IYKYK: Britney Spears says she once made out with Ben Affleck but she forgot to add that story to her memoir. [Socialite Life]
The cast of Dune 2 talks about that sandworm popcorn bucket. [OMG Blog]
Gwen Stefani & Blake Shelton are doing an album together. [LaineyGossip]
The trailer for Love Lies Bleeding (starring Kristen Stewart). [JustJared]
North West is making music with her dad. [Hollywood Life]
Sheryl Lee Ralph was on Wonder Woman! [Seriously OMG]
Timothee Chalamet might be too fashion-forward. [RCFA]
You’re not really a writer if you’re getting “help” from AI. [Pajiba]
Great, now we have to worry about being too independent. [Buzzfeed]
Kathryn Newton has such pretty hair. [GFY]

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At the Grammys, Taylor Swift announced her forthcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department. She stunned her fans, many of whom believed that she had been working on Reputation (Taylor’s Version), yet another rerecording. As I said, I believe she has also been working on Reputation TV, and that announcement will probably come later this year (spring or summer, probably). But for now, we will soon deal with another promotional blitz for a new Taylor Swift album. Thinkpieces will be written, Easter eggs will be analyzed and Taylor’s power will keep growing and growing. Speaking of, the NY Times did a truly delightful piece about what actual poets think about Taylor’s album title. Some highlights:

Poet-approved: “As a tortured poet, I approve,” said Christian Wiman, the editor of Poetry magazine from 2003 to 2013. “Or is she making fun of us? I guess I kind of approve of that, too.”

Dark academia: The title calls to mind the Robin Williams film “Dead Poets Society” — also sans apostrophe — said Adrienne Raphel, a poet and the author of “Our Dark Academia,” who noted that the film was released in 1989, Ms. Swift’s birth year. “Tay is taking us full dark academia mode,” Ms. Raphel continued, referring to an online subculture that emphasizes reading, writing and a gothic fashion sense. “Let’s not forget the article: ‘the.’ ‘The’ also conjures academic programs: the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the Ivy League.”

Poets are being taken seriously: “It takes us tortured poets seriously, as seriously as the post office, and yet it pokes a little good-natured fun at us at the same time,” said Richard Siken, whose 2004 poetry collection, “Crush,” won the Yale Younger Poets prize.

Are songwriters & poets the same? “Songwriters and poets are interchangeable to some extent,” said Eileen Myles, who has written more than 20 books of poetry. “So I feel a kindred spirit in Taylor Swift’s title.” Stephanie Burt, an English professor who teaches a class on Taylor Swift at Harvard University, said by email: “I’m hoping the title ends up in part lighthearted, since you don’t have to be tortured to be a poet, or even to be a skillful one. No one should be tortured (literally), and no one should have to feel tortured (figuratively) to make lasting or emotionally engaging art.” Whether or not Ms. Swift herself is a poet has long been a subject of debate. Ms. Burt posited that she was “not a great page-based poet but a major songwriter. Closely related art forms, but not the same.” Ms. Burt hastened to add that Ms. Swift belonged to poetic traditions nonetheless: She seemed to be inspired by “Wordsworthian romanticism, Burnsian lyricism — the intense and intensely gendered inwardness and the wit of Laura Kasischke,” she said.

Taylor’s poem, which was included in her social media post: Alongside the album artwork, Ms. Swift posted a handwritten poem on social media. Signed by “The Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department,” it rhymes “muses” with “bruises” and ends with “All’s fair in love and poetry.” Mr. Siken said he was struck by one line in particular: “‘My muses, acquired like bruises’ is brutal,” he said. “She got that exactly right. Muses don’t float in and out without doing any damage.”

Gregory Pardlo took issue with the word ‘tortured’: “Poets today take mental health very seriously,” Mr. Pardlo said, “and I find it a little troublesome that this poem seems to be romanticizing what are often diagnosed as anxiety disorders.”

Taylor is very much in favor with the rise of Instapoets: “Taylor’s music is a source of inspiration for many contemporary poets on Instagram and TikTok,” said Ginnie Bale, the poet responsible for the oft-memed verse “He didn’t like drama/and I was [expletive] Shakespeare.”

Taylor could become a poetry influencer: Some hoped that Ms. Swift’s next era would increase interest in American poetry, a precarious market for academics in real-life poetry departments — usually subsumed by English departments, which themselves face existential threats — across the country. “If this gets more people to write poetry, I’m all for it, because I want there to be more jobs to apply to,” said Sasha Debevec-McKenney, a poet and creative writing fellow at Emory University. “I want there to be more people fighting to get into poetry classes.”

[From The NY Times]

We’ve talked for months/years about Taylor’s power and how she is, like, a stand-alone economy at this point. She influences so much, why couldn’t she be a poetry influencer? Why not? Why couldn’t Taylor single-handedly bring back poetry classes and poetry as a humanities discipline? I also think Taylor sees herself as a poet, writer, songwriter and lyricist first and foremost. I hope she’s as charmed with this as I seem to be! Yes, let’s have more poets in the world!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instagram.

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While I thought Ryan Gosling was great in Barbie, I’ve been annoyed for months that Gosling has gotten so much attention for playing Ken and that so many people are acting like the movie was mostly about Ken. And then Oscar voters nominated Ken and not Barbie or Barbie’s director and I guess it all made sense. Oscar voters watched Barbie and they thought it was all about Ken too. Well, Gosling is currently Oscar-campaigning and he’s striking just the right balance between “being happy/grateful/wanting it” and “still being cool.” Gosling covers the current issue of Variety and this piece is very long and detailed, especially about Ryan’s background as a child actor/performer. Some highlights:

Ken was his hardest role: “It’s the hardest role I’ve ever had to play. It was like a high-wire act — in tiny shorts and no shirt — with no net. I wanted to make sure if I was going to do it — I was like, ‘I can’t mess this up. I can’t be the guy that messed up the Barbie movie.’ So if I’m going to do it, I have to do more than I know that I’m even capable of.”

On his statement about Margot Robbie & Greta Gerwig’s Oscar snubs: “Look, I heavily edited that statement. I think if I say any more about it, I’m going to basically put on a mink and start challenging people to a beach-off on Malibu Beach.” He references the themes of Gerwig’s script: The Barbie characters live in a feminist paradise and are shocked when, in the real world, they encounter systemic sexism at every level. “In terms of people’s reactions, the film continues to provoke conversation in every incarnation. It keeps provoking this dialogue. It’s the power of this movie. I struggle to compare it to anything. But it’s yet another reason that proves it’s more than a summer blockbuster. It’s a great work of art. That’s what Greta and Margot created.”

How he figured out how to play Ken: While preparing for the character, “so many times, I would come home and say, ‘What am I doing?’ And I would overthink it.” His wife would tell him, “Just make it about Barbie,” he says. “And so every take became an opportunity to get Barbie to notice me.”

Moving to LA as a teen: “Thank God for West Hollywood. This director I had worked with told me when I was a kid, ‘If you ever come to L.A., you can sleep on my couch.’ I had an amazing experience. I did my homework at the Abbey. My next-door neighbor was named Mocha Cream. It was an amazing place to land: Somebody had showed me the movie ‘Auntie Mame,’ and I felt like the kid in ‘Auntie Mame,’ who was like, ‘Only yesterday, he was in short pants.’ Everyone was just so accepting and living their dreams. It was very supportive and creative.”

Taking four years off to focus on fatherhood. “Just to be with my family. I didn’t want to miss anything. My priorities changed, and I wanted to be with my kids. It’s going super fast. I hear the clock ticking. I don’t know how much time I’m going to get, and I don’t want to spend it in the wrong place. I know I’m not spending it in the wrong place if I’m with my family.”

Barbie is a continuation of all of his big dramatic work: “In some way, everything I’ve done led to it. And I can’t believe I’m saying that. There were moments when I would do it where I’d think, ‘I haven’t felt like I’ve worked this hard since “Blue Valentine.”’ There were moments when I left ‘Blue Valentine’ just completely emotionally spent, laying on the floor of the car on the ride home just done — empty. And it was even harder to play Ken. And I thought, ‘How am I feeling that on this film?’”

He turned down Ken several times: “Eventually, I thought, ‘Who am I to argue with Greta Gerwig and Margot?’ They had a vision for it. They believed it. And they believed I should do it more than I believed I shouldn’t. At a certain point, I thought, ‘They see something that I don’t see.’ I thought it was such a great part that anyone could play it. I understand now, but it took me a while.”

Whether he’ll perform at the Oscars: “I still have not been asked. It might be too much of a risk to have me do it. I don’t know how that would work. But I’m open to it.”

[From Variety]

I kind of hope he does perform at the Oscars and does it really seriously, like in a tuxedo, standing beside a grand piano, delivering a heart-wrenching performance of “I’m Just Ken.” That’s obviously what Oscar voters want. The Variety piece is full of quotes from Gerwig and Robbie too, how much they wanted him for the role, to the point where Gerwig had no backup plan for who she would cast if he kept saying no. I like what he says about how hard it was, the hard work of playing Ken, because I keep getting the feeling that people think Barbie was “easy” to make because the actors made it look easy. Anyway, I kind of love everything he said here. It would be hilarious if he ended up winning the Oscar for it.

Cover courtesy of Variety, additional photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Prince Harry is not an evil genius, but I do think his whirlwind 25-hour trip to the UK will box in a lot of anti-Sussex narratives for a time. If Harry had not made the effort, the entire British media would have been solely devoted to calling Harry a sh-tty son and a terrible person for refusing to publicly acknowledge his poor father. Harry’s visit put the onus on Charles, and Charles panicked and could not even clear his schedule for one hour for his son, nor did Charles even offer Harry a room in any of the London palaces, nor did Charles invite Harry to Sandringham so they could even spend some real time together. So it is what it is – Harry is a good son, Charles is a dogs-t father, the same as it ever was. Hilariously, Katie Nicholl is still trying to play it like Charles is desperate for a reconciliation. If he was so desperate, could he have not cleared one full hour?

Royal Expert Katie Nicholl spoke with ET on Tuesday and shared some insight into the state of Harry and Charles’s relationship and how Harry has handled the news of his father’s illness.

“His father personally telephoned him to inform him of his cancer diagnosis, [and] Harry jumped on the overnight flight from Los Angeles,” Nicholl shared, adding that when he arrived in London, Harry “came straight to Clarence House for what we understand was a brief meeting with his father. One could only imagine that it would have been an emotional reunion. Because they haven’t seen each other since the King’s coronation, and then they didn’t get to spend very much time together at all.”

According to Nicholl, Charles “desperately wants to reconcile with Harry,” so he can have a real relationship with both his son and his grandchildren.

“The king would have been hugely relieved and comforted by the fact that Harry flew over,” Nicholl shared, explaining that the meeting likely was “emotional and probably quite difficult for both of them.”

Harry and Charles’ meeting was not a lengthy one, “But however brief that meeting may have been, I think it’s absolutely fundamental and important and healing the rift between father and son,” Nicholl said. “I certainly think we’re seeing a real thawing in the relations between Charles and his son. I know, for Charles, the door has always been left open regardless of some of the things Harry has written… I was told by a source very close to the king that whatever Harry has said or done, he loves his son. He wants to repair that relationship and indeed have a relationship with his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren,” she added, referring to the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle — who stayed in California with their children, Archie, 4, and Lilibet, 2 — while Harry flew to London.

“I think when someone has a serious health scare like this, it does make you reassess things,” Nicholl said, “and I think that’s why Harry got on the first flight he could.”

As for repairing the rift between Harry and his older brother, Prince William, Nicholl said, “I think that’s less certain.”

[From ET]

“But however brief that meeting may have been, I think it’s absolutely fundamental and important and healing the rift between father and son.” My honest-to-God theory is that Charles’s current relationship to Harry is (from Charles’s perspective) singularly about power. Charles wants to demonstrate to himself and the public that he still has power over Harry in some way, that he still has the power to bring Harry “back,” that Harry’s visit was about some kind of fealty from son to father. Harry, obviously, views all of this differently and he’s made that pretty clear in interviews and in his memoir. He loves his father so much and he allows himself to be used by Charles occasionally. I think Harry sees that as the price he has to pay to have some kind of relationship with Charles, however toxic. That’s my armchair analysis of what’s going on! For Harry, this is about love. For Charles, it’s about power.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

I’m trying to do some upkeep on who said what about Prince Harry’s 25-hour trip to London and Prince William’s briefing spree about Harry’s visit. The Telegraph sort of talked around it earlier this week, but there’s some indication that Harry actually saw Charles face-to-face before William bothered to see their dad in person. There’s also no indication that William has seen his father face-to-face in weeks, although there’s every indication that Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace are coordinating fully right now, and that Charles has no intention of asking William to take over anything. William, in turn, has taken it upon himself to make Harry’s visit to their father all about how much William hates his brother. Speaking of:

The nature of Harry’s trip, in which he shared a ‘brief 45 minute meeting’ with the King and Camilla and is not believed to have seen his brother William or sister-in-law Kate Middleton, shows how bad things have really become, royal expert Jennie Bond said.

She claimed: ‘William has shown today that he has disowned Harry, he doesn’t want to know him, and he probably doesn’t even like him anymore. Harry is just not part of his life. That rift is so deep now, and that has been shown by Harry being here and them not meeting, so deep that I really do wonder if it can ever, ever be mended.’

The Duke is not believed to have seen his brother William or sister-in-law Kate Middleton, who is recovering from her abdominal surgery and on extended leave. But expert Richard Fitzwilliams suggested the fact that Prince Harry made the trip at all shows hope for reconciliation.

He told MailOnline: ‘The whole situation has changed with cancer. The fact the King has been diagnosed with something that millions know is life threatening has changed the whole relationship between the Royal Family and the Sussexes. The only way for a family to fight cancer is to come together. A lot has been made of the length of Harry’s visit and how quickly he left but that isn’t the point. The point is that Harry came – and Charles shared the diagnosis with him. What he wanted was to express support, it’s a completely new situation.’

‘Harry is probably planning on coming over himself in the future. Charles has started outpatient treatment and was probably very tired, which may be a reason the visit was so brief. I hope this could be the beginning of some form of reconciliation. There was no question of him meeting William – they haven’t spoken in months and William has engagements and Catherine is recuperating. And of course they don’t trust the Sussexes because in the past if they’ve said anything the comment could have ended up in a book or in the media.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Quick question: if William was screaming, crying and throwing up about how he would never, ever see Harry this week, how was Harry supposed to check in with Kate? Did they expect Harry to get a police escort to Adelaide Cottage just so he could visit his sister-in-law’s bedside? If he had done that, wouldn’t that be giving up the game, wouldn’t that begin to unravel whatever web of secrets is currently being hidden from the British public? Also, just a little piece of free PR advice to the Kensington Palace clownshow: you’ve now spent four years making Prince William’s sole “brand” into “William despises Harry,” and you guys desperately need a rebrand. It’s tired, it’s repetitive, it’s negative, it’s childish and you aren’t making your primary look good. When KP is doing more to complain and explain about Harry’s visit (which had nothing to do with William or KP) than they’ve had to say in months about the missing princess, then that’s a huge communications problem.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Now that Prince Harry has escaped the UK once again after a whirlwind 25-hour visit this week, I hope he understands (yet again) that his family is trash and the national media is actively trying to harm him. He only has to glance through the coverage following his visit to understand the grotesque sadism coming from the royal establishment. A son flew fourteen hours to see his cancer-stricken father and his dogsh-t father couldn’t even spare an hour for him. THAT is the story, that King Charles is awful and that Harry will continue to do everything he can to have a relationship with the father he adores. But according to “palace sources” and “royal experts,” Harry’s trip was about Charles and William flexing their power over Harry, and it was explicitly about how they’re both still punishing Harry and will continue to punish Harry forever. From Maureen Callahan’s unhinged Daily Mail column:

Memo to Prince Harry: Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Such is the obvious message from Buckingham Palace — and what’s to come under William’s reign. Only 24 hours after making a transatlantic dash to see King Charles, just diagnosed with cancer, Harry is flying back to California. That’s 10,000 miles and 21 hours in the air for minutes with his father.

Imagine Harry’s overwhelming emotions. The exhaustion from jet lag – flying commercial. Tyler Perry’s private jet, it seems, was not available for loan this time. Nor was there room at the Palace, or Clarence House, or any castle or royal cottage. Harry was reportedly forced to put himself up at a hotel. Room service for one! Imagine how lonely he must have felt: His father dashing off after their fleeting reunion — the first time Harry has spoken in person with Charles since the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in September 2022 — contentedly cocooned with Camilla.

His estranged brother, his only sibling, tending to his recovering wife and their three children, no invitation extended — presumably not a phone call or even a text message. All of Harry’s old friends, either cut off or fallen away. No one to see, to commiserate with, to meet at the pub for a pint and a cry.

Of course, Harry had no other option but to turn around and go home. It seems our desolate duke is learning the hardest of lessons, one most of us learn as toddlers: Actions have consequences. Having sold out his family’s secrets, having slandered them for years through Oprah Winfrey and Netflix and a self-pitying memoir, having made Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth’s final years a misery — well, it seems the royals have reached the sad conclusion, the only conclusion, that Harry cannot be trusted.

Adding to his humiliation, a source close to Prince William made it clear that under no circumstances would he be seeing or speaking to his brother. ‘No plans’ to see Harry, the source said. And why would William risk a conversation? The one piece of information that William and Kate want to keep private — the exact status of her health and recovery — is the very thing the Sussexes, if history is any guide, might leak. Recall Meghan cruelly reminding the world, during the Oprah sit-down, of the ‘Waity Katie’ nickname. Or Harry writing of Kate’s refusal to share her lip gloss with Meghan and reprinting a tense text exchange between the women over bridesmaids’ dresses. That Kate made Meghan cry!

And, most gravely, the gruesome twosome seemingly doing nothing to stop their groupie Omid Scobie’s revelation that the so-called ‘royal racists’ were Charles and Kate — as printed in a foreign edition of Scobie’s book ‘Endgame’, released late last November. Truly: Who in the royal fold would trust these two?

[From The Daily Mail]

Again, if anyone thought that this week’s events were a “win” for Charles and William, they are utterly delusional. Charles looked like a cranky old man who is too out-of-it or stage-managed to spend private time with a son who flew thousands of miles to see him. William continues to look like a desperate loser who is obsessed with his younger brother. William was MIA for weeks and the only thing which got him out of his hole was these pathetic briefings about Harry. Oh, speaking of, Carole Malone admitted that last November’s briefing spree about Harry and Meghan’s call to King Charles on his birthday came from Prince William’s office. Funny that. The only thing Kensington Palace’s comms office really does anymore is leak sh-t about Harry and talk endlessly about how much William hates his brother. Congrats on your psychopath heir, British peeps.

“I don’t think William or Kate or any of the Royals that Harry has slated as racist want to meet him.”@thecarolemalone doesn’t understand why he has waited until King Charles has been diagnosed with cancer to visit him.@jerryhayes1 | @theJeremyVine | #JeremyVine pic.twitter.com/CYe9tDgHJK

— Jeremy Vine On 5 (@JeremyVineOn5) February 7, 2024

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Buckingham Palace and Avalon Red.

Prince Harry left London on Wednesday, roughly 24 hours after he arrived at Heathrow. On Tuesday, he traveled (with police escort) straight from Heathrow to Clarence House, where he had a brief meeting with his father. Brief being… somewhere between 30-45 minutes. After which, Charles and Camilla immediately escaped to Sandringham and Harry checked into a London hotel overnight, and left London the next morning. While Harry was in the air, on his way back to California, palace aides, senior staffers and likely some primary royals all began testing out their talking points for why Harry was wrong, rude and tacky for traveling fourteen hours to see his father in person after Charles was diagnosed with cancer. Robert Jobson got a call (I’m covering that separately) and it looks like Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast got some calls too. Sykes is interesting because his sources always sound deeply embedded within Prince William’s bum. It’s the same here – Harry’s visit really lit a fire under William’s ass and suddenly the disappearing prince was screaming from the rooftops that HE had no plans to see or speak to his brother.

Prince Harry was heading back to Los Angeles Wednesday, meaning he will have taken a 11,000 mile round trip to spend just half an hour with his tired father King Charles and sleep in a hotel, in what some sources said looked like a “partial snub.”

One former courtier told The Daily Beast: “He did get to meet the king which is something, but they hardly rolled out the red carpet for him. If circumstances were different, one might have expected him to be offered a bed either at Clarence House [the king’s London home] or at Sandringham. I am sure the king was delighted to see him but I think what you are seeing is that great care being taken to insulate the king and queen from Harry.”

It is thought the king met Harry alone at Clarence House yesterday and was not joined by Queen Camilla, who was described by Harry in his memoir Spare as willing to “sacrifice” him and leave “bodies on the street” in her quest to improve her standing in the public eye and be named queen.

A friend of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s told The Daily Beast: “I’m not surprised he was only given one meeting. There was never any prospect he was going to meet William. It’s a partial snub because he has clearly been told there is nothing to stop him being on his way.”

Duncan Larcombe, former royal editor for the Sun and a biographer of Harry, told The Daily Beast: “It may look to outsiders fairly cold to see your son for only half an hour if they have flown from L.A. to London for the meeting, but I’m sure Harry wouldn’t have expected anything more given his father is poorly. In fact, for Charles to see Harry at all at such short notice, despite having just had cancer treatment, could be read as an encouraging sign that the king still wants to rebuild the relationship with him.”

[From The Daily Beast]

This alone explains SO MUCH of the coverage of Harry’s trip and the after-action reporting: “It is thought the king met Harry alone at Clarence House yesterday and was not joined by Queen Camilla.” I’m genuinely glad that at least Charles had the stones to tell Camilla to GTFO while he spoke to his son. I’m sure Camilla was trying to listen at the door, but the lack of reporting of what was said between father and son speaks volumes about who is leaking what. That also means that none of William’s Kensington Palace clowns were anywhere near the meeting.

So, to recap – Charles called Harry several days ago to tell him about the cancer, Harry immediately wants to come to the UK and see his dad, and Charles helps arrange the trip (the police escort, going straight to Clarence House). Charles then arranges to meet Harry alone and they have a brief visit, and Charles’s people officially leak it to friendly outlets that Charles was moved that Harry made the journey. Then Camilla, William and their staffers proceed to freak the f–k out and throw a huge tantrum about how Harry is rude for this or that, and William still hates Harry and refuses to see him. Nowhere has Harry actually said that he tried to meet William or even talk to him. It really is just… insane.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Dakota Johnson is currently promoting Madame Web. There’s been at least one photocall and premiere, although I expect that we’ll get some bigger premieres in the coming days. Dakota recently hosted Saturday Night Live and one of her most successful bits was appearing in a Please Don’t Destroy video where she roasted the three comedians.

The “nepo truce” thing caught on because, oh right, Dakota is absolutely a nepo baby. She’s a second-generation nepo baby! Her grandmother is Tippi Hendron, her mom is Melanie Griffith and her dad is Don Johnson. Her stepfather, for years, was Antonio Banderas too. Dakota is super-close to her mom, dad, grandmother and even her former stepfather. Which sort of gives her some blind spots to her own nepotism. Dakota appeared on the Today Show this week and she was asked about the Please Don’t Destroy video and nepo babies in general. Dakota shared her own story… of being cut off financially when she decided to become an actress.

Dakota Johnson is not a fan of the “nepo baby” conversation. Johnson, 34, said that she finds conversations surrounding celebrities whose parents are also celebrities or otherwise influential in the entertainment industry “incredibly annoying and boring” during an appearance on the Today show Wednesday.

“Like, if you’re a journalist, write about something else,” she told host Hoda Kotb, who asked Johnson — whose parents are actors Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson — about poking fun at her own celebrity status.

“That’s just like, lame. So the opportunity to make fun of it, I jumped at,” she added.

Johnson and her father Don, 74, have been open about his decision to cut her off financially when she decided to pursue acting rather than attend college after she graduated high school. “He said, ‘If you go to college, you’ll still get an allowance,’ ” she recalled on the Today show Wednesday. “And I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to be an actress.’ So he was like, ‘Alright, well you’re on your own.’ ”

Johnson secured her first acting role as an adult in 2010’s The Social Network and has seen significant success since, most notably for her starring role in 2015’s Fifty Shades of Grey and its two sequels.

“I did some little modeling jobs that helped me pay my rent. And then I started auditioning and got some jobs,” she told Kotb of how she survived after her father took her off “the payroll,” as she says he refers to the family’s finances. “I definitely had moments where I couldn’t afford groceries and had to ask my mom to help me. She was the nice one.”

[From People]

I’m sure in Dakota’s mind, she is mostly self-made, because she was “cut off” and she paid her own bills at an early age. But again, nepotism is about more than “my famous parents made me pay my rent when I was 20!” It’s about more than money. While Don and Melanie didn’t support her financially, they supported her in a million other ways, and as we’ve seen endlessly, Hollywood loves first-gen, second-gen and third-gen nepo babies. Dakota was able to walk into auditions as the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. That gave her an enormous leg up. It’s okay to acknowledge it and your own nepo privilege.

Dakota Johnson speaks to @hodakotb about ‘Madame Web,’ how she feels about the trajectory of her career, how her dad Don Johnson cut her off financially, her thoughts on the ‘nepo baby’ label and more.

And you’re always invited to join us all day, Dakota! pic.twitter.com/yd5grJOdDS

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 7, 2024

Photos courtesy of xRWx/Avalon Red, Avalon Red and Cover Images.

Well, King Charles’s biographer has done it, he’s managed to turn “Prince Harry traveled 14 hours to see his cancer-stricken father” into a “this is why Harry is the worst” story. Robert Jobson’s phone line must have burning up with all of the tips he got from Queen Camilla and Buckingham Palace senior staffers, all of whom sound incandescent about Harry’s whirlwind 25-hour trip to London. They are truly begrudging a loving son for his desire to see his father in person in the middle of a serious medical situation. These same “sources” would have been screaming to Jobson about Harry’s rudeness and insensitivity if Harry had not come to see his father too. Anyway, here’s Jobson’s latest in the Mail:

It’s easy to forget that the bond between King Charles and Harry, his ‘darling boy’, was once a source not just of affection but joy – a relationship even warmer than that between Charles and William, perhaps. The distance between them has now grown to the point that their conversations, where there are any conversations, have become mere echoes of the past. We have seen this, poignantly, in the last few days when, learning of his father’s shock cancer diagnosis, Harry jumped on a plane and flew 5,500 miles to see him.

Charles was widely reported to have been ‘touched’ by the gesture. Perhaps he was. Yet I am told that the reality is both more complex and more troubling – that Harry caused some disquiet by ‘taking it upon himself’ to fly over unbidden and at such short notice.

Put bluntly, the King was unhappy about what amounted to a fait accompli served up by an emotional but well-meaning son.

Charles just needs peace and quiet right now and had planned to fly off to the tranquillity of Norfolk with his wife, the Queen, much earlier on Tuesday. Yet thanks to Harry’s intervention, their Majesties were left kicking their heels at Clarence House, their main London home, while they waited for the errant younger son to appear.

It is striking that Harry was not invited to stay at Clarence House or, indeed, at any other royal residence. So last-minute was the decision to fly, that he had to book a hotel room for the night. And if the Prince had expected to spend some ‘quality time’ at Sandringham House talking about the good old days, perhaps, or rebuilding the paternal bond, he will have been disappointed.

What was actually said between them, only His Majesty, the Queen and the Duke of Sussex know, but half an hour (I’m told it was a 30-minute meeting, not even 45) was hardly enough time to rebuild the many bridges reduced to cinders. Not after all that disparagement of the Royal Family, all the misrepresentation pouring out of Montecito for a fist-full of dollars. After barely time for a greetings kiss and perhaps a hug, the King was heading with the Queen to Buckingham Palace to board the monarch’s Sikorsjy S-76C helicopter.

I cannot blame Harry for flying over. Whatever soothing noises might come from Palace courtiers, his father’s diagnosis is a serious matter. However, the Prince should also spend some time reflecting on the stress he has caused the King, not least when he was coping first, with the loss of his own father, Prince Philip and then, of course, his late mother, the Queen. Who could be surprised if Harry were welcomed with something short of open arms?

This impromptu visit, while well-intentioned, has served as a sad reminder of the continuing rift within the family, a burden Charles can ill afford in his current state when all his energy must be focused on the challenge of his health.

[From The Daily Mail]

TL; DR version: Harry was damned if did, damned if he didn’t. Harry visits his father, his father is unspeakably rude to him, and it’s “well, it’s Harry’s fault!” Harry doesn’t visit his father, and it’s “how dare he not come and personally change his father’s bedsheets!” As I said, Harry did what he did for himself, to do the right thing and know that he made the effort and he has a clean conscience. Charles is doing what he does best – bitch and moan about his son interrupting his busy schedule of traveling between palatial estates because Harry dared to take a 14 hour flight just to see him. Harry boxed them in – they look like complete a–holes for the way they’ve treated Harry and then having the audacity to complain about his visit after the fact.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

It’s always worth noting that there are deep fissures between the British media and the Windsors about whether the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are actually “wanted” back in the UK. The Windsors have insisted: no, the Sussexes are not wanted, especially not now, when they’ve been so successful outside of the UK. The British media is like: actually, we would love to have them back so we can abuse them mercilessly and they can save our industry and give us content. This has come to a head again this week – courtiers were reportedly “pleased” that Meghan didn’t join Harry during his 25-hour trip to the UK, all while King Charles made a point of meeting with Harry for less than an hour. Meanwhile, the media was screaming “where’s Meghan, why didn’t she come with Harry, she might even be warmly welcomed back, she should WANT to come back.”

Meanwhile, Meghan is protecting her peace and raising her children. Well, the Daily Mail paid a huge amount for these exclusive photos and ran them with this overwrought headline: “Meghan Markle flashes a smile as she breaks cover near her $14m Montecito home as Prince Harry flies home from London after meeting with King Charles amid his cancer diagnosis.”

EXCLUSIVE: Meghan Markle can’t stop smiling as she’s seen for the first time since Prince Harry met with cancer-stricken King Charles https://t.co/dHVOTGc7vx pic.twitter.com/yEoDStQCaO

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) February 8, 2024

The Mail doesn’t really have anything to add other than these pics were taken on Wednesday (while Harry was flying home) and that she was driving a Range Rover and sipping from a coffee mug. The Mail says Meghan was driving on “Los Angeles area roads,” yet the headline says “near her $14m Montecito home.” Which is it, because Montecito is hours away from LA? Anyway, the Derangers are having a fit, predictably. This is currently the top story on the Mail Online too. “No one cares about Harry & Meghan, they’re so unimportant!” Meanwhile, a woman driving in California is top news in Britain and every British newspaper did a liveblog tracking Harry’s movements for three full days.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.