Joaquin Phoenix will soon be in Venice, promoting Joker: Folie à Deux with Lady Gaga. That was supposed to be his big thing this year: promoting the Joker sequel, his return to a role which won him an Oscar (which I still loathe). But it looks like Joaquin had something else on his schedule this summer. He was supposed to begin filming on a “gay romance” directed by Todd Haynes. Joaquin pulled out just five days before he was due on set. This is a huge catastrophe and people are going to lose millions of dollars just because Joaquin changed his mind about a story HE brought to Haynes and HE developed with Haynes.

Joaquin Phoenix has dropped out of Todd Haynes‘ untitled gay romance film, just five days before filming was set to begin in Mexico, Variety has confirmed. Phoenix had developed the screenplay for the detective love story with Haynes and Jon Raymond. A source close to the production tells Variety the actor got “cold feet.” Entire sets had been built in Guadalajara before Phoenix made the last-minute decision to exit the film.

Hinged on Phoenix’s casting, the movie, produced by Killer Films and backed by sales agent MK2 Film, had already sold to international distributors ahead of production. Sources tell Variety the project is in peril, indicating that Phoenix’s role cannot be recast. The crew is now out of work, and stakeholders in the film still need to be paid. Losses could exceed seven figures.

“Top Gun: Maverick” star Danny Ramirez joined the cast in July as Phoenix’s love interest. In 2023, Haynes teased the project in an interview with Variety as a “love story between two men set in the ’30s that has explicit sexual content.” The film was said to be rated NC-17 and feature a relationship that will “challenge” audiences.

Speculation among the crew is that Phoenix’s exit had to do with the graphic nature of the film’s sex scenes. But that theory is confusing to some sources, who reiterate that it was Phoenix who brought the project — and its NC-17 concept — to Haynes in the first place. Haynes told Variety in September 2023 that the film started with “fragments of ideas” from Phoenix, which the director formulated into “an actual narrative” before bringing Raymond on board.

“Basically it was just this wonderful, organic way to create the script,” Haynes said. “And Joaquin was pushing it further into more dangerous territory, sexually.”

[From Variety]

This is… legitimately bonkers. Bonkers from a legal perspective too, because why wasn’t Joaquin locked in contractually? You can say “oh, the Oscar winner had cold feet,” but if he has a contract, dude has to show up on set in Mexico and get it on with Danny Ramirez. Was this all being done on a handshake deal?? A producer on the film, Christine Vachon, wrote this on her Facebook page:

“A version of this did happen. It has been a nightmare….And PLEASE — if you are tempted to finger wag or admonish us that “that’s what you get for casting a straight actor” –DON’T. This was HIS project that he brought to US– and Killer’s record on working with LGBTQ actors/crew/directors speaks for itself. (and for those of you who HAVE– know that you are making a terrible situation even worse).”

[Via People]

Yeah, I already saw some people arguing “this is why Joaquin should never have been cast as a gay man.” But as Vachon points out, again, this was Joaquin bringing a story to Todd Haynes. This was Joaquin putting together a graphic gay romance AS HIS OWN STAR VEHICLE and then just days before he was due in Mexico, he was just like “nah, I can’t.” Rooney Mara, come get your man.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

President Biden dropped out of his reelection campaign and endorsed Kamala Harris on July 21. Within 48 hours, VP Harris had raised $250 million and locked down enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee. Hilariously, one of the first things the new Harris campaign did was lock down Beyonce’s “Freedom” as their go-to campaign song for rallies and ads. Beyonce personally authorized VP Harris the use of the song and we should absolutely take that as Beyonce endorsing VP Harris. The campaign has also already gotten Bon Iver to perform at a rally, and Tim Walz apparently loves Bruce Springsteen, so his rally song is “Born to Run.” I assume the Boss authorized that as well.

What’s also hilarious is that no artist wants their music played at Donald Trump’s rallies. At all. This was an issue in 2016 and 2020. Even Adele – an artist beloved by Trump – had to come out and say, absolutely not, stop using my music at your rallies. Well, the latest artist to send a cease & desist is Celine Dion. First, please enjoy the Trump campaign using “My Heart Will Go On” at their Montana rally on Friday:

Is Trump’s campaign being trolled from within? Someone on his staff decided to play Celine Dion singing “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic at his Montana rally. Many consider Titanic a metaphor for Trump’s sinking campaign. pic.twitter.com/dVbNjVylel

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) August 10, 2024

The Trump Titanic, sinking into the icy waters, hypothermia setting in, with all of the fascists going down with the ship. “My Heart Will Go On” is Celine Dion’s biggest song, it won an Oscar and sold millions. Celine was not happy, and her team released this statement:

Today, Celine Dion’s management team and her record label, Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc., became aware of the unauthorized usage of the video, recording, musical performance, and likeness of Celine Dion singing “My Heart Will Go On” at a Donald Trump / JD Vance campaign… pic.twitter.com/28CYLFvgER

— Celine Dion (@celinedion) August 10, 2024

LMAO. I was going to say “Celine should come to the DNC” but I looked it up and apparently Celine never became a naturalized American citizen. So probably not. She’s just a Canadian horrified by Trump.

Speaking of the DNC and big-name celebrities… there are rumors that Beyonce will attend and perform at the Democratic National Convention. I mean… she performed at President Obama’s inauguration ball. And Beyonce does seem to be big on reclaiming everything Americana these days. The more I think about it… the more I believe that Beyonce might actually do this. Oh, and the Daily Beast claims that John Legend, Kerry Washington and several other celebrities will attend the DNC. I’ve also heard that rumor that Trump is terrified that Taylor Swift will attend some Harris rallies and he’s considering bringing out Kid Rock to combat the Swifties and Beyhive.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty, Backgrid.

Is Katy Perry’s latest single another flop? It just sounds so basic, like, I’m sure this will get radio play, but it sounds like it was made by a committee. [Seriously OMG]
Reese Witherspoon & her son Deacon supported Zoe Kravitz. [Just Jared]
I love that some winter Olympic figure-skaters went to Paris to pick up their long-awaited gold medals. It’s a complicated but cool story! [Go Fug Yourself]
I love Cate Blanchett’s premiere look. [Socialite Life]
Idris Elba hates the latest TikTok trend, and so do I. [Buzzfeed]
Who’s on the come-up in Young Hollywood? [LaineyGossip]
They’re already attacking Tim Walz’s military record. [Pajiba]
This underwear concept is gross. [OMG Blog]
Isabela Ferrer has lovely style. [RCFA]
Who’s the new Summer House cast member? [Starcasm]
I can’t believe they made swimmers get into the Seine. [Hollywood Life]

It’s become a thing this week, where the mainstream political press has suddenly decided that it’s okay to write about how Donald Trump is flailing around and Republicans don’t know what to do. Maybe it started with Trump’s racist tirade at the NABJ conference last week, when he claimed that Kamala Harris “turned Black” all of a sudden for a political advantage (??). Maybe it was the fact that Trump spent ten days in a blind, pants-sh-tting panic in Mar-a-Lago instead of campaigning with less than 100 days until the election. Maybe it was Trump test-driving childish new nicknames for Harris on his Nazi social media. Whatever it is, there are suddenly so many articles devoted to “wow, Republicans wish Donald Trump would get it together and stop being such a deranged weirdo.” Some highlights from a NYT piece:

It’s almost as if the Times is providing Trump with a roadmap: The way Republicans see it, it should not be hard for Mr. Trump to pivot from President Biden to this new Democratic ticket. All he has to do is hammer Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz for things they have said and done, to paint them as out-of-step from most Americans, on everything including policing, immigration and transgender policies. But lately Mr. Trump keeps getting tangled up in distractions of his own making. He has gone on tangents about Ms. Harris’s biracial identity. He has picked fights with fellow Republicans. He has fantasized that Mr. Biden might somehow snatch back the nomination. Many in Mr. Trump’s party find this all to be counterproductive, to say the least.

LMAO: “The Harris-Walz ticket is the furthest left ticket in American history. They are a target-rich environment,” said Ben Shapiro, the right-wing media warrior. “All he has to do is focus the attack, to dump the war chest he’s accrued on this extremist ticket, to stick to a simple point: You were better off in 2019 than you are in 2024.”

Trump can’t move on from Biden: At times, it seems as though Mr. Trump has not even accepted his new political reality — that he is no longer in a race against Mr. Biden. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump wondered aloud in a post on Truth Social if there were any chance that Mr. Biden “CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination.” “He spent four years preparing for a run against Joe Biden,” Mr. Newhouse said, “and it’s naturally tough to regain your footing.” He said that Mr. Trump was now trying to do so “on the fly, with less than a hundred days left, and that’s an extraordinarily challenging effort.”

The nickname: Adding to the sense that Mr. Trump is flailing about, this week he has been testing out a new mocking nickname for his opponent, referring to Ms. Harris as “Kamabla.” It is a departure from the previous epithet he had chosen (“Laffin’ Kamala”), and nobody seems quite sure how to decipher it. Asked if he understood what Mr. Trump meant by “Kamabla,” Mr. Kingston replied, “No.” As for the attacks on her racial identity? “I would stick to the price of groceries,” he said.

Ann Coulter speaks: “All Trump has to do is talk about his positions, like he did in 2016,” said Ann Coulter, the conservative commentator who broke with Mr. Trump some years back, largely because of his inability to focus on the issues she cared about. “But, no, he’s going to spend the first 20 minutes of every rally attacking the popular Republican governor of Georgia or trying out stupid nicknames for Kamala.” Ms. Coulter added that “Republicans who expected Trump to run a smart, disciplined campaign are going to be sorely disappointed.”

[From The New York Times]

Trump is doing so poorly that the New York Times is basically giving him a list and blatantly telling him: just repeat all of this and we’ll amplify for the next three months, don’t worry, hang in there, Nazi kitten! Anyway, I don’t really care what part of this is performative pearl-clutching from the face-eating leopard party and what part of this is a streak of genuine panic from Republicans. I find it notable that all of the party elders have been culled by Trump and his supporters – there’s no John Boehner to step in and clean up Trump’s mess. There’s no George W. Bush to remind everyone that they’re all loyal Republicans. There is Mitch McConnell, but he keeps having mini-strokes whenever he’s on camera. So… it’s the party of Trump. I hope they all go down with the ship.

Speaking of, Trump was seen yesterday at MAL. He threw a deranged press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, his first in weeks, timed specifically for 8/8 (you know what that means). He ranted and raved about Kamala Harris, he said he agreed to three debates, he said he’s more than open to banning mifepristone, he said the everyone wanted to see Roe overturned, he refused to say whether or not he would peacefully concede the election if he lost, and of course, he ranted about crowd size. He claimed that his crowd sizes were bigger than Martin Luther King Jr.’s crowds.

Trump claims his crowds are larger than Martin Luther King Jr.’s pic.twitter.com/fuGPWZW66P

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 8, 2024

Screengrabs courtesy of MSNBC, The Times.

A few months ago, we heard an interesting story which I believed at the time and still believe now. Apparently, Leah Remini, one of Jennifer Lopez’s oldest friends and closest friends, was never a fan of Ben Affleck. Leah is Leah – of course she’s going to speak her mind, and she told Jennifer Lopez that Ben is an a–hole who would break her heart again. Instead of taking that advice to heart, J.Lo cut off Leah and married Ben (and Leah wasn’t invited to the wedding). Crash cut to this year, J.Lo and Leah are friendly again after Leah was like “I told you so” and J.Lo was like “give me a break, Leah, I get it now.” Apparently, there were a lot of people in J.Lo’s inner circle who felt the same way as Leah too. People like Benny Medina, Jennifer’s long-time manager, advisor and Svengali.

Ben Affleck was never a favorite within Jennifer Lopez’s trusted inner circle — but they went along with the relationship anyway — including the “Argo” star’s once-most vocal critic, Benny Medina. Lopez’s longtime manager’s disdain for Affleck dates back to the star couple’s failed engagement in the aughts, we hear.

“The two of them can’t stand each other. They don’t get along and there’s still bad blood,” a source told Page Six.

Medina was instrumental in making Lopez — who famously began her career as a dancer on ’90s sketch show “In Living Color” — an A-list global superstar. But she parted ways with him in 2003. Sources told us Affleck was a factor in that decision at the time. Lopez then rehired Medina a few years after she and Affleck called off their engagement in 2004, and the showbiz whiz has been one of her most trusted confidantes ever since. However, he’s apparently been mum on Bennifer 2.0. Another source told us that this time around, Medina “kept his mouth shut” about their rekindled romance and marriage.

“His attitude was, ‘I’m gonna say nothing.’ [There] was no, ‘Good for you,’ but also, [he] wasn’t negative,” the source claimed. “He knows her and he knew she was going to marry him no matter what, so what’s the point?” the source told us.

Bennifer 2.0 did, however, fracture Lopez’s friendship with longtime bestie Leah Remini, whom she met via her ex-husband Marc Anthony. A source previously told us that Remini encouraged Lopez to think about the reason they broke up in the first place before she jumped back on the love boat with the “Gone Girl” star.

“Because he is selfish and not fully committed as a partner. J.Lo was so mad she cut off all ties,” they claimed. (Lopez did not invite Remini to the wedding). The two reconnected this year, with Remini offering support amid Lopez and Affleck’s alleged marital woes according to the source.

“No one, except [Lopez’s] mother, likes Ben Affleck. He’s a triple-A a–hole,” the second source said.

The insider pointed to the couple’s current situation. Sources recently told us “The Town” star has been holding off filing for divorce from Lopez so as to not humiliate her further, but it’s too little too late. “She’s furious. He has humiliated her. He was the one who initiated getting back together,” a source previously told us. Our second source added, “This was definitely not on her bingo card. She would’ve scratched someone’s eyes out if they told her [they’re] splitting up less than two years in.”

[From Page Six]

I seem to remember some vintage gossip that Marc Anthony didn’t like Medina either, but that was mostly about Marc wanting to “manage” Jennifer’s career himself. Those were some really dark years for Jennifer professionally, and when she got back with Medina, he spent years getting her career back on track. I also wonder if Medina was skeptical of Jennifer’s involvement with Ben’s Artists Equity. As in, Medina probably didn’t like or appreciate that Ben was getting more involved in Jennifer’s career. Anyway… yeah, I absolutely believe that Jen’s inner circle despises Ben, especially nowadays.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Instagram.

Here are some photos of Blake Lively and Isabela Ferrer at the photocall and premiere for It Ends With Us in London on Thursday. Blake’s white suit at the photocall was Stella McCartney… which makes sense (awful sense). For the premiere, Blake wore Tamara Ralph Couture, and Isabela wore Burberry. I think it’s interesting that Blake chose Tamara Ralph (formerly of Ralph & Russo) – Blake doesn’t have one go-to designer for every carpet, but usually she goes for bigger name labels or designers. That being said, the dress is blandly pretty, so much so that I thought this was Elie Saab or Monique Lhuillier. The furry coat/cape.stole is interesting but not with this dress. At least Blake’s hair looks good?

Meanwhile, it appears that Justin Baldoni did not make the trip to London to promote the movie. That’s weird – he was in New York and he attended the NYC premiere a few days ago. He didn’t pose with anyone from the film though. In case you’re wondering, Baldoni plays the domestic-abuser husband in the film AND Baldoni also directed this mess, with Blake and Colleen Hoover stepping in as co-executive producers. Since IEWU’s promotion ramped up, people have been noticing that Blake and Justin are not interacting on the promo tour at all, not even to pose together on a red carpet.

Social media users are convinced that It Ends With Us costars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have become embroiled in a fierce feud – after they noticed some suspicious behavior between the two cast members. The highly-anticipated movie, based off Colleen Hoover’s novel of the same name, is set to hit theaters on Friday, August 9. But some fans believe Blake, 36, has beef with Justin, 40 – who on top of acting in the film, also directed it – after claiming they spotted some tension between the stars at the New York City premiere earlier this week.

Blake and Justin didn’t pose for any pictures together at the event, despite playing the two main characters and love interests in the flick. She happily took photos with her other costars like Jenny Slate and Brandon Sklenar, but not Justin. Two days later, Blake attended a photo call in London for the film with some of the other stars – but Justin was mysteriously absent.

In addition, the two haven’t done any press together in the weeks leading up to the film’s release. Instead, Blake sat down for an interview with her costar, Brandon, last month; she and Brandon also participated in a promotional video with It Ends With Us stars Alex Neustaedter and Isabela Ferrer, but Justin had no part in it.

Eagle-eyed social media users also noticed that both Blake and author Colleen unfollowed Justin on Instagram recently. Between their lack of interactions and the social media move, many people on the web are wondering if there was drama between Blake and Justin on set.

[From The Daily Mail]

Two things make me believe the beef is real: not posing together on the red carpet in NYC AND Lively and Hoover unfollowing him. Even when costars hate each other, producers will convince them to pose together (however briefly) at the premiere, even if it’s part of a larger group. There was none of that at the NYC premiere, and obviously, he didn’t even come to the London leg of the promotion. Something absolutely went down. I’ve seen some people theorizing that Baldoni didn’t appreciate Blake trying to whitewash the domestic violence storyline? There are rumors about Ryan Reynolds getting too involved in the production too.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

The reason Nancy Pelosi has been making TV appearances and giving interviews this week is because she’s shilling for her latest book, The Art of Power. Almost no one gives a f–k about this book, and yet Pelosi is still on a really high-profile promotional tour. That’s because everyone knows that Pelosi publicly and privately shanked President Biden in the back after his awful debate performance in June and everyone’s dying for the gossip. It wasn’t just her public statements and her lack of discretion when discussing the state of play within the Dem caucus – it’s that she didn’t even have a plan for what came next, other than “open mini-primary in July/August” and “throw Kamala Harris out with Biden.” What went down was political malpractice from Pelosi and many Democrats, and while everyone is on the Kamala Harris bandwagon now, it could have easily blown up into something really awful. All of which to say, Pelosi is still talking, this time to the New Yorker. Some highlights:

Before Biden’s debate, she was supportive: “In fact, earlier in the day, when I was with the members, they were, like, Oh, how’s it going to be? ‘Trump will be so awful,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about it. The Joe Biden of the State of the Union is going to show up. It’s going to be great.’ In fact, I didn’t even want him to be in a debate. . . . I said, [Trump’s] doggy doo-doo. You’re going to get doggy doo-doo on your shoe. It’s not a good thing. You can’t. We’re just talking shorthand here, right? You can’t do that. But [Biden] was going to do it. He felt great. And I had confidence in him. I didn’t think it wouldn’t be good. I just didn’t want him to be seen with that guy. And then that happened, and I think everybody was stunned. It was stunning.”

What she said on Morning Joe which changed everything: “It’s up to the President to decide if he’s going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short. . . . He’s beloved, he’s respected, and people want him to make that decision. I want him to do whatever he decides to do, and that’s the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with.”

She loves Joe Biden: “Here’s the thing: I’ve known Joe Biden for over forty years, since I was chair of the California Democratic Party, and I love him so much. I think he’s been a really fantastic President of the United States. I really wanted him to make a decision for a better campaign, because they were not facing the fact of what was happening…. We couldn’t see it go down the drain, because Trump was going to be President and then he was going to take the House. Imagine! Imagine how that would be! Well, we don’t have to imagine. We saw.”

She hated Joe Biden’s political operation: “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation. They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen. The President has to make the decision for that to happen. People were calling. I never called one person. I kept true to my word. Any conversation I had, it was just going to be with him. I never made one call. They said I was burning up the lines, I was talking to Chuck [Schumer]. I didn’t talk to Chuck at all. I never called one person, but people were calling me saying that there was a challenge there. So there had to be a change in the leadership of the campaign, or what would come next.” Her goal, she added, was simple: “That Donald Trump would never set foot in the White House again.”

Whether she thinks her relationship with Biden will survive this: “I hope so. I pray so. I cry so. I lose sleep on it, yeah.” Do you think he’s angry at you? “I don’t know. We haven’t had a conversation. But . . .I think he’s in a good state. I mean, I think he did a remarkable thing, bringing home all these prisoners. Oh, my God, that was so masterful. . . . But my understanding is that he’s good. And the thing is that his legacy will go right down the drain if what’s-his-name ever [returns to] the White House. Whether it’s the planet, whether it’s fairness in our economy, whether it’s the safety of our children . . .”

[From The New Yorker]

“I think he did a remarkable thing, bringing home all these prisoners,” which he was negotiating and masterminding while Pelosi was going on TV to knife him in the back. She also says that she told Democrats to wait until the NATO Summit was over… only she did not wait and neither did Democrats. As for this: “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation. They won the White House. Bravo.” Like… the Biden-Harris ticket won the most votes in American history in 2020. They created an effective plan to bring Rust Belt voters back into the party, shoring up Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. They won GEORGIA. The campaign’s outreach to the Latin-American community shored up Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. What did she not find impressive about Biden’s political operation? She was mad that his poll numbers were down after weeks of his own party publicly attacking him? What’s especially crazy about her disrespect for Biden’s political operation is that the exact same operation now belongs to Kamala Harris. Kamala is surrounded by Biden’s campaign staffers and the Biden apparatus. How long before Pelosi gets the urge to do political malpractice again?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Royalist Richard Kay has popped his head out to talk about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and of course, Princess Diana. Kay actually knew Diana and he was, for a brief moment, one of Diana’s go-to royal reporters. In recent years, Kay has gotten a lot of suspiciously lopsided briefings from Prince William’s inner circle AND Charles and Camilla’s inner circle. I braced myself for yet another royalist declaring that Princess Diana “would have wanted” Harry to stay in the institution and that Diana would be so disappointed in Harry alone. That isn’t what Kay said to the Mail, curiously enough. Here are some highlights from his interview with the Mail’s Palace Confidential:

Kay on Diana’s legacy and her sons: Kay, who was a very good friend of Princess Diana and would speak with her up to six times a day, said Harry and William have been fighting over her ‘legacy’. He told Palace Confidential: ‘[They’ve] been tussling over Diana’s legacy, they’ve been pulling apart Diana’s legacy, [and picking] which part suits them best. I think it’s a great tragedy. What I knew about Diana was, first and above all, was her love for her sons, that was clear to the whole world, she loved those boys. I think she would’ve been broken-hearted. The big question is, would it have still happened had Diana still been with us? My own view is that it probably wouldn’t have because she would’ve remained the pivotal figure in both their lives and prevented the fallout from happening.’

Diana would have been proud of William & Kate? Meanwhile, Kay said he believed Princess Diana – who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997 – would have been ‘proud’ of William and Kate for stepping into their places as Prince and Princess of Wales. ‘I think she would’ve been proud of William and Catherine and what a stylish edition they’ve made and how they’ve seamlessly stepped into hers and Charles’ shoes with a young family,’ he added.

Diana would have been jealous of Harry: But the royal expert also said that Diana would have been ‘hugely jealous’ of the fact that Prince Harry was able to ‘break away’ from The Firm. ‘You’ve got to remember, Diana was a radical, she was very unhappy, she was trapped within the royal system, she did try and break away, she couldn’t quite before her death. I think she would’ve been fiercely proud of the fact that Harry has chosen a life outside of the royal circle.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I always hate these “what would have happened if Diana had lived” thought exercises. The answer is always: everything would have been different. Her sons would be fundamentally different people. Charles and Camilla’s relationship would be fundamentally different, and I’m not sure they would even be married. I’ve always thought that Diana would have seen through the Middletons right away. She probably also would have moved out of the UK once Harry turned 18 as well. One thing is for sure, Diana wouldn’t appreciate her memory being used for royalist fan-fiction to prop up the institution.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Gov. Tim Walz and his wife Gwen have two kids – 23-year-old Hope, and 17-year-old Gus. By all accounts, they’re just a really nice, no-drama Minnesota family, tight-knit and supportive of one another. Well, Tim Walz is getting a lot of attention for immediately disclosing, in a statement to People Magazine, that his son Gus has a learning disability. In technical terms, Gus has a non-verbal learning disorder, ADHD and an anxiety disorder. Instead of treating Gus like he needs to be hidden away, Tim Walz has used his family’s personal narrative to explain why he pursues certain policies. He’s also just a super-supportive father.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and his wife, Gwen, are opening up to PEOPLE about their “brilliant” 17-year-old son, Gus, who has a non-verbal learning disorder, ADHD and an anxiety disorder — all conditions that they call his “secret power.” In a statement shared exclusively with PEOPLE, Tim — who was just selected as Kamala Harris’ 2024 vice presidential candidate — and Gwen say that they saw glimmers of Gus’ unique qualities at an early age.

“When our youngest Gus was growing up, it became increasingly clear that he was different from his classmates,” the couple tell PEOPLE. “Gus preferred video games and spending more time by himself. When he was becoming a teenager, we learned that Gus has a non-verbal learning disorder in addition to an anxiety disorder and ADHD, conditions that millions of Americans also have.”

According to the Cleveland Clinic, non-verbal learning disorders like the one Gus has impact how children absorb and utilize information, but they are manageable with interventions that can help those who are affected learn in different ways. “Non-verbal” in this case is not the same as “non-speaking.”

“Like so many American families, it took us time to figure out how to make sure we did everything we could to make sure Gus would be set up for success as he was growing up,” the couple say. “It took time, but what became so immediately clear to us was that Gus’ condition is not a setback — it’s his secret power.”

Tim and Gwen have previously spoken about the obstacles they faced when they first wanted to start a family. During a March 2024 interview with the Star Tribune, Tim revealed that Gwen underwent fertility treatments at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for seven years in hopes of getting pregnant.

[From People]

You can read more about nonverbal learning disorders here – I was curious as well, and I wondered if it was about Gus being unable to learn through lectures and people speaking, like he has to read everything to learn. But it looks like NVLD is more of a catch-all for many different things, from lacking spatial awareness to understanding broad concepts. Gus seems to still be in high school, so I imagine we won’t see a lot of him on the campaign trail. I bet we’ll see a lot of Hope though.

Photos courtesy of Tim Walz’s IG.

It’s been more than eighteen months since Prince Harry’s Spare was released. There’s still no paperback edition. Given the sales for the hardback, you would think the publisher would be very eager to release a paperback edition, regardless of whether Harry wanted that or not. You would also think that given the despicable behavior of his family, Harry would want to include some new chapters. Several weeks ago, the Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle column pointed out the missing paperback edition and theorized that Harry had “run out” of terrible things to say about his family. Now the Mail claims – seemingly out of nowhere? – that the publisher has announced that there are no plans for a paperback edition.

Prince Harry’s publishers have revealed that there is no plan for a paperback edition of his hugely contentious memoirs Spare, a sign believes the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden, that the Duke realises how much he has hurt the Royal Family.

‘Harry knows how much damage he has done, we have seen him try to mend fences with his family, all the business about ringing his father on his birthday,’ he tells Palace Confidential.

‘I really do imagine that he wouldn’t want to do that all over again.’ The Mail on Sunday’s Charlotte Griffiths meanwhile believes that Harry won’t regret the ‘cathartic’ experience of writing it, but ‘of course he’ll regret how it was received’. However, she also explains why ‘the blame won’t be on himself’.

[From The Daily Mail]

It would probably surprise the Mail’s merry band of royalists that Harry, at no point, expressed regret for Spare. He was proud of the book, proud of telling his story and proud to correct a lot of tabloid false-narratives. The British media was pleased with the book too – it gave them months of screeching, hysterical coverage. Royal biographers had to furiously rewrite their books given Harry’s historical document, so they were mad (and yet they’re all still running variations of Harry’s story). All of which to say… the Mail is talking out of their ass, right? There’s no way they got a confirmation from the publisher that there will be no paperback forthcoming. I do wonder if maybe the paperback edition is being planned for the fall, or for the Christmas season. Originally, Spare was supposed to come out in December 2022, so it would be “two years later” or thereabouts.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid. Covers courtesy of People Magazine and Penguin Random House.