Prince Harry’s memoir and promotional tour must be enormously cathartic for him. To finally be able to write and speak on the record, at long last, to create a historical record of what happened, who said what, and what he wants now. While the royalists have spent weeks crying about Harry’s memoir and interviews, it actually seems like he’s walked the knife’s edge very well about most subjects, namely his willingness to reconcile. He has firmly put the ball in his father’s court and (to mix metaphors) Harry is allowing the chips to fall where they may. Harry’s done, he’s said his piece, he got all of this on the record. Now it’s time for his family to react. And their reactions are telling. Over the weekend, people in Charles’s office floated the idea of “peace talks” before the coronation. The reaction from the British commentary class was wall-to-wall rage at the very idea of a father and son making peace. They seem outraged by the idea that Charles might acknowledge that Harry has made some good points. As I said, telling. So now the “peace talks” narrative is being swept away. From the Daily Beast’s Royalist:

No peace talks: Reports of an imminent reconciliation meeting between King Charles and Prince Harry have been greatly exaggerated, a friend of Charles has told The Daily Beast. Despite the fact that Charles has made it clear that, as courtiers are always at pains to insist, he “loves both his sons” the idea that Charles is going to sit down for a cup of Earl Grey with Meghan and Harry before the coronation, as suggested in reports this weekend, has friends of the king and queen doubtfully shaking their heads. “It’s wishful thinking,” one friend of the couple told The Daily Beast.

Harry broke Charles’s confidentiality: Indeed the book opens with a detailed account of a “secret” meeting with Charles and William, called by Harry, in a graveyard, after the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. It’s hard to see how Charles could attend a private meeting with his youngest son (or indeed write to or even call him) without assuming notes were being taken—and might well later be served up to the public in a sequel to the best-selling book.

A war in King Charles’s court: The story in The Sunday Times [by Roya Nikkhah] was fascinating to seasoned observers not so much because what the source suggested may (or may not) come to pass, but because it shows clear evidence of factionalism in the court of King Charles. There is, we must assume, a voluble group within the palace who want Charles to seek peace with Harry. Derided as “palace wets” by GB News presenter Dan Wootton, the theme was also taken up by author Tom Bower, who said that at a recent dinner party Charles had expressed a reluctance to confront and admonish Harry. (Both Wootton and Bower are relentless critics of Harry and Meghan.) Bower urged him to act more harshly. Charles is unlikely to do so; confronting Harry and escalating the row might please Bower, but it would delight the publishers of Harry’s book.

Silence is the only option: A source told The Daily Beast’s Clive Irving: “Silence is the only course open to them, and it has been effective so far, in that now, at last, at least over here, the story is subsiding. The king is genuinely fond of his son, and wishes to keep the door open for him. By not responding he does not fuel the argument.” Irving’s source captures accurately the Royalist’s understanding of the mood at the palace (Charles’ office declined to comment for this article, as did Harry’s) where, The Daily Beast understands, the original decision to say nothing and not engage with the Sussexes, is being seen as having been borne out by events to be correct.

Do nothing: If anything, the do-nothing position is hardening. It’s not hard to see why when the other options are so unpalatable: setting up a peace summit with Harry or aggressively cutting him out of the family by, for example, stripping him of his titles, could both easily serve to oxygenate the inferno rather than smother it. Much better to just keep on keeping on, runs the thinking of many. As one insider told The Daily Beast last week, it’s about letting actions speak louder than words… Harry may want an apology, but there is no indication that Charles is feeling under any pressure to provide one. But Harry has now painted himself into a corner by suggesting he won’t come to the coronation without an apology. He probably shouldn’t hold his breath.

[From The Daily Beast]

Power, control, abuse, incompetence, optics, internecine war, leadership… all of these issues are the undercurrents of this particular royal situation. I believe Charles does have warring factions within his court, within his cadre of advisors and sycophants. I believe that one faction did float the “peace talks” idea to Charles and to the Times. But the other faction is listening to Dan Wootton, Tom Bower, Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan. This other faction wants nothing more than to degrade, humiliate and destroy the Sussexes. As I said at the beginning – Harry has put this all on Charles. Harry has described his terms repeatedly and publicly. It’s up to Charles to make a decision and Charles refuses to. That’s the real story, that’s what no one can say out loud: Charles is dithering, Charles doesn’t know what to do. As Diana said in the Panorama interview: “I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him, and I don’t know whether he could adapt to that.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Brad Pitt is truly going through some things financially, huh? Pitt and Angelina Jolie still haven’t finalized their divorce, and while she gets the blame for that, Jolie is the one who is above-board and going through all of the appropriate and fair legal channels. Pitt is the one who illegally colluded with a private judge, lost in California’s Supreme Court, and hid his assets from Jolie, as well as mismanaging a huge part of her asset portfolio, Chateau Miraval. Jolie finally sold her half of Miraval in 2021, and Pitt is still suing her over the completely legal sale. I think he’s going to lose and lose big. Pitt might think the same, because he’s selling off his biggest assets.

First, he quietly put Plan B, his production company, on sale last year. In December, Pitt reached a deal with Mediawan, a French media company, to acquire 60% of Plan B. According to CNBC, Plan B was valued above $400 million, so Pitt arguably sold a controlling interest in Plan B for hundreds of millions of dollars. You would think, okay, surely he’s no longer cash-poor? Then why is also selling his Los Feliz compound, the same one he’s had for decades?

Brad Pitt is looking to let go of a Los Angeles property he’s owned for nearly 30 years. The Babylon star, 59, quietly listed the expansive property located in the Los Feliz neighborhood for about $40 million, a real-estate source confirms to PEOPLE.

Pitt first called the space home after buying the original mansion from Elvira, Mistress of the Dark star Cassandra Peterson in 1994 for a reported $1.7 million. Since then, the Academy Award winner has purchased multiple lots adjacent to the original home and filled them with a swimming pool, tennis court and skating rink.

According to the source, Pitt’s reason for selling the 1.9-acre property is because he’s “looking for something smaller” in the L.A. area.

The sprawling home is where he and ex-wife Angelina Jolie, 47, raised their six children — Maddox, 21, Pax, 19, Zahara, 18, Shiloh, 16, and 14-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne — before splitting in 2016.

[From People]

True story, after Pitt terrorized and assaulted Jolie and their children in 2016, she fled and got the kids somewhere safe. But she did ask Pitt if she and the kids could retrieve their belongings at the Los Feliz home. Pitt refused. He’s been financially abusing her ever since. So… these sales are very strange. I don’t have a big conspiracy theory here, other than Miraval seems like a money pit and I’m so glad Jolie has disentangled herself from Pitt’s mismanagement and bad business.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

One of my few beefs with Prince Harry in Spare is that I think he was pretty slow to recognize that Prince William and Kate were deeply unsettled by Meghan throughout Meg and Harry’s courtship and engagement. He was sort of in denial about it, believing that everything would work out in the end and his brother and sister-in-law would treat his girlfriend and fiancee with respect and love. When really, W&K were constantly signaling that they hated the fact that Harry was with a beautiful biracial American actress and they were looking for reasons to “put Meghan in her place” or stop the wedding in some way. So, after Will & Kate were constantly negging Meghan and being giant mean girls, the wedding finally happened and everything was fine. Except it wasn’t. The two couples scheduled their first “summit” to hash out their differences in June 2018. This was Meghan’s first-ever visit to the Cambridges’ apartment in Kensington Palace (which is notable because, as I said before, Will and Kate weren’t inviting Harry and Meghan over before the wedding). This is where the infamous “baby brain” conversation happened, but previously, we only had the hacky translation of this section. Here are Harry’s actual words. Highlights from Spare:

Meghan’s first trip to KP: Willy and Kate invited us for tea. To clear the air. June 2018. We walked over one late afternoon. I saw Meg’s eyes widen as we entered their front door, walked past their front sitting room, down their hallway, into their study. The wallpaper, the crown molding, the walnut bookshelves lined with color-coordinated volumes, the priceless art. Gorgeous. Like a museum. And we both told them so. We complimented them lavishly on their renovation, though we also thought sheepishly of our IKEA lamps, our discount sofa recently bought on sale, with Meg’s credit card, from sofa.com.

Kate’s fashion contacts: Meg then acknowledged the tension among the four of us and ventured that it might go back to those early days when she’d first joined the family—a misunderstanding that had almost passed without notice. Kate thought Meg had wanted her fashion contacts. But Meg had her own. They’d got off on the wrong foot perhaps? And then, Meg added, everything got magnified by the wedding, and those infernal bridesmaids’ dresses.

Easter presents: But it turned out there were other things…about which we’d been unaware. Willy and Kate were apparently upset that we hadn’t given them Easter presents. Easter presents? Was that a thing? Willy and I had never exchanged Easter presents. Pa always made a big deal about Easter, sure, but that was Pa. Still, if Willy and Kate were upset, we apologized.

Wedding seating: For our part, we chipped in that we weren’t too pleased when Willy and Kate switched place cards and changed seats at our wedding. We’d followed the American tradition, placing couples next to each other, but Willy and Kate didn’t like that tradition, so their table was the only one where spouses were apart. They insisted it wasn’t them, it was someone else. And they said we’d done the same thing at Pippa’s wedding. We hadn’t. Much as we’d wanted to. We’d been separated by a huge flower arrangement between us, and though we’d desperately wanted to sit together, we hadn’t done a thing about it.

Baby brain: Kate looked out into the garden, gripping the edges of the leather so tightly that her fingers were white, and said she was owed an apology. Meg asked: For what? You hurt my feelings, Meghan. When? Please tell me. I told you I couldn’t remember something and you said it was my hormones. What are you talking about? Kate mentioned a phone call in which they’d discussed the timing of wedding rehearsals. Meg said: Oh, yes! I remember: You couldn’t remember something, and I said it’s not a big deal, it’s baby brain. Because you’d just had a baby. It’s hormones. Kate’s eyes widened: Yes. You talked about my hormones. We’re not close enough for you to talk about my hormones! Meg’s eyes got wide too. She looked genuinely confused. I’m sorry I talked about your hormones. That’s just how I talk with my girlfriends.

Peg’s finger: Willy pointed at Meg. It’s rude, Meghan. It’s not what’s done here in Britain. Kindly take your finger out of my face. Meg said she’d never intentionally do anything to hurt Kate, and if she ever did, she asked Kate to please just let her know so it wouldn’t happen again.

[From Spare by Prince Harry]

The fashion contacts thing is so funny – it’s now clear that Kate was probably severely irritated that Meghan did have her own fashion contacts and her own style, and Kate was desperate to copy Meghan at every turn. This is exactly when Kate started copykeening Meghan too, wearing trousers and blazers like Meghan and copykeening Meghan’s feminine, professional, modern style. It’s also funny that Meghan brought it up and not Kate.

As for Kate’s baby brain… she was upset with Meghan long before that offhand comment. It’s as I originally thought too, Meghan said it in a sympathetic manner, as in “don’t stress, it’s no big deal, you just had a baby, you’re going to forget things.” The fact that Kate turned it into this ridiculous tantrum is appalling. And William backed up Kate and stuck his finger in Meghan’s face? William and Kate are so crass. And that was the larger problem – Meghan’s behavior throughout was dignified, classy, eloquent, direct, generous. She made Will and Kate look like what they are: petty, insolent, immature trash.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, WENN and Instar.

Marie Osmond works hard. She’s a singer, of course, but she also has a solid career as a spokesperson, like her Nutrisystem gig. In addition, she designed a doll line that took off on QVC and now they’re sold everywhere. The dolls led to some crafting and embroidery endeavors and Marie’s also written three books. All of that puts Marie’s net worth around $20M. That’s a nice little nest egg. And helpful because Marie has a sizeable family, with seven grown children and eight grandchildren. But Marie is reminding everyone that that’s her money, because she doesn’t believe in giving children an inheritance. She feels if you hand money over to kids, it breeds, “laziness and entitlement.” So no doll money for you, kids. Sorry.

Sticking to her guns. Marie Osmond is a proud mother (and grandmother) of eight, but she remains firm in her plans not to leave her children an inheritance.

“Honestly, why would you enable your child to not try to be something? I don’t know anybody who becomes anything if they’re just handed money,” Osmond, 63, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, January 10, while promoting her Nutrisystem partnership. “To me, the greatest gift you can give your child is a passion to search out who they are inside and to work. I mean, I’ve done so many things from designing dolls [and much more]. I love trying [and] I wanna try everything. I’m a finisher.”

She continued: “That’s one of my rules with my kids. If you start it, you finish it, you don’t ever have to do it again, but you gotta finish. And, I just think all [an inheritance] does is breed laziness and entitlement. I worked hard and I’m gonna spend it all and have fun with my husband [Steve Craig, whom I remarried in 2011].”

[From Us]

Marie brought this up in 2020. Her stance then, as it is now, is that if offspring know they have money coming to them, they won’t work, they’ll just wait for the money to come in. I know people who come from lesser fortunes, but they’re still going to get some cash when their folks go. It’s a mixed bag, some flit through life because they know they can lean on mom and dad for a handout. Others do work hard and don’t expect anything from their parents. But that’s behavior their parents are reinforcing now, not the future promise of cutting them off. I find the issue with inheritance is people who cling to bad relationships because of the money. Some parents are poisonous, but the kid sticks around because of that money teat. The ones who were fine being cut out of the will and walked away end up possibly poorer, but healthier. Marie’s made it known she’s leaving her money to charity, which is always a good choice, depending on the charity. And as far as I know, Marie is still a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. So they’re happy come tithing.

It seems to be popular to discuss not giving your kids money now. People from Gordon Ramsey to Ashton Kutcher and plenty in between have all gone on record that they will not leave their children any inheritance. I’m not sure why they feel the need to share this. If they are hoping to avoid the nepotism argument, they’ll have to change the kids name, too. I also wonder if they really don’t leave the kids anything or do they say that as incentive and then include them in the will after all? People with money have different perceptions of ‘nothing.’ Marie was talking about her kids earning everything for themselves, but then she admitted to helping them out when they needed it. The example she gave was buying a car, that she made them chip in half and she paid the other half. That’s fine, by the way, I have no opinions on buying kids cars. But giving them half the money is not making them earn it themselves, is it? It’s giving them half. Basically what I’m saying is, I wish I had that much money to worry about who I should give/leave it to.

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Prince William stepped out on Tuesday for his first solo event of the year. He went to Slough, where he toured the Together as One headquarters. Together as One (aka Aik Saath) was founded in the 1990s as a way to encourage youth leadership, anti-gang activism and anti-bullying activism. The organization acts as a sort of community center for communities of color, and helps provide skills to younger people. Skills like cooking. So of course William had to join the youths in the kitchen. Because of the not-so-invisible contract, no one asked William about the time four years ago when he violently assaulted his brother in Harry’s kitchen.

The Prince of Wales has boasted that his wife Kate is a ‘very good’ cook and he can make a ‘mean steak’ as he took part in a cooking class for young carers today. The father-of-three appeared in good spirits as he greeted staff and volunteers at the centre before then getting stuck into making some chicken teriyaki and noodles for lunch.

During the tour of the centre, Prince William learned about how the charity has spearheaded projects with an emphasis on mental health and tackling bullying, knife crime and racism.

He then took part in charity’s Global Grub cooking programme, which teaches young carers how to cook nutritious meals amid the cost of living crisis. As he walked into the kitchen, the Prince exclaimed: ‘Oh it smells good in here!’

After being informed by chef Kevin Muhammad that they were prepping a chicken teriyaki dish, the father laughed: ‘What time is it? 10, 11 in the morning? It’s making my stomach rumble.’

He added: ‘I do a bit of cooking, not much though. Catherine’s very good though. I do a mean steak. My sauces come out quite dry or lumpy – I’ve got to work on those!’

William took off his jacket and put on an apron to help with the dish the group were making and poured a bowl of pre-cooked noodles into the wok of simmering poultry.

He helped young carers Inaaya Shahab, 13, and Daisha Nakawagi, 12, prepare the noodles before tasting the fruits of their labour. ‘He said it was amazing,’ said Daisha, who told him she wanted to be a chef.

[From The Daily Mail]

“…Which teaches young carers how to cook nutritious meals amid the cost of living crisis…” So these kids are learning how to cook on a budget, and William saunters in and grabs one of the meals they’ve cooked. And once again, William arrived empty-handed. He and his wife rarely – almost never – bring anything when they’re visiting poor communities, underserved communities or refugees. Anyway, these photos are horrible. I genuinely believe this was probably thrown together last minute because William was too lazy to go to his godfather’s funeral and people were asking too many questions.

Almost no one bowed or curtsied to him, right? Also: wash your hands before you start working in the kitchen.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

All of the photo agencies we use have “glamour shots” of Prince Harry’s Spare – photographers really went into bookstores and posed hardcopies in various ways and it’s amazing. Anyway, as everyone predicted, Spare is an enormous publishing coup. It will likely go down as one of the biggest nonfiction books of all time. What’s even funnier is that even after Fleet Street has done the most to lie, harass and threaten Harry, British people are buying the book in droves.

Prince Harry’s Spare has sold almost half a million copies in the UK in its first week on sale, making it the fastest-selling nonfiction book since records began. According to Nielsen, Spare sold a total of 467,183 print copies through UK retailers in its first week of release, making it No 1 on the book charts. This does not include ebook sales or audiobook copies.

Penguin Random House (PRH) UK said the book had sold 750,000 copies in the UK across all formats – hardbacks, ebooks and audiobooks – in its first week. Of these, 400,000 copies were on its first day on sale in the UK.

Larry Finlay, managing director of Transworld, the PRH division which published the book in the UK, said Guinness World Records had confirmed that Spare was the fastest-selling nonfiction book ever on its first day of publication. Finlay said as well as being the fastest selling, “we now know that it is also the biggest selling memoir ever in its first week of publication”.

Waterstones said the pre-orders for Spare, which are counted in the first official week of sales, were “the largest on record for a nonfiction title” for the retailer, with nonfiction category manager John Cotterill saying they were “delighted with the first week’s performance”.

“Waterstones’ sales of Spare have been exceptional,” Cotterill said. “Seven days after publication, Spare is one of Waterstones’ fastest-selling books in a decade.”

The book also remains No 1 on the Amazon bestsellers chart, and is the site’s bestselling nonfiction title. The US had originally printed two million copies, and the publisher is now reprinting.

[From The Guardian]

Again, that’s just British sales. I assumed – and I still assume – that the biggest markets for Spare will be outside of the UK. Harry might be a British prince, but he’s become a global icon, and this kind of “tell-all memoir-writing” hasn’t happened in decades for someone in Harry’s position. Now, do I also love the fact that British people want to read the book for themselves instead of just believing the Daily Mail’s version of everything? Yes.

Also: Spare is Ireland’s best-selling non-fiction book since records began. 20,584 copies of Spare have been sold in Ireland in its first week.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.

I thought buccal fat removal was going to be one of those niche celebrity gossip topics, but it actually moved over to my “main feed” and randoms from college who don’t seem particularly surgically-inclined are talking about getting it. Buccal fat removal is essentially minor facial plastic surgery to get that hollow-cheeked look that celebs like Bella Hadid and Zoe Kravitz are sporting. Not that either of them have copped to it like Chrissy Teigan has, but I think that’s the look people are going for. Just looking at the effects of the surgery, it looks like the kind of thing that might not age well as many people’s faces become thinner as they age. Turns out, experts are saying the same, though the patients are still too young now for the long-term effects to be apparent.

Lately, social media has been buzzing with photos of a handful of celebrities with seemingly slimmer faces and more chiseled jawlines. Many people have assumed (without confirmation) that these changes are the result of buccal fat removal—a procedure in which fat in the cheeks and jaw area is removed to give the face a more contoured appearance—which is likely why you’ve been seeing the term all over your timeline.

If this has only made your more curious about what buccal fat is, why someone would want it removed, and why the heck everyone is talking about it, we reached out to a few experts to clear things up.

What is buccal fat anyway?

In short, buccal fat (pronounced “buckle”) is just the fat that lies between your cheekbone and jawbone. “Everyone has a buccal fat pad in their cheek hollow area,” says Michael Horn, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon at Lake Shore Plastic Surgery in Chicago. “The size varies from person to person, and one cheek’s pad may be larger than the other.”

Dr. Horn explains that even though skin with a full and plump appearance has become trendy because of its association with youth, some people—like Chrissy Teigen, who admitted to having the procedure done back in 2021—may opt to have their buccal fat removed if they find that if the area is too full.

“There’s been a significant increase in the interest around buccal fat removal in younger patients who are looking to change the contour and slim the lower part of their face,” says board-certified facial plastic surgeon Heather Lee, MD.

Basically, the purpose of removing buccal fat is to slim the cheeks. “Picture pursing your lips together and biting down with both cheeks on the thick skin inside the mouth to give yourself a facsimile of what buccal fat removal will do,” says Dr. Horn.

What happens during a buccal fat removal procedure?

The first thing you need to know is that the entire procedure takes less than an hour, according to Dr. Horn, and you should expect to be sedated or put under general anesthesia. “The procedure involves an incision inside the mouth on the inner area of the cheek,” Dr. Horn explains. “Once the fat is removed from each side, a surgeon closes the incisions with sutures.”

Dr. Lee adds that the procedure has to be done very carefully in order to avoid injuring nerves that control movement of the face, as well as your salivary duct. “The goal is to create a slimmer lower face and to accentuate the cheek bones and jawline,” she explains. “By removing fullness in the cheek area, the contours of the face are highlighted and the roundness of the face is lessened.”

What is the recovery time like?

After your removal procedure, your surgeon should give you an oral rinse to prevent infection, though you might also be prescribed antibiotics to further minimize your risk. Additionally, you’ll likely experience bruising, swelling, and discomfort in your cheeks for up to two weeks after surgery.

“A liquid diet is recommended for a few days post-op, and patients progress to soft foods as the soreness alleviates,” Dr. Horn says. “Ice packs can be used to relieve this.” Because of the swelling, it’s possible that it may take up to three weeks for you to actually see results.

Are there any risks associated with buccal fat removal?

As stated before by Dr. Lee, this surgery could temporarily or permanently injure some of the nerves that control your face and salivary duct if performed incorrectly. As with any surgery, you should also do your research to ensure that your surgeon doesn’t remove too much fat and make your face look too gaunt.

“Since it goes not regrow, there is a risk of removing too much fat and creating excessive hollowing,” Dr. Lee says. “Although that may be what some younger patients are looking for, this can have major implications as they age.”

[From Women’s Health via Yahoo]

The surgery and recovery doesn’t sound so bad. It sounds pretty similar to getting your wisdom teeth removed. But the potential long-term implications are scary. In general, face-altering surgeries seem way more risky to me than body procedures. A botched or unexpected result with a face surgery will have so much more of an impact than a bad boob job or lipo, etc. I just think about what happened to Linda Evangelista and that was mostly her body. That was bad, but bad results on your face seem much worse and harder to live with. I get the result they’re trying to achieve — a slimmer and more sculpted face — and I’ve certainly wanted that myself in the past. My face has slimmed on its own as I’ve gotten older, but it’s still full and I’ve grown to like that because it makes me look 5-8 years younger than I am. It doesn’t grow back and I don’t think it’s reversible, so removing that fat now means it might not be there when people want/need it later. I would hate to start wrinkling or looking gaunt as I age for some irreversible trend that might not even stay popular.

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Not even ten full months ago, Prince William and Kate began their Keen Caribbean Tour. The keen tour became a nightmare for them, and I dubbed it the Caribbean Flop Tour. The tour was full of tone-deaf colonialist imagery and a real lack of diplomacy. By the time they got to Jamaica, it was just one disaster after another and they couldn’t stop the bleeding. Kate winced when a Black woman touched her, then Will and Kate greeted people behind a chain-link fence. William tried to fake-apologize for slavery and Jamaicans weren’t buying it. The pièce de résistance was their final photo-op, where they dressed up in Victorian cosplay and rode around “inspecting” the Black troops. In the middle of the Jamaica leg of their Flop Tour, Jamaica’s prime minister Andrew Holness was so disgusted with their behavior that he called them into his office and fired them live on camera before they even sat down. Jamaica was always going to look to become a republic, but the events of the past ten months have sped up the process significantly.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness has given instructions to Marlene Malahoo Forte, minister of legal and constitutional affairs, to proceed with “speed” towards transforming Jamaica into a republic.

“It is time that Jamaica becomes a republic. For us, the process is not simple, and we have known this since we started on this journey. And we are making sure that we check every box as we move deliberately in that regard,” Holness said. “So I’m saying to you minister (Malahoo Forte), please move ahead with speed and alacrity on this matter, Jamaica must become a republic.”

Holness said that his administration will be taking the necessary steps needed to transform Jamaica from a constitutional monarchy to a republic, and that his administration will not be derailed.

“But whatever political footwork that those who call for it – and now don’t want it, and now are trying to obfuscate and confuse – whatever footwork they may choose to engage in, we are walking a straight line to the objective,” the prime minister insisted.

[From Jamaica-Gleaner]

Unlike Barbados, it will be a trickier process for Jamaica to become a republic, and there’s a lot of intergovernmental wrangling left to be done. But I like that Holness is making it perfectly clear: we need to get the hell away from the British monarchy right now.

For some time now, even before QEII’s death, I’ve believed that King Charles has known that he would “lose” most or all of the Caribbean countries which are still subjects of the British crown. I’ve believed for some time that Charles is only really committed to “keeping” the “white countries” like Australia and Canada.

Photos courtesy of Instar and Cover Images.

I really wish I could join a moms’ group with Brook Shields. Our kids are too old for us to be in a moms’ group and I’m sure she has other things she needs to do but every time she talks about parenting, I find myself reading a version of my own thoughts. I’ve said many times about how her book Down Came the Rain led me through my baby blues. I thought I was a monster before I heard her interviews during the promotion for the book. As she promotes her Netflix documentary, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, she appeared as a guest on Chelsea Handler’s Dear Chelsea podcast, and she said something that I swear I said to my husband just this past Saturday. For some background on Brooke, who was a child star, she was managed by her mother Teri Shields. Teri was the Kris Kardashian of her time. Only we found out later that Teri was an alcoholic and put Brooke in some precarious situations as a result of her drunken decision making. Brooke has two daughters of her own, Rowan, 19, and Grier, 16. Raising them has been a challenge because she’s had to navigate motherhood without a clear idea of what good mothering was like. One area that really surprised her in her own parenting was how open she is with her girls. They talk about everything without judgement. Since Teri never spoke to her about anything intimate, Brooke had no idea she would be able to be so free with her daughters.

Brooke Shields is giving herself praise for the way she’s parented her two daughters Rowan, 19, and Grier, 16, after experiencing a complicated relationship with her own mother.

The 57-year-old model and actress spoke about her journey with motherhood on Chelsea Handler’s Dear Chelsea podcast, where Shields talked about the difficulty in raising children. “Even though I’ve always wanted to have kids, it’s really not easy,” she said of the two she shares with husband Chris Henchy. “Sometimes loving that much, it’s just a pain in the ass.”

After opening up about the reality of growing up with her mother Teri Shields in the 2014 memoir titled There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me, Shields shared that she’s inclined to look at the positive things she’s learned from her mom’s parenting style.

“I had done so much work on myself in therapy for decades, that I focused on the things that I want to replicate, rather than just the things that I didn’t want to replicate,” Shields said, noting that comparing herself would be futile as her mom was “so broken and couldn’t do the work on herself or for herself.”

Ways that Shields has made efforts to show up in a different way than her mother include being “careful about my drinking because I know that [alcoholism] is in my blood.” The mother-of-two has also cultivated an open flow of communication with her daughters than she ever had with her mom.

“I’m surprised at how much freedom emotionally I give my kids. I never thought that talking to them about sex … because my mother never talked to me about anything. You just were told, ‘Don’t do it, you’ll burn in hell,’ and then I became sort of known for being a virgin,” Shields reflected. “We talk about everything together and I have no judgment and I’m shocked at myself. I mean, we talk about it all and I didn’t think that I’d be comfortable with it on that level.”

[From Yahoo!]

“I mean, we talk about it all and I didn’t think that I’d be comfortable with it on that level.” This is the line that I basically said last weekend. I was being a little bit broader than just sex, but my thoughts were the same, that I was surprised with what I was comfortable speaking and hearing from my kids. We aren’t friends and there are boundaries, of course. But like Brooke was discussing, the relationship is where it is because of this openness. That’s the odd part for me. I thought was going to be more uptight than I am.

As for Brooke trying to find some good in Teri as a mother, I think acknowledging that there was something to appreciate is healthy. Brooke said she took from her mother humor and that Teri had a willingness to have fun with her. Brooke also said her mom, “was ballsy and that protected me.” Teri was such a complicated person. She did protect Brooke in many ways and in others, she threw her to the wolves. I’m glad Brooke was able to work on herself enough to find balance as a mother. The best part is that she ended up with such a healthy relationship with her daughters. Sometimes over correcting for a lousy childhood can go too far in the other direction. But it sounds like Brooke was able to find that harmony.

And this is one of the top tenets of parenthood: “Sometimes loving that much, it’s just a pain in the ass.”

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Photo credit: Cover Images and Getty Images

Netflix is back to captivate and enrage us by adding yet another dating show to their roster. On Valentine’s Day, a new dating show called Perfect Match will premiere featuring cast members from Love Is Blind, The Ultimatum, Too Hot to Handle, The Circle, and some other shows I’ve never heard of. Nick Lachey will host (apparently sans Vanessa) and one couple will eventually win and become the perfect match. They’re competing to form relationships and trying to sabotage each other since only one couple can win and new singles will be introduced throughout the series. Here’s the cast announcement and teaser video.

Some people are just in love with love…

We’d argue that many of Netflix’s most famous unscripted stars fall into this category, and it seems the streamer thinks so too, uniting many of their most beloved contestants for new dating show Perfect Match. Fittingly, it hits the platform on Valentine’s Day so that viewers can binge with their box of chocolates.

Perfect Match brings together stars from Love Is Blind, The Ultimatum, Too Hot to Handle, The Circle, and more to take another shot at finding love. Tucked away in a tropical paradise, the famously single stars compete to form relationships. The most compatible couples will play matchmaker and stir the pot, breaking up other couples and sending them on dates with brand-new singles they’ll invite to the villa.

It’s a game of love, but also one of strategy to see whether the contestants can actually create better matches or just sew chaos. Hosted by Nick Lachey, the series will crown one couple as the “perfect match.”

Netflix announced the full cast on Tuesday. Check out the full line-up below. Then, watch the teaser above for more.

Abbey Humphreys (Twentysomethings)

Anne-Sophie Petit-Frere (Selling Tampa)

Bartise Bowden (Love Is Blind)

Calvin Crooks (The Circle)

Chase DeMoor (Too Hot To Handle)

Chloe Veitch (Too Hot To Handle, The Circle)

Colony Reeves (Selling Tampa)

Damian Powers (Love Is Blind)

Diamond Jack (Love Is Blind)

Dom Gabriel (The Mole)

Francesca Farago (Too Hot To Handle)

Georgia Hassarati (Too Hot To Handle)

Ines Tazi (The Circle France)

Izzy Fairthorne (Too Hot To Handle)

Joey Sasso (The Circle)

Kariselle Snow (Sexy Beasts)

Lauren “LC” Chamblin (Love Is Blind)

Mitchell Eason (The Circle)

Nick Uhlenhuth (The Circle)

Savannah Palacio (The Circle)

Shayne Jansen (Love Is Blind)

Will Richardson (The Mole)

Zay Wilson (The Ultimatum)

[From Entertainment Weekly via Yahoo]

So was this too tacky for Vanessa or something? I have not seen all these shows or every season of the ones I have watched, but I recognize some familiar faces from Love is Blind and Too Hot to Handle. Clout chasers, all of them! There are a few from earlier seasons of those shows, so it will be interesting to see them back and trying to make a reality TV name for themselves again. I predict the earlier cast members will be even messier to try to outshine the characters that are more fresh in our minds like (ugh) Bartise and (ugh) Shayne. I guess Diamond wanted a second chance at reality TV fame after her Love is Blind engagement didn’t make it past day one of the vacation. Selling Tampa seems to be the outlier show here and I remain horrified that someone thought it was a good idea to name a Black woman “Colony.” (I previously thought the worst was “Tyranny” from Are you the One.) I hope some of these women torture Bartise, Damian, and Shayne as much as they tortured their respective love interests on Love is Blind. This sounds like a crazy combination of Big Brother and Are You the One and I will probably be watching every minute of it.

Photos are screenshots from YouTube credit Netflix