Why did Bill Hader skip the SNL50 event? People were disappointed that there wasn’t a Stefon sketch! Hader kind of hated his time on SNL though. [Hollywood Life]
Brandon Sklenar side-steps questions about Blake Lively. [Socialite Life]
Review of Captain America: Brave New World. [LaineyGossip]
Donald Trump is trying to help Andrew Tate. [Jezebel]
I didn’t watch Cobra Kai, but I’m glad it had a good ending. [Pajiba]
The optical illusion stairs would take my ass out. [Buzzfeed]
Which Fox shows are getting renewed? [JustJared]
Hulu & Krispy Kreme have joined forces. [Seriously OMG]
Dakota Johnson wore Gucci to the SNL50 event. [RCFA]
The White Lotus Season 3 has started! Thoughts?? I’m shocked that Parker Posey is playing a Southern mom with three grown kids. [OMG Blog]
The only thing worse than the revelation that Elon Musk likely has a thirteenth child by a fourth baby-mother is the speculation that all of his children have been conceived through IVF or artificial insemination. That’s led to further speculation about whether, um, Musk’s junk works properly. Just the thought of Apartheid Clyde’s (malfunctioning?) junk makes me want to hork. But here we are. Hilariously, Musk’s fourth baby-mother is one of the most fame-hungry people I’ve ever seen. Ashley St. Clair is really going to make a name for herself with this whole mess, and she’s already giving interviews to the NY Post AND doing exclusive photoshoots with them. She’s going to end up with a Fox News anchor seat purely because she’s “Elon Musk’s jilted fourth baby-mother.” She also allowed her “friend” to speak at length to the NY Post:
Ashley St. Clair feels “jilted and terrified” after Elon Musk refused to come to her aid when reporters began snooping around their infant son, a friend of the right-wing influencer tells The Post. St. Clair’s decision to publicly call out Musk, 53, as her baby daddy wasn’t some “Meghan Markle-esque plea for attention” — but rather a plea for help from the world’s richest man, said pal Emma-Jo Morris.
“Ashley got wind that a tabloid was kicking the tires on her, and she reached out to Elon immediately. He basically cut bait, and so the message was understood that she was on her own,” said Morris, who was formerly deputy politics editor at The Post. “At that point, she realized, ‘OK, I’m out in the cold, I have to handle this myself.’”
Morris, a political consultant who has been in contact St. Clair throughout the ordeal, said the mom “expected it would be an arrangement similar to that he has with his other baby mamas: She would raise the child, and Elon would be peripherally present in their lives. It’s a very hostile action [by Musk] not to respond when the mother of your son calls and says, ‘The press is hounding me, what do I do?’ ” Morris said. “This is about letting herself tell the story before somebody else tells it for her and potentially either causes her reputational damage or harm.”
Morris said Musk’s handling of the situation has left St. Clair feeling “equally devastated and freaked out. On the one hand, it’s biological, you expect protection [from] who is the father of your son, and there is an emotional tie between them,” she said of Musk and St. Claire. “On the other hand, you are the mother of the richest and one of the most controversial men in the world’s kid. You’re a single woman living with two children. That is absolutely terrifying. I think she feels equally jilted and terrified,” Morris said of St. Clair, who also has another child.
“Meghan Markle-esque plea for attention” – Meghan is a married woman living her prosperous life and sharing entertaining tips on a Netflix show. Ashley St. Clair is a transphobic, bigoted Pick Me who tried to honey-trap Elon Musk for years only to get ignored after she gave birth to his child. She dumped out her purse on social media and in the tabloids because she’s absolutely begging for attention.
Prince William, Kate and their children jetted off to Mustique last week. We know this because the Daily Mail dared to report on the vacation, framing it as the reason why William and Kate were skipping Sunday’s BAFTAs. There seems to be some discontent over William and Kate’s constant laziness and inability to work whatsoever during their kids’ school breaks. What’s even funnier is that the most royal-friendly outlets – like People Mag and Hello – are trying to skip over the controversy and make the vacation sound aspirational and fun. That kind of reporting just makes the Wales family come across as complete elitists and tone-deaf layabouts though. I thought this piece in Hello was interesting – it’s likely that the Wales fam rented out a friend’s villa at the cost of £33k-per-week.
The Prince and Princess of Wales have reportedly jet-setted to the Caribbean with their children during their half-term break, trading the BAFTAs red carpet – which it was hoped they would attend – for the white sand beaches of Mustique. It’s not the first time the Wales family have been to Mustique. The small, private island in the Caribbean known for its exclusivity, famed for its popularity with royals, and loved for its pristine white sand beaches, crystal-clear waters, and lush tropical landscapes.
The island boasts just one commercial hotel, with those who holiday there typically opting for secluded, privately-owned properties for their luxury getaway. Mustique also operates a strict no-fly zone, affording guests and residents complete privacy.
It’s not known exactly where Kate and William are staying with George, Charlotte and Louis, but it could be likely they’ve returned to Villa Antilles. In 2019, the family spent their summer on the island to mark Prince George’s birthday, reportedly staying in the then-£27,000-a-week villa which is owned by William’s friend, Andrew Dunn.
Today, prices have risen to £33k-per-week from January – April, and £25,000-per-week from May – December.
Villa Antilles is the epitome of luxury and seclusion, with the sprawling, royal-approved estate offering a 60-foot infinity pool that appears to spill seamlessly into the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. From its sun-drenched terraces, guests are treated to panoramic views of the glistening sea, stretching toward the idyllic neighboring islands of Bequia and Saint Vincent – the perfect postcard view for the Princess of Wales to practice her photography.
I won’t lie, it sounds lovely. Here in the mid-Atlantic, we’ve had one of the hardest winters in years, with several snowstorms, ice storms, flash floods and wind advisories all in a row. It’s even supposed to snow tomorrow. But yeah… the second vacation in as many months is pretty ridiculous, as is skipping the BAFTAs so they can sit around a luxury villa at the cost of £33k-per-week. Hey, at least Kate gave British taxpayers some terrible drawings in exchange.
I’m not going to pretend to know the real story of the Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle brand or how it evolved from American Riviera Orchard to As Ever. Meghan announced the name-change last night in a sweet IG video, and the British press has been hyperventilating ever since. I finally checked in on the Daily Mail and they’re still talking about how they found one guy in Montecito who says he never heard of anyone refer to Santa Barbara as the “American Riviera.” That’s how panicked they are – they’re claiming that Meghan changed the name because one guy had never heard of it. They’re also trying to figure out the timeline and how Meghan fooled them:
Meghan Markle’s rebranding of American Riviera Orchard was today called a ‘total rush’ using ‘recycled’ promos made a year ago. The relaunch leaked online at least 24 hours before her Instagram announcement, MailOnline can reveal – and came just a fortnight before her new lifestyle show with business partner Netflix is broadcast.
As Ever has been launched in a breathless selfie-style video and will sell jam – first trailed by Meghan and her famous friends last year – plus what looks set to be huge homeware and gardening ranges in the US.
Prior to Meghan’s announcement last night, internet sleuths had already discovered a Shopify website she’d set up for her As Ever products, featuring an unseen picture of the Duchess cooking. The shot of the Duchess of Sussex using a mixing bowl is believed to have been taken during Meghan’s original American Riviera Orchard (ARO) promo almost a year ago. She is wearing the same white outfit and appears to be in the same kitchen filmed for the brief teaser trailer filmed when ARO’s existence was revealed last March 14.
It also appears Meghan and her team made a last-minute change about the branding and the previous URL as-ever-store.myshopify.com now takes shoppers to her new website asever.com. The mixing bowl picture of Meghan was last night replaced by the picture of her holding hands with her daughter Lilibet in the garden of their Montecito mansion as they skip across the lawn.
One branding expert told MailOnline today: ‘It appears to have been a total rush – despite what Meghan says about As Ever going back to 2022. They’ve clearly had to abandon American Riviera Orchard but recycle all the promos due to the trademark dispute. The leak happened yesterday and you have to wonder if her hand was forced’.
While Mark Borkowski, arguably Britain’s leading PR guru and crisis manager, has said he believes the U-turns are all clever tactics to get publicity. He said: ‘This isn’t an identity crisis. It’s a business model. Meghan isn’t floundering; she’s fluctuating on purpose. The perpetual reinvention, the strategic vagueness—it’s all by design. The more unpredictable she is, the harder it is to take her down. She’s not trying to be Goop; she’s trying to be a mystery. The product she’s selling? Endless curiosity about Meghan Markle. So maybe she’s not losing control of her narrative—maybe we are’.
Their “insiders” claiming that this rebrand was a “total rush” are missing something – that Meghan used ARO as a front and hid As Ever on purpose. It makes perfect sense that ARO was always supposed to be something vague for the tabloids to chew on and obsess over, meanwhile Meghan and Netflix have been putting As Ever together behind the scenes. People were tracking ARO and all of the trademark issues, and now all of that looks like tabloid busywork. “But she recycled the images!” Yeah… she did a product photoshoot and used a couple of those images for people to find as they were doing deep dives on ARO?
During Prince William and then-Kate Middleton’s courtship, she made an effort to “fit in” with William’s lifestyle, including hunting. The Middletons tried to do the same. It didn’t stick – Kate never goes on “shooting weekends” and I doubt she’s picked up a gun in years. There also doesn’t seem to be any effort to introduce the Wales kids into royal blood sports. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s remarkable to see King Charles completely eschew the kind of “royal training” that royal grandparents have done for their grandchildren for generations. He was practically raised by his grandmother and his “uncle” Lord Mountbatten, and he was raised to enjoy hunting, shooting, fishing, deerstalking. He did all of that well into his 40s and 50s. Charles shows zero interest in molding his grandkids in the same way his surrogate father and mother figures raised him. Which means that it’s just William, Kate and Carole, trying to indoctrinate the Wales kids into their weird quasi-royal life. It also means that Kate gets to dictate much more about her kids’ upbringing than perhaps any consort before. Well, apparently, Kate has given a firm “no” to the “blooding” ritual.
The Princess of Wales has ‘put her foot down’ to stop her children having to take part in a centuries-old ‘blooding’ tradition, a new royal book claims. In Yes, Ma’am – The Secret Life of Royal Servants, which is out this month, author Tom Quinn revealed that Kate Middleton had insisted that her three kids not take part in an ancient practice.
The ritual sees young royals going shooting – and then having their faces ‘smeared with the blood of his or her first kill’; either a stag or a fox. But Catherine, who is known to have complicated feelings towards blood sports, was adamant that, Princes George, 11, and Louis, nine – as well as Princess Charlotte, six – avoid enduring the gory convention.
In an extract obtained by FEMAIL, he recounted: ‘Charles’s daughter in-law, Catherine, Princess of Wales, has put her foot down and insisted there will be no blooding for her children.’
The King himself had gone through the rite as a child, as did his two sons, Princes William and Harry. In his bombshell book, Spare, the Duke of Sussex entailed his experience at the age of 15, after killing a stag on the grounds of Balmoral. Harry described how his stalking guide, Sandy, then bled the animal from its neck and cut into its stomach with a knife – before the royal’s head was pushed into the carcass: “[He] placed a hand gently behind my neck, and… pushed my head inside the carcass. I tried to pull away, but Sandy pushed me deeper. I was shocked by his insane strength. And by the infernal smell. My breakfast jumped up from my stomach. After a minute I couldn’t smell anything, because I couldn’t breathe. My nose and mouth were full of blood, guts and a deep, upsetting warmth.’
That part of Spare was one of the sickening parts which convinced me that the whole royal family was a huge f–king cult. I actually get the idea of smearing an animal’s blood on your face – it’s gross, but it makes some kind of sense. But what Harry described was not THAT. Anyway, I would imagine Kate has said no to “blooding,” just as she’s probably kept the kids away from hunting and guns.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Kensington Palace.
Some people – not all, but some – wonder if Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively have a significant tonal problem with the way they’ve handled their accusations against Justin Baldoni. Before Blake sued Baldoni for sexual harassment and “social manipulation,” Ryan mocked Baldoni in Deadpool 3, creating a character called “Nicepool.” Nicepool made comments about women’s bodies and then said sh-t like “I can say that because I’m a feminist.” Baldoni is currently roping Marvel and Disney into the legal situation because of that.
Well, the latest is that Blake and Ryan made an appearance at the SNL50 celebration over the weekend. They didn’t just attend the show – they did a bit where Amy Poehler and Tina Fey asked Ryan how he was doing and Ryan replied, “Great, what have you heard?” as Blake looked up at him, stone-faced. I’ve seen some comments from people who just think… maybe Blake and Ryan should have just sat this one out. Page Six ran a story about it too:
Hollywood insiders feel Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ attendance at the “Saturday Night Live” 50th anniversary special “was not a good look.” An insider exclusively tells Page Six they believe the couple “should have sat this one out.”
On Sunday, Lively and Reynolds made their first red carpet appearance since the “Gossip Girl” alum filed her sexual harassment lawsuit against her “It Ends With Us” co-star and director Justin Baldoni. The “Deadpool” star, 48, also made a joke about his wife’s legal battle with Baldoni.
Our source tells Page Six, “It’s very plausible that Justin’s legal team will use this public outing to defend Baldoni. Justin is taking this lawsuit in all seriousness and isn’t making a public mockery out of it.”
A second insider says Lively “was initially hesitant to attend the anniversary show but ultimately she’s glad she went and had a really nice time.”
“Blake and Ryan have no regrets about making an appearance and they’re glad they showed up because they have nothing to hide and no reason not to. Blake and Ryan were two of the last people to leave Studio 8H where ‘SNL’ is filmed,” the source reveals. “They walked out with Paul McCartney and his wife, and a bunch of crew members asked to take pictures with Ryan which he happily did.”
I actually understand the image/PR calculation from Ryan and Blake – they’re flaunting their A-list status, showing everyone that they are still part of this upper echelon and they can’t be touched by Baldoni or his lawyers. But yeah… it does feel like Blake and Ryan are perhaps doing too much? People Magazine even had yet another exclusive from Team Lively about how she was glad she came out.
Earlier this month, we got confirmation that David Harbour and Lily Allen have separated. Lily and David met on the celebrity dating app Raya in early 2019 and got married in Vegas in September 2020. Before we heard they had separated, there were rumors that Lily learned that David had reactivated his Raya profile. Lily denied this was the case on an episode of her podcast, Miss Me?, but admitted that she wasn’t in a good place and was “spiraling,” so she was going to take some time off.
Lily is reportedly “devastated” by the separation. It has also been really hard on her daughters, Ethel Mary, 13, and Marnie Rose, 12, both of whom were close with their stepfather. As for David, he’s dating a 27-year-old model named Ellie Fallon. You don’t say.
David Harbour has reportedly moved on with a much younger woman after splitting from his estranged wife, Lily Allen. The 49-year-old “Stranger Things” star’s rumored romance with aspiring model Ellie Fallon, 27, is heating up after they were allegedly spotted on a New Year’s trip to India, according to the Daily Mail.
Insiders told the outlet that Allen is “very upset” about her ex’s new relationship and was allegedly made aware of it when Fallon shared of photo of herself smoking a cigar from Harbour’s favorite brand via Instagram in October.
“Seeing the picture Ellie posted of herself smoking a cigar, taken weeks before Lily and David called it quits, has convinced her that Ellie and David had been seeing each other before they split,” a source told the Daily Mail.
“After all, how many 26-year-olds smoke cigars?”
Fallon and the actor reportedly met in Georgia, where the latter had been staying while filming Season 5 of “Stranger Things” last year. Per photos obtained by Deumoxi, the rumored couple were photographed together in Georgia on Saturday. The two appeared to rush while walking to two separate vehicles.
Ugh. This also puts that whole “putting parental controls on each other’s phone” thing in a completely new light for me now. I think most people assumed that this Raya/cheating thing had only been going on for a couple of months because that’s when the gossip started. If I’m being generous, it sounds like David was cheating as early as October. (Ellie’s cigar post is from Oct. 27.) He was in Georgia to film Stranger Things for almost a year, so who knows how long they’ve been hooking up. That’s so sh-tty and I feel bad for Lily and her daughters. I hope that Lily is taking care of herself so she can be there for the girls. Also, I can’t help but wonder who tipped the paps and Deumoxi off about David and Ellie being together in Georgia over the weekend and in India for New Year’s. I can’t decide if my money is on Lily’s camp to out them publicly or if Ellie did it to raise her own profile.
photos via Instagram and credit Avalon.red and Cover Images
I’m sure the British tabloids are in full meltdown because of the Duchess of Sussex’s big “As Ever” announcement last night, but it’s worth noting that they’ve been utterly scandalized over everything Meghan has done or said for nine years now. One of their favorite “scandals” is “the price of Meghan’s jewelry and clothing.” Nevermind that Meghan has several high-end favorites which she tends to wear constantly, and she’s had those pieces for years. It doesn’t matter – those are computed into the Mail’s comprehensive tally of her wardrobe. It also doesn’t matter to the Mail that Meghan buys her own clothes & jewelry and absolutely none of it is their business.
She may have only attended three days of the 2025 Invictus Games – but Meghan Markle certainly made a statement when it came to her extravagant (yet somewhat understated) fashion choices this year. During her short stint in British Colombia last week, the Duchess of Sussex, 43, managed to wear £270,000 of designer clothing and jewellery.
In fact, the cheapest outfit Meghan wore to the Invictus Games, which drew to a close last night, still cost an eye-watering £22,000 – and included a pair of £948 designer leather boots.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Duchess’ priciest outfit, which she wore to a ‘storytime’ event for children of athletes, was worth £254,777 – with the mother-of-two’s jewellery collection alone totting up to a quarter of a million.
For her 10 appearances at the Games, Meghan turned to some of her go-to designers – with the Duchess opting to wear Ralph Lauren on three occasions and Valentino twice.
But while Meghan’s 2025 Invictus Games wardrobe £30,000 cheaper than her 2023 one, the Duchess – who famously claimed she had to ‘tone down’ her colourful outfits while she was a working royal – opted for much more muted tones than previous years.
You can go to the Mail to see the outfit breakdowns if you care. They really tallied up the cost of every piece of jewelry… which they never do with the Princess of Wales. Granted, Meghan has always worn more jewelry than Kate, and Meghan has always worn more of her own pieces. The real “cost” of Meghan’s Invictus clothes – which, again, she bought herself – is closer to $10,000, not counting the Cartier watch and her engagement ring and all of the jewelry pieces she’s had for years. The Mail is not slick whatsoever.
David Starkey is, according to his Wiki, a famous British historian and a famous conservative/right-wing political commentator. In 2020, he got in trouble for saying something racist, and since then, he no longer appears on various British political programs. Instead, he’s built up a YouTube channel and following, and he’s still considered by some as some kind of authoritative right-wing figure/historian. He’s currently 80 years old. He’s about to give some kind of major lecture at the Oxford Literary Festival, in partnership with the Telegraph, which is why the newspaper profiled him. He ended up saying some genuinely hilarious and interesting things about the British monarchy, which is why I’m covering it.
His general thoughts on the monarchy: The monarchy is “fading into irrelevance”, he discloses. The King is woke. William is “hopeless… Nature intended him to be the manager of a second-division football team.” (And he’d be “rather stretched at that”.) Much blame lies with the late Queen, who was “obsessed about the Commonwealth” and spent too much time “sucking up to African dictators”.
Britain was ruined by its elite: In the 1960s, he tells me, Britain became freer, but the prudes and the Lefties used the law – notably the Race Relations Act – and social media to restore censorship. The fight-back has started; he sees the election of Donald Trump and the appointment of Elon Musk as a turning point. “I follow practically every tweet of Elon Musk. He is a genuine liberator.”
His thoughts on QEII: New Labour embedded the revolution further with equality and green laws, plus devolution – “a disaster” – and the old guard, terrified of sounding “nasty”, offered no protest. This is his serious point about the late Queen: she “effectively abandoned” her “essential function as government under the King”, preferring to tour the world talking to tin-pots rather than define and promote the British character.
The British monarchy has no function: Today, the monarchy “has no visible function at all… Look at the continental monarchies, particularly the Dutch – what colour does the Dutch soccer team wear? Orange. The House of Orange. Because the various monarchies can act as an exceedingly effective focus of an historic nationalism.” By contrast, the members of our Royal family, embarrassed by the Empire, project a drippy cosmopolitanism, their castles packed with “jaw-dropping wealth” that “makes the Elysée Palace look like a corner shop”.
He speaks at length about Elon Musk and how brilliant Musk is, which really ruins what I see as his incisive critique of the Windsors. The Musk BS makes me wonder if he’s genuinely skeptical of the Windsors, or if he’s just being a contrarian for contrarian’s sake. Still, I’ll be laughing about “William is hopeless… Nature intended him to be the manager of a second-division football team…[And he’d be] rather stretched at that” for a long time. I wonder how history will judge QEII’s Commonwealth obsession too, especially since it feels like those Commonwealth connections died with her. Charles’s reception in Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was poorly attended and it seemed like the whole thing could have been an email. The point about the “jaw-dropping wealth” is very true as well, but no, the Windsors do not project a drippy cosmopolitanism. They WISH they came across as cosmopolitan.
I’m still doing some clean-up on some of the Invictus stories I missed during the games in Canada. Like this one – Denmark’s Prince Joachim and Princess Marie flew up to Canada to attend a couple of days of Invictus. Prince Harry went over to greet them in person, shaking hands with Joachim and hugging Marie, even though Marie said some sh-t about Meghan years ago. That was a long time ago, and it was before Marie and Joachim were basically kicked out of Denmark and forced to move to America. From the Telegraph:
The Duke of Sussex was briefly back amongst royalty as he met Prince Joachim of Denmark and his wife Princess Marie at the Invictus Games in Vancouver. On the penultimate day of the Games, the Duke, 40, stood court-side with Prince Joachim, 55, and Princess Marie, 49, while Denmark competed in sitting volleyball amid a sea of fans dressed in red and white and wearing Viking-style horned hats.
Their paths had not crossed since 2017, but the Duke and Prince Joachim hold similar roles in their respective families, having both stepped away from their royal duties in recent years and relocated to the United States. Prince Joachim moved to Washington DC in 2022 after his mother, the former Queen Margrethe II, stripped his four children of their royal titles, while the Duke moved to California in 2020 and now lives there with his wife, Meghan, 43, and their two children, Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three.
During the sitting volleyball matches on Saturday, the Duke appeared in high spirits and joined in with the chanting, singing and flag waving, despite having been left alone at the Games earlier this week when the Duchess returned to their children after just five days. Such was his popularity among the crowd that his security team had to get involved and usher people away who were crowding round to take selfies with him.
Also watching the sitting volleyball at the Vancouver Convention Centre was Veterans Minister Al Carns, who told The Telegraph that the Duke was an “amazing patron” and insisted that Birmingham would rise to the challenge of hosting the next Games in 2027.
“We will get behind it, I can guarantee you,” the MP for Selly Oak said. “Birmingham has really good spirit and the UK is increasingly involved and committed to delivering support to its veterans.”
Mr Carns, 44, a former Royal Marine Colonel who served in Afghanistan, sat down with the Duke for breakfast on Friday morning to discuss the 2027 Games. He said: “We talked about how we can broaden out the Games from an international perspective, make it connect more into society, how we could connect it into schools and make sure people know about it from a young age. It’s going to be amazing. We’re going to try and build a real festival feel. Birmingham has good pedigree in running big events, like the Commonwealth Games.”
I like how the Telegraph fudges the similarities between Joachim and Harry. Yes, Joachim’s children were stripped of their titles and royal stylings, but Joachim and Marie are still “protected” within the family, and Joachim is serving as a military attache to the Danish embassy, meaning he’s still in the royal fold to some degree. It would have been similar if the Windsors hadn’t been so insane with jealousy, they had agreed to Harry’s proposal of an official position of some capacity in Canada or Australia. The Danish press doesn’t harass Joachim and Marie on a daily basis either, and they aren’t constantly scapegoated to make King Frederik look better by comparison. Anyway, it’s interesting that Britain’s Veterans Minister went to the games. No one in the Windsor clan acknowledged the games in any way or congratulated Britain’s Invictus team. Denmark’s royal family did more to acknowledge the games than the Windsors.