Jeremy Allen White’s Calvin Klein ads are hot. [OMG Blog]
What’s going on with Meryl Streep & Martin Short? [LaineyGossip]
Is Armie Hammer trying to get sympathy? Because IDGAF. [Just Jared]
I don’t know how people can watch a show like Chimp Crazy. [Pajiba]
I adore Winona Ryder’s earrings in these old photos. [Go Fug Yourself]
The return of Lucas Hedges. [Socialite Life]
Taylor Russell wore a great vintage Galliano suit. [RCFA]
Here’s the buzzy teaser for the new season of 9-1-1. [Seriously OMG]
Adam Sandler looks out for his bros but not his ladies. [Buzzfeed]
A Big Tips Texas star killed her husband?? [Starcasm]
Netflix’s show about the Menendez brothers actually looks interesting. [Hollywood Life]

Jeremy Allen White is a sun-drenched daydream. at ease in the latest denim and Cotton Classics underwear.

directed by Mert Alas. pic.twitter.com/obbLp8Csa6

— calvinklein (@CalvinKlein) August 27, 2024

My mother is a retired public school teacher. I grew up around teachers and educators. So many young adults, fresh out of college, immediately begin teaching in public schools. Many men and women dedicate so much of their lives to teaching. But according to JD Vance, those teachers are “brainwashing” children with their hedonistic, childless lifestyles. Yes, Vance’s disgust for “the childless” extends to educators and teachers.

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, attacked teachers who don’t have children in remarks in 2021 that resurfaced Tuesday. In his public comments, he reserved specific criticism for Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers.

“You know, so many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they’re people without kids, trying to brainwash the minds of our children. That really disorients me and that really disturbs me,” Vance said at a Center for Christian Virtue leadership forum moderated by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt and the group’s president, Aaron Baer, in October 2021. Vance was joined by other Republican candidates in Ohio’s Senate race for 2022.

When the candidates were asked about handling problems with schools and making them more responsive to parents, Vance took aim at Weingarten, who has described herself as “a mother by marriage,” by saying she “doesn’t have a single child.”

“If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone,” he said in a 30-second clip the liberal news site Heartland Signal resurfaced Tuesday. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign later amplified the clip.

[From NBC News]

There’s truly nothing even rational behind this sentiment – why in the world would teachers need to be parents as a qualification for teaching? Why would it matter at all? It only matters to JD Vance because he’s constantly in women’s business and he thinks it’s his right, as a white man, to dictate everyone’s reproductive choices. Anyway, it’s all happening in this short clip – Vance’s personal attack on Randi Weingarten, his attack on childless teachers and the disgusting attack on teachers as “brainwashing and destroying the minds of children.” Dude, they’re just teaching kids math and English. “Woke math and childless literature,” JD cries.

Unearthed audio: JD Vance says teachers who do not have biological children “disorient and really disturb” him: “She should have some of her own [children]” pic.twitter.com/Rqx2PLfjT5

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 27, 2024

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid.

One of my pet peeves is when people act as if no one has ever told Princess Diana’s story, or as if people don’t really know about her. While many young people are newly fascinated with Diana, people who were alive in the 1980s and ‘90s remember a lot about Diana. As the years pass, and I’ll just speak for myself here, the more I think that there are still a lot of unanswered questions about Diana’s death and everything that happened that night in Paris. Well, Deadline reports that a docuseries is being made called Who Killed Diana? Provocative title.

Ahead of the anniversary of the tragedy in Paris, a new docuseries about Princess Diana is in the works. EverWonder Studio, the company founded by former Time Studios President Ian Orefice and backed by Jeff Zucker’s RedBird IMI, is teaming with Emma Cooper’s Empress Films, the company behind Netflix docs Depp vs. Heard and The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe, on a three-part series.

Who Killed Diana? will explore the circumstances surrounding the death of the Princess of Wales on August 31, 1997. It will feature rare and, in some cases, the first ever interviews with several key sources connected to the accident that caused Diana’s death. It will cast new light on the case that has captured the world’s attention for decades.

It is the first of a broader franchise between EverWonder and Empress, which was also behind Netflix’s Who Killed Jill Dando?. The strand will look at the shocking deaths of iconic figures, hoping to uncover new information about the circumstances that led to the notable deaths, while examining the human stories and historical context at the center of these cases.

[From Deadline]

There were several series and documentaries done around the 25th anniversary of her death in 2022. Discovery+ did a docuseries called The Diana Investigations, which leaned heavily into the British investigation into Diana’s death, conducted by Lord Stevens. He gave interviews back in 2022 and I’m still struck by how selective he was with who he believes and what really happened. Also in 2022: several of the former al-Fayed bodyguards gave interviews, and two of them swore up and down that British intelligence was heavily monitoring Diana that whole summer. That’s partially shown in The Crown as well – Charles and the family openly discuss Diana’s activities and whereabouts constantly. All of which to say… yeah, I’ll probably watch this. I hope they really talk about some of the “conspiracies” too. Like the “blinding flash” story. And the messiness about Henri Paul’s alcohol level.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and Cover Images.

Something interesting is happening right now. Over the weekend, Page Six got the ball rolling with multiple exclusives about Ben Affleck and Kick Kennedy, the 36-year-old actress/socialite and daughter of Robert Kennedy Jr. Page Six’s sources had Ben and Kick hanging out at the Polo Lounge and elsewhere. DeuxMoi had some gossip too, that Ben and Kick were spending time together “since June” and they’ve been spending the night together too. Then People Magazine jumped on the bandwagon and they have their own sources who confirmed the rumors. The pile-on happened very quickly and Ben was getting branded with the “degenerate cheater” tag. So his rep finally went on the record:

Ben Affleck and Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy are not dating, the actor’s rep says.

“There is no truth to any of it. I don’t know if they even know each other,” says Jen Allen, Affleck’s spokesperson, in a statement obtained by PEOPLE on Tuesday, Aug. 27.

Multiple sources recently told PEOPLE that Affleck, 52, and Kick, 36, have been “spending time together,” with one source saying they’d been linked since late spring.

[From People]

What’s funny is that People Mag already ran Jen Allen’s quote as something from an unnamed source, so Jen Allen must have called them back and said “I guess I have to deny it on the record.” Well, even an on-the-record denial isn’t stopping the gossip. No one buys it, not after independent verification from People Mag. Meanwhile, Page Six claims that Ben and Kick were seeing each other back in 2019-2020, before he met Ana de Armas.

Kick Kennedy and Ben Affleck started hanging out even before the Oscar winner began dating “Blonde” star Ana de Armas in March 2020, sources tell Page Six. Affleck and Kennedy have been spotted together at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel over the past few months, as Page Six revealed. However, it appears they have been pals for longer than initially thought.

“Their friendship has been going on for a while, even before Ana,” one Hollywood insider told Page Six. “When Ben started seeing Ana in 2020 and chose to quarantine with her during Covid, Kick was less than thrilled.”

After things got rocky with wife Jennifer Lopez earlier this year, Affleck got back in touch with Kick, we’re told, and they struck up their friendship again.

Despite multiple sources confirming to People magazine that Affleck, 52, and Kennedy, 36, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have been “spending time together,” a spokesperson for Affleck denied they were dating, telling the outlet Tuesday, “There’s no truth to any of it. I don’t know if they even know each other.”

A Hollywood source who has worked with Affleck, told us, “Affleck would love nothing more than to be part of the Kennedy clan. It’s a dream for any Boston guy … I think he would rather have that than a billion-dollar, red-carpet glam life with J. Lo.”

[From Page Six]

I understand the chokehold the Kennedys have on people in Massachusetts (the Kennedys are a tragic-yet-glam dynasty) but why choose a Kennedy from one of the most rotten branches of the Kennedy tree? Robert Kennedy Jr is trash and you would think people would be wary of even being associated with his children. Anyway, I find it interesting… Ben didn’t want this to come out right now, in the way it did. Ben doesn’t want people to know that he’s been dealing with Kick Kennedy for years.

Photos courtesy of Kick’s IG, Avalon Red, Cover Images and Backgrid.

For years, one of my favorite sub-genres of royal gossip is “royal thunder-stealing.” Thunder-stealing is standard operating procedure in the Windsor clan, as the left-behind Windsors wrongly believed that they would get more attention if they pushed out the most charismatic royals. In recent years, King Charles and Queen Camilla have felt like Prince William and Kate are constantly stealing their thunder, and the whole family is in a constant state of thunder-security because, at any moment, Prince Harry and Meghan could steal their thunder by simply walking outside or making an announcement of future plans. On Monday, Penguin Random House announced the release date for the paperback edition of Prince Harry’s Spare. This, too, stole the left-behinds’ thunder. From a hilariously disturbed column in the Daily Express: “Prince Harry’s Spare update was a calculated move to disrupt the Royal Family’s plans.” LMAO.

It seems no accident that the dates surrounding Prince Harry’s paperback edition of Spare coincide with key moments for the Royal Family. While some might interpret the Duke of Sussex deciding not to add new chapters as an olive branch to smooth over tensions, I find the timing of the announcements highly suspect.

Take, for instance, the decision to announce the release of the paperback on Monday, right as the Royal Family are holidaying at Balmoral. This is time for the Firm to rest and reflect after a rather turbulent year, a brief pause from the public eye. Yet, the announcement feels less like a coincidence and more like a calculated move to disrupt the Royal Family’s plans.

The absence of Prince Harry, Meghan, and their children from this year’s Balmoral gathering, dubbed the “Balmoral summit,” speaks volumes. Insiders suggest the Sussexes are a central topic of discussion, adding an extra layer of tension to their already fraught relationship. So the announcement at this time strikes me as something of a warning shot to say that although they are not physically there with the family at Balmoral, the Spare is still there and always will be!

More pointedly, the paperback’s October release clashes with King Charles’s high-profile appearance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa – the first he will attend as King. Set to be published in the US on October 22, and the UK just two days later, Spare’s release will undoubtedly cast a shadow over an event of significant importance to the monarch. This is no small matter, especially considering the 75-year-old monarch’s ongoing cancer battle and the effort he’s putting into this trip. To overshadow such a moment suggests more than just poor timing – it hints at an agenda.

The re-release of Spare will inevitably dredge up the book’s bombshell claims, from Prince William’s alleged physical altercation with Harry to the rift between Meghan and Kate. By keeping the contents unchanged, Harry ensures these revelations remain fresh in the public mind, reigniting the drama that has strained his relationship with the family.

[From The Daily Express]

Don’t you understand, the announcement of a paperback edition stole the Windsors’ thunder WHILE THEY’RE ON VACATION. They were just innocently sitting around Balmoral, holding summits about what to do about Prince Harry and Meghan, when BAM, there was news of a paperback from America! Fetch the smelling salts and a royal rota reporter, this simply cannot stand! What’s also funny is that they couldn’t claim that the Sussexes’ Colombian tour stole anyone’s thunder, because the left-behind Windsors were just farting around, doing nothing and trying to avoid the white nationalist riots in England. Good times. As for the paperback coming out during Charles’ big overseas trip… lol. Oh well!

Once again, I have to remind these idiots: if you wanted to control Harry and Meghan’s schedule and have a say in how and when they announce things, you probably should have taken them up on their offer to be half-in the cult.

Photos courtesy of WellChild, CBS screenshots, Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Here are some photos of Angelina Jolie arriving in Italy ahead of the Venice Film Festival premiere of Maria. She stars as Maria Callas in Pablo Larrain’s latest biographical film. Angelina wore a “short-sleeve trench coat” as she arrived in Venice, and Vogue is obsessed with the summer trench and her Mulberry boots. Fingers crossed that Angelina doesn’t promote this film in a variety of sack dresses. Meanwhile, it’s looking pretty certain that Angelina will also go to Canada for the Toronto Film Festival. Not for Maria, but for the film she directed, Without Blood. Not only will she premiere Without Blood at TIFF, she’s also receiving the TIFF Tribute Award. Good!

Angelina Jolie is set to receive the TIFF Tribute Award in Impact Media at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival.

The Oscar-winning actress will be honored on Sept. 8 at the TIFF fundraiser, while also bringing her latest film, Without Blood, to Toronto for a world premiere. Written, directed and produced by Jolie, Without Blood is a war drama based on the Alessandro Baricco novel of the same name and tells the story of a girl’s quest for revenge and healing during a time of conflict. Salma Hayek Pinault and Demián Bichir have lead roles.

Jolie will be feted alongside fellow trophy winners Amy Adams, Jharrel Jerome, Cate Blanchett, Mike Leigh, Durga Chew-Bose, David Cronenberg, Clément Ducol, and Camille and Zhao Tao. TIFF Tribute Award honorees tend to have films in Toronto’s official lineup.

Jolie also brought her earlier films First They Killed My Father and The Breadwinner, which she executive produced, to Toronto for launches.

[From THR]

Jolie fans, I really hope that we have an amazing fall and an amazing awards season. I don’t have a sense of how Without Blood will be received, but the early buzz on Maria is that it will be an awards contender. I think Angelina will probably promote both films concurrently, and it will help if Without Blood gets some critical buzz too. So many red carpets! So many capes and sack dresses! I’m so excited. As for this TIFF award… yeah, they pass these out like candy, but still, it’s nice. I’m glad she’s being honored.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Jenna Ortega covers the September issue of Vanity Fair, all to promote Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the long-awaited sequel to Tim Burton’s classic comedy. Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara have returned to their roles, and Jenna was cast perfectly as Winona’s goth daughter. While that’s the film she’s promoting, the bulk of the interview is about Wednesday, the hit Netflix show starring Ortega as Wednesday Addams. She’s filming the second season now in Ireland and it should be out next year… meaning a two-and-half year wait in between seasons? Insane. I enjoyed this interview because I root for Ortega, even if she sometimes says some weird things. She comes across as very sensitive and private. Some highlights:

Her life after ‘Wednesday’ became a monster success: “A majority of the last year and a half has felt very far from me.” She describes the experience almost like a sci-fi thriller: “very dissociative and alien and out-of-body. When people mention my name, it’s almost like my name has been taken from me. Now I just feel like I’m floating and…I’m up for interpretation.”

Her feelings on being a “celebrity”: Celebrity is “absolutely ridiculous. I remember feeling really wrong for resisting it… I think if anybody were in my shoes and reacted to it in a welcoming manner, there’s something severely wrong with you.”

Growing up in La Quinta, California: “I find myself constantly reaching back to what once was… I never had my own room growing up. And now I get to travel the world.”

Stepping foot on the ‘Beetlejuice’ set: “Every time I walked onto that set, I wanted to remember it for the rest of my life. You have Willem Dafoe in a trench coat, sliding down in a back pew, just watching everyone,” she says, while Ryder stood by with her pointy bangs of yore. Then Keaton materialized. “I remember feeling my soul leave my body for a second… And then in between takes, he’s sitting down and drinking his tea.”

At 18 years old, she wanted to be a producer on ‘Wednesday’: “I think it’s natural to be fearful of signing your life away and wanting some sort of agency or wanting confirmation that your voice would be heard. I’m aware of my position as an actor. I know that I’m not in charge…. But I think with someone like Wednesday, who is in every scene, it only makes sense for that person to be that involved in what’s going on behind the scenes because she’s onscreen every second of the project.” She says she was told that it wasn’t common for actors to produce in the first season of a series but that they could revisit the issue in season two. “And then I think a lot of the work that I ended up doing and a lot of the conversations that I was having were more of a producer’s conversations half the time.”

On the major backlash to her claims, last year, that she rewrote ‘Wednesday’ scripts and punched up her dialogue: “To be fair… I think I probably could have been….” Then she hesitates, dangling the longest silence of our interview. “I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that. I think, oftentimes, I’m such a rambler. I think it was hard because I felt like had I represented the situation better, it probably would’ve been received better. Everything that I said felt so magnified…. It felt almost dystopian to me. I felt like a caricature of myself.”

You can’t please everybody: “You’re never going to please everybody, and as someone who naturally was a people pleaser, that was really hard for me to understand. Some people just may not like you…and that’s entirely fine.” In fact, “I got sick of myself last year. My face was everywhere…so it’s like, fair enough, if I were opening my phone and I saw the same girl with some stupid quote or something, I would be over it too.”

The backlash to a young woman standing up for herself: “Women have to be princesses. They have to be elegant and classy and so kind and…then when they’re outspoken, they can’t be tamed and they’re a mess.”

On Wednesday’s Latin heritage: Ortega likes that Wednesday’s Latinness is “not being shoved down your throat. There’s nothing worse than when they have the side Mexican character who’s carrying the flag on their shoulder. We’re so much more than that.”

Her father is Mexican-American & her mother is Puerto Rican: “But then, oftentimes, you’re just not good enough. Because I wasn’t born in a Spanish-speaking country, I know people have a hard time connecting with me.” Ortega doesn’t speak Spanish fluently, nor does her father, but it was her mother’s first language. “I think there’s a part of me that carries a bit of shame. For a second I was almost nervous to speak about my family’s background because…I feel like I was made to feel like it wasn’t…” She stops short before saying “valid” or some variation thereof. “But also, something that I’m learning is…it’s not my job to carry the weight of everybody who’s ever had that experience.”

[From Vanity Fair]

The thing about asking to be a producer on Wednesday in the first season, when she was only 18 years old, is so bold. It reminds me of an interview I read with Minnie Driver, where she was talking about her awe for the younger actresses standing up for themselves and stepping into a producer’s role really early in their careers. Minnie was like – my generation never did that and we should have, and it’s badass that the girls are doing it now. Anyway, Jenna is now a producer on Wednesday, as of Season 2. As for the Latin heritage stuff… I didn’t know that she doesn’t speak Spanish. If it wasn’t spoken at home, then yeah, she wouldn’t have picked it up. And I like that she represents the diversity of Latina experiences. Not every Latin actress has to play a trope or stereotype. There are goth Latinas. There are nerd Latinas. There are Latinas who don’t speak Spanish.

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Cover & IG courtesy of Vanity Fair.

It’s really crazy to watch Francis Ford Coppola destroy any and all goodwill. Coppola is currently hyping his long-gestating passion project, Megalopolis. He’s been talking about this fakakta film for years, trying to get financing for it and trying to get actors to sign on to it. He finally made it and the film premiered at Cannes to lukewarm reviews and a flurry of bad press. There were credible and widespread reports that Coppola mistreated women during the production. The mistreatment was… Coppola being way too “friendly” and “handsy,” trying to kiss female extras and being generally sleazy. In a new Rolling Stone interview, Coppola didn’t do much to dispute the stories:

In a May report by The Guardian, multiple anonymous crew members said that Coppola incorporated “old school” tactics to “try to get [female extras] in the mood” for a nightclub scene. That included allegedly hugging and kissing actresses during takes.

“You’re talking about the Guardian piece, which is totally untrue. If you read that piece, you’ll realize that whoever the sources were — and I honestly don’t know who the sources were — it’s the same people who provided quotes for that Hollywood Reporter piece that said all these people were fired or resigned, and that there was a mass exodus, all of that,” Coppola said, citing the below-the-line team leaving in 2022. “And the truth of the matter is, they were looking for some sort of dirt. The young women I kissed on the cheek, in regards to the New Year’s scene, they were young women I knew.”

Coppola continued, “It’s all so ridiculous. Look at the timing of that article. It’s right before we’re about to premiere the film at Cannes. They’re just trying to damage the picture.”

Previous sources told Variety that writer/director Coppola was unprofessional during the scene in question and ruined takes to touch the actresses in frame. One of the sources claimed that Coppola announced on a microphone, “Sorry, if I come up to you and kiss you. Just know it’s solely for my pleasure.”

[From IndieWire]

Again, I believe the industry reporting about Coppola’s lecherous behavior on set. “I knew those women” is not a defense when women are coming out and saying that he made them uncomfortable. “They’re trying to ruin the film” is also not a valid defense when his behavior is the problem. Speaking of Coppola’s problematic behavior, it turns out that he’s become one of those crusaders against all things “woke.”

Francis Ford Coppola told Rolling Stone that his intention with “Megalopolis” was to make a movie that could not be deemed “some woke Hollywood production.” The cast includes controversial actors such as Jon Voight, who has turned heads in Hollywood for his conservative views and outspoken support for Donald Trump, and Shia LaBeouf, who was accused of sexual assault in 2021.

“What I didn’t want to happen is that we’re deemed some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers,” Coppola said. “The cast features people who were canceled at one point or another. There were people who are archconservatives and others who are extremely politically progressive. But we were all working on one film together. That was interesting, I thought.”

As far as working with LaBeouf, who has barely starred in any movies since accusations surfaced against him, Coppola praised the actor while admitting things were tense with him.
Popular on Variety

“Shia [LaBeouf] really took to it,” Coppola said. “I had no experience working with him prior to this, but he deliberately sets up a tension between himself and the director to an extreme degree. He reminds me of Dennis Hopper, who would do something similar, and then you’d say, ‘Just go do anything,’ and then they go off and do something brilliant.

[From Variety]

This will be used as an example, for years to come, of how a generational talent ruined all of his industry goodwill by making a sh-tty movie and going all-in on the losing side of several culture wars all at once. “Me Too was stupid, I should be able to do what I want with women” and “I’m going to hire a credibly accused domestic abuser, that will show everyone!” And then when everything he touches flops hard, he’ll blame “woke culture.” What a disappointment.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Embed from Getty Images

I remember, right after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Russian citizens claimed that their access to most social media platforms and messaging apps was cut off or strongly discouraged by the Kremlin. The Kremlin basically told everyone that they could only use Telegram, a messaging app developed by shadowy Russian tech billionaire Pavel Durov. I’ve never used Telegram, although I’ve heard stories about how it’s grown in popularity with Europeans and Russians. Well, over the weekend, Pavel Durov was arrested in France for all of the criminal sh-t being done by Telegram’s users. This is a huge story in Europe and Russia and it’s a huge story for any tech billionaire who believes he should not be held liable for what happens on his platform (cough cough Elon Musk cough). So I was reading this CNN story about Durov and did you know this guy claims to have 100 children??

Pavel Durov is a lot of things to a lot of people. Programming prodigy. Billionaire entrepreneur. Kremlin stooge. Free-speech fighter. Biological father to at least 100 kids.

Durov, the elusive founder of Telegram who was detained in France over the weekend, cuts the figure of a mysterious, globe-trotting tech bro with Mark Zuckerberg’s prodigiousness, Jack Dorsey’s bizarre lifestyle habits and Elon Musk’s libertarian streak – plus a similar obsession with pronatalism and fathering children. Durov said in July that he had fathered more than 100 children thanks to sperm donations he had made over the past 15 years.

Worth an estimated $9.15 billion according to Bloomberg and armed with an array of passports and residences, Durov has for a decade lived a life without borders, a man on an often-shirtless journey to secure the freedom of communication from the prying eyes of governments, democratically elected or otherwise.

Now, Durov’s legal trouble is drudging up an old debate, pitting Telegram’s end-to-end encryption, which keeps communications between users secure even from the company’s employees, against the security concerns of various governments and the European Union’s campaign to rein in big tech.

[From CNN]

Durev built Telegram back when Mark Zuckerberg bought WhatsApp, because Durev didn’t think anything on the market was good enough. Telegram’s double-blind encryption system means that it’s the messaging app of choice for terrorists, despots, coup plotters and, as always, pedophiles. And of course this guy is a “pronatalist.” That’s in the grand tradition of creepy, shadowy, authoritarian-supporting tech billionaires being obsessed with repopulating the earth with their “seed.” I can’t believe sperm banks let this guy donate that much. Ew. I really hope he doesn’t have that many children out there. It’s some Boys From Brazil bullsh-t.

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty.

For a couple of years now, the bottom has dropped out of the podcast industry. Circa 2019-20, everybody was getting a lucrative podcasting deal, tens of millions of dollars were being thrown around for exclusive podcasts. Then the industry retracted, big-time, and only a handful of podcasts are getting those kinds of seven-figure and eight-figure deals these days. So this is sort of a throwback, but I understand why it’s happening. Since 2022, Travis and Jason Kelce have hosted the New Heights podcast. They talk about everything, from football to their relationships to pop culture and everything else. New Heights was a huge success before Travis began dating Taylor Swift last year, but the pod has definitely gone next-level ever since the Swifties became religious listeners (alongside the gossip & entertainment media). Now that Jason is retired from the NFL, people wondered if New Heights would continue or what would happen. Well, the Kelce brothers have struck a NINE-FIGURE deal with Amazon.

Wondery has snapped up the rights to the podcast New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce. The podcast studio, owned by Amazon, has signed a distribution and an exclusive, ad-sales representation deal with the podcast from the two brothers turned NFL stars. The deal size was described as being in the nine figures and “very competitive,” according to a person familiar with the matter.

As part of the multi-year deal, Wondery will have global distribution rights to all audio and video episodes of the podcast, the podcast’s back catalog and the right to create international audio adaptations of the podcast.

The brothers launched the podcast in 2022, with Wave Sports + Entertainment, with behind-the-scenes looks at their football careers and their own lives, as well as insights on the season and pop culture. While Jason, then a center for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League, and Travis, a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, were already a draw, the podcast entered a new level of the cultural zeitgeist when Travis started dating Taylor Swift and began talking about life with the pop star on the podcast.

New Heights typically ranks as the top sports podcast on Apple and Spotify during football season, and has recently won Ambies, Webbys, and Shorty awards, in addition to podcast of the year at iHeartMedia’s 2024 iHeartPodcast Awards.

[From THR]

This is what I mean when I describe Travis as in it to win it. While his career will be just fine if he and Taylor break up, he understands the enormous heat score that comes with being Taylor’s boyfriend. Again, New Heights was already a success pre-Traylor, but I do not believe that Amazon would be shelling out nine-figures on the Kelce Bros’ pod without the Taylor connection. This is all happening in addition to Travis entering the acting world AND hosting a game show AND all of his other lucrative side-gigs and sponsorships.

Photos courtesy of YouTube and Backgrid.