Scandal Season 4 Episode 10 recap.

Okay, out of a pretend middle-eastern soundstage, into the fire. Oh, and the President of the United States was convinced to negotiate with terrorists and start a war by his wife, because she feared for the life of his mistress. I mean, I do love this show. …      

This is Kerry Washington on the cover of the March issue of InStyle. I merely glanced at the cover and began to read some of the quotes, wondering if any of it would be good enough to cover. But then I saw that people on social media were freaking out about the cover. Specifically, Kerry’s skin on the cover. There was an immediate backlash about the “whitewashing” of Kerry, not just lightening her skin, but airbrushing some of her features to make her look less like herself. I had to look again… and while I do think they lightened her skin, I don’t think they airbrushed her features into oblivion, like some magazines do to other women (regardless of race). But yeah, the different in skin tone is notable. It was so bad that InStyle had to release a statement within the same news cycle or else Kerry-loonies were going to picket their offices. Here’s the statement:

We are super fans of Kerry Washington here at InStyle. To feature her on the cover of our March spring fashion issue is both an honor and a delight. We have heard from those who have spoken out about our newsstand cover photograph, concerned that Kerry’s skin tone was lightened.

While we did not digitally lighten Kerry’s skin tone, our cover lighting has likely contributed to this concern. We understand that this has resulted in disappointment and hurt. We are listening, and the feedback has been valuable. We are committed to ensuring that this experience has a positive influence on the ways in which we present all women going forward.

[From InStyle]

Kerry tweeted a link to the statement and wrote: “Beautiful statement. Thank u 4 opening this convo. Its an important 1 that needs to be had.” Yeah, it’s bad. I feel sorry for actresses who get slammed with criticism for editorial decisions that are not even their call, you know? And hey, at least InStyle didn’t use the same people who did Bobby Jindal’s portrait.

As for the actual interview… well, none of it was as interesting as the conversation about the cover. Kerry says she loves bold colors and prints and bigger fashion risks and Olivia Pope is more about a neutral palette. She talks about how she got back into shape after giving birth, which included “pilates, Tracy Anderson pregnancy DVDs, hiking, the elliptical machine and yoga.” That sounds like a lot of stuff. She also discusses her feelings about mommy guilt – you can read more here.

Photos courtesy of InStyle, WENN.

Sometimes when I’m having a bad day, I look at sexy photos of English model David Gandy. It’s my crutch! I don’t even really need him to speak at all (not that I mind his voice, which is English-y with a charming lisp). But his body! His face! His eyes! His arms! God. I could stare at him for days. And I totally would watch him in sexy movie, especially if he was without clothes in most scenes. I know Gandy isn’t the most popular “Hot Guy” around here, but he does it for me and I think he would do it for a significant number of women. So it wouldn’t surprise me if Gandy had gotten a call to audition for Fifty Shades of Grey. But here’s something that would surprise me: if Fifty Shades producers wanted him for the part and he turned it down. That’s what Gandy has claimed in a new interview.

In an interview with Square Mile magazine, David Gandy says that while he respects the film, the role – now played by Jamie Dornan – wouldn’t have been right for him.

‘Critics and literary experts aren’t fans but I respect it for what it is. But was it right for me? No. It just didn’t feel right, in any way. And in my gut, it felt right to say no.’

The hugely successful model, who is currently the co-designer and face of a new M&S campaign, revealed that he has been offered, and subsequently refused, several lead roles in box office hits.

“I was offered Fifty Shades Of Grey, 300:2, Hercules, which a lot of people probably would have taken as actors but I’m in the fortunate position where I like what I’m doing. I don’t feel the need to act,’ he said.

[From The Daily Mail]

As I said, I like his voice… but maybe not so much with the talking for this one, okay? I don’t believe him. I think he’s flat-out lying about being offered the Christian Grey role. Did he audition? Probably. The producers saw tons of actors and model-types and reportedly there were a lot of higher-profile guys who turned it down, like Robert Pattinson and Ryan Gosling. I also don’t believe Gandy got an offer because… well, he’s too old to play Christian Grey. Gandy is hot but he looks older than his age (he’s 34) and add to that the fact that Gandy really isn’t an actor and he’s never had a major film role before…? Yeah, Gandy is lying! #DavidGandyMisremembers

Photos courtesy of Joe Alvarez, WENN.

Tawny! Happy Birthday from Emi who wanted me to tell you that you’re “hot but not old but hot”. Here are Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and Robbie Williams by request.      

Dear Gossips,

Wednesday was the Start of Spring on the Chinese calendar meaning it’s now officially the Year of the Goat/Sheep (even though Chinese New Year is on February 19th). That day I posted a Squawking Chicken (my ma) advisory for those born in the Year of the Ox. The Goat/Sheep …      

Some of you have been begging for Beige Booty Shorts to make a grand return. Don’t let me down. As we’ve discussed, Bradley Cooper secured his third Oscar nomination for American Sniper, a film for which he rocked a fake baby and chugged 8,000 calories per day. I’m oversimplifying. He also played Chris Kyle as a guy who spent too much time talking to his wife on a satellite phone during battle scenes. I get that the script needed to stress the communication of a military family, but the excessive phone calls were a stretch.

Bradley won’t win the Oscar (or will he?), but he’s already won by ruling the box office with a $324 million film (so far). Bradley spoke with NPR’s Fresh Air. The whole thing is enormous (full transcript here), and he works it so hard. This is a really powerful interview — even though Bradley’s playing dumb about what he expected from audiences. Some key passages:

On the cultural lightning rod: “I don’t think one could ever foresee something like that happening. I feel a bit removed from it just because I’m in NYC doing this play, and my life hasn’t changed on a daily basis, you know? People aren’t coming up on the street or anything like that, either praising or yelling at me. But war is such an emotional subject, so maybe I was a fool to think that it wouldn’t.”

The film as a Western: “It was always to get Chris Kyle right and tell a human story, and I just liked the idea of a character study based on this conflict. That’s what I’ve enjoyed about it initially, and I love the idea of framing it as a Western. And that this guy happened to be incredibly charismatic. You have a guy going into a town, and there’s his equivalent on the other side – another sharpshooter. He’s a sharpshooter. You end it in, you know, tumbleweeds. At the dust storm, there’s showdown. This sort of, you know, one man and his sort of pursuit – that idea.”

When veterans come home? “Chris talked about … being over there and the choices and why, and he talked about how that’s not his job. He made a commitment and an oath to his country, and if you have an issue with it, the people that you really need to talk to are those who make the decisions of where to send the troops. And he would wish that that attention was diverted to them, and instead, maybe look at what the sacrifice is. That’s how we looked at this movie … as, hopefully, igniting a conversation about the lack of care and attention that goes towards vets. 22 vets commit suicide each day – that the amount of people that come home is so much greater than before because of medical advancement and that we need to take care of them.”

Getting into Chris’ head: “I lived with him. I basically made this document where I had every single thing he’s ever said recorded and I would just listen to it. It’d be the first thing I woke up with in the morning. I’d just put on the ear buds right away and last thing I listened to at night. And just really sort of soak him in. And so, God, I’m just – something about him – it was just beautiful.”

The 40-pound weight gain: “Without the aesthetic, I wouldn’t be able to see the inner. I had to adopt that or rather take on that sort of physical presence in order to understand what was going on inside. So that’s how I approached it, and that’s not really normal, but that’s what I did. And I also knew that if I didn’t feel what it was like to be him – if I didn’t believe that I was him in that way – that I don’t think I was ever going to get to the man himself. It wasn’t at all like a costume, it was like this sort of transformative experience to me because there was no going home from it. It was a gradual change that then became my daily life until the – until I started to shed him after we stopped shooting. I just woke up one day, and I could just feel it – that he wasn’t there. That sounds so crazy.”

[From NPR]

All of what Bradley says about veterans and aftercare is dead on. He’s done his research there. The problem I have with Sniper is how so much of it was fictionalized. They based it on Chris Kyle’s book of tall tales, and then it was further modified as a “Western.” The standoff between Kyle and the enemy sniper, Mustafa, never really happened. The two characters’ rivalry was a framing device, and it was a driving force in the film. That’s just one example of how Chris Kyle’s history was rewritten.

Do you believe Bradley was super surprised at how Sniper drew controversy? Character study or not, this is a movie about a controversial figure who draws strong opinions from both sides of the political spectrum. Of course people would get worked up. BCoop also revealed to USA Today how he’s also surprised the film is a box-office smash. He’s playing humble. This is more of the “I’m not handsome” game.

Something fun: Coop’s stylist spoke with InStyle to reveal how she’s feverishly planning his Oscar look. The plan is for Coop “to go old-fashioned, like Cary Grant.” LOL.

Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News & Fame/Flynet

Bruce Jenner’s transition covers US Magazine for the second consecutive week. Last week’s edition focused on “Bruce’s Brave Announcement,” and this week it’s “Kris in Denial.” As we reported yesterday, People Magazine also features Bruce with a positive cover about how happy he is. The narrative in US Magazine is that Kris is not accepting of Bruce’s change, that she’s in denial and is dismissive of his transition. Kris is not said to be mean or rude to Bruce’s face, she just doesn’t want to deal with the issue at all. She was married to the guy for 22 years, it must be hard to accept. It’s not like this is the first time she’s been confronted with it, though.

What’s more is that US claims that cameras from Keeping up With The Kardashians were there to capture the moment when Bruce broke the news to Kris that he’s transitioning to a woman. (Note that US did not state whether cameras were present when he told his entire family.) This strikes me as a strategic decision by Bruce to make sure Kris didn’t overreact. I know Bruce has a docuseries coming up, and I hope that this footage remains unseen or becomes part of his series and not a plotline on KUWTK. For their part, a source tells US that KUTWK “producers don’t want [Bruce’s transition] to be the main storyline.” That’s supposedly due to Kris, who doesn’t want Bruce stealing her spotlight. We’ll see. It’s unlike Kris to pass up an opportunity like this. Here are some excerpts from US, with more in the print edition.

Throughout their 22 year marriage, Kris Jenner always called the shots for her husband Bruce… But on a recent January day… Bruce finally made Kris listen to him – and Keeping Up With The Kardashians cameras were there to capture the moment. “He told Kris he was transitioning to become a woman,” says a production source. The conversation was not new to her – the couple had fought about the topic many times over the years – but it marked the first time she could not silence him or call him “delusional.” Kris played it cool, adds a family insider. “Publicly, she doesn’t want to be seen as turning her back on him,” says the source. When the cameras stop rolling, however, she returns to her dismissive approach. “Kris is in complete denial about what’s going on with Bruce” says a pal. “She doesn’t talk about it at all and refuses to acknowledge it.”

It’s out of her hands, as Bruce is determined to be a role model for other individuals and families grappling with gender identity.

[Bruce] has chosen a female name, multiple sources tell US, and asked his close friends and family to use it. Everyone complied – with one notable exception: “Kris won’t use the name,” says one source… “Bruce has completely shut her out…”

Though Bruce is filming Keeping Up and his own series simultaneously, the network source says his transition won’t be highlighted on the family’s flagship show, which is still undergoing edits for its spring premiere. “The producers don’t want that to be the main story line.”

Or perhaps Kris doesn’t. The more Bruce’s appearance garners attention, the more she bristles.

[From US Magazine, print edition, February 16, 2015]

On one hand I feel for Kris, who must find it very difficult to see her ex husband transitioning. That must be hard to come to grips with. On the other I see how it can be borne out of jealousy as well, because Bruce is finally out from under her thumb, and he’s earning multiple magazine covers now. He’s also calling his own shots, when she’s used to stage managing him and everyone else in her family. This is one thing she can’t control.

I have another issue with this coverage. While I believe that Bruce’s transition is very genuine and incredibly brave, I also question how much of this feud between Kris and Bruce is real and how much is hyped for the media. With the Kardashians, you never quite know what to believe.

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

This Brian Williams mess is just growing is size. It’s really bad, you guys. On Wednesday, Brian Williams apologized on air on the NBC Nightly News. He apologized for “misremembering” a story he had told literally dozens of times in the past 12 years: he had always claimed that in 2003, when he was covering the Iraq War in Iraq that his Chinook had come under RPG fire. He always told the story as a way to explain his friendships with some military men. Except that when some military personnel who were in Iraq at the time started to contradict his story, he claims he simply “misremembered” the event. Stars & Stripes has a lengthy take-down of Williams’ story here.

The fallout from Williams’ admission has been swift and terrible. Social media has been having a field day, with #BrianWilliamsMisremembers trending on Twitter, and every conservative blowhard has luxuriated in the schadenfreude of “liberal” NBC getting a pounding. But it’s more serious than that. People are going through all of Brian’s public statements and it looks like he might have always had a difficult relationship with the truth.

More heroic tales of Brian Williams‘ adventures in journalism are being questioned. The NBC news anchor… is being called out for possibly lying about his experience covering Hurricane Katrina, according to a report. Williams claimed to have gotten dysentery from drinking flood water and seeing dead bodies float past his hotel in the New Orleans French Quarter while covering Hurricane Katrina.

However the The New Orleans Advocate noted that the French Quarter was not flooded and quoted a local health expert who did not recall anyone getting such a stomach ailment. Williams recalled his bout with the bug in interview with Tom Brokaw last year, when he said: “I accidentally ingested some of the floodwater. I became very sick with dysentery.”

The Advocate said a public health official never heard of people getting things like dysentery after the storm.

“I don’t recall a single, solitary case of gastroenteritis during Katrina or in the whole month afterward,” Dr. Brobson Lutz told The Advocate. “I don’t know anybody that’s tried that [drinking flood water] to see, but my dogs drank it, and they didn’t have any problems.”

Williams said also during an interview in 2006 that he saw dead bodies float past his window in the French Quarter.

“When you look out of your hotel window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country,” Williams said in 2006. But the French Quarter, the original high ground of New Orleans, was not impacted by the floodwaters that overwhelmed the vast majority of the city, The Advocate said.

He also said in his Brokaw interview: “Our hotel was overrun with gangs, I was rescued in the stairwell of a five-star hotel in New Orleans by a young police officer. We are friends to this day.”

[From Page Six]

Yeah, it’s bad. I think Williams might have been able to survive a scandal if it was just ONE misremembered story (he would have come out it battered and bruised, but he would have come out it), but this has given critics an excuse to go over EVERY story and if there’s a pattern of misremembered stories, then he’s out of a job. Fantasists and liars don’t get to be network news anchors. Sorry not sorry.

Meanwhile, Page Six (an outlet with an extreme hate-on for all things NBC) has a massive insider-y story about how NBC has bungled this whole thing and Tom Brokaw is telling everyone that Williams must go. A source claims “Brokaw wants Williams’ head on a platter…He is making a lot of noise at NBC that a lesser journalist or producer would have been immediately fired or suspended for a false report.” That’s actually true. Sources also say Brokaw knew Williams’ story was a lie a long time ago and he was “extremely uncomfortable with it.” Another source claims that Williams isn’t even well-liked among NBC News staffers. The source claims Williams is “a real pompous piece of sh-t” and “an a—hole… He’s not a journalist. He’s a reader.”

Thus far, Williams is not being suspended or reprimanded in any way and NBC staffers are in a “panic” according to Page Six. You know what? If people keep Truth Squading Williams’ public statements, I’m sure they’ll find something else. And then he’ll be out.

View image | gettyimages.com

Photos courtesy of WENN, Getty.

The BAFTAs are on Sunday, and Stephen Fry is hosting them for the millionth time. I kind of like Fry as host – he’s dapper and witty and he keeps things moving along at a steady clip. I like that the BAFTA people are like “Eh, if it ain’t broke…” when they keep giving Fry the gig. Prince William might be in attendance at the BAFTAs this year, like he was last year. He’s been president of BAFTA since 2010. I guess he’ll probably be back from Mustique in time? William and Kate claimed they would be in Mustique for two weeks, and today marks the 14th day. So, what will happen if William does show up after he and his staffers declined to take part in Fry’s recent activism? Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch and thousands of other celebrities have signed a petition asking for the pardon of 49,000 men who were criminalized for being gay in Britain. William and Kate wanted no part of it – I discussed it earlier this week.

Hollywood stars are descending on London before Sunday’s BAFTAs, the UK’s Oscar awards.

We hear one surprise ­behind-the-scenes of the show will involve host Stephen Fry presenting a petition to BAFTA president Prince William to pardon 49,000 men who were criminalized for being gay under British law like Alan Turing, who is the subject of the Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley film, “The Imitation Game.”

We hear the petition, which so far has 137,000 signatures — could rack up more than 150,000 by the time of the awards at the Royal Opera House. Among those supporting the plan so far are Matt Damon, Bryan Cranston, Lee Daniels, James Corden, Julian Fellowes and Alan Cumming.

[From Page Six]

If Stephen Fry presents the petition to William off-camera, with a few words about how William really should take this issue on, I don’t see a problem with that. People must personally lobby royal family members all the time, in all sorts of situations. But if Fry does it on-camera in the middle of the BAFTAs… well, that’s kind of rude. And it does put William in a bad position, especially since his staffers have already declined on William’s behalf, you know? That being said, if Fry does do it on camera, it will hilariously awkward and we might even see William have a tantrum! And that’s why William probably won’t even attend the BAFTAs this year.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Oh, God. Release the Dragonflies!!!!!!

Tom Hiddleston went outside on Thursday. He has been keeping a much lower profile for the past year, not showing up to the opening of an envelope, working back to back on projects he seems to really care about. And 2015 is The Year of Hiddles. He’ll have four films out this year, and it’s never too early to start hustling. So not only will we see Hiddles at the BAFTAs on Sunday night (he’s a presenter!), he also attended the BAFTA fundraising gala last night.

I’m glad he didn’t dust off his formal tuxedo – he’s probably saving that for Sunday. Instead, we got Hiddles in a nice suit and tie. He still looks super-tired, but he’s put on a little weight since his very thin appearances after filming I Saw the Light. He looks good. God help me, I think he actually looks adorable. CB and I were just talking about him this week too – I told her that I was really feeling the Hiddlesdrought and his absence had made my heart grow fonder. I needed some Hiddles and that’s why he came out!

And not only did he come out for this pre-BAFTA event, he also made his FIRST TWEET in three-and-a-half months. He responded to Damian Lewis’s “challenge” to do an on-camera tongue twister for the Sohana Research Fund. Damian has challenged people to do the “EB Tongue Twister” of their choosing. So Hiddles posted his video yesterday. Of all the tongue twisters, he has to choose the one where he says “d-ck” like thirty times? Here’s the video:

Bless his heart. I love his turtleneck sweater. I’m pretty sure that’s a woman’s sweater. You know what? I’m into it. He’s so GD adorable. I recognize that backyard too – it’s the same backyard in Tommy’s Ice Bucket Challenge. I’m assuming that’s HIS backyard. What a perfect place for a sexual fantasy about Lord Dragonfly.

View image | gettyimages.com

The power trio! #TomHiddleston #OliviaColman #EmiliaFox at the #BAFTA Gala Dinner #EEBAFTAs

A photo posted by BAFTA (@bafta) on Feb 5, 2015 at 2:23pm PST

Photos courtesy of Getty, BAFTA’s Instagram, WENN.