Since the SAG-AFTRA strike started in July, many multi-hyphenate celebrities have been finding work-arounds to do interviews and promotion. Take, for example, Selena Gomez. Selena is an actress, beauty company founder and singer – she can promote her music and makeup whenever she wants, but she’s strictly prohibited from promoting anything as an actress, per SAG-AFTRA guidelines. The prohibition on promotion includes social media. Well, Selena has been posting stuff on her social media about music, makeup and her life, but this week, she also posted something on Instagram about Only Murders in the Building, her show which is currently airing on Hulu. She ended up deleting it after people called her a scab!

An Instagram post that tagged her Hulu series “Only Murders in the Building” was pulled from Selena Gomez’s profile after she was accused by many followers of breaking SAG-AFTRA strike rules. The post appeared to be a video from the set of the comedy show. Gomez tagged the official Instagram account for “Only Murders in the Building” in the caption for the video and added: “Missing and wanting.” The post generated over 1.1 million likes in 15 hours before it was pulled from Gomez’s profile.

Variety has reached out to Gomez’s representative. SAG-AFTRA declined to comment on the matter.

SAG-AFTRA’s strike rules prohibit members from promoting their work via press interviews or social media posts while the strike persists. Gomez did not speak in the set video nor did she encourage followers to watch the show in the caption, but she did tag the official “Only Murders in the Building” account. The tag led followers to assume the video was from the set of the Hulu series. Whether that constitutes a rule break was being debated. Many of Gomez’s followers accused her of scabbing, with one follower calling the post “tone deaf” amid the strikes.

Given the strike, Gomez and her co-stars have not given any interviews about Season 3 episodes. New episodes premiere each Tuesday on Hulu.

Gomez recently made headlines for returning to her music career with the release of her new song “Single Soon,” which dropped Aug. 25. The track is a standalone single and is not attached to any album at this point. Gomez is able to freely promote her music as that does not interfere with SAG-AFTRA strike rules.

[From Variety]

Was the post promotion? Sure, I think so. Even if it’s debatable, it’s best to err on the side of caution. I wonder what preceded Selena’s deletion – as in, I wonder if some SAG official called her and spoke to her. From what we’re seeing in the trade papers and on social media, SAG-AFTRA’s leaders are being extremely active and responsive when it comes to herding their wayward members back into the flock. Sarah Silverman questioned the strike waivers and they had her on the phone with Fran Drescher within 24 hours. Stephen Amell scabbed and questioned the strike and they had him holding a sign at a New York strike inside a few weeks. I’m just saying, I bet Selena got a call from Fran or someone high-up.

why is selena gomez promoting her show during a strike? She’s soooo selfish pic.twitter.com/MdKgiMhp6d

— JONETI (@jarianaoutdid) August 30, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and Instagram.

The source of this latest royal rumor is British OK! Magazine, which I would obviously take with a grain of salt. The only reason I’m a bit wary is that OK! Mag was also the source of that mind-numbing “peace talks” story two weeks ago, where sources claimed that King Charles and Prince Harry would quietly meet after the Invictus Games. That story ended up infuriating Prince William and he barked down the phone to several reporters about how HE would never have peace talks with the brother he despises. I’m just saying, OK! Mag’s royal sources might actually be up to something. In any case, those sources claim that the Princess of Wales is the one full of anger, rage and contempt these days. Kate will “never forgive” Meghan OR Harry. Forgive them for what? Seeing Kate as a pitiful Mean Girl with baby brains?

Kate will never forgive Meghan! “She’ll never forgive Meghan for what she did,” a well-placed source reportedly told Ok!, in reference to some of the things she said about the family during the infamous Oprah Winfrey interview in March 2021, as well as being partly involved in the decision to step down as senior royals, among other things. “It was the ultimate betrayal. The wounds are just too deep to be easily healed,” the source added.

Kate is also unwilling to forgive Harry! But as willing as she is to get the brothers on good terms again – or at the very least, speaking terms – Ok!’s source revealed that she isn’t willing to forgive the Duke of Sussex herself, especially after some of the things he wrote in his bombshell memoir, Spare, which was released in January this year. “Kate has drawn a hard line in the sand — she’s not changing her mind about them. They never apologized for their lies,” the insider reportedly told Ok!, in reference to Harry and Meghan’s attacks on the royal family in the Oprah interview, their Harry & Meghan Netflix docuseries, and Harry’s memoir. “But it’s harder for William because Harry is his brother,” the source continued, adding, “It’s a horrible situation all around.”

William’s olive branch: “William wants to extend an olive branch to Harry,” the source continued. “It’s a shocking about-face, but he feels it’s long overdue.” And although the Princess of Wales *may* want her husband to patch things up with his brother (if we are to believe the sources from previous reports) Ok!’s source thinks that she doesn’t want them to be “let back in” and continue like nothing has changed. As per the source, Kate thinks “Harry and especially Meghan have done enough damage to the royal family, and will do even more damage if they’re let back in.”

[From Yahoo]

Well, we’ve gone from “keen peacemaker” to “linchpin of the monarchy” to “Kate will never forgive Meghan for telling her story!” To be fair, no one ever believed that Kate was a peacemaker or a linchpin or anything other than utterly disposable to the monarchy. Kate is absolutely a Mean Girl, and I’ve come around to the idea that Kate is really, at heart, a manipulative sh-t stirrer. It would not surprise me at all if one of her favorite activities is winding up William. It’s also clear that Kate is a flagrant liar, and she’s probably still furious about Meghan correcting the record about Kate’s Big Lie (“the Black woman made me cry”).

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.

It’s been a few months since the Heritage Foundation provided content for their “niche” British newspaper partners. Heritage is an American think-tank, but they have several British right-wing psychos attached to the foundation, and those Brits decided to waste everyone’s time and resources by going on a months-long fishing expedition for Prince Harry’s visa application. Heritage filed a FOIA request for Harry’s visa, a request which was based on nothing more than “Harry wrote about his drug use” and “how dare the American government keep sensitive immigration documents private.” DHS has rejected Heritage’s repeated attempts and nuisance court hearings to get their hands on Harry’s visa, citing Harry’s right to privacy (the same right to privacy as every immigrant). It’s not a coincidence that the Daily Mail is running this piece as an exclusive just a week before Harry’s breezy visit to the UK, not to mention the Dusseldorf Invictus Games.

Prince Harry still has a right to privacy in regards to his US immigration files despite publicly disclosing intimate and personal details about his life, the Department of Homeland Security says. The Duke of Sussex had no qualms when it came to sharing private information in his memoir Spare – in which he even includes an anecdote about his frostbitten penis – as well as his six-part Netflix series with wife Meghan Markle late last year. But the DHS has argued that such previous public disclosures does not mean his visa records should be released, in a new legal filing which sought to dismiss an appeal by conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, to obtain the documents.

Nile Gardiner, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, told DailyMail.com that the response by DHS was a ‘disgrace’. He said: ‘The Biden administration should come clean over what’s contained in the immigration application. So far they are refusing to release the records which suggests that clearly there is something to hide. Prince Harry himself should support the release of his immigration records – if he has nothing to hide’.

DHS initially rejected the application and the Heritage Foundation filed a lawsuit in a court in Washington after its administrative appeal stalled. Both sides were asked by a judge to try to work out differences on key points, but after that failed DHS filed a request for summary judgment, or to dismiss the case. In the document, DHS went further than arguing that Harry still had a ‘right to privacy’ as it has done from the start. Now it claimed that even his disclosures made in his memoir and TV series did not mean it should have to hand the documents over.

Jarrod Panter, Acting Associate Center Director for Freedom of Information at DHS, wrote: ‘Prince Harry has not consented to the release of records related to or reflecting information about him. Despite the public role that Prince Harry has played in the UK and despite information that he has disclosed regarding his personal life, he still maintains a strong privacy interest in his immigration status and information about him reflected in (immigration) records. Prince Harry has not publicly or officially disclosed his status in the United States and has not surrendered all rights to personal privacy’.

DHS wrote: ‘Even though he is a public figure, Prince Harry still maintains a privacy interest in these types of records and in his immigration or visa status generally. Even if public figures may have a diminished expectation of privacy, they do not surrender their privacy interests entirely.’ The filing added that ‘were this not the case, a requester could go on a fishing expedition for (government) records for any celebrity at all’.

[From The Daily Mail]

There are more pissy, indignant quotes from that Heritage douchebag, but I let’s leave it at that. Heritage’s whole argument was always bullsh-t, and I’m glad DHS called them out in legal documents. If DHS granted the FOIA, they would be opening themselves up to releasing the immigration records of every celebrity, if not every immigrant. This months-long Heritage hissy fit is harassment and they need to back the f–k off.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

I’m currently on the fourth episode of Heart of Invictus, the Netflix docu-series following veterans in the lead-up to the 2022 Invictus Games at The Hague. It’s a fantastic series, done well at every level – there are sad, heartbreaking parts, but it’s so uplifting too, and every single person involved with Invictus is so inspirational. It’s not a showcase for Prince Harry, it’s a showcase for what Harry built with Invictus, his vision and his passion for rehabilitating veterans and ending veteran suicide. It’s absolutely despicable that the British media’s takeaway from the series has been “Harry trashes his family yet again.” As I said yesterday, the Windsors are flat-out desperate to attach themselves to Harry and his work. They’re trying to hijack Invictus and turn it into a story about how “Harry lied.” Becky English at the Mail wrote a new piece: “Harry reopens his war wounds: He’s been quiet for months, but now the Duke’s back on Netflix and moaning there was no ‘support structure’ to help him after Afghan tour.” Imagine writing “moaning” while 22 veterans kill themselves every day.

After a period of relative calm, Prince Harry reopened old wounds with fresh swipes at the Royal Family today, claiming no one helped him as his life ‘unravelled’ after returning from Afghanistan. The Duke of Sussex used a new Netflix documentary series to air his gripes following months where the once-regular blasts at the royals from the California-based prince had seemingly subsided.

In his Heart of Invictus documentary series, focusing on his sporting tournament for injured veterans, Harry said he felt no emotion and was unable to cry when he came home from war and finally confronted the trauma of losing his mother. The duke said his biggest struggle was that ‘no one around me could really help’ – despite the fact that in 2017 he credited his brother Prince William with being ‘a huge support’.

Tonight several sources with knowledge of the situation over the years raised eyebrows at Harry’s claims. While stressing they would not belittle his personal experiences, one suggested he had an ‘ongoing selective memory’.

Harry served two Army tours in Afghanistan, writing in his biography Spare how he had killed 25 Taliban insurgents in his Apache helicopter. He said mental health was a ‘dirty word’ in 2008 when he served his first tour, and it was only when he returned from his second in 2013 that he became aware of the trauma he had kept bottled up since Princess Diana’s fatal car crash 16 years earlier.

He told the documentary: ‘I didn’t have that support structure, that network or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me. Unfortunately, like most of us, the first time you consider therapy is when you are lying on the floor in the foetal position probably wishing you had dealt with some of this stuff previously.’

His claim, however, appears at odds with an interview he gave in 2017, in which he said: ‘My brother, you know, bless him, he was a huge support to me. He kept saying this is not right, this is not normal, you need to talk to [someone] about stuff, it’s OK.’

[From The Daily Mail]

This is grotesque. The fact that the Windsors are briefing their favorite royal reporters about Heart of Invictus, the fact that Harry’s words are being used willfully out of context, the fact that William wants “credit” for telling Harry to get therapy in 2017. Harry’s reference was to the larger lack of support for veterans dealing with PTSD, physical trauma and emotional trauma. He was speaking of his own mental health journey and how and why he founded Invictus. He was speaking to and for the thousands of veterans who experience something similar, to let them know that it’s natural and there can be healing. The Mail has no fewer than six stories about this one thing, this “Harry slams his family” lie. They are psychotic.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

From CB: There are so many great sales for Labor Day on Amazon that I’m having a hard time figuring out what to buy! I really want this set of vacuum sealed canisters for my pantry and refrigerator. The set of three now on sale for 30% off. Here are some sales and some things Rosie and I are looking at on Amazon.

All the Labor Day Sales
Up to 30% off premium beauty products from Laneige, The Face Shop, and more
Up to 39% off Samsung Galaxy A8 Tablets
Up to 41% off Waterpik Oral Care
Up to 45% off DEWALT Tools and Accessories
Up to 21% off Bose Headphones, Speakers, Frames and Soundbar
Up to 21% off Gillette & Venus
Up to 50% off Echo Devices
Up to 43% off Bio Bidet Seats and Attachments
Up to 34% off LifeStraw Water Filtration Products
Up to 30% off Stanley Drinkware and more
34% off Bissell CrossWave Cordless Max All in One Wet-Dry Vacuum Cleaner and Mop
17% off Dyson Cordless Vacuums
Up to 30% off Ninja Blender, Kettle and countertop fryer
29% off Ninja AF161 Max XL Air Fryer
33% off Jackery Solar Generator 500 for Outdoor RV/Van Camping, Overlanding

68% off Neutrogena Rapid Firming Peptide Eye Cream

CB: Neutrogena Rapid Firming Peptide Eye Cream is formulated with cucumber extract, camellia leaf extract and peptides to depuff and brighten the delicate undereye area. It’s currently on deep discount for under $15. This listing has over 6,000 reviews, 4.3 stars and a B on Fakespot. Reviewers say it really works to depuff their eyes and fade dark circles. “The past year I’ve dealt with puff under eyes and horrible bags. I’ve tried several different things. Nothing has worked until this. I noticed a slight difference after the first application. I’ve been using it a few days now and my bags are almost gone.” “I love this eye cream! Other products can dry the area around my eyes out , this one really moisturizes and I think it’s helping with puffiness and dark circles.”

30% off The Face Shop’s rice water foaming facial cleanser

From CB: I’m always looking for new face washes to try. The Face Shop rice water foaming cleanser is on sale for under $9 for Labor Day! This is a gentle cleanser that is suitable for sensitive skin. This listing has over 16,000 ratings, 4.5 stars and a B on Fakespot. People say it cleans really well and leaves their skin smooth and soft. “I love this cleanser. You only need a little bit of it every wash and it cleanses your face really well. It leaves your face feeling so smooth and silky!” “My skin is smooth, bright, and has virtually zero blemishes after only 2 weeks of using this. I’ve even gotten compliments.”

30% off a Surge Protector, Multi Plug Outlet Extender

From CB: I have so many devices charging near my bed. This surge protector fits over your outlet and comes with three USB plugs, a USB C plug and five more outlets. It’s currently on sale for 30% off at under $14. It has over 5,700 ratings and 4.5 stars on ReviewMeta. Reviewers say the night light is not annoying and that it’s just what they need to charge everything. “These give off an awesome ambient light. Low enough not to annoy, but bright enough to get bearings at night. The multi outlet access it great when your a tech guy like me. I never need to go far if I can’t find a wall adapter for my USB cord.” “This is great quality, has a cool “backlight” effect, and works like a champ. It’s nice to have all our devices in one spot now. Very convenient.”

45% off LilyAna Naturals Retinol Cream

From CB: LilyAna Naturals Retinol Cream is a bestseller and is a vegan formulation with retinol, hyaluronic acid and jojoba butter. It’s currently on sale for almost half off at under $17 for 1.7 ounces. This listing has almost 39,000 ratings, 4.5 stars and a B on Fakespot. I’m going to pick some up when it’s on such deep discount. People say it reduces wrinkling and that they’re surprised at how well it works. “I have been using this faithfully since April and I just noticed this week that I no longer have parenthesis wrinkles around my mouth. It feels very moisturizing as well.” “I am new to the retinol game. I bought this to try and I absolutely love it! I am 52 years old and have definitely noticed a difference in my fine lines.”

20% off Vintage-style, embossed glass coffee mugs that make perfect gifts

From Rosie: This gorgeous set of 14oz embossed glass cups come in 7 different styles and are currently on sale for around $21 per set. They’re versatile, as well, and can be used for hot or cold coffee, tea, ice cream, etc. They have a 4.7 star rating, more than 2,200 reviews, and an A on Fakespot. People love how beautiful yet sturdy they are. “Love the designs on the side and that they are stackable, so I don’t have to worry about them slip-sliding in the cabinet. They are great for coffees, ice cream, puddings, etc.” “Charming vintage glass cups – a perfect addition to my coffee bar! These cups not only evoke nostalgia but also elevate the aesthetics of the space. Their timeless design adds a touch of elegance to my coffee corner.”

33% off Magnetic tiles for hours of STEM fun

From Rosie: My older son could entertain himself for hours with these magnetic tiles. In fact, he still plays with the set that they have at his after-school program. They come in sets of 60 or 100, and right now, the 100 piece set is on sale for $20 off. They have a 4.9 star rating, more than 29,600 reviews, and a B on Fakespot. Reviewers also rave about how much their kids love them. “I love the Picasso magnetic tiles! My two-year-old absolutely loves them and asks me to build a house with him every single morning.” “My grandchildren ages 9,7 and 5 enjoy these magnetic tiles so much. They make new things every time they play with them. From castles to spaceships. I will be buying another set so they can build bigger buildings!”

$70 off an ice maker that makes nugget-sized ice cubes

From Rosie: My MIL has one of these and she is absolutely obsessed with it. I know they can be pretty expensive, but this one is on sale for $70 off right now. It comes in 7 different colors, but not all of them are currently on sale. It has a 4.3 star rating, almost 600 reviews, and an A on Fakespot. In reviews, people are impressed with how nicely it makes pellet-sized ice. “This is the perfect ice maker if you love the small soft ice to eat. I absolutely love it.” “I absolutely love this machine. It is easy to use makes some noise but not bad. The ice is just the right size for chewing (almost like sonic ice). I freeze any ice that is left over and just as good out of the freezer. Easy to clean with the self clean feature. I am so glad I finally made this purchase!”

30% off bamboo serving trays for breakfast in bed, TV dinners, and more

From Rosie: These bamboo trays remind me of what my mom used to use when I was a kid and she’d let us sit on the floor and eat for family movie nights. They are currently on sale for 30% off. They have a 4.5 star rating, more than 1,500 reviews, and a B on Fakespot. People comment about how lightweight and sturdy they are. “I needed this post surgery and it became one of my favorite items! Its lightweight yet sturdy. The legs fold easily and is well made.” “Absolutely love how compact and light these are to carry, store and fold up. We use these regularly while we eat midnight snacks in bed or watch movies and eat.” “These are lightweight yet sturdy trays. Large enough to hold dinner plates, yet not too big and cumbersome.”

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell froze up again on Wednesday. I’m sure there’s a more technical medical term we should use, like “a neurological incident” or “he sh-t his pants,” but most media outlets are going with “freezing up,” so there you go. It was a little more than a month ago when McConnell froze up and went dead-silent in front of a media scrum within the Capitol. At that time, we also learned that his health has seemingly deteriorated significantly this year and that he’s been falling a lot. He face-planted on a plane (which got covered up) and he was away from the Senate for months as he “recuperated” from a mysterious fall this spring. Well, I don’t know who’s treating him, but they’re not doing a very good job. LOL.

This was during another little press conference, this time in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky. He had apparently just met with “business leaders” in the area. That meeting was probably a mess. It feels perfect that he froze up this time when asked about reelection. The woman who came up and put her arm around him… you know she pinched him or elbowed him in some way to try to get him to snap out of it.

Anyhoodle, I don’t feel bad. This man is the reason why Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett are on the Supreme Court. This man is the reason why Obama’s agenda was largely suffocated in his second term. This man is decrepit, nasty old turtle and if he wants to stroke out on national television, let him. Oh, look, a different angle!

Biden’s reaction!

@willfulchaos pic.twitter.com/7wHZX4uZw7

— willfulchaos media (@willfulmedia) August 30, 2023

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

So, I finally started Heart of Invictus. I made the mistake of watching it on my ipad at a car dealership, so I was weeping in a corner as people buzzed around me. What struck me, first of all, is how Harry is still the heart of Invictus. I don’t mean that he centers himself or that the show is all about him, but Invictus is his baby and it’s his vision that people are buying into. I loved the glimpses of the Invictus Games team, like the corporate team, and all of the team leaders in other countries. Early in episode one, during the pandemic, one of the team leaders asks somewhat softly if Harry and Meghan are both confirmed for The Hague games and she’s so pleased when she’s told that they are 100% coming. The star power they have.

The next thing that blew me away was how the series is simply done beautifully. It’s a slick series, and I don’t mean that as a negative. The wounded warriors’ stories and biographies are front and center, but it’s done in a matter-of-fact yet glossy way. I have some early favorites among the veterans – the Korean veteran Na Hyeongyoon, who speaks in poetry, not prose. Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, the Ukrainian medic who makes dirty jokes, has tattoos and smokes like a chimney. Gabe George, the American who is living in agonizing chronic pain but greets everyone in his life with love and positivity.

Heart of Invictus centers the veterans’ stories and the uplifting and powerful message of hope, transformation, healing and building a new life after military service and injury. But it also does something else: it shows that this is Harry’s legacy, that he had the vision for this, that he built this extraordinary thing which gives wounded warriors a path to find healing. This is why the British media has been ranting and raving about Harry “slamming his family” in the series – the Windsors are desperately trying to attach themselves to Harry yet again, because this is a showcase for why the family was contemptibly stupid to treat him the way they did.

Netflix released another teaser:

Everyone is here — and the world is watching. The Heart of Invictus is now streaming. pic.twitter.com/4yQAZHzUPW

— Netflix (@netflix) August 30, 2023

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

I love rom coms and am always down for a good Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, JLo, or the non-Hallmark holiday movie. The Queen of Rom Coms, Meg Ryan, is back in a romantic comedy that she directed and co-stars in with David Duchovny called What Happens Later. The movie takes place in an airport with a former couple running into each other when their flights are delayed. It’s based on Steven Dietz’s play Shooting Star and Ryan co-wrote the screenplay with Dietz and playwright Kirk Lynn.

Meg Ryan is throwing it back to her rom-com heyday. On Wednesday, Bleecker Street debuted the first trailer for What Happens Later, in which Ryan, 61, and David Duchovny, 63, star as a former couple who unexpectedly reunite after decades apart when a snowstorm strands them at the airport. Their separate flights delayed indefinitely due to weather, Willa (Ryan) and Bill (Duchovny) catch up on the more than two decades that have passed since their breakup.

A synopsis for the film describes Willa as a “magical thinker” and Bill as a “catastrophic one.” When they reunite, they “find themselves just as attracted to — and annoyed by — one another as they did decades earlier.”

“But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence, or something more enchanted.”

What Happens Later was made to recapture the “cheeky magic of Ryan’s rom-coms of the 90s,” according to the synopsis. Ryan told Entertainment Weekly that rom-coms “really work when the two characters are somehow opposites and yet have a rhythm of intellect and humor and dialogue and banter that sort of indicates their compatibility.”

“It’s just been really fun to see David embrace this guy who I don’t think is anything really like David. Whereas the Willa thing I can really relate to,” she added in the interview conducted prior to the actors’ strike. “To see him dive into every single scene in the fullest way, he’s funny, and he’s smart, and he’s dear, and irresistible.”

The star also shared how What Happens Later “evolves” the familiar genre.

“Sometimes there’s a question of: Will they be together? Will they not be together? For that reason, [What Happens Later] sort of evolves the rom-com genre just a little bit,” she said. “It’s also about old people, and it’s still romantic and sexy.”

At the Tribeca Film Festival in June, Duchovny teased the movie to PEOPLE: “It’s really good. What Happens Later, and it’s really a good movie. I mean, it’s just me and her, the whole damn movie, and it’s just a kind of throwback sweet film.”

[From People]

The trailer looks super cute. Sign me up! I have seen every single episode of “The X-Files,” so you had me at “Mulder in a rom com.” Anyone else love a good rom com and plan on seeing this? Even the film’s tagline of “They missed their connection” is hooking me.

I also kinda love that this new generation of romantic comedies just kinda picks up with the same actors who were doing them 20-30 years ago and adjusts for their age/place in life. (See also: Ticket to Paradise.) Oh, and for all of you X-Files nerds out there, What Happens Later is out in theaters on October 13, which coincidentally happens to be Fox Mulder’s birthday. Yup, I knew that fact off the top of my head. Anyway, in keeping with our theme of rooting for female directors, I hope this movie is successful for Meg’s sake. I’m definitely planning on seeing it.

photos credit: Avalon.red and screenshots via YouTube

Pope Francis laments the politicizing and “reactionary” Catholic Church in America. He’s not wrong, but… it’s not just in America, dude. [Towleroad]
Bradley Cooper & Irina Shayk will attend the Venice Film Festival? [LaineyGossip]
What is Temu? I’ve literally never heard of it. [Pajiba]
Lily Allen really loves to dress up to leave the theater. [Go Fug Yourself]
Josh Seiter is not dead, it was all fake. [Socialite Life]
I did not know that 80-year-old Calvin Klein has a “longtime” 35-year-old boyfriend. The boyfriend’s name is Kevin Baker. [Just Jared]
Handmaid and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett thinks people have “misimpressions” of the SCOTUS. [Jezebel]
Yara Shahidi wore Anonlychild. [RCFA]
Miley Cyrus was in Big Fish when she was a kid. [Seriously OMG]
Camila Mendes is vacationing in Capri. [Egotastic]
Sheryl Lee Ralph skipped her college graduation. [Buzzfeed]
A 90 Day Fiance star got bigger implants. [Starcasm]

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Jessie James Decker is a country music singer who is married to Eric Decker, a former NFL player. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of either of them. They weren’t ringing any bells for me, either, until I did some Googling and had a moment of, “Ooooh, these are those people!” You may remember Eric and Jessie from headlines back in 2017 when they spoke out against taking a knee at football games. Yeah, those guys.

Anyway, Jessie and Eric have been married since June 2013 and have three children, ages 9, 7, and 5. They recently announced that they’re expecting their fourth child and shared during an Instagram Q&A that the pregnancy was unplanned. Apparently the news was so unexpected that even Eric didn’t believe the news when Jessie told him.

Eric thought she was joking. [Eric] didn’t believe me, actually. He thought I was playing a joke on him … but I would never joke about something like this,” she told fans. “He literally thought [my sister] Sydney peed on a stick and we were, like, messing with him.” (Sydney and husband Anthony Bass welcomed their baby boy, Sonny, on July 27 and also share two daughters.)

He got there eventually. It took some time for Eric, 36, to fully come to terms with the situation. “I was like, ‘I’m not joking. This is real,’” Jessie recalled. “It was a shock for a while there, but then as soon as he knew it was real, I mean, you know him. … We love kids, so we’re like, ‘Yeah!’”

Surprise! The couple, who already share Vivianne, 9, Eric Jr., 7, and Forrest, 5, weren’t trying for a fourth baby. “I’ve gotten this question the most, probably. It was not planned,” Jessie explained during her Q&A. “We were very, very surprised.” Jessie reminded her followers that she’d “been telling Eric it was probably time to get a vasectomy,” but he never went through with the procedure. “I felt like we were done and I just feel like God always has other plans. So it was extremely shocking and surprising, but like, [we’re] happy [and] excited,” she said.

Eric has weird feelings about vasectomies. Last year, Jessie exclusively told Us Weekly that she had “no plans for a fourth” baby after previously attempting to convince Eric to get a vasectomy. “He won’t book it. … Just the idea freaks him out,” she said in January 2022. At the time, Eric acknowledged that “the papers are filled out” while he tried to come to a final decision. “It’s a little power being taken. That’s how I feel,” he told Us. “I’m a little nervous about it, to be honest. … You don’t know where life will take you in the next five years.”

Eric has even weirder opinions about vasectomies. One year later, Eric’s mind still hadn’t changed. “I keep asking him, ‘Go make that appointment’ and he won’t. He just won’t do it,” Jessie told Us in January. “He says it takes, like, his manhood away from him. So he’s just gonna leave it, I guess.”

[From US Weekly]

First off, congratulations to Jessie and Eric. I’m glad that when faced with a surprise pregnancy, they were able to look at their situation and make the choice that is best for their family. Everyone should get to do that. Niceties out of the way, I’m simultaneously side-eyeing and rolling my eyes at Eric Decker. Getting a vasectomy “takes his manhood away from him?!” Gag, miss me with that ignorance. I bet he’s one of those dudes who think it’s solely the woman’s responsibility to prevent pregnancy. The Deckers have also said in interviews that they don’t use any form of birth control. If you don’t want to get a vasectomy, it’s your choice not to, but if you’re not using any form of birth control, don’t act “shocked” when you end up with an oopsy baby, FFS. And don’t be surprised when you end up with baby #5, either.

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