Brad Pitt will race Lewis Hamilton at the British Grand Prix (as part of that stupid F1 movie Brad is making). [Just Jared]
This vet’s technique for getting a cat to throw up is so funny. [Dlisted]
Yara Shahidi in a gold gown. [Go Fug Yourself]
Review of AppleTV’s Ghosted. [LaineyGossip]
Did Roy & Keeley really need that storyline on Ted Lasso? [Pajiba]
A compilation of cats sitting on glass table tops. [OMG Blog]
Mike Pence doesn’t want women to have access to abortion medication. [Jezebel]
Kendall Jenner & Hailey Bieber spent time in a kitchen. [Egotastic]
True crime cases with unexpected twists. [Buzzfeed]
Bel Powley wore Philosophy di Lorenzo. [RCFA]
Eric Braeden has cancer. [Seriously OMG]
Kim Kardashian went to an Usher concert. [Towleroad]

Prince Louis of Wales turned five years old on Sunday, April 23rd. For some reason, I always forget that he has an April birthday – it feels like he has a May birthday, alongside his sister Charlotte. Charlotte and Louis have the same sign, are Tauruses. Prince George is a Cancer (just on the cusp of Leo), and Prince William is a Gemini, just on the cusp of Cancer. Sorry for that zodiac conversation, I only just realized that both Charlotte and Louis fell under the sign of Taurus. There’s a lot going on in that family astrologically. Kate is a Capricorn. I’d love a deeper dive into how their signs play out within the family.

Anyway, to celebrate Louis’s birthday, Kensington Palace released new birthday portraits. Traditionally, the Princess of Wales takes her kids’ birthday photos herself and the pics are usually okay – Kate’s not a great photographer, but I don’t judge her for wanting to do her kids’ photos herself. This year, however, Kate hired photographer Millie Pilkington to do Louis’s photos. I looked at Pilkington’s Instagram – she mainly does portraits of kids and domestic settings. I’m surprised that Kate branched out like this – usually, if she hires a photographer, it’s one of the Rota photographers with some connection to her office. I wonder if she simply heard about Pilkington or looked through the woman’s Instagram.

I also find it strange that Kate is in one of Louis’s birthday photos. I wonder what that’s about? Why do we need to see her wiglet again?? I can f–king see it too. In any case, Louis looks cute. I’ve always thought that all three kids take after the Middleton side of the family more than the Windsor side, but Louis is the one who got Kate’s whole face.

Photos courtesy of Millie Pilkington for Kensington Palace.

The thing about Andrew Parker Bowles and Camilla’s marriage was that it always suited them just fine, and their arrangement was perfectly acceptable within the aristocracy AND the royal family. Andrew cheated on Camilla, Camilla cheated on Andrew, and they were both fine with it and relatively discreet about it. It was Charles and Diana’s marriage troubles which put the spotlight on the Parker-Bowles situation. Anyway, Andrew and now Queen Consort Camilla are still quite close. He even steps in for her and makes appearances on her behalf. He was invited to Charles and Camilla’s wedding and he was reportedly quite jolly about his ex-wife’s situation. And now Andrew Parker Bowles is going to the coronation.

“Being divorced, I don’t think you can have it both ways.” So said the Duchess of York last week, explaining why she is not invited to the coronation on May 6. One man, however, can and will have it both ways. Andrew Parker Bowles, Camilla’s former husband, will be front and centre of the congregation at Westminster Abbey watching his first wife crowned alongside King Charles, while his grandchildren take centre stage with official roles in the ceremony.

Camilla, 75, and Parker Bowles, 83, divorced in 1995 after 22 years of marriage but remain the closest of friends, seeing each other regularly. They have two children — Tom Parker Bowles, 48, a food writer, restaurant critic and the King’s godson; and Laura Lopes, 45, a gallerist — and five grandchildren. Tom’s son, Freddy, 13, and Laura’s twin sons, Gus and Louis, also 13, will be Camilla’s pages of honour at the coronation, carrying the train of her robes.

A friend of Parker Bowles’s said of his enduring relationship with the Queen: “They are joined at the hip. He arranges so much for her. They have lunch together the whole time. He’s right in there. He was always, and still is, Camilla’s co-conspirator.”

Friends politely describe Parker Bowles, who was unfaithful to Camilla during their courtship and marriage, as “a bit of a rogue” and “very naughty with women”. It has often been suggested that he was one of the inspirations for Rupert Campbell-Black, the central character in several of Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster books.

Known as “the Brigadier” among friends and in royal circles, Parker Bowles, a retired army officer who served with the Blues and Royals, part of the Household Cavalry, has moved in royal circles for decades. Before his marriage to Camilla in 1973, he had a romance with Princess Anne. They remain close friends and are often spotted together at Royal Ascot.

[From The Times]

It’s true about Andrew and Anne – they’re also quite close, still, to this day. There are tons of photos of Andrew and Anne together at horse events, chatting away and flirting with each other (and her husband is suspiciously never around those events). The point, I suppose, is that Andrew isn’t simply close to his ex-wife – he’s close to many within the extended Windsor clan. He’s always been part of that circle. He never sold out Camilla, even though Cam’s PR has been working overtime to emphasize the fact that Andrew cheated on her constantly. Like she wasn’t banging a whole-ass heir to the throne throughout her first marriage. Still, Andrew has a good life and he’s not going to mess it up by giving some tell-all interview. So his reward is seeing his ex-wife crowned in person. Now, do I also think it’s tacky that the coronation is all about Camilla’s “victory lap” and it’s entirely a Parker-Bowles affair? Sure, that too.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Prince William’s “friends” love to gossip with the Daily Beast’s Royalist column. Over the past year especially, Royalist has run a number of exclusives sourced from “a close friend of William,” and all of those exclusives have been about how much William hates the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and how the brothers never speak. There’s always a curious subtext too, which is that William is paying obsessive attention to what the Sussexes are doing and William always, unfailingly, has opinions on what they’re doing. William claims to despise his brother – perhaps, for William’s own mental health, he should simply ignore Harry’s comings and goings instead of stalking him? But what do I know. Anyhoodle, William thinks Harry’s brief coronation visit is a “massive diss” to their father.

The brevity of Prince Harry’s forthcoming trip to the U.K. to attend his father’s coronation is a “massive diss” to his family, a close friend of Prince William’s has told The Daily Beast. And with rumors now circulating that Harry could fly in and out of the country in such short order that he spends less than 24 hours in the land of his birth, opinion is divided as to whether the effect of his appearance will be to bolster a sense of unity or reinforce the narrative of division that has beset the royals in recent years.

“If he comes for less than 24 hours, it’s a massive diss really,” said the longtime close friend of William’s. “You know, ‘Tell us how you really feel, Harry.’”

The friend said that relations between the two brothers were “so bad they are nonexistent” but that William would likely be happy for his father that Harry was attending the coronation.

“William’s official position is that he supports his father because he is the king and it’s his coronation,” the friend said.

While Charles is said to be relieved by the issue finally being settled, there seems to be an increasingly clear divide between William’s ongoing hostility to his brother and Charles’ apparent willingness to continue to try to build bridges. A friend of the king, for example, gave The Daily Beast a very different perspective on Harry’s non-attendance to that given by William’s friend, saying: “Of course Charles is delighted Harry will be there. He has always made it very clear he loves both his sons and wanted Harry to be there. He completely understands it is going to be a quick trip.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Again, William needs to get a f–king grip and so do his friends. Harry’s appearance at the coronation was clearly negotiated between father and son, and really, it’s just an issue between the two of them. Harry is coming for his father on Charles’s big hat day, the end. What William and his friends don’t want to admit is that Charles managed to get the exact situation he wanted: Harry putting in an appearance at the coronation and no Meghan and no Archie or Lili. That was the whole reason for the palace leaks for months and months, to get this exact result. So no, it’s not a diss. But it’s not a capitulation either – Harry and Charles spoke and that’s something (for Harry, who still dearly loves his father). All this tells me is that William is mad as a hornet that Charles and Harry still care about each other enough to negotiate this together.

Note by Celebitchy: Get the top 8 stories about Prince Harry going to the coronation when you sign up for our mailing list! I only send one email a day on weekdays which I personally write.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

The Princess of Wales did a “surprise” event today in Windsor, just a short distance from the Royal Windsor Estate, which is where Kate lives in Adelaide Cottage. For now. These Windsor “events” always reek of last-minute busywork from William and Kate – they also did a surprise visit to a local Windsor food bank. And much like that food bank visit, Kate showed up empty handed to today’s visit to a local baby bank.

Kate has done some appearances at baby banks before. These baby banks provide clothes, diapers and other essentials to parents with babies or small children. Kate has three kids – surely she has some old kids’ clothes which she could have donated? Surely she could have made a quick stop at a grocery store to load up on diapers to donate? Of course not. Kate was merely there for the photo-op, to inspire others to donate, I guess. That’s why Kensington Palace didn’t put any information about the visit – or information about where and how to donate – on their social media accounts as of this writing, which is more than an hour after her visit. Not even an Instagram Story. It’s not even the bare minimum. Update: the KP team did eventually post about the visit on their socials. They even tagged the baby bank… in the third tweet.

Kate’s outfit looks familiar because we’ve seen her wear versions of this before, soon after she saw Meghan pair black trousers with an off-white blazer. Meghan looked like she was wearing a smart suit with a feminine twist. Kate looks like a 41-year-old wearing a cheap costume to approximate something she saw on Meghan.

Note by Celebitchy: Get the top 10 stories about William and Kate showing up empty-handed when you sign up for our mailing list! I only send one email a day on weekdays which I personally write.

Families in need throughout the area can rely on The Baby Bank here in Windsor, providing everything from new-born starter kits to buggies, beds & blankets. pic.twitter.com/WSRCrRjw5O

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) April 24, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

In the 2021 Oprah interview, the Duchess of Sussex repeatedly stated that she had written letters and emails to various people within the British monarchy. These people, from QEII to Charles to William and Kate and all of their staffers, had a good idea what was going on with Meghan in 2018-19 because she was telling them and leaving a written record. There has been precious little follow-up on all of the receipts Meghan left behind when she and Harry fled that island. Well, after Meghan and Harry’s Oprah interview aired, it looks like Charles wrote to Meghan to express his disappointment with her for… speaking publicly about how poorly she was treated. Not only that, but Meghan wrote a letter to Charles in response. We know this because *someone* leaked the existence of those two letters to the Telegraph. Some highlights:

The Duchess of Sussex expressed her concerns about unconscious bias in the Royal family in a letter to the King, The Telegraph can reveal. It is understood that the correspondence was sent in the wake of the March 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, in which the Duchess alleged that a member of the Royal family had speculated about the colour of her unborn son’s skin. A source has said that the Duchess feels she has not received a satisfactory response to her concerns.

It is understood that her letter was sent in reply to one from the King. He is believed to be the only senior member of the family to make contact with the Duchess after the interview. Then Prince of Wales, he is understood to have expressed sadness over the chasm that had emerged between the two sides of the Royal family. He is said to be disappointed that the Duke and Duchess felt the need to make such high-profile and damaging allegations.

In the interview, the Duchess told Winfrey that there had been “concerns and conversations about how dark his [Archie’s] skin might be when he’s born”.

A source claimed that the letters make clear the identity of the senior member of the family who made the comment. It is understood that both the King and the Duchess acknowledged that the individual’s remark was not made with malice.

The Duchess is believed to have thanked the King for his words. The Duchess’s letter is also said to suggest that she had never intended to specifically accuse the individual involved of being a racist, but was raising concerns about unconscious bias. One royal source suggested that while the exchange was warm in tone, it had not eased the tension between the two sides.

The Duchess is understood to feel that concerns she has raised, which crucially include the way in which bullying complaints against her were handled and the allegation that neglect by the institution led her to feel suicidal, have still not been resolved.

Royal sources indicated that they had never expected the Duchess to fly over for the [coronation], aware that her private correspondence with the King had not been enough to prevent further mud-slinging from the Sussexes.

The Palace is also aware of the Sussexes’ frustration that initial email correspondence about the Coronation made no reference to their children and their potential involvement. The omission only fuelled their feeling that their family plays second fiddle to the Waleses.

[From The Telegraph]

First off, it looks like recollections did NOT vary after all. They all knew who said what and there were open conversations within the family about everything Meghan and Harry discussed in the Oprah interview. Secondly, the Telegraph removed a very telling line from the original report. After the sentence “The Duchess’s letter is also said to suggest that she had never intended to specifically accuse the individual involved of being a racist, but was raising concerns about unconscious bias,” the original article then had this line: “However, it is understood that she does still consider the comment to be racist.” That was removed after several hours, likely following a call from Buckingham Palace, which was the source of this piece. I’m not sure what game Charles, Camilla and their courtiers are playing, but my guess is that C&C wanted to shout “not it” ahead of the coronation, specifically about the “royal racist” question.

In any case, this is the palace-sanctioned version of BOTH letters. They probably expected Meghan to say something about Charles’s letter at some point in an interview or on the Netflix series, but she didn’t. She kept it private for two years before BP leaked it. Hilariously – or less so – there were some busy little palace bees working on a Friday evening after the Telegraph’s exclusive came out. Suddenly, all of the royal reporters were parroting the same talking point, which was that Meghan leaked the existence and content of both letters. To the Telegraph? LOL, no. IF Meghan wanted to leak something, I trust that her contacts in the American media are much more likely to get the info. Now, who issued the “Meghan leaked it” talking point? I think it came from Buckingham Palace as well, but others believe it came from Kensington Palace, especially since the content of the letters would seem to suggest that either William or Kate was saying sh-t about a Sussex baby’s skin color. Valentine Low, Richard Palmer, Emily Andrews all tweeted out almost identical “Meghan leaked it” tweets within an hour of each other.

On Saturday, the Sussexes’ spokesperson issued this statement, below. Valentine Low also tweeted that the Sussexes’ lawyers and the palace’s lawyers have sent legal notices around. Huh. My theory? Harry called the palace and said “if you don’t clean up your own f–king mess, I’m not coming and I’m telling everyone why.”

Given that legal letters have been sent by the Sussexes’ lawyers as well as the palace’s since the story was published, it seems I was wrong in assuming that it came from the Sussex camp. Sorry to all about that. But even more intriguing!

— Valentine Low (@valentinelow) April 22, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, WENN.

I’ve always loved Djimon Hounsou. He’s an actor who does a lot with his smaller roles, and the two which always stuck with me were Gladiator and In America. He was Oscar-nominated for In America and Blood Diamond (I always thought he should have won for In America). He’s currently promoting Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which appears more and more to be a “good paycheck” for a number of actors who simply needed the work. Djimon was recently interviewed by the Guardian, and he spoke at length about the lack of respect he still gets within the industry and how he’s never really gotten a big paycheck.

Moving to France at the age of 12: “It’s a different environment that taught me so much, but it also ripped me apart. I was extremely lonely. There was nobody I could connect to. You’re in a completely foreign environment, an environment that is seen to not care much for your kind.”

Moving to Paris in his teens: Acting work was hard to come by (“I felt the racism was quite heavy out there back then”). Before long, his student visa had expired. “Not only am I homeless, but I’m also illegal. It was almost impossible to live and to find a job in France at the time. So that’s how I ended up on the streets.”

A chance encounter led him to model for Thierry Mugler. “He immediately saw me and was like: ‘This is who we’re looking for. This is the man.’” It was an alien, stressful environment. Mugler’s assistant took pictures of Hounsou in different outfits, including some leather underwear. Did he feel uncomfortable? “Oh, for sure, I was very uncomfortable and not sure if this was a disservice to my manhood. But at the same time, certainly, Thierry Mugler could feel I was very timid about this setting and was a gentleman who put me at ease.”

Moving to LA: “I certainly didn’t feel like I belonged in that [fashion] world,” he says. So, at 22, he moved to Los Angeles, despite his limited English. “All I knew how to say was: yes, hello, good morning, thank you, yes sir,” he says. A visiting friend mocked his Hollywood ambitions. “‘Acting? But you realise you don’t speak the language?’ For somebody else to point it out was like a slap in my face. I was so hurt; from that point on, I refused to tell anybody my dreams.”

Not being Oscar-nominated for Amistad. “Yeah. Maybe I was early. If my movies had come out today I definitely would have gotten an Oscar already.”

His supporting-actor nomination for Blood Diamond in 2006: “I felt seriously cheated. Today, we talk so much about the Oscars being so white, but I remember there was a time where I had no support at all: no support from my own people, no support from the media, from the industry itself. It felt like: ‘You should be happy that you’ve got nominated,’ and that’s that.”

Whether he still finds the industry limiting: “I’m still struggling to try to make a dollar! I’ve come up in the business with some people who are absolutely well off and have very little of my accolades. So I feel cheated, tremendously cheated, in terms of finances and in terms of the workload as well. I’ve gone to studios for meetings and they’re like: ‘Wow, we felt like you just got off the boat and then went back [after Amistad]. We didn’t know you were here as a true actor.’ When you hear things like that, you can see that some people’s vision of you, or what you represent, is very limiting. But it is what it is. It’s up to me to redeem that.”

He still has to take smaller roles: He does it to assert himself as a “man of today” and “to prove that I can speak the language. I may not speak perfectly like an American with an American accent, but I don’t need to be all-American… I still have to prove why I need to get paid. They always come at me with a complete low ball: ‘We only have this much for the role, but we love you so much and we really think you can bring so much.’ Viola Davis said it beautifully: she’s won an Oscar, she’s won an Emmy, she’s won a Tony and she still can’t get paid. [She added a Grammy in February.] Film after film, it’s a struggle. I have yet to meet the film that paid me fairly.”

[From The Guardian]

This is so painful, and it reminds me of Ke Huy Quan’s story too, the sudden shooting stardom and then a whole lot of silence, a lot of blank looks on auditions, not a lot of respect for what these immigrant actors who have already shown what they can do. Seriously, go back and watch In America – it’s a shame he didn’t win for that film, and it really was a brilliant showcase for his talent. It’s about race too and what kinds of immigrants are given work in Hollywood. Anyway, I came out of this interview so depressed. He’s so talented and I hope this interview wakes up some directors to cast him! He also hopes he can return for the second Gladiator movie and I hope he gets that.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Ryan Gosling and his post-Barbie hair went to a Tag Heuer event and I barely even recognized him. Whose idea was this hairstyle? [RCFA]
Oh, did Sydney Sweeney dump her fiance for her costar Glenn Powell? [Dlisted]
Yung Miami covers The Cut. [LaineyGossip]
I disagree – most of Ted Lasso Season 3 has been a bummer, but I loved this week’s episode and it felt like a love letter to Amsterdam. [Pajiba]
Reem Acra’s bridal collection is not my jam, but it’s okay. [Go Fug Yourself]
Michelle Obama looked great on the Tonight Show. [Tom & Lorenzo]
The Nicki Minaj-Kim Petras collab is here. [Just Jared]
The Republican lawmaker who voted to eject the Tennessee 3? He just resigned after sexually harassing an intern. [Jezebel]
Iggy Azalea is still, somehow, a thing. [Egotastic]
Wild historical facts – the Great Pyramids used to be white. [Buzzfeed]
Station 19 confirmed for a seventh season. [Seriously OMG]
Madison LeCroy’s new side-hustle sounds like something Emily in Paris would have come up with (and I say that as a compliment). [Starcasm]
Tennessee has been sued over their ban on transgender healthcare. [Towleroad]

Embed from Getty Images

While I arguably have a reputation as a “Taylor Swift hater,” there are legitimately parts of Taylor Swift’s life and business which I admire greatly. She is, in my opinion, one of the savviest businesswomen in the music industry. Does she have great advisors? Sure. But Taylor has shown us time and time again that she’s in those meetings, she’s negotiating for herself, and she knows her own worth. Not only that, she’s not afraid to say that she doesn’t know something or to ask questions. Which brings me to this: Taylor managed to avoid FTX, unlike dozens of other celebrities. As it turns out, Taylor was the only one in those meetings asking the right questions.

Taylor Swift’s inquisitiveness saved her from jumping on the doomed FTX bandwagon. More than a dozen celebrities, including NBA star Stephen Curry, NFL player Tom Brady, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, tennis legend Naomi Osaka, and popular TV show Seinfeld co-creator Larry David are named in a November 2022 class action lawsuit filed in Miami. The complaint blames FTX and its paid brand ambassadors for actively participating in the “offer and sale of unregistered securities in the form of yield-bearing accounts,” as well as abetting fraud “designed to take advantage of unsophisticated investors from across the country, who utilize mobile apps to make their investments.”

Swift avoided getting dragged in FTX’s collapse because the singer did her due diligence, and asked one important question: “Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?”, according to South Florida attorney Adam Moskowitz. Moskowitz, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, discussed the case in this week’s episode of The Block’s The Scoop podcast.

$100 billion: How much FTX was willing to pay the celebrated singer-songwriter. They had reached the late stages of negotiating a sponsorship deal a little before the crypto exchange crumbled last November. A report in Rolling Stones cites an anonymous source saying Swift “would not, and did not, agree to an endorsement deal,” but smaller-scale partnerships, like a ticketing arrangement involving NFTs for her Eras Tour, was on the table. But she turned that down, too.

[From Yahoo]

I’m sorry, they offered her $100 BILLION to endorse FTX? That alone would have made me sit up and ask some questions, because that number makes zero sense. Hey, Taylor, will you endorse Celebitchy as a blog for eleventy trillion dollars? What’s that?? You want to see if I actually have the money? ZOINKS! Still, it’s sad to see the list of names of celebrities who didn’t even do even a cursory investigation into what was going on. Good for Swift for avoiding it entirely. And she avoided the NFT sh-t too! LOL.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Have we decided if the recent rash of Karriett Tubman-themed stories are coming from Queen Camilla’s operations, or whether they’re Kensington Palace’s attempts to make the Princess of Wales look sympathetic? I truly believe it’s both – Kate’s own press operation often makes her look terrible, but I do get the sense that the knives are out for Kate within the family. I bring this up because there’s a new sub-genre – a micro-genre, if you will – of royal reporting specific to the lead-up for the coronation. The micro-genre is “Kate is the reason why Meghan isn’t coming” and/or Kate is so, so pleased that Meghan isn’t coming. While there’s always been an oversized focus on the Kate-vs-Meghan dynamic, this feels interesting – centering Meghan’s absence on Kate specifically. From Entertainment Tonight:

How the Windsors feel about Harry & Meghan: “Relationships between Harry and Meghan and the family are still very tense,” a source tells ET. “The family will be cordial because the King wants his son at his Coronation but there will be no meaningful conversation as there’s still a lack of trust given the revelations in his book and the Sussexes Netflix documentary and the allegations in the Oprah interview.”

Surprise at Meghan’s absence: Another source shared that the family is still surprised that the Duke is attending without his wife. Adding, “There were still several members of the family who expressed surprise she had decided to stay home.”

Kate’s relief: Royal expert Eloise Parker, said Prince William and Kate Middleton feel a sense of “relief” that Meghan will be home. “I think there’s bound to be some relief from William and Kate that Meghan won’t be attending the coronation simply because less emphasis is going to be on them, who’s looking where, who’s lip reading, what’s going on between them. There’s such a fever of interest in these relationships and the truth is we’re never going to see a Real Housewives moment between these women. Everything is going to be kept firmly under wraps and I think for Kate, the fact that Meghan isn’t attending, helps her keep it that way.”

[From ET]

“The truth is we’re never going to see a Real Housewives moment between these women”– are you joking? We’ve already seen dozens of “Real Housewife” moments, mostly because Kate has no pokerface. Kate wearing white to Meghan’s wedding was a Real Housewife moment. Kate not being able to keep her sh-t together at the Commonwealth service in 2020 was a Real Housewife moment. Kate menacing Meghan on the Windsor walkabout was a Real Housewife moment. Kate telling everyone that Meghan made her cry for YEARS was a Real Housewife moment. Meghan telling Oprah that Kate made her cry was also a Real Housewife moment, to be fair. Just because Meghan isn’t calling Kate a copykeening loser to her Botoxface, doesn’t make Kate any less tacky.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgird, WENN.