I’m still reeling from the toxicity of the Sussex-Spotify breakup. It genuinely seems like Spotify leaked the split to the Wall Street Journal, forcing Archewell to rush out a confirmation of the end of the Sussexes’ contract, then Spotify’s executives ran a smear campaign on the Sussexes… all while saying nothing about their antivaxx golden goose, Joe Rogan, as Rogan made an ass out of himself within the very same newscycle. It was a lot. Now Us Weekly reports that the Sussexes are bothered by the “cheap shots” but they’ve got tons of other stuff in the pipeline.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are ready to move forward after their Spotify deal fell through — but they aren’t too pleased with how news broke of their exit from the platform.

“Spotify was supposed to release a statement saying how great it was to work with Meghan, but they didn’t,” a source exclusively reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly, adding that the team behind the scenes “had been pushing Harry and Meghan for more content over the last year.”

According to the insider, the royal couple “weren’t delivering” on what Spotify needed before the deal came to an end earlier this month.

The Suits alum, 41, got word “a while ago” that her “Archetypes” podcast was being scrapped, a second source tells Us. (Spotify exec Bill Simmons later called out Meghan and Harry, 38, for being “f–king grifters” as the deal fell apart.)

“It seems to be one assault after another these days, with people lining up to take cheap shots at them,” the insider says. “Quite frankly, both she and Harry are sick and tired of it.”

Despite their deal ending in disappointment, the duo already have their sights set on a new chapter with “a ton of exciting things in the pipeline,” the second source adds. “[They’re] ready to come back stronger.”

[From Us Weekly]

Some of you have shared a theory that Spotify was actually trying to strike a new deal with the Sussexes, but Harry and Meghan wanted out, and they wanted to negotiate a new deal with Ari Emmanuel’s help. Some or all of that may be true – Spotify was definitely acting like your toxic ex who went around claiming that he dumped you. But I’m also sick of people lining up to take “cheap shots” at the Sussexes and I wish they would do more to combat this stuff. I get that they don’t want to answer every single unhinged story, but this was a different situation – Bill Simmons, a Spotify executive, was on the record calling them “f–king grifters.” They would have been well within their rights to clap back publicly and on the record.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Spotify.

The way it works is that Supreme Court hears their docket of cases for a whole session, then the session ends and the justices go off on their holidays and their decisions are released then. Clarence Thomas is probably sitting on a billionaire Republican donor’s yacht right now, fingering some Nazi memorabilia. Today, SCOTUS announced their decision in a pair of cases involving affirmative action in college admissions. The Supreme Court overturned the use of affirmative action. Congrats to American colleges and universities, you get to admit thousands of Beckys with bad grades, all while marginalizing the Black and brown kids who want to be doctors and scientists. As you would guess, Clarence Thomas, a shining beacon of affirmative-action employment, wrote the majority opinion dismantling affirmative action in colleges.

The Supreme Court on Thursday effectively overturned the use of affirmative action in college admissions policies, a practice that allows universities to consider a prospective student’s race along with factors such as academic merit, athletics, and extracurriculars. The court’s 6-3 ruling came after it heard arguments in a pair of challenges to affirmative action policies in place at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University.

ln its ruling, the court determined that race-conscious admissions violates the equal-protection clause under the U.S. constitution: “While this Court has recognized a ‘tradition of giving a degree of deference to a university’s academic decisions,’ it has made clear that deference must exist ‘within constitutionally prescribed limits.’ [The universities] have failed to present an exceedingly persuasive justification for separating students on the basis of race that is measurable and concrete enough to permit judicial review, as the Equal Protection Clause requires.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas argued, “Far from advancing the cause of improved race relations in our Nation, affirmative action highlights our racial differences with pernicious effect. In fact, recent history reveals a disturbing pattern: Affirmative action policies appear to have prolonged the asserted need for racial discrimination.”

Meanwhile, in a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor cited data showing that, “Racially integrated schools improve cross-racial understanding, ‘break down racial stereotypes,’ and ensure that students obtain ‘the skills needed in today’s increasingly global marketplace . . . through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints.’ ”

“More broadly, inclusive institutions that are ‘visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity’ instill public confidence in the ‘legitimacy’ and ‘integrity’ of those institutions and the diverse set of graduates that they cultivate,” Sotomayor added.

Long a tool used to to help remedy historical discrimination and create more diverse student populations, proponents have argued affirmative action helps increase opportunities to underrepresented groups, including people of color. Opponents argue that the practice unfairly strips white people of those same opportunities and amounts to racial discrimination.

[From People]

Imagine writing this with a straight face: “Affirmative action policies appear to have prolonged the asserted need for racial discrimination.” Clarence “Reverse Racism!” Thomas. Mr. Why Are You Being Racist To Becky With The Bad Grades??? While I’m sure a lot has changed since my college days, it feels like most universities and colleges genuinely want to keep their affirmative-action admissions policies in place – rarely were these cases about a college arguing that their policies were unfair, it was always about some wealthy white bigot crying that they can’t go to Harvard because of all of the “quota admissions.” I wonder if universities will find work-arounds in their admissions process, or if universities are just going to be for white kids exclusively now.

Wow. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissent. pic.twitter.com/ica3ED6LZq

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) June 29, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Instar.

Angelina Jolie wrote a powerful essay about nurses & racial bias. [LaineyGossip]
Tom Hanks’ niece had a full meltdown on the show Claim to Fame. [Dlisted]
Hayley Atwell absolutely needs to fire her hair stylist. [RCFA]
Would you book the Barbie Dreamhouse Airbnb? [OMG Blog]
Cultural vandal David Zaslav is wrecking all of these beloved cultural institutions for nothing. I can’t even see how it’s being done for profit? [Pajiba]
Check out Naeem Khan’s resort line. [Go Fug Yourself]
Idris Elba & Archie Panjabi? I’m there. [Just Jared]
David Corenswet, before he was Superman. [Seriously OMG]
Really, so much of 2016 was a horrible fever-dream. [Jezebel]
April Love Geary is enjoying her vacation. [Egotastic]
Stories about people with Main Character Syndrome. [Buzzfeed]
Kevin Spacey is on trial this week in London. [Towleroad]

Prince William spent weeks hyping his big new pledge, his bid to “end homelessness” in five years. He gave on-the-record interviews. His staffers were sent out with grandiose quotes about how William is the savior of homeless people and he alone can solve this crisis. William organized a six-city tour to launch his big initiative, only Homewards should be renamed Flopwards, because this program is DOA. It’s a Classic William problem too – he’s only interested in the PR aspect and he compulsively overpromises and overhypes. Homewards would have been an okay project – the Royal Foundation giving away £3 million to help with housing for homeless people – if William hadn’t spent weeks telling everyone that this was the biggest, the best, the keenest, the most significant project ever. Flopwards was blasted by actual experts in the field, and Kensington Palace was on the backfoot immediately, huffily declaring that this was not a “PR stunt.”

Well, I simply cannot get enough of how badly this launch is going. William’s final stop of his six-city launch blitz was in Aberdeen, Scotland. Given all of the hype for Flopwards, surely William’s staff would have done the appropriate advance work to ensure that their primary royal would arrive in Aberdeen to a modest crowd? Not so much:

Prince William arrives in Tillydrone, Aberdeen as part of his tour of the UK discussing his Homewards campaign.

This is one of six locations chosen for the project hoping to ‘demonstrate it is possible to end homelessness’.@LBC | @LBCNews pic.twitter.com/bPNzw5vIdw

— Alan Zycinski (@AlanJZycinski) June 27, 2023

Enjoying that spotlight you demanded, Peg? He spent all of that time and all of those resources to push out the Sussexes and embiggen himself, and this is the result. To be fair – I have no idea why – but he did get some crowds in Belfast earlier in the day. But it looks like Aberdeen wasn’t buying it. Or it could be as I said – dogsh-t staff work. William and Kate do not surround themselves with competent, hard-working professionals. Because like attracts like, they’re staffed by dumbasses who allow their primary to walk into this kind of catastrophic photo-op. Meanwhile, the Scottish media outlet The National had this piece about the lack of engagement:

Did they not tell anyone he was coming? That would be one explanation for the complete absence of any Union flag-waving crowds of royalists during Prince William’s visit to Aberdeen on Wednesday. The number of journalists was far bigger than the number of people excited to see the noble Duke of Rothesay do some of the royals’ trademark walking about and nodding at stuff. In fact, two of those leaning on the fence – apparently put there to keep the baying mob away from his highness – seemed to be there by accident more than anything else. A “heya” and a nod was all William got from one of them. Isn’t Aberdeen meant to be one of the more pro-royal areas of Scotland?

Responding to clip of the missing crowds of adoring royalists, Bella Caledonia wrote: “Mass disinterest in Tillydrone as feudal relic masks their uselessness with performative social justice stunt …”

National columnist Gerry Hassan wrote: “Royal fever not exactly breaking out in Tillydrone, Aberdeen. If this was Harry and Meghan the right-wing press would be drooling about this on their front pages. I have no problem with the Prince of Wales taking homelessness as his cause … but either the PR department at the palace didn’t get the info out, or the crowd barriers were a teensy bit optimistic …” Peter Arnott added.

Another quipped: “Apathy reigns.” Unfortunately not. It’s still the Windsors.

[From The National]

Ouch. Between this and the massive republican demonstrations in Scotland during King Charles’s coronation, it genuinely feels like we’re going to see a Scexit at some point in our lifetimes.

Thank goodness there were crowd control barriers#WillyWashing pic.twitter.com/1g7Qktwwwx

— #NotMyKing (@NoKingCharlie) June 27, 2023

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Remember when the royal-rota hive-mind was trying to force a narrative about “Prince Harry and Meghan’s marriage is struggling, Harry stays at hotels and they party separately?” It was always a false narrative, but even more than that, it was projection. Whatever lie they’re pushing about the Sussexes, we can assume that they’re actually saying the truth about Prince William and Kate. There’s a growing body of evidence to suggest that William and Kate live separately and that William has disentangled himself from the Middletons in recent years. Does it follow that Will and Kate are on the brink of divorce? No – this is arguably the most aristocratic venture Kate has ever been apart of. Many couples of the British aristocracy live like this, with separate homes and separate lives, but staying together for the titles, the kids and for their reputations. But we’re still getting glimpses of William behaving like a divorced guy, including a boys’ night out with his bros last Friday, just hours after William was groped by his wife at Royal Ascot.

He’d spent most of Friday at Royal Ascot alongside his stunning wife Kate – but by the evening, Prince William was spotted enjoying himself at KOKO nightclub in Camden. Footage shows the Prince of Wales, 41, dressed in a light blue shirt, holding a beer and dancing from side to side while at the concert venue and former theatre in London.

Appearing in a private box alongside two friends, including Prince Louis’ godfather and nightclub owner Guy Pelly, the heir to the throne seemed relaxed while enjoying his Friday night at the electronic-themed evening.

Wearing an open collar blue shirt and clutching a drink, the father-of-three showed off his best moves by dad dancing on the balcony of the bar.

It comes after the heir cringed over his dancing at the coronation concert, joking to a fan that ‘dancing sober is always a bad idea’.

[From The Daily Mail]

Guy Pelly is married too, so this was probably billed as just a fun night out with two middle-aged husbands and fathers, a time to catch up and dance and drink. Maybe that’s all it was – maybe it was Guy Pelly telling William that they should go out and have a drink for William’s birthday last week. But it does feel like… something else. Also, for those critics who think I’m going overboard here, just imagine that Prince Harry had been seen out with a dude friend, drinking and dancing at a nightclub without Meghan. That would be THE story in the UK for weeks, there would be royal experts providing wall-to-wall commentary about how a Sussex divorce is in the cards. They already did all of that without any photos!!!

Prince William is spotted enjoying a night out at KOKO nightclub in Camden https://t.co/xqTc56CAn4

— Daily Mail Australia (@DailyMailAU) June 28, 2023

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

The Princess of Wales is actually “working,” you guys. I’m shocked! Back-to-back days where Kate is doing events! Don’t get too excited though – immediately after Wimbledon, Kate will probably be off for the summer, with nothing on her schedule until October. Let’s drink this in while we’re getting it. Yesterday, Kate attended the opening of Hope Street, a sort of privately-run alternative to jail. Today, Kate opened up the Young V&A. Let me explain – since 2018, Kate has been the patron of the Victoria & Albert Museum, commonly known as the V&A Museum. The V&A used to run the V&A Museum of Childhood, only now they’ve rebranded it as “The Young V&A” after a three-year, £13m renovation. The Young V&A is now reopening this summer.

I didn’t remember this dress, but it actually is a rewear. Kate wore this pink Beulah dress to the 2021 Wimbledon men’s final (Novak Djokovic beat Matteo Berrettini). It’s absolutely hilarious that she did back-to-back events on consecutive days and she repeated two dresses she had previously worn to Wimbledon. It’s also funny because I bet she shows up in all-new dresses to Wimbledon, which starts next week. Anyway, Kate has Wimbledon on the brain, that much is clear. Anyway, I dislike this dress! Pale pink is not her color, sadly. I wish she understood that she looks so much better in deeply saturated reds and yellows.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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In the Wall Street Journal’s article about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex last weekend, WSJ buried an interesting detail in their negative, tabloid-like assessment of the Sussexes’ “flop.” WSJ noted that “News Corp’s Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has a content partnership with Spotify’s Gimlet Media unit.” The same Gimlet Media unit which worked alongside the Archewell Audio team. Thus, it was the Gimlet team leaking all of that weird sh-t about the Sussexes, and the far-reaching empire of Rupert Murdoch was eager to disseminate every negative story about the Sussexes.

Speaking of, we now know that Murdoch’s empire has a connection to UTA – the Wall Street Journal is represented by UTA, and UTA’s CEO Jeremy Zimmer decided it was a good look to say, at Cannes Lions last week, that Meghan is talentless. The ol’ UTA-WSJ-Murdoch-Dow Jones-Gimlet connection, all working in concert to smear, insult and lie about the Sussexes. Well, as it turns out, Zimmer’s comments are being seen within the industry as incredibly unprofessional. Which is true – I’ve been shocked by the lack of professionalism across the board, not just with UTA’s CEO, but with Spotify saying nothing as their executive publicly trashed the Sussexes.

Pearls were clutched all over Hollywood on Monday in the wake of an unlikely press beef – United Talent Agency CEO Jeremy Zimmer and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. On a media spree at the Cannes Lions for the past week, Zimmer was asked about the recent meltdown of a $20 million multi-year deal Meghan and husband Prince Harry signed with Spotify in 2020. The pact produced a single series, “Archetypes,” which was not renewed. The termination of the deal was announced June 15.

“Turns out Meghan Markle was not a great audio talent, or necessarily any kind of talent,” Zimmer told Semafor at the marketing festival in the South of France. “And, you know, just because you’re famous doesn’t make you great at something.”

His comments were “mind-blowing,” according to one A-list talent manager who asked to remain anonymous. “As an agent, you never publicly discuss your own talent or anyone else’s.”

A top agent from a UTA competitor called Zimmer’s quote “a shocking display of bad taste. Who wants to sign with someone who trashes people like that in public?”

Indeed, the polished suits of the representation business treat their roles behind the scenes as virtue — so rarely stepping out in front that it’s a shock when they offer on-the-record defenses (as CAA’s Bryan Lourd did for his client Scarlett Johansson during her battle with Disney) or speak broadly about larger issues like discrimination (Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel’s decrying of Kanye West’s antisemitism in 2022).

Zimmer’s Markle diss boiled over Monday afternoon, when the New York Post reported that the agency had pursued the formal senior royals as potential clients when they first moved to Los Angeles (an individual familiar with UTA said no meetings were ever scheduled or held with the Sussexes). In April, Meghan landed at a major talent house, signing with WME.

The Zimmer insider added that the CEO fielded relentless questions about Meghan and Spotify the day of his Semafor interview, as a lengthy Wall Street Journal piece about the Sussexes made its way around the world.

Taking the Sussexes out of the equation, another top dealmaker said “I don’t care who it is, decorum is decorum. I feel for the staff.” Variety spoke with three UTA agents on Monday, who declined to be named in this piece but admitted they were “embarrassed.”

[From Variety]

“…A shocking display of bad taste. Who wants to sign with someone who trashes people like that in public?” Exactly. Not only did Zimmer trash Meghan, he ONLY trashed Meghan. Not Harry. He trashed the woman who actually produced a very popular podcast, a podcast which won awards. There’s something about Meghan – gee, I wonder what?? – which makes so many of these white men lose their f–king grip on reality. Not only that, Zimmer’s comments look like sour grapes, given that UTA was trying to sign the Sussexes.

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty, Cover Images, Instar.

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The Flash had a disappointing opening weekend at the box office when it opened last week, grossing only $55 million domestically against a $200 million dollar budget. Now in the second week of its release, it’s dropped off even more. Since this movie and its parent studio, Warner Brothers, are completely cursed these days, I felt more than a little bit of Schadenfreude. They’re on track to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. Would the studio have been better off shoving the movie onto “Just Max” or not releasing it at all? Walk with me as we learn just how badly this movie tanked on its second weekend, courtesy of Coming Soon:

The Flash may end up losing Warner Bros. $200 million at the end of its box office run.

The new DC superhero movie starring Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash and Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman has premiered in theaters. During its opening weekend, it grossed an underwhelming $55 million at the domestic box office. In its second weekend, that dropped 72% to a mere $15.3 million, with some pundits already predicting this will be a box office bomb.

According to Luiz Fernando, the film is estimated to earn $280-310 million globally in its theatrical run. When pitted against The Flash’s $200-220 million production budget, $150 million in marketing, and the fact that studios don’t take all of their box office haul, the movie may lose $200 million for Warner Bros. Fernando believes they may have lost less money by releasing it on Max or not releasing it at all.

[From Coming Soon]

We been knew, as they say. Why WB released this film while canning Batgirl, I will never understand. Ezra Miller’s behavior has been heinous for years. The fact that David Zaslav didn’t see the writing on the wall after Miller was out there on a crime spree for months getting restraining orders and felony burglary charges… it just shows what a bad leader Zaslav is. In case anyone had any doubts. A combination of superhero and multiverse fatigue, overexposure of the character (The Flash TV show was on the CW forever!) and a deeply problematic star? That’s box office poison for sure. But these jokers asked for it, the second they took their bottom line more seriously than whatever crimes their star was committing.

To borrow a phrase from a band I loved in middle school, the only thing worse than beating a dead horse is betting on it. That’s exactly what Warner Brothers did. They bet on something that was sure to fail and what did it get them? I know the sunken cost fallacy is very hard to override psychologically, but if there were ever a time to cut one’s losses, it was with this movie. While we’re here I’d just like to say that Batgirl‘s star, Leslie Grace, is by all accounts a lovely young lady. Batgirl also cost about $90 million before marketing. I’m not a math genius, but some back-of-the-napkin calculations reveal that it would have been much easier to make back $90 million at the box office than $200 million with a disgraced star.

Photos via Instagram/WB and credit Avalon.red

The last time we checked in on Tom Holland, he said he was taking a year off from acting. The reason he gave for his hiatus was that filming the Apple TV+ show The Crowded Room “broke him.” I predicted then, before there were many reviews, that the show sounded like a dud and that Tom was miscast based on the trailer. Now that more reviews are in, my suspicions were correct. It has a 48% on Metacritic and the consensus is that it tries to withhold a “twist” that you can see coming if you just do a rudimentary Google about the project, or just read the context that every news outlet publishes alongside descriptions of the show. It’s also apparently quite slow. Anyway, Tom is still promoting The Crowded Room and appeared in a video on the Unilad YouTube channel. I think Unilad is kind of similar to Buzzfeed? I don’t know it that well. He talked about the negative reviews and how he’s used to disappointment because of his football (soccer) allegiances. He also mentioned what he hopes people get out of watching the show and advocated for mental health awareness.

Tom Holland is hopeful his TV miniseries “The Crowded Room” will touch fans despite negative reviews.

The 27-year-old actor appeared on Unilad’s “Get a Job” series Friday where he addressed the Apple TV+ psychological thriller, which he starred in and executive produced.

“It’s no secret that my show has been so horribly reviewed,” he said.

Holland’s character Danny Sullivan in the series, based on the 1981 novel “The Minds of Billy Milligan,” is arrested after a shooting at Rockefeller Center in 1979.

Indie Wire graded the show a C-, Variety called it “empty” and CNN said the series yielded “pretty mediocre-to-bad results.” The Rotten Tomatoes score at publish is 31%.

Holland said on Unilad that he learned how to be “very resilient” as a result of being a Tottenham Hotspur fan. The soccer team has never won the Premiere League.

The actor explained that because he learned resilience, he’s far more concerned with what viewers learn from watching “The Crowded Room” over how it stacks up in reviews.

“I think that the message of the show, which can speak to so many different issues is that asking for help should be something that we as a society celebrate. It’s an act of bravery,” he said.

[From USA Today]

The joke about Tottenham Hotspur was cute, but he also completely brings up how horribly reviewed his show is, when the interviewer is just asking him about football. Perhaps they planned that segue ahead of time but if they didn’t, Tom is out here just telling people “my new show was reviewed horribly!” That…probably doesn’t make people want to watch it. Not sure how effective that is as promo. Nevertheless I hope Tom doesn’t let the bad reviews get to him. It’s not all on him that the show wasn’t a hit. I think he really was just miscast and that the script had some problems. I do hope, however, that he chooses his next project wisely, and picks something that plays to his strengths. I’m not saying he has to always be a loveable goofball in the mold of Peter Parker but his character has to have a certain level of lightness and charm. He’d be so great in a romcom if we still had those.

Also in that video, Tom reveals (with a distinctively proud look) that he fixed Zendaya’s door once, early in their relationship. He says she was impressed, which is quite sweet. Tom is a trained carpenter, which is very useful. I’m wondering what exactly he fixed. Did he tighten up the hinges? Did he have to change out the door sweep? Swap out a strike plate? Anyway it’s just a cute little story. I see why people are obsessed with them as a couple, they’re very adorable.

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photos credit: Apple Press and Getty

David & Victoria Beckham have been married for 24 years! [LaineyGossip]
Rob Schnieder is backing Robert Kennedy Jr. Gross. [Dlisted]
My nemesis Laura Dern looked terrible in Italy, hahaha. [Tom & Lorenzo]
The Idol created the worst scene on television. [Pajiba]
Some non-alcoholic drinks if you’re having a Hot Sober Girl Summmer. [Jezebel]
Kendall Jenner & Gigi Hadid had dinner in Paris. [JustJared]
More of Ascot’s dramatic hats! [GFY]
A civil war within the Duggar Family. [Starcasm]
You can buy a Barbie-branded Xbox console. [Buzzfeed]
SCOTUS will not hear a case about a charter school’s dress code. [Towleroad]
Sienna Miller’s Glastonbury look. [RCFA]