Note by CB: We are looking for a comment moderator to work from 7am to 11am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. You do not need to have experience in WordPress, but it helps. Please do not have another job you do at the same time. It is OK if you are home with children as long as you can be in front of the computer at that time. If you are interested please email me at cbcomments@gmail.com with the name and email you use to comment on Celebitchy along with why you would like the job. It pays $20 per hour and I will be interviewing some candidates on Zoom. I really appreciate your interest, however I may not be able to respond to everyone. Thank you!
Halle Bailey & Javier Bardem looked cute at The Little Mermaid premiere in Mexico City. I wish Javi would have dressed up more though. [Just Jared]
This season of Ted Lasso is so messy & problematic, but at least the Colin storyline was okay-to-great. I loved the part about the Denver Bronchos. [Pajiba]
RHOM’s Lisa Hochstein might have planted a bug in her husband’s car? [Dlisted]
I loved all of the clips from Beyonce’s first Renaissance concert. [LaineyGossip]
All the details on Beyonce’s tour costumes. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Beavis & Butthead are judging Nicki Minaj. [OMG Blog]
Everyone’s raving about Emma Cline’s The Guest. [Jezebel]
Karlie Kloss is doing big jewelry with her pregnancy. [Egotastic]
Hug a Swiftie today, they’re in meltdown about her new relationship. [Buzzfeed]
Kate Beckinsale’s style is so extra, lol. [RCFA]
George Santos has legal issues in Brazil too. [Towleroad]
Taylor Swift and Matt(y) Healy are still happening, much to the chagrin of Taylor’s fanbase. I’m not entirely sure what the worst part is for the Snake Fam – is it that Taylor probably cheated on and dumped Joe Alwyn? Is that Taylor kind of sh-t talked Joe and her people made it sound like Taylor had to get out of a six-year relationship because Joe wasn’t comfortable with her fame? Is it that Taylor likely overlapped the start of her thing with Healy and the end of her relationship with Joe? Or is that Matt Healy seems like a rude, racist, bigoted mess? All of the above? Well, Taylor is still doing this boyfriend rollout, regardless of what her fans think. The Sun (a British tabloid) broke the Swealy story, then the first official appearances were in Nashville last weekend. Now their love tour has moved to New York:
Do you really wanna know where she was on … May 11? Taylor Swift and Matty Healy — who sparked romance rumors earlier this month — were spotted “kissing” on Thursday at Casa Cipriani in New York City, where “they sat next to each other at a banquette in the lounge,” an eyewitness tells Page Six.
The spy further told us that neither of them had ordered any food while they were “cuddling and kissing.”
Nonetheless, they weren’t completely on their own as Jack Antonoff sat with them, and “security was around them.”
For their outing, the “Anti-Hero” singer sported a green and yellow dress with velvet Mary Janes. She completed the look with her staple red lipstick while she sipped on her drink.
Healy, on the other hand, seemingly wore a suit to their date. Shortly after being spotted by our eyewitness, they left Cipriani “holding hands” while being covered by an umbrella to maintain their privacy.On May 3, sources told The Sun that the pair had been dating for less than two months but were already “madly in love.”
The London-to-Nashville-to-New York tour is giving me a flashback to the Tiddles Worldwide Love Tour in 2016. I’m saying that as a compliment – I adored the worldwide Tiddles Tour. They were having so much fun, they were enjoying the game so much. Maybe that’s the silver lining for the Snake Fam? This has a love-drunk Tiddles feel to it, something which is fun and exciting for several months and then burns out quickly. It will be curious to see how often Healy joins her while she’s on tour. The 1975’s summer tour starts in Europe in early June, so my guess is that they’re probably going to spend the next two weeks together or so and then they might be apart for much of the summer. We’ll see.
Here are the photos from their date night. Jack Antonoff is going to end up getting canceled by the Snake Fam too if he’s not careful.
Taylor Swift and Matty Healy spotted out for dinner with Jack Antonoff. pic.twitter.com/PCgOQToxav
— Pop Base (@PopBase) May 11, 2023
Prince Harry’s multiple lawsuits and court cases against the British tabloids are bad news for the Windsors. As I’ve noted, Harry is in a win-win position at the moment, especially with the current trial against the Mirror Group Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror. Harry’s argument is that there are hundreds of old Mirror articles which were sourced from illegal methods (phone hacking, bribery & blagging). The Mirror’s argument, from the very start of the trial, is that most of the articles were actually sourced through royal offices, i.e., the courtiers working for Harry’s father and grandmother were leaking sh-t about Harry constantly. Both scenarios prove Harry’s long-standing arguments: the tabloids are a criminal enterprise and the Windsors are in bed with the criminal British media. Harry knows a lot of secrets too, including the huge, secret settlement Prince William received from the Sun. Will more revelations like that come out? Hopefully. And it’s got the Windsors shaking in their proverbial boots. Some highlights from the Royalist’s latest piece:
Prince Harry’s upcoming testimony in his case against the Mirror: A friend of Prince William told The Daily Beast: “I think the family know he could say anything and no one is looking forward to it. Harry seems to be obsessed by the idea that everyone was in cahoots with the media, so presumably there will be lots more of that.”
William’s “very large” settlement from NGN: The Daily Beast understands that William settled with the paper for around £1m ($1.15m) and that while the exact terms of the deal were confidential, they were not kept secret from Harry, and that he could have participated in the deal and got a similar settlement.
Camilla is mad too: A friend of Camilla’s, whom Harry accused in his book of sacrificing him on her “PR altar,” told The Daily Beast that while the king and queen were “deeply hurt” by Harry’s actions so far, and were likely to be further upset if he repeats previous allegations or makes new ones in court, they “absolutely accept he has the right to his day in court like any other private citizen.”
Camilla’s connections to Mark Bolland & Piers Morgan: Asked if Camilla was unnerved by claims made in a skeleton argument submitted to the court this week that her and Charles’ former spin doctor, Mark Bolland, may have been the source of stories about Harry—including one that Harry had caught glandular fever after kissing girls—and that Bolland was a drinking pal of then-Mirror editor Piers Morgan (who has become one of the Sussexes’ most vituperative critics) and fed him stories, the friend said: “I’m sure it won’t be pleasant, but don’t forget, people have said all sorts of horrible things about her over the years and she hasn’t snapped yet. Anyone who knows her knows the idea she would have been encouraging Bolland to sell out Harry to the Mirror is just complete rubbish.”
Harry will testify for three days & Omid Scobie will testify too: As well as showing that Harry is due to be on the stand for three long days of testifying and cross-examination in early June, the timetable shows that next week, Sussex cheerleader and biographer Omid Scobie is due to testify on Harry’s behalf. Court papers suggest he will testify that when interning at the showbiz desk of MGN Sunday paper The People he, “was given a list of mobile telephone numbers and a verbal description of how to listen to voicemails, as if it were a routine newsgathering technique.”
“Harry seems to be obsessed by the idea that everyone was in cahoots with the media, so presumably there will be lots more of that.” The Mirror’s literal defense is “we got all of this info on Harry because his father’s staff briefed us over drinks and fancy meals.” Institutional gaslighting, my god. “While the exact terms of the deal were confidential, they were not kept secret from Harry, and that he could have participated in the deal and got a similar settlement.” I’m still stuck on this, because I seriously doubt that Harry learned about William’s secret 2020 settlement from William or William’s office. I still want to know how Harry learned of it and whether he knows the terms.
As for Camilla… Mark Bolland was HER PR guru, the one she convinced Charles to hire, the one who came up with Project Queen Camilla, a three-decades-long operation to make this conniving side chick the queen consort. All of the coronation hoopla has just emphasized (to me) that Camilla still isn’t ready for primetime – that her image is a house of cards, and Harry knows exactly what she did to him and what she did to Meghan too. Camilla thought nothing of wining and dining Jeremy Clarkson AND Piers Morgan last December, remember.
It definitely feels like the cyclical nature of fascism and stupidity is really kicking everyone’s ass lately. It would be less disconcerting if we, as a society, didn’t treat the twin movements of “ignorance” and “violent fascism” like they were brand new, like there’s no way to know how to deal with these people. Too many people have the memories of fruit flies, like they can’t even remember what f–king worked two and a half years ago. In 2016, CNN gave hundreds of hours of free media time to then-candidate Donald Trump. CNN would simply run his Nazi rallies live on air, with little to no fact-checking or commentary. That was largely the policy for cable news up until November 2020, when Trump lost his mind on Election Night and began spouting the lies which would lead to an armed insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. What news organizations learned from November 2020 through January 2021 is that they cannot just blindly platform Trump and his lies and his violent threats. They have a civic and corporate responsibility to not put him on air without any context.
Well, this week, CNN decided to play it like it was 2016 all over again. The day after Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carroll, CNN aired a “town hall” with the twice-impeached and currently indicted insurrectionist Donald Trump. As I said yesterday, it was grossly irresponsible on CNN’s part. CNN was widely criticized by all sides in the 24 hours after the town hall. Well, it got so bad that Anderson Cooper was ordered to make a statement about it at the start of his CNN show last night:
“You have every right to be outraged today and angry and never watch this network again. But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?” I’m so embarrassed for Anderson Cooper right now. What the f–k does he think he’s doing? Of course sensible people know that Trump is not “going away” any time soon. We also know that the white nationalist movement is not “going away,” but we would all agree that it would be f–king irresponsible for a news network to air a neo-Nazi town hall unedited, without fact-checking and without context, correct? Well, that’s exactly what CNN did. AGAIN. Just like they did in 2016 (and 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020). Why is CNN acting like November 2020 didn’t happen? That the insurrection didn’t happen? We shouldn’t have to watch as a major news network re-learns that it’s a bad idea to act as the go-to platform for a violent sexual predator, white nationalist and insurrectionist.
Here are some photos of Princess Beatrice at various events from the past week – on Tuesday, she was the royal guest at the Oscar’s Book Prize, and she wore a terrible ruffled dress. Beatrice and Eugenie were also included at the coronation – at Westminster Abbey, although I don’t know if they went to the palace afterwards – and at the coronation concert and the “big lunch.” It was nice that their uncle included them, I thought, especially since Prince Harry was so happy to see his cousins. The Yorks acted as buffers and that was fine.
It also felt like the public was actually happy to see Beatrice and Eugenie. However much we hate their father, Beatrice and Eugenie seem like shockingly well-adjusted women and they’re quite popular whenever they are out and about. So with all of the gloom and doom about how old and stale the “working royal” group is these days, what are the chances that Beatrice would actually step up and become a working royal? I tend to believe that Eugenie already has one foot out the door, and she’s clearly exploring her options outside of the royal family and outside of the UK. But Beatrice, as ever, wants to be a “working royal.”
Just days before the coronation, the Times of London ran a simple column by Frank Young, in which Young argued that King Charles should ask Beatrice and Zara Phillips to become “working royals” and RSVP some of the many invitations piling up at the palace. No matter what, we’re going to see a significant shift in the next year – we’ll either see the Windsors curtail their appearances significantly out of advanced age and laziness, OR we’ll see King Charles beg Beatrice and some other royals and royal-adjacents to pick up some slack.
E. Jean Carroll should sue Donald Trump for defamation again, because he’s still defaming her even after she won her civil suit. [Jezebel]
Lizzy Caplan wore purple tights out of nowhere. [GFY]
Justin Bieber has so many tattoos. [JustJared]
I’ve loved what we’ve seen of Beyonce’s visuals so far. [LaineyGossip]
Look at this good dog who won Best in Show!! [Dlisted]
I hate how much I love Penelope Cruz’s beautiful Dolce & Gabbana dress. [RCFA]
This week’s episode of Succession was sooo good (spoilers). [Pajiba]
A Ryan Reynolds-James Marsden crossover, in a great way. [Seriously OMG]
Why would anyone fill a swimming pool with nachos? [Starcasm]
Questions you should never ask an Australian. [Buzzfeed]
I really hope Disney destroys Ron DeSantis. [Towleroad]
Trump’s detailed story about the circumstances surrounding E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault allegation against him was bizarre pic.twitter.com/miNoWwrKpE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 11, 2023
Back in January, as Prince Harry promoted his bestselling memoir, he made it clear that he felt he and Meghan were owed an apology from his family. In the months since, no apologies were forthcoming, a fact which the British media reveled in, because they believed it was some kind of “own” of Harry, the fact that his dogsh-t family has continuously hurt, degraded and marginalized the Sussexes. In those months without apology, King Charles evicted the Sussexes from Frogmore Cottage, the home for which they paid $3 million-plus, and Charles publicly lobbied Harry to come to his coronation on Archie’s birthday. Harry and Charles finally communicated, Harry did the brief coronation appearance, and there’s no royal event coming up which the family can use as a cudgel to “force” or manipulate Harry into coming back. So here we are – Harry has made it clear that his home is in California with Meghan and their children, the Windsors have made it clear that they will continue to be despicable gaslighting abusers, and that’s it. So, of course, Prince William’s team wants to make it sound like it was all William’s call.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be kept at a “distance” by King Charles and Prince William for the foreseeable future, sources have told The Daily Beast. One source, a friend of William’s, told The Daily Beast that William and Kate Middleton’s opposition to Charles making frequent concessions to Harry would have to be respected by Charles, after he used the coronation to make a point of emphasizing their joint responsibility with him for the monarchy and its direction of travel.
On Tuesday, the day after the coronation celebrations formally ended, it was William and Kate who were the frontmen at a Buckingham Palace garden party for 5,000 people that Charles and Camilla did not attend. They are vastly more popular than the new king and queen.
The friend of William’s said: “It’s very clear that William and Kate are now extremely important members of the institution, so their view on Harry, which is basically the further away the better, will have to be taken into account. Put it this way: I don’t think anyone expects Harry to get an invite to William’s coronation.”
Sources have told The Daily Beast that William feels completely betrayed by his brother revealing his secrets and now “hates” Harry. Sources have told The Daily Beast he was particularly angered by Harry’s retelling the Nazi unform story in such a way as to implicate him and Kate.
A friend of Charles and Camilla told The Daily Beast that the “opportunity” and “pressure” for a solution to the feud that the prospect of the coronation had presented had now elapsed. The friend said: “The opportunity that was there for Harry to sort this out with the king is gone for now. Of course, Charles would always welcome a reconciliation with Harry and Meghan, he has made that very clear, and his door is always open in that regard. But now the coronation is done, I think Charles will want to focus on the job of being king, rather than to continue being distracted by Harry and Meghan drama.”
Asked if Charles was more willing to hit pause on the goal of reconciling with the Sussexes now that he didn’t “need” them at the coronation, the friend of the king said: “He’s not that cynical. But having Harry there was very important for him so, yes, there was pressure there. But he is immensely hurt by what Harry has done in the films and books, and Harry clearly feels aggrieved too, so I think a bit of distance now will suit everyone.”
These absolute gaslighting freaks. “The opportunity that was there for Harry to sort this out with the king is gone for now. Of course, Charles would always welcome a reconciliation with Harry and Meghan, he has made that very clear, and his door is always open in that regard.” After Charles refused to call Harry for months, after Charles made a point of “refusing” to see Harry when H was in town for the court hearing, after Harry laid out exactly what he wanted from his father publicly, suddenly Charles’s door is always open and it’s up to Harry to “sort this out.” And Charles is exactly that cynical – he communicated with Harry as a means to an end, to get Harry at the coronation. Now that’s over.
All that being said, Harry knows his father’s and brother’s myopic weaknesses more than anyone. These “leaks” from Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace probably mean that Harry is the one who has made it clear that they need to take his name out of their f–king mouths forever. The quotes from “a friend of William’s” are particularly telling – William is raging at his father and demanding that Charles stop trying to reconcile with Harry.
Over the years, I often noted the similarities between the Kardashian clan and the Middleton clan. At this point, though, Carole Middleton wishes she could be more like momager Kris Jenner. Kris Jenner found a way to build a billion-dollar empire out of Kim’s sex tape. Carole can’t even break even as she shills party supplies and her daughter will (probably) be Queen Consort one day. The tackiness and grasping nature of the Kardashians is also mimicked in the Middleton family, not to mention the unflattering clothes, wigs and heavy clown makeup. But that’s not the talking point the British media wants to discuss. Ever since those photos of Meghan hiking in Montecito came out, the Sun, the Mail and other British outlets have been obsessed with the fact that Meghan’s bodyguard (as seen in the pics) used to guard Kim Kardashian.
One is the queen of reality TV and the other is a bonafide royal star. But over the years, Meghan Markle has been well and truly keeping up with Kim Kardashian, from building an eerily similar media empire to snapping up LA mega mansions and even sending out identikit Christmas cards.
This week, we revealed another sign that the Duchess of Sussex is morphing into the superstar, after hiring her former bodyguard to protect her. The mystery guardian was snapped walking behind Meghan, 41, near her £14million home in Montecito, California.
Previously, he worked for Keeping Up With The Kardashians star Kim, 42, in 2016 — before and after she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris. And it’s far from the only similarity between two of America’s biggest stars – particularly since Meghan moved to the States with Prince Harry in 2020.
I mean… “the same bodyguard” thing is probably because Kim and the Sussexes hired the same security firm? One would assume? It’s not like this is a slam-dunk case of Meghan trying to become Kim Kardashian and it’s much more likely that Kim and the Sussexes can afford top-of-the-line private security and, as such, there is an existing pool of bodyguards within the A-list California community. That’s not nothing – Kim is literally a billionaire and I’m so happy that Kim and the Sussexes can all afford that kind of security.
Also: after watching the Sussexes’ Netflix docuseries, I can’t believe these people are still trying to convince everyone that it was a Kardashian-style reality show. I WISH IT WAS! I wish we could see the Sussexes at home, or building their Archewell team or whatever. We’ll probably never get that kind of content from the Sussexes. But we’ll probably get it in Prince William’s new “fly on the wall” documentary! Bill and Kathy Kardashian, where art thou?
Meghan Markle wears Princess Diana’s $22,000 watch and a $495 crystal necklace on hike https://t.co/99EM8LHEcE pic.twitter.com/e6UmuKfEiR
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) May 8, 2023
Meghan Markle wears Princess Diana’s watch on hike after skipping coronation https://t.co/5F45veM0zG pic.twitter.com/m8hEMgHr6U
— Page Six (@PageSix) May 8, 2023
Imagine you’re a member of the royal rota and regularly getting briefings from senior palace officials and courtiers. You could simply print what they say and keep the pretense of their anonymity… OR you could write about the larger narratives at play, and describe how Buckingham Palace officials are openly briefing against this royal or that one and why that is. This is one of the issues at play in Prince Harry’s many lawsuits against the British tabloids – while the papers got tons of information about Harry through criminal means (blagging, bribery and phone-hacking), they also got tons of information on Harry through his father’s office at Clarence House and through Camilla’s network. Instead of writing about how curious it was that Clarence House’s comms guru Mark Bolland was giving off-the-record briefings about a then-teenaged Harry, the royal rota just ran with whatever Bolland told them.
As Prince Harry’s civil trial against the Mirror Group Newspapers (publisher of the Daily Mirror) began this week, there’s already been some interesting positioning from both sides. While the Mirror’s lawyers admitted that some of their reporting came from criminal means – and they already apologized for it – they also said that many of their reports came from then-Prince Charles’s office or other royal courts.
Tabloid newspaper stories about the Duke of Sussex came from other members of the royal family, the high court was told today. Prince Harry claims he was the victim of unlawful information-gathering by the publisher of the Daily Mirror between 1995 and 2011. He says the King and his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, were also targeted, as were former girlfriends, leading to “huge bouts of depression and paranoia”.
Andrew Green KC, representing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), told the court the publisher “unreservedly apologises” for the use of a private investigator for one story about Harry but denies that 28 of a sample of 33 articles about the duke involved unlawful activity.
“Many came from information disclosed by or on behalf of royal households or members of the royal family,” Green said in a written statement. One of the articles came from an “on-the-record interview given by [Harry]”.
David Sherborne told the court: “We all remember the images of [Harry] walking behind his mother’s coffin. “From that moment on, as a schoolboy and from his career in the army and as a young adult, he was subjected, it was clear, to the most intrusive methods of obtaining his personal information.”
Omid Scobie, co-author of Finding Freedom, a book about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, claims as a journalism student he spent a week at the showbiz desk of The People and “was given a list of mobile telephone numbers and a verbal description of how to listen to voicemails, as if it were a routine newsgathering technique”.
While I have every faith in Harry and his legal team that they have extensive evidence of the Mirror’s illegal activity, I also think that the Mirror blaming it on palace briefings is a win-win for Harry. Yes, he’s got enough to prove that the Mirror employed illegal methods to gather information on him (thus proving his case), but he might also get some answers about just how badly his father’s office was briefing against him when he was a teenager and in his early 20s. It would be a hilarious turnabout if the Mirror’s defense is actually naming the courtiers leaking sh-t about Harry all of his life.
On Tuesday, a New York jury unanimously found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carroll, the woman he raped in a Bergdorf dressing room and then smeared from the White House. On Wednesday, CNN went ahead with their “town hall” event with Donald Trump. CNN did not cancel their event with a twice-impeached serial sexual predator and unrepentant white supremacist. Full disclosure: I did not watch it and I want to pretend that none of this is happening, that Trump is a political nonentity, but I get that it’s very likely that Trump gets the Republican nomination again. So here we are. Some lowlights from CNN’s platforming of a racist predator insurrectionist.
On the 2020 election & January 6th insurrection: “I think that, when you look at that result and when you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happens,” Mr. Trump said, calling the election he lost “rigged.” Mr. Trump later said he was “inclined” to pardon “many” of the rioters arrested on Jan. 6, 2021, after the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob during certification of President Biden’s Electoral College win. His avoidance of an unequivocal promise pleased people close to him. He also came armed with a list of his own Twitter posts and statements from that day — an idea that was his, a person familiar with the planning said. He lied about his inaction that day as Ms. Collins pressed him about what he was doing during the hours of violence. And he said he did not owe Vice President Mike Pence, whose life was threatened by the mob, an apology. “A beautiful day,” he said of Jan. 6.
On abortion: Before the town hall, his team spent considerable time honing his answer to a question they knew he would be asked: Would he support a federal ban, and at how many weeks? His repeated dodges and euphemisms were hard to miss on Wednesday. “Getting rid of Roe v. Wade was an incredible thing for pro-life,” he began. That was about as specific as he would get. He said he was “honored to have done what I did” — a line Democrats had quickly flagged as potential fodder for future ads — and that it was a “great victory.”
On E. Jean Carroll: Mr Trump was asked directly about Tuesday’s verdict in the E Jean Carroll civil case, when he was ordered to pay about $5m (£4m) in damages for sexual abuse and defamation. He repeatedly denied having any contact with the writer despite a photo emerging of them together. “I don’t know her. I never met her. I had no idea who she is,” he said. The audience in New Hampshire then laughed as he he mocked Ms Carroll’s claim and called it “fake news”.
On Russia’s war in Ukraine: “I don’t think of winning or losing, I think in terms of getting it settled,” he said. “I want everybody to stop dying.” He added that he thought Russian President Vladimir Putin made a mistake in invading Ukraine but, when asked, would not label him a war criminal.
[From The NY Times & BBC]
There was obviously a lot more, like Trump calling the moderator a “nasty person” and the new Hampshire audience laughing constantly at Trump’s unhinged “greatest hits.” President Biden’s team watched the town hall and they cut an ad and put it online quickly, and the people running Biden’s social media accounts were on top of what was happening. It actually does feel like we’re going to get a repeat of the 2020 election, Biden v. Trump.
There were not fine people on both sides of Charlottesville.
The January 6th rioters were not good people.
End of story. pic.twitter.com/1Jc9yQwTvh
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 11, 2023
It’s simple, folks.
Do you want four more years of that?
If you don’t, pitch in to our campaign.https://t.co/EwCflbYn22
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 11, 2023