I will start watching Heart of Invictus later on today, because I have a car appointment and I’ll probably be there for hours. I’ve been slightly surprised by the lack of promotion for the docuseries this week, but maybe Harry will do a bigger push next week ahead of the Invictus Games. I’m just saying, we’re due for some disruptor interviews from Harry. Harry saying ANYTHING in print or on TV always causes a full meltdown on Salt Island. I’m ready for it.

In the meantime, it turns out that Harry visited San Diego on Monday, all to attend a screening of Heart of Invictus. He spoke to the theatergoers and posed for selfies! He really flew under the radar too. No one had any idea that he traveled down to San Diego – Chula Vista, to be exact – until he appeared at this theater. The selfie and video is from IG user bonnie_pham.

Kind of wonder if Harry has some good friends in San Diego. Back in June, he also turned up in the city for the Warrior Games. He also spent time in Southern California in 2011, back when he was based at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro, California and training to fly Apache helicopters.

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Photos courtesy of the Today Show, Instar, Cover Images and Instagram.

In Spare, Prince Harry wrote about how Meghan’s last year on Suits was unpleasant because “the palace” kept calling up the producers and writers and vetting and vetoing storylines, dialogue and what have you. If I’m being honest, I mostly blame Meghan and Harry for that sh-t – Harry should have shut that down with the palace staff and said “are you f–king nuts, you can’t do that, you can’t make demands on an American TV show.” Meghan should have done the same – that was a huge red flag and the palace really crossed a professional boundary. But they were in love and eager to please, so they didn’t enforce that boundary. Well, Suits creator and writer Aaron Korsh has a gossipy piece in the Hollywood Reporter about the Summer of Suits – everyone’s watching it, everyone loves it and everyone loves the cast, especially Meghan. Some highlights from this THR piece:

Korsh believes that “Meghan Markle intrigue” fueled interest in the show, and he remembers when the news came out about Meghan and Harry dating: “Oh, I was as excited in some ways as everybody else… I mean, your initial reaction is, like, “We’re dating a prince!” (Laughs.) But the security and all that stuff, we shot in Toronto and the writers room was in L.A., so other people were dealing with that. I will say, and I think Harry put this in the book, because I heard people talking about it — [the royal family] weighed in on some stuff. Not many things, by the way, but a few things that we wanted to do and couldn’t do, and it was a little irritating.

What changes the Windsors wanted: “I remember one was a particular line of dialogue and, look, I’ll just say what the line was. My wife’s family, when they have a topic to discuss that might be sensitive, they use the word, “poppycock.” Let’s say you wanted to do something that you knew your husband didn’t want to do, but you wanted to at least discuss it, and in just discussing it, you wouldn’t hold him to anything he said, you’d be like, “It’s poppycock.” So, in the episode, Mike and Rachel [Markle’s character] were going to have a thing, and as a nod to my in-laws, we were going to have her say, “My family would say poppycock.” And the royal family did not want her saying the word. They didn’t want to put the word “poppycock” in her mouth. I presume because they didn’t want people cutting things together of her saying “cock.” So, we had to change it to “bullsh-t” instead of “poppycock,” and I did not like it because I’d told my in-laws that [poppycock] was going to be in the show. There was maybe one or two more things, but I can’t remember.

How was the royal family getting or reading scripts? “I don’t know how they got ’em. I was aware that they were reading them because I got the feedback, but I don’t remember the process by which they got them.

Whether Meghan told him that she wouldn’t or couldn’t say certain things: “No, Meghan did not call me. I can’t remember. It might have been the directing producer at the time, or her agent. Whoever it was, they didn’t like having to tell me any more than I liked having to hear it. But listen, when they explained it that way, and I’m pretty sure it got explained to me that it was about that [splicing potential], I had some sympathy because I wouldn’t want somebody doing that to her either. And the thing is, I didn’t think anybody really would, but also I don’t know. People are crazy.

[From THR]

If anything, he’s being too generous towards the palace. They were trying to exert control over Meghan and her career just because they were drunk with power. They did it because they could, because they loved the idea of micromanaging this woman before she even had a ring on her finger. I’ve said this many times, but I don’t know how the hell Meghan managed to navigate this bullsh-t, especially in the early years. Knowing what we know now, about how they were going out of their way to ruin M&H’s relationship and engagement, it feels like this kind of micromanaging was designed to actually scare the sh-t out of Meghan and get her to pull the ripcord on the relationship. And honestly, she would have been well within her rights. They were also, as I said, testing her boundaries and seeing what they could get away with.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, NBC/USA/Suits.

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Yesterday I covered an interview Jessica Simpson gave recently, but we didn’t get into the actual event she was attending, which was the PetSafe Unleashed contest launch. PetSafe is a group that facilitates the creation of dog parks across the country, and they’re holding a contest to celebrate their 25th anniversary. You can find details here, but the gist is that one community will be winning a brand new dog park. Last Friday’s event marked the first day you could enter the contest, and coincided with International Dog Day. I never knew that August 25 was International Dog Day. In my house Dog Day runs from January 1 – December 31, and it seems the same is true for Jessica Simpson. She shared with Extra how it’s Santa’s fault her family now has eight dogs:

On Friday, Jessica Simpson brought her doggy Penny Lane and her daughter Maxwell, 11, to PetSafe Unleashed in L.A. for pet owners and their furry friends.

“Extra’s” Terri Seymour spoke with Jessica, who told us she is making some new music.

She teased she will “have some of my southern roots back while I am in the recording studio.”

As for how she feels to be back in the studio, Simpson admitted, “It gives me chills thinking about it because I know that whenever I open this big old trap of mine, a lot is going to come out and it’s going to be really powerful. I finally feel connected enough to my purpose in music, and I know exactly what it is I want to do. It’s very exciting.”

Simpson said she feels like it is the perfect time to return to music. “I really wanted my kids to be raised as normal as possible in the first 10 years,” she said. “Like, I didn’t want to be on the road all the time, I didn’t want to be gone all the time, and I feel like I’ve given that to them.”

Terri also spoke to Maxwell, who is ready to follow her mom’s showbiz footsteps in singing, business, and fashion!

Jessica praised Maxwell’s singing, saying, “She has an unbelievable voice.”

While Maxwell noted that she’s “not a big stage person,” Jessica is gonna let her “test some waters” once she starts “touring next year.”

For now, Maxwell is all about the dogs!

Jessica shared, “Maxwell is a dog person, so we wanted to bring Penny here to see if she would socialize.”

As for how she ended up with eight dogs, Jessica explained, “When Max was younger, she asked Santa for a dog, and it’s happened every year for eight years, so Santa brings a dog every year.”

Between the kids and the dogs, is it complete chaos at home? Jessica quipped, “I don’t even know what life would be without chaos. I think I’d be very bored. I’m sure I complain at times that there’s too much going on, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

[From Extra]

I guess it’s lucky they celebrate one day of Christmas and not eight nights of Hanukkah, or they’d be overrun! I love love love my dog, but I can’t imagine having eight at once. If you have the space and money to handle it, though, and take in rescues, then more power to you. Penny Lane is a great name for a dog. I tried looking up the names of the rest of Jessica’s dogs, but could only confirm one, Dixie.

As for her human babies, I hope Jessica is being a proud mama but not a stage one. Just from reading the interview, it’s hard to get a sense of how much Maxwell is genuinely into singing.

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2023 has been a good year for Miley Cyrus. Her album Endless Summer Vacation was well-received and the single “Flowers” was a runaway hit. Most pop stars of Miley’s status would follow up an album release–especially a successful one–with a tour of some kind, but Miley doesn’t want to. She’s scaled back her touring dates a lot in recent years–she did a five city tour in 2022, and before that her last tour was in 2015. In her ABC special Miley Cyrus: Endless Summer Vacation, she explains her decision not to tour anymore. She says that it’s hard to get enough rest while on tour, and also that it “erases her humanity” to be seen as a “subject” by her fans when she’s performing. Okay, Miley. While there’s a grain of truth in what she’s getting at, she comes off really disconnected from reality.

Miley Cyrus is getting candid about the pitfalls of performing. The 30-year-old pop star says that touring “isn’t healthy for me” as she opens up about the demands of putting on a long-running production.

In her ABC special, Miley Cyrus: Endless Summer Vacation, as documented in her “Used to Be Young” series on TikTok, Cyrus says that serving as a cheerleader before becoming famous set a precedent for the expectations of life on the road.

“Traveling as a cheerleader really set me up for touring,” she shared. “The show or the competition may only be a day, and that’s what people don’t really understand about touring. The show is only 90 minutes, but that’s your life.”

Cyrus said that the wellbeing of the performer is not always paramount to keeping the show moving.

“If you’re performing at a certain level of intensity and excellence, there should be an equal amount of recovery and rest,” she said.

The “Jaded” singer also noted that she struggles to balance her ego with her humanity when constantly entertaining.

“There’s a level of ego that has to play a part that I feel gets overused when I’m on tour. And once that switch is on, it’s hard to turn it off. I think when you’re training your ego every single night to be active, that’s the hardest switch for me to turn off,” she admitted. “Having every day the relationship between you and other humans being subject and observer isn’t healthy for me, because it erases my humanity and my connection. And without my humanity, my connection, I can’t be a songwriter, which is my priority.”

[From Entertainment Tonight]

The part about not getting enough rest on tour? I can completely see that. I think that’s why Taylor Swift did the Eras tour on mostly Fridays and Saturdays. Miley has enough power in the industry to pull off something similar if she wanted to. But the rest of what she says is rather silly. It isn’t automatically egotistical to perform in front of a live audience. I grew up taking theater classes and I liked it because I got to be a storyteller and try on different personalities. Getting attention is fun but it’s not why I liked performing. The fact that Miley says she gets stuck in that ego state is perhaps…unintentionally revealing. It comes off so out of touch for her to talk this way about touring because with the advent of streaming and the decline in record sales, touring is how most musicians make a living. Miley gets to opt out of it because she’s already rich. I really can’t get over her statement that performing in front of an audience causes her to “lose her humanity.” By her logic, the act of singing live is dehumanizing because people are observing her, which is such an overstatement. I get that she’s talking about her own experience, and if she doesn’t want to tour, that’s her right. But it’s off putting how she describes it, when so many other music artists would do anything to have an audience like hers and be able to tour in arenas and stadiums.

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When Democrats passed Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act last year, one of the provisions was that Medicare, for the first time in its history, would be able to start negotiating drug prices directly with the manufacturers. The drug companies have to sign agreements by October 1 to join the negotiations, or else pay a fine. Yesterday, the Biden administration announced the first 10 drugs that are up for negotiation:

Eliquis, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb, is used to prevent blood clotting, to reduce the risk of stroke.

Jardiance, made by Boehringer Ingelheim, is used to lower blood sugar for people with Type 2 diabetes.

Xarelto, made by Johnson & Johnson, is used to prevent blood clotting, to reduce the risk of stroke.

Januvia, made by Merck, is used to lower blood sugar for people with Type 2 diabetes.

Farxiga, made by AstraZeneca, is used to treat Type 2 diabetes.

Entresto, made by Novartis, is used to treat certain types of heart failure.

Enbrel, made by Amgen, is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis.

Imbruvica, made by AbbVie, is used to treat different types of blood cancers.

Stelara, made by Janssen, is used to treat Crohn’s disease.

Fiasp and NovoLog, insulins made by Novo Nordisk.

CNBC broke down more details on the numbers, dates, and lawsuits involved with the new Medicare vs Big Pharma wars negotiations:

A new deal: “Today is the start of a new deal for patients, so big pharma doesn’t just get a blank check at your expense – at the expense of the American people,” Biden said in a speech at the White House on Tuesday. “On my watch, health care should be a right, not a privilege, in this country.”… The drugs listed Tuesday are among the top 50 with the highest spending for Medicare Part D, which covers prescription medications that seniors fill at retail pharmacies. The 10 medicines accounted for $50.5 billion, or about 20% of total Part D prescription drug costs from June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS… In 2022 alone, 9 million seniors spent $3.4 billion out-of-pocket on the 10 drugs, a senior Biden administration official told reporters Tuesday during a call.

Rules of the game: Drugmakers have to sign agreements to join the negotiations by Oct. 1. CMS will then make an initial price offer to manufacturers in February 2024, and those companies have a month to accept or make a counteroffer. The negotiations will end in August 2024, with agreed-upon prices published on Sept. 1, 2024. The reduced prices won’t go into effect until January 2026. If a drugmaker declines to negotiate, it must either pay an excise tax of up to 95% of its medication’s U.S. sales or pull all of its products from the Medicare and Medicaid markets. The pharmaceutical industry contends that the penalty can be as high as 1,900% of a drug’s daily revenues. After the initial round of talks, CMS can negotiate prices for another 15 drugs for 2027 and an additional 15 in 2028. The number rises to 20 negotiated medications a year starting in 2029 and beyond.

The empires strike back: Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Astellas Pharma are among the companies suing to halt the negotiation process. The industry’s biggest lobbying group, PhRMA, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed their own lawsuits. The suits make similar and overlapping claims that Medicare negotiations are unconstitutional. The companies argue that the talks would force drugmakers to sell their medicines at huge discounts, below market rates. They assert this violates the Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay reasonable compensation for private property taken for public use. The suits also argue that the process violates drugmakers’ free speech rights under the First Amendment, essentially forcing companies to agree that Medicare is negotiating a fair price. They also contend that the talks violate the Eighth Amendment by levying an excessive fine if drugmakers refuse to engage in the process.

Big pharma wants to take this to the Supreme Court: The suits are scattered in federal courts around the U.S. Legal experts say the pharmaceutical industry hopes to obtain conflicting rulings from federal appellate courts, which could fast-track the issue to the Supreme Court. Some drugmakers have confirmed their intention to bring their legal battle to the nation’s highest court. “As we look forward, we’re going to take this to the fullest, which means we’ll take it through District Court and, if need be, into Circuit Court and ultimately to the Supreme Court,” Merck CEO Robert Davis said during an earnings call earlier this month. “So, really that’s the strategy.”

[From CNBC]

“But your honor, this policy violates my client’s right to make a fortune off the sickness of seniors!” Which amendment is it again that protects businesses against any ethics or morals? The eleventy-first? None of the drug companies’ retaliation strategy is surprising, but the depth of their Scrooge McDuckiness is still always startling. And I’m very concerned about what will happen when these cases reach the hands of the current Supreme Court. I mean, can you imagine what Clarence Thomas’ response to Medicare will be? “Bitch, I haven’t paid out-of-pocket for anything in thirty years. Not my fault that you have!”

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Dalton Gomez got dumped by his wife Ariana Grande and then, just days later, he had to watch as she rolled out her relationship with Ethan Slater. Ethan and Ariana’s affair broke up two marriages, with Ethan’s estranged wife Lilly Jay going public with exactly what she thinks of Ariana. Dalton has not done the same, and I even halfway believe that Ariana dumped him weeks before anything was announced in July. Dalton is apparently doing the sad-sack thing, moping around for the paparazzi and leaking these kinds of stories to Us Weekly:

Dalton Gomez is navigating a new chapter in his life after his split from estranged wife Ariana Grande.

“It’s been a little while since Ariana and Dalton split, but he’s been adjusting to his new normal and learning to accept it for what it is,” a source exclusively tells Us Weekly. “It’s certainly not how he expected things to play out because he obviously assumed they would be together forever.”

The insider notes that for Gomez, 28, the experience of being married to a pop star was new. The realtor was used to “living a private life” prior to the twosome sparking a romance in 2020 and finds that having his personal life play out in the spotlight can be a challenge. He never imagined he would be going through a divorce in the public eye,” the source explains. “But he’s hanging in there and is grateful for his friends and family who have been really supportive.”

[From Us Magazine]

This actually sounds mature and reasonable. No wonder he didn’t fit in with Ariana’s melodramatic world. I mean, Dalton could be doing the same thing Lilly Jay is doing – he could bash Ethan and give quotes about how Ariana broke his heart and cheated on him. Instead, he’s just sort of moving on with his life. I hope Ariana gives him a nice divorce settlement and they just forget about each other completely. Meanwhile, we haven’t heard much of anything about Ethan and Ariana for weeks now. I wonder if they’re even still together, don’t you?

Note by CB: Get the Top 8 stories about Ariana’s Grande’s messy affair when you sign up for our mailing list! I only send one email a day on weekdays.

Ariana Grande’s estranged husband, Dalton Gomez, ditches wedding ring after split https://t.co/NJorXpwD2e pic.twitter.com/hDYzOKxSRQ

— Page Six (@PageSix) August 29, 2023

Photos courtesy of Instagram.

Eminem sent a cease-and-desist to Vivek Ramaswarmy after Ramaswarmy rapped “Lose Yourself” at the Iowa State Fair. Marshall is so anti-Republican. [Jezebel]
Irina Shayk is on vacation (with Bradley Cooper). [Egotastic]
Henry Cavill will star in a Highlander reboot? [JustJared]
Margot Robbie was almost in American Horror Story: Asylum. [OMG Blog]
Bad Bunny did a photo dump & maybe Kris Jenner is behind it. [LaineyGossip]
I actually love this Oscar de la Renta coat but not the trousers. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Pajiba did some royal coverage of the Prince Andrew situation. [Pajiba]
These vacation/travel fails are infuriating. [Buzzfeed]
Kendall Jenner wore Shang Xia last week. [RCFA]
What’s your “holy grail tote bag”? Mine is from Coach. [GFY]
Adele was so real for this. [Socialite Life]

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It honestly took me a good ten minutes to figure out what the hell was happening here. At first, I thought Hailey Bieber was being paid to shill Krispy Kreme donuts and I was like “I would do that for free.” Then I thought Hailey was launching her new Rhode products AT Krispy Kreme, and I was like “you can rent out a Krispy Kreme for product launches??? OMG!” But now I get it – Hailey has done a “collaboration” with Krispy Kreme and her Rhode label. Basically, Hailey is offering Rhode peptide lip treatments in Krispy Kreme flavors, and Krispy Kreme is bringing back Strawberry Glazed Donuts in association with their Rhode collab. Truly, we all win here.

So, these photos are of Hailey and Justin Bieber going into a Krispy Kreme in New York and just… talking with staff and posing for photos. Hailey was all dolled up in a great red (“strawberry”) minidress, while Justin wore Crocs, shorts, a hoodie and a baseball cap. He really made a point of not dressing up for her event, although he did promote her sh-t on his Instagram. Are you getting some kind of vibe from them? The vibe I get from her is that she’s increasingly embarrassed to be seen with her perpetually underdressed husband. After the trip to Krispy Kreme, they went to lunch at Bar Pitti. She booked it out of the restaurant too, like they had a fight.

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The Venice International Film Festival begins this week, although it’s happening in a somewhat different form. There will still be premieres and events, but the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes rage on, which means that most SAG-card-carrying union members are not going to show up to promote jacksh-t. Still, many non-American actors will show up and promote their work, although I do wonder how many. A few films have already canceled their premieres and promotions because no one will show up.

So, against that backdrop, I was surprised to see George and Amal Clooney arrive in Venice. It’s been almost nine years exactly since their Venetian wedding, and they usually spend their summers at George’s Lake Como estate, so it’s not weird to see them out and about in Italy in general. But they are in Venice for the film festival, just not to promote a film. According to People, Amal is being honored at Diane von Furstenberg’s 14th Annual DVF Awards on Thursday. DVF is hosting the awards AT the film festival for the first time. So, that’s why they’re there. Amal will receive the DVF leadership award “for her global work for victims of human rights abuse.”

Will they also attend premieres at the festival? Would that be considered scabbing for George? It depends on whether SAG-AFTRA issued any waivers specific to the festival or certain films, I think. Hm.

Amal’s ensemble is cute – I appreciate that she wears low heels and she’s not towering over her husband. She loves a short skirt, always has. Amal and I have similar taste in sunglasses too – the bigger, the better. George looks really nice as well. Well-rested. Ah, to spend the summer in Como every year.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

One of the Windsors’ biggest mistakes of the past thirty years was the decision to shrug off Prince Harry and Meghan’s offer to be “half-in” the institution. The Sussexes came up with an elegant solution to everyone’s problems: Harry and Meghan would still have royal protection, they would still represent the crown, they would still work for the crown, but they would be able to live in Canada or America and build their lives away from the toxicity of Britain. We were told that QEII hated the idea. In retrospect, I think that William, Charles and the courtiers hated the idea. The Windsors bet big on the idea that Harry would come crawling back if only they dealt with him with all-stick and no carrot. All of those decisions made in January 2020 have blown up in the Windsors’ faces for years now. They know it too. Which is why they keep trying to relitigate it in their favor and justify their boneheaded decision. Speaking of:

Prince Harry won’t be accepted as a “part-time royal” by King Charles or Prince William, a royal expert has warned. Both the Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan Markle decided to sensationally quit royal duties in 2020 and have since moved to the United States to carve out a new life. It had been reported that Harry and Meghan previously wanted a “half in, half out” role with the royals, but this was vetoed by the late Queen.

And according to royal author Tom Quinn, the new monarch Charles and heir to the throne and Harry’s older brother Prince William will also not tolerate a “part-time” role for the Sussexes.

He told the Express: “The whole emphasis between King Charles and Prince William is that you cannot go against the late Queen’s firm belief that you can’t be a part-time royal. You can’t hobnob with celebrities in America for six months and then come back here and pick and choose which events you want to be part of. I don’t think Charles and William will agree to that simply because Elizabeth hated the idea.”

[From The Daily Mirror]

Gotta love the rewrite on this narrative, because it wasn’t so long ago that the grey-beard courtiers were telling Charles that he could and should change “the Queen’s ruling” on the half-in situation. Of course, that’s partly the Windsors’ obsession with control – they want to believe that if THEY decide to change course, Harry will come to heel and accept their ruling. While QEII and the courtiers had their own punitive, unhinged reasons for rejecting the half-in solution, it turned out to be the best thing for Harry and Meghan. Harry broke free of his abusive family, he’s rich, happy, thriving and living the life he always wanted. If the half-in solution had been accepted, God knows what kind of control the Windsors would still be trying to exert over Harry and Meghan’s lives.

Anyway, there’s another reason why the media and the Windsors continue to relitigate the Sussexit – it’s because there’s a huge division in “what the family wants” versus “what the media wants.” Charles, Camilla, Kate and William are so petty and insecure, they are genuinely happy that they don’t have to compete with the Sussexes on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the media is starving for anything related to the Sussexes and they’d do anything to bring them back (anything other than “be nice to them and treat them fairly”).

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.