his next place of education, Editor-in-Chief of Majesty Magazine Ingrid Seward claims there is a “very likely” next school for Prince George. Speaking to Fabulous, she claimed: “They [William and Kate] will have their choice of schools, and they can look at as many as they like, and they don’t actually have to make a choice nearly as early as anyone else would. So they have that advantage. They’ve looked at Eton. She [Kate] probably doesn’t want him to go to boarding school at all, and it’s possible that he won’t. But I mean, that’s what makes Eton look very likely, because it is so near to where they’re living.”

Ingrid claimed there is a key reason why Eton would be an advantage for William and Kate. She explained: “Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte will still be at their current school, and when and if George gets into Eton, which of course he will, he will just be down the road from them. Now, all this makes an enormous difference because the royals are now under such scrutiny as to how much they cost the taxpayer. The security, which is very expensive and we pay for, for these members of the Royal Family when they’re at school, is why Charlotte, Louis, and George are all at the same school at the moment. If George went to Eton, it would be quite possible to use the same string of security to look after him.”

[From The Sun]

The longer this goes on and the more of a “debate” it becomes, the more I’m convinced that this is actually something William and Kate are fighting about. I’ve long said that Kate got “her way” on the kids’ early education. I believe that the compromise was: the kids can stay at home until they’re 13, then the Windsor program commences, at least for the heir. This is all about George too – Kate will get her way on Charlotte and Louis’s education, I have no doubt. But George “belongs” to the institution and they want him to go to Eton. Kate is fighting with them about that, and they’re trying to publicly show her that she doesn’t have a choice.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images, Kensington Palace.

Vice President Kamala Harris is the cover subject for this week’s Time Magazine. “The Reintroduction of Kamala Harris” is the headline, and this does not include an interview. Harris still hasn’t given a sit-down interview on TV or print media since she became the nominee. I keep going back and forth on whether that’s a smart strategy – whenever she does give an interview, it will be huge news and everyone will examine every single word (in a way they simply refuse to do for Donald Trump). Harris has always gotten a raw deal with the political press and Beltway media, and those same people seem genuinely shocked that Harris not only landed on her feet, but she’s actually polling much better than Trump nowadays. That’s what this Time cover story is about too, how the political media underestimated Harris and they’re still trying to figure out WTF just happened over the past month. Some highlights from Time:

The vibe shift: Harris has pulled off the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history. A contest that revolved around the cognitive decline of a geriatric President has been transformed: Joe Biden is out, Harris is in, and a second Donald Trump presidency no longer seems inevitable. Democrats resigned to a “grim death march” toward certain defeat, as one national organizer put it, felt their gloom replaced by a jolt of hope. Harris smashed fundraising records, raking in $310 million in July. She packed stadiums and dominated TikTok, offering a fresh message focused on the future over the past. Volunteers signed up in droves. Trump’s widening leads across the battleground states evaporated. Over the span of a few weeks in late July and early August, Harris became a political phenomenon.

Kamala in 2020 versus 2024: Where has this Kamala Harris been all along? For years, Democratic officials questioned her political chops, pundits mocked her word salads, and her polling suggested limited appeal. Her performance in the 2020 presidential primary was wooden, and her turn as Biden’s No. 2 did little to inspire confidence. Even this summer, as party insiders chattered about possible replacements if Biden stepped aside, “it was explicit from some of the major donors that she can’t win,” says Amanda Litman, the co-founder of Run for Something, an organization that trains young Democrats to run for office. “They didn’t think people were ready to elect someone like her.”

An inherited campaign: She inherited a campaign infrastructure and policy record from her predecessor, but the energy is all hers. Picking Walz as a running mate over more conventional choices signals a belief that this race is as much about feelings as it is about fundamentals. Harris’ brand shift—the happy-warrior attitude, the viral memes, the eye roll at Republican “weirdos”—has already done what no Trump opponent has ever been able to do: snatch the spotlight away from him.

Harris believes this race is fundamentally about reproductive rights: She may seem like an overnight sensation, but Harris’ moment was years in the making. Quietly, her small team of top aides had been laying the groundwork for a future presidential run. After the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, the Vice President added reproductive rights to her portfolio. Abortion was never a comfortable issue for Biden, a devout Catholic, but it was a natural fit for his No. 2. Harris believed that with Roe gone, Republicans would turn their sights to restricting both birth control and IVF. In the months after Dobbs, she traveled the U.S., talking about abortion rights as a matter of “reproductive freedom.” As far back as the 2022 midterms, aides say, she argued for making this the core of the party’s national message, even as the White House focused on jobs and the economy.

Harris & her advisors were planning her 2028 run: During those travels, Harris’ team assembled a spreadsheet of allies, power brokers, and potential delegates to tap if and when the time came. Every photo line, every VIP invitation, every clutch with labor leaders, every meeting with key constituencies was filed away. The goal, advisers say, was to ensure there would be allies on every delegate slate in every state in the nation. “We had a list,” says one top aide, “and we checked it twice.” The list was intended for 2028. But when Biden dropped out on July 21 and quickly endorsed Harris, it was instantly pressed into service.

What she did when Biden endorsed her: The Vice President—clad in a Howard University sweatshirt, munching pizza with anchovies—spent the next 10 hours on the phone, dialing delegates and wrangling endorsements. A day later, the nomination was all but hers. Even though other presidential hopefuls had ties to swing states or big donors, “the list was the thing that we had that they didn’t,” says a top aide. “It wasn’t a fairy godmother waving a magic wand.” Harris’ ability to sew up the nomination so quickly was a triumph of work ethic and political dexterity that foreshadowed what was to come. “To consolidate the Democratic Party in a matter of hours, to do as many visible events and establish that presence without putting a foot wrong, is a feat,” says Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation Secretary who ran against Harris for the 2020 nomination and was a finalist to become her running mate. “I don’t think anybody expected her to be so flawless.”

[From Time Magazine]

Something which goes missing in Time’s analysis is that Harris is a quick learner and she’s still being mentored by President Biden. I’m sure Harris and her team picked up the football and ran, all on their own initiative, and I’m not saying Harris’s success is due to Biden altogether. Harris has absolutely put in the work and we can tell. But Harris has also been at Joe Biden’s side for four years. He’s been preparing her and putting her in the rooms where she can learn on the job. That’s what people are missing about “what happened in the past four years, why is she suddenly so good at this” talk. They’re missing Biden’s influence and his belief in her abilities.

It’s so, so smart for Harris to completely engage with choice and reproductive rights too. She was right to argue for that in Biden’s reelection campaign and she’s right to center that conversation in the last three months of the election. After Dobbs, it became a fundamental political truth: women are f–king mad. We are so pissed off and we needed a candidate who can talk about it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images. Cover courtesy of Time.

The trailer for the live-action Snow White is out and real talk, I’m not a fan of any of these live-action remakes, so I think this looks equally bad as the other ones. The super-fast edits should tell you everything you need to know. [Seriously OMG]
Adele & Rich Paul’s love story. [Hollywood Life]
Interview with author Andrew Erdman. [Socialite Life]
Review of It Ends With Us. [LaineyGossip]
Billie Eilish performed at the Paris Olympics (sort of). [Just Jared]
It costs a lot to achieve the tradwife aesthetic. [Pajiba]
Daphne Guinness released new music. [OMG Blog]
More Olympic celebrity sightings! [Go Fug Yourself]
Naomi Ackie’s Ferragamo is a scroll-down fug. [RCFA]
What did Kelly Bensimon do on Scary Island? [Starcasm]
I loved the Olympic Closing Ceremony. [Buzzfeed]

One of the reasons why I’m simply incapable of giving Prince William the benefit of the doubt at this point is because he sends his people – his friends, courtiers and advisors – to smear and attack Prince Harry constantly. William thinks he’s keeping his hands clean and that we can’t see through his stupid game. Remember when Harry revealed that William had privately accepted a seven-figure settlement from News Group Newspapers, a settlement which left William deeply compromised? William’s reaction was to send his “friends” out on a briefing spree to tell everyone that William “absolutely hates Harry now and will never forgive him.” William has made his position abundantly clear for years: the next time he’ll speak to Harry will be at their father’s funeral. Well, William is currently upset that Harry and Meghan are about to upstage him. The Sussexes’ tour of Colombia starts this week (I guess??) and William’s “friend” had a lot of sh-t to say:

A friend of Prince William has told The Daily Beast that Prince Harry should apologize for taking cocaine as a young man on his and wife Meghan Markle’s forthcoming tour of Colombia, due to begin Thursday.

The friend said: “Harry admitted to doing coke in his book (Spare). His trip to Colombia should include an admission that the country has been destroyed by narco-terrorists servicing wealthy drug users in the west, and he should stand up and apologize for his own participation in that disgusting trade. That would be a helpful intervention.”

Harry and Meghan’s quasi-royal tour of Colombia is due to begin on Thursday this week. In a statement announcing the tour, the government said that the couple were going there in recognition of their “global leadership in fostering a safer online environment,” adding that this was also part of the goal of a conference dedicated to ending violence against children, to be held in Colombia this November.

Asked about the stated motivation, the friend of Prince William’s witheringly told The Daily Beast: “I can’t imagine online trolling is the biggest risk to children being exploited, enslaved and murdered by drugs gangs.”

Windsor loyalists have expressed irritation about the trip to The Daily Beast. One source recently told The Daily Beast: “I’m afraid it shows the utter contempt they have for the king and for very long-established ways of doing things. Royal tours have always, always been about diplomacy, building bridges and reinforcing friendships on behalf of Britain. This tour may well have the noblest intentions, but it is clearly not being carried out on behalf of Britain, and yet they still basically portray themselves as British royals. It shows you exactly why the royals want these two kept as far away as possible.”

The Duke wrote in Spare that cocaine “didn’t do anything for me” when he took “a line” aged 17. He also said, “Marijuana is different, that actually really did help me.” Harry implied in his book and in interviews that he has continued to use marijuana for mental health reasons. Marijuana remains illegal in many jurisdictions and its production and distribution has been widely linked to gang crime, slavery and other human rights abuses, as well as ecological damage.

[From The Daily Beast]

Marijuana has been widely decriminalized in many American states, and in California, it’s legal to purchase and grow marijuana. I’m not ignoring the global drug trade, but in many states these days, marijuana is literally a legal, profitable and above-board industry. I’m sure Harry is smoking Californian-grown strains, I’m just sayin’.

The swipe about cocaine is so stupid and petty from William, especially given that I’m sure he’s snorted more than a few lines in his life. I also find it really racist that William’s first instinct – and the first instinct of his team and “friends” – is to associate Colombia with drugs and narcoterrorism. Harry and Meghan are visiting Colombia at the invitation of the Colombian government, with an agenda agreed upon by the government and the Sussexes. Colombia clearly wants the Sussex sparkle and the international tourism boost which will come from showcasing their multifaceted society, all while focusing on the issues the government and the Sussexes want to discuss. The same thing happened with the Sussexes’ Nigerian tour. All of those salty, racist British people screamed about crime for weeks, but H&M’s tour made me realize that Nigeria is beautiful and a real tourist destination.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

On Saturday, Team USA’s men’s basketball team won a thrilling gold medal game against the French team. LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry were doing the most to go home with gold medals and they succeeded, largely because of Steph’s three-pointers. The French people were big mad though – mad at Joel Embiid for playing for the US, mad at “the devil named Curry,” mad at Americans for creating such an iconic dream team. Tons of people came out for the game – Draymond Green, Carmelo Anthony and Sha’Carri Richardson were all sitting courtside or close to it. Steph’s family came over too, including his wife Ayesha and their children. Ayesha just gave birth to their fourth child in May – a son, Caius, who isn’t even three months old. Ayesha kept Caius in a baby carrier on her chest throughout the game, and the baby was still in the chest carrier when Ayesha tried to leave Accor Arena on Saturday night. That’s when this happened:

As the video picks up, Ayesha is already visibly upset and she’s wiping away tears as the police refuse to let her go where she and the group need to go to get to their car. Draymond Green is in the background and he ends up stepping in towards the end and providing the clue for why Ayesha is so upset – he said: “So even after you hit the baby in the head, there’s still nothing y’all can do to get them out of here?” The cops hit the baby??? I wouldn’t even be crying, I would be in jail after knocking those cops on their asses. As for why Ayesha and her group were being held back… apparently, it had to do with President Macron’s presence at the game. As in, Macron and his security were leaving first and until they left, Ayesha’s group wasn’t allowed back to their car?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Six years ago, a few months after my younger son was born, I got my first IUD (Mirena). The ob-gyn who inserted it wasn’t my regular one, but happened to be the one who ended up delivering him and coaching me through an unexpected complication that made it too dangerous for me to get an epidural. Anyway, she said I would feel a pinch and then experience cramping for 24-48 hours. Well, that pinch felt like someone had taken a wrench and tightened my uterus causing painful back cramps for two days and spotting for six months.

I wasn’t alone in my experience. Thousands of women across the US have also experienced pain during and after their IUD placement. For decades, their pain has been brushed aside, with women basically being told sh-t like “It’s not that bad,” “Take some ibuprofen,” and “Suck it up.” Those days are hopefully no more. The CDC issued guidelines last week that advised practitioners to properly warn women about how much insertion and removal will hurt. They’re also supposed to give them better options to manage any pain and discomfort afterwards.

Women started documenting their painful IUD insertions: Earlier this year, The Washington Post reported that numerous women were using their smartphones to document their screams, tears and distress during the IUD insertion process. In social media posts, patients who have experienced IUD pain have described the procedure in graphic terms, including as an “explosion of cramps,” a sensation of “pulling, pushing and slicing” or being “cut or ripped open inside.”

Women’s pain is not taken seriously: Many of these patients said they were not warned of the potential for pain or given adequate options to manage it. Local anesthetics, sedation and other options are available for IUD placement, but many clinicians do not readily offer them. Research also shows that physicians and other providers underestimate pain during IUD insertions. In a study of 200 women, most of whom had given birth, the women reported an average maximum pain score of nearly 65 on a scale of 0 to 100. The providers, however, rated the women’s pain at about 35.

One size Advil fits all: Physicians have said that determining the best pain control can be difficult because patient’s preferences and experiences vary, and there are not enough effective options or guidelines on when to use them. Often, over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications such as Ibuprofen are the only options recommended to help manage IUD pain, despite the fact that research shows they are largely ineffective. The CDC said health-care providers can use the recommendations, which were updated after a review of available scientific evidence in January 2023, “to support person-centered contraceptive counseling and remove unnecessary medical barriers to accessing and using contraception.”

Let’s try this again: In its previous recommendations in 2016, the CDC outlined medications “to ease IUD insertion,” suggesting the advice was aimed, at least in part, at helping the provider complete the procedure. The updated version uses more patient-centered language. The new guidance states that before placing an IUD, “all patients should be counseled on potential pain during placement as well as the risks, benefits and alternatives of different options for pain management. A person-centered plan for IUD placement and pain management should be made based on patient preference.”

The new guidance for pain control: The advice also broadens pain control options to include topical lidocaine, which may include a numbing gel or spray. The previous guidance mentioned only lidocaine injections given in the cervix called a paracervical block. Some studies show paracervical blocks can help with pain, while others have shown they do not. Although the CDC said lidocaine “might be useful for reducing patient pain,” the agency did not specifically advise clinicians to use it. The new guidance also states that misoprostol, a medication that helps soften the cervix, is not recommended for routine IUD insertions but may be useful in certain circumstances such as in cases in which previous insertions have been unsuccessful.

There’s no magic bullet: Physicians say the new guidance emphasizes that there is no one-sized-fits-all approach to pain control. “Shared decision-making is necessary to arrive at an individualized plan reflecting each patient’s unique context, values and preferences,” Monica Dragoman, system director of the complex family planning division at Mount Sinai Health System, said in an email. Lauren Kus, a complex family planning fellow at Mount Sinai Hospital, added that while the recommendations can “optimize and individualize” pain management plans, “admittedly, none of these interventions are a magic bullet to eliminate IUD insertion pain, so continued research into additional effective strategies is critical.”

[From WaPo]

Well, it’s about f-cking time this was addressed, especially since more and more women are considering IUDs in a post-Roe world where Republicans’ war on women will surely try to come for birth control. Women are often told to suck it up or deal with levels of pain and discomfort that men are simply not expected to tolerate. While I know that there are thousands of women out there that have had good experiences with their IUD in general, a lot of them also have stories about how painful the insertion was. For all they’re worth when it comes to the effectiveness of reproductive health, no one really prepares us for the side effects that come with insertion or when your body is getting used to it. The comments under the post about this story on WaPo’s Instagram account are full of testimonials.

Oh, and that IUD insertion that caused pain and months of spotting? Well, seven months later, I started having intense, targeted pain in different areas of my stomach. As it turned out, the IUD was placed while my cervix was still too soft, so it slipped through and migrated up into my stomach. (This is what I was told.) A very crazy x-ray showed it near my left rib cage. I had to have laparoscopic surgery to remove it, and it was in a completely different location when they went in, four days later. I still preferred that over the pill, so I ended up getting a new Mirena IUD put in six months later, this time by my longtime gyno. After just a day of crampy pain, I had no issues after that. Women really are expected to treat all experiences as though they affect us all in the exact same way, every time we feel them. Here’s to validating and addressing more of our experiences moving forward.

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Photos credit: Alex Green, Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition on Unsplash and via Instagram/Dr. Jen Gunter

It’s equal parts horrifying and fascinating to watch the New York Times bet big on Donald Trump winning reelection, but slowly realizing that he’s f–king up all of their plans. I can feel the fury coming from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their latest piece, “Inside the Worst Three Weeks of Donald Trump’s 2024 Campaign.” They are so deeply embedded in Team Trump, they really convinced themselves that Trump had this thing locked down and now the crazy old man can’t land the plane. The only good thing Haberman’s access to Trump gives us at this point is juicy political and personal gossip. Haberman and Swan reveal that Trump is too senile to listen to advisors; that he’s referred to Kamala Harris as a “bitch” in multiple conversations; and that Trump thinks JD Vance is a weirdo too. Some highlights:

Trump showed no regret for attacking Harris’s race: “I think I was right,” he told the rattled donors that Friday night. [Donors] asked how Mr. Trump planned to take the narrative back from Democrats, and what his positive vision for the country would be. It appeared to be a request for reassurance. Mr. Trump provided none. Instead, he criticized Ms. Harris on a range of fronts, before adding: “I am who I am.”

One of the rockiest period of Mr. Trump’s campaign: [It is] easily the worst since a late 2022 spree in which he mused about terminating parts of the Constitution and dined at Mar-a-Lago with a white supremacist and an outspoken antisemite. As Ms. Harris — long ridiculed and underestimated — has transformed the contest, campaigning energetically and drawing roughly even with Mr. Trump in many polls, Mr. Trump has responded with one unforced error after another while struggling to land on an effective and consistent argument against her.

A foul mood: Indeed, Mr. Trump has often been in a foul mood the past few weeks. He has ranted about Ms. Harris. He has called her “nasty,” on “Fox & Friends,” and a “bitch,” repeatedly, in private, according to two people who heard the remark on different occasions. (“That is not language President Trump has used to describe Kamala, and it’s not how the campaign would characterize her,” Mr. Cheung said.)

The “weird” problem with JD Vance: Over the past two weeks, Mr. Trump has fielded complaints from donors about his running mate, JD Vance, as news coverage exploring Mr. Vance’s past statements unearthed — and then exhaustively critiqued — remarks including a lament that America was run by “childless cat ladies.” Mr. Trump dismissed out of hand donors’ suggestions that he replace Mr. Vance on the ticket. But Mr. Trump privately asked his advisers whether they had known about Mr. Vance’s comments about childless women before Mr. Trump chose him. And, at the Aug. 2 fund-raiser, according to two people with knowledge of what took place, when a donor at the round-table discussion asked about Democrats trying to paint the Republican ticket as “weird,” Mr. Trump replied: “Not about me. They’re saying that about JD.”

He’s mad that Kamala Harris is getting more attention & her crowds are bigger: Also unsettling to him: For the first time in Mr. Trump’s political life, his opponent has received more sustained news coverage than he has, beating him at the game of “earned media,” the kind that costs campaigns nothing to produce. Moreover, the coverage of Ms. Harris has overwhelmingly been positive. Ms. Harris “has gotten the equivalent of the largest in-kind contribution of free media I think I have ever seen in all the years I’ve been doing presidential campaigns,” said Tony Fabrizio, the Trump campaign’s chief pollster.

Trump’s internal polling is hilariously bad too: He has also peppered his advisers with questions about whether Ms. Harris can sustain her momentum, constantly asking what new polling shows. Others are more concerned about what they are seeing in private polling. Two private polls conducted in Ohio recently by Republican pollsters — which Mr. Trump carried in 2020 with 53 percent of the vote — showed him receiving less than 50 percent of the vote against Ms. Harris in the state, according to a person with direct knowledge of the data.

[From The NY Times]

“Not about me. They’re saying that about JD.” LMAO. Vance is definitely the reason why the “weird” attack is landing so well. Vance is a weirdo. He’s a creep, he’s a stalker, he’s awkward and a charisma vacuum. He also says terrible things and he has a long history of saying offensive things about women. It anything, the “weird” label is being kind. But it lands so well because Trump is also a f–king weirdo and a creep. Like attracts like, birds of a feather. Trump’s weird orange makeup, his weird obsession with crowd sizes, his lies, his sexual predations, he’s just a very weird and gross old man. His selection of Vance just highlights all of that.

As for Trump calling Harris a “bitch” and the campaign saying no, he would never – there’s already a video of Trump’s fat ass slumped in a golf cart, calling Harris a “f–king bitch.” A lot of people are making the bold (?) prediction that before Election Day, Trump is probably going to call her the n-word. Probably at one of the debates?

Trump calling Kamala Harris a “fucking bitch” is hilarious because that’s going to be his nickname in prison pic.twitter.com/zATECzbJww

— I Smoked RFK Jr’s Bear (@BlackKnight10k) August 10, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.

Last week, It Ends With Us had major premiere events in New York and London. Blake Lively has also been blitzing the media with TV appearances, interviews and pap strolls. She’s hustling for this film really hard. It’s her first major role in years, and she’s an executive producer on it too. With Blake’s promotion specifically, it does feel like there’s a cult of silence around what it’s actually about: domestic violence. That’s the whole point of “it ends with us.” Only Blake seems to think she’s promoting a ditzy romance full of cute scenes involving fashion, flowers and jewelry. Meanwhile, her costar and director Justin Baldoni has been doing the most to talk about DV and be respectful of the actual subject matter. TikTok caught on that Justin and Blake seem to be promoting IEWU in completely different ways. TikTok also caught on that Blake and Justin have had some kind of falling out and they are not promoting the film together whatsoever. It’s gotten so bad that even the trade papers are following TikTokers’ leads:

As It Ends With Us sails toward a strong opening weekend at the box office, the movie is facing unexpected — and likely unwanted — attention on social media. TikTok has been flooded with speculation about a rift between star-producer Blake Lively and her co-star Justin Baldoni, who also directed the adaptation of Colleen Hoover‘s beloved book.

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that there was a fracture among the filmmakers in the postproduction process, wherein two different cuts of the movie emerged.

The It Ends With Us sleuthing on TikTok stemmed from Baldoni’s notable absence from joint press events; the lack of group photos of Lively and Baldoni together at Tuesday’s New York premiere; and the fact that neither Lively, Hoover, nor the rest of the cast, follow Baldoni on Instagram (though he follows them). This raised eyebrows, as during the development of the movie, Hoover and Baldoni appeared together on each other’s Instagrams multiple times.

Social media users also began speculating that Lively brought in her husband, Ryan Reynolds, to help take over creative control of the film. This theory was stoked when Lively revealed at the film’s world premiere that Reynolds wrote a key rooftop scene toward the beginning of the movie. “We help each other. He works on everything I do. I work on everything he does. So his wins, his celebrations are mine and mine are his,” she said. The film has a script from Christy Hall.

Reynolds did write a large chunk of dialogue for the scene, multiple insiders tell THR, but not the entire scene. Beyond that, he would have had no time to focus on his wife’s film since he and director Shawn Levy were working 24/7 on Deadpool & Wolverine from the time they were able to resume production in early November 2023 after the SAG-AFTRA strike — and through the laborious postproduction process before embarking on a global publicity tour.

Lively, however, did have a strong say in the film’s creative direction as she was also a producer on the feature on top of being its star. That seemed to extend to having the power to make her own version of the movie. According to multiple sources, Lively commissioned a cut of the movie from editor Shane Reid, who was an editor on Deadpool & Wolverine, and who cut the Lively-directed music video for Taylor Swift’s “I Bet You Think About Me.” It’s unclear if any of this cut was ultimately used in the final project, which was credited to editors Oona Flaherty and Robb Sullivan. One insider played down any friction, noting that it is not uncommon for a film to have several cuts emerge during post, adding that the team was in agreement on the final cut.

[From THR]

I absolutely believe the theory that Ryan Reynolds is a controlling a–hole and he put his stink all over Blake’s big comeback project, and that was a problem with Baldoni and screenwriter Christy Hall. Speaking of, Baldoni was the one who got the rights to the book and he brought in Hall to adapt the script. But the reason why Blake and Ryan kept getting their way was because they’re tight with Colleen Hoover. Basically, THR makes it sound like a mess of big egos and competing agendas. But! Page Six has a much more pro-Blake piece:

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni clashed on the set of “It Ends With Us,” with multiple sources telling Page Six he made her feel “uncomfortable.” One industry source claimed that Baldoni, who also directed the movie, created an “extremely difficult” atmosphere behind the scenes for the entire cast. And another industry insider said there were a few moments on set that made Lively, who is a producer on the project, feel “uncomfortable” about her postpartum body.

Lively, 36, joined “It Ends With Us” soon after giving birth to her fourth child with Ryan Reynolds, son Olin. As photos leaked at the start of production, fans called out Lively’s “frumpy” costumes for her character, Lily Bloom — prompting Lively to delve into her own wardrobe for some of the looks, borrowing clothes from BFF Gigi Hadid and husband Ryan Reynolds and wearing her own jewelry. Sources who have worked with Baldoni were quick to say the father of two would never intentionally set out to make any of his actors feel unsupported. By the end of filming, however, there was apparently no love lost between the cast.

“It’s not just Blake,” added the industry source. “None of the cast enjoyed working with Justin …They certainly didn’t talk to him at the premiere.”

[From Page Six]

Wait, are they saying that Baldoni said something about her postpartum body AND he made her wear frumpy clothes? Sigh… I mean, it’s a good way to attack him, even if I think it sounds like bullsh-t straight from Ryan and Blake. Also: Baldoni wants no part of the sequel, if a sequel gets greenlighted. He told People Mag that if the sequel happens, Blake should direct it. I doubt Ryan would allow that.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.