Dear Gossips,

Madonna’s new video, featuring Beyonce and Katy Perry and Minaj and Miley was promised to us yesterday. SHE was the one who promised it. On Instagram last week – her words, not mine. Click here to see.

Yesterday she released the poster. It felt like Taylor Swift. OK but what…      

Dear Gossips,

Madonna’s new video, featuring Beyonce and Katy Perry and Minaj and Miley was promised to us yesterday. SHE was the one who promised it. On Instagram last week – her words, not mine. Click here to see.

Yesterday she released the poster. It felt like Taylor Swift. OK but what…      

Hello, cutie!

New dad Nate Berkus shared a sweet snapshot of his daughter Poppy, nearly 3 months, via Instagram.

“After a beautiful wedding in Martha’s Vineyard, we get to come home to this….. @jeremiahbrent #shargies,” the celebrity interior designer, 43, captioned the cute image of his baby girl.

Berkus and husband Jeremiah Brent welcomed their daughter via gestational carrier on March 23 in New York City.

“I’ve always wanted to be a parent,” Berkus recently said. “I had hoped that I would have this chance, but I didn’t want to do it on my own.” Brent, 30, added, “Until recently, we didn’t think it was possible. But we’re fortunate to be legally married and things just fell into place. We’re really thankful.”

Berkus added: “Surrogacy can be about science, it can be about money, or it can be about intention. We were really lucky to have everybody that was involved in allowing us to have our daughter be excited for us. Our paternal instincts kicked in almost instantly. She came out with her eyes open, looking around like she had been waiting for us.”

After a beautiful wedding in Martha’s Vineyard, we get to come home to this….. @jeremiahbrent #shargies

A photo posted by Nate Berkus (@nateberkus) on Jun 14, 2015 at 3:31pm PDT

When Nicole Kidman stepped out for the CMTs last week, I thought she looked crazy-Botoxed. Like, almost unrecognizable. But she made an appearance at last night’s Women In Film Crystal + Lucy Awards, and she looked almost normal-ish, for her. Of course I still think she’s ‘Toxed and fillered, but it amazes me how radically different she can look from week to week. Nicole wore Nina Ricci Fall 2015 for WIF. The shoes are Brian Atwood. Note: The Daily Mail points out that Nicole had a makeup fail on the red carpet. The problem is the same as always – hi-def makeup on the red carpet.

At the event, Nicole briefly spoke to E! News about her upcoming birthday plans and anniversary plans.

Nicole Kidman has a lot going on in the next couple of weeks. Not only does she turn 48 on June 20, but her and Keith Urban’s ninth wedding anniversary is June 25. I caught up with the Oscar winner tonight at the Women in Film’s Crystal + Lucy Awards and asked how she planned to celebrate the two milestones.

“Keith is doing a gig so I’m going with him,” Kidman said of their anniversary. “I’ll be dancing on the side of the stage and kissing him when he comes off.”

No big dinner plans? “He’s going to organize that,” Kidman said.

As for her bday, Kidman revealed, “I don’t really celebrate a big birthday thing. I always say I get enough attention so I don’t need anymore. I just like to have my family really close and snuggle.”

[From E! News]

Of course she doesn’t celebrate birthdays. She just rubs virgin’s blood and dove feathers on her face by the moonlight and she calls upon the Goddess to stop the aging process. Sigh… I’m just saying, I’d much rather look like Helen Mirren (who will turn 70 this summer) and have fun rather than look like Nicole at 48.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Congratulations are in order for Alec and Hilaria Baldwin.

The 30 Rock star, 57, and his yoga instructor wife, 30, have welcomed their second child – son Rafael Thomas Baldwin – the couple announced via Instagram Wednesday.

“We are happy to announce the birth of Rafael Thomas Baldwin,” Hilaria captioned a photo holding hands with their newborn.

The baby boy joins big sister Carmen Gabriela, 21 months. Alec is also dad to 19-year-old daughter Ireland, 19, with his ex-wife Kim Basinger.

On New Year’s Day, the couple announced their pregnancy news.

“The sun has set on 2014. 2015 is going to be very exciting as we are thrilled to announce we are expecting another little addition to our family!” Hilaria Instagrammed the news.

We are happy to announce the birth of Rafael Thomas Baldwin

A photo posted by Hilaria Thomas Baldwin (@hilariabaldwin) on Jun 17, 2015 at 4:36am PDT

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Here are some photos from last night’s Women In Film 2015 Crystal + Lucy Awards. They got a good turnout, which usually happens (although it feels like this event comes around four times a year). Kristen Stewart made her first public outing since her mom maybe “outed” her – Kristen came out to support Twilight author Stephanie Meyer, also seen in one of these photos. Kristen wore Proenza Schouler Fall 2015 for this outing. (PS… She did not walk the carpet.)

As for Kristen and her mom – it’s complicated. Her mom was quoted as giving a solid confirmation about Kristen’s relationship with Alicia Cargile. The next day, Jules Stewart denied saying anything about Kristen’s relationship to the Daily Mirror. But the journalist, Sharon Feinstein, claims that she has the audio recording of the conversation but that the Daily Mirror isn’t going to call out Jules Stewart at this time. Is Kristen mad at her mom? Does Kristen not even care? I have no idea.

More photos from WIF event… here’s Sandra Bullock in a cute-ish Monique Lhuillier Fall 2015 look. Why is Sandra’s hair so awful here? I never think of her as having consistently bad hair, but considering she has had two bad hair appearances in one week, it might be time to get a new hair guy.

Kate Mara, likely wearing MaxMara (she’s the new face of the brand). She just cut her hair too. I’m not a fan – can a haircut make you look shorter?

Angie Harmon is sort of an ageless vampire, right? I don’t even like the dress but she looks great.

Yay, it’s good to see Laura Linney.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Just looking through these photos of Gwendoline Christie – Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones – I can’t help but think that she would make a good queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Gwendoline is “regal” all over the place. She is EVERYTHING! She is Queen B(rienne). Perhaps that’s what we were working towards all this time. It was never about Dany and Jon Snow and Tyrion. It was always about getting Brienne on the throne!

Anyway, Gwendoline has a new interview with Entertainment Weekly about this past season of GoT and all of the criticism the showrunners have received. This really was the “turning point” season where it feels like a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Throners just had enough. Following the finale on Sunday, I’ve read about a half-dozen “think pieces” about why GoT sucks and why no one should be watching a show that treats its female characters so poorly. While I read and mostly enjoy those think-pieces, at the end of the day, I pretty much accept the way violence against women is portrayed on GoT. I remind myself that the violence is fictional, that the GoT-era is based on medieval European history and that atrocious, vicious and violent acts against women have happened throughout time and still happen every damn day in the modern world. Which is pretty much how Gwendoline feels about it too. Gwendoline is referred to as “an avowed feminist” and then asked about this past season in particular:

GC on the historical context: “I’ve always been quite clear about my attitude toward gender equality and female empowerment. And a lot of this show is inspired by actual historical events, and that’s what’s occurring with the women. Women have been treated appalling in history. Men have too. Human beings have. What this show is doing is shining a light on women and has an exploration of female characters that has rarely been approached before—and I applaud that. Yes, those scenes are difficult, and they should be difficult. They should further illuminate human consciousness about how we interact as human beings.”

The story is more complicated than the criticism: “Those downfalls and points of agony and pain that affect us so acutely with these horrific events that the female characters go though, those events are not the only things that happen in the show. The show is so dense and so complex. This isn’t just a season-by-season story, we’re looking at this story as a whole.”

GoT is fundamentally about power and the balance of power: “I truly believe this, I truly do. Because people ask me about this all the time. And what’s wonderful about Game of Thrones is it’s a TV show, and in watching it, the show allows us to perhaps adapt our own personal attitudes and create a better reality.”

[From Entertainment Weekly]

Yep, I agree. I also believe that for some viewers, it’s way more complicated, and some of those scenes can be triggers. Which is a valid criticism, except… I kind of think people know what they’re signing up for when they start watching GoT. Sex, violence, retribution, revenge, gore, rape, incest, magic, zombies and dragons – that’s what you’re getting.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

Here are some photos from Day 1 of the Royal Ascot. For the first day, many royals came out to play. Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Harry, the Duke of York, Princess Beatrice, Princess Anne and Zara Phillips were all in attendance. I’ve included as many clear shots as I could find, but just know: Beatrice was in very few photos, for whatever reason. Anne always avoids the cameras whenever possible as well. Oh, and regarding Zara’s yellow dress, which seemed suspiciously bunchy in the midsection: there are now rumors that Zara is expecting again!

The Queen wore a vibrant hot pink coat and floral dress for Day 1. Her dress was by Peter Enrione and I’m almost positive that the hat and coat were repeats. I think the coat was probably done by Angela Kelly, the Queen’s longtime dressmaker. As for the Queen’s constant Brooch Realness, I just fell down the fabulous-jewelry rabbit hole trying to ID the brooch. I’m pretty sure that it is not the Queen’s famous pink sapphire brooch – which you can see here – just because in previous photos, that brooch looks much smaller than this one at Royal Ascot. I’m also in love with this post about the Queen’s newly-seen brooches in 2014. Alas, I still can’t find any reference to the one she’s wearing here. Those pink stones are not pink diamonds, but they could be pink sapphires or pink topazes. Pink tourmalines?

What else? Royal Ascot is THE event for crazy hats, and I always just thought that was an unspoken custom. As it turns out, it’s a real rule for attending Royal Ascot. People Magazine spoke to “royal milliner” Rachel Trevor-Morgan, who said: “Royal Ascot rules are very strict — you must wear a hat or headpiece that is at least 10 cm wide. Your hat will be the most memorable part of your outfit, so try to make as much effort as possible.” No fascinators are not allowed either, you have to wear a real hat. Women also cannot show their shoulders or midriffs, and sunglasses are frowned upon.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Yesterday, Donald Trump finally pulled the trigger and announced at long last that YES OMG YES he will be running for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 election cycle. Trump has been very, very vocal about his conservative politics over the years, especially during the Obama presidency. Trump has also been one of the most vocal and high-profile “birthers” out there – meaning he believes (honestly believes!) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that Obama’s birth certificate was forged as some sort of massive conspiracy to get a Kenyan socialist into the White House. Trump memorably had an epic Twitter meltdown on election night in 2012, when Obama was reelected. It was amazing.

So, Trump’s entrance into the GOP race is welcome, even if most of the people interested seeing Trump are basically laughing at him and hate-watching him. Trump’s announcement speech was… AMAZING. It was like a parody from The Onion only Trump really said this stuff.

Here are some highlights from Politico’s write-up:

In a rambling hour-long stream-of-consciousness speech, The Donald vowed he would be “the greatest jobs President that God ever created.” He said he would “build a great wall on our southern border and have Mexico pay for that wall” and rebuild the country’s nuclear arsenal that “doesn’t work.”

He blasted the $5 billion price tag for Obamacare websites and said he could do better. “I hire people, they do a website, it costs $3,” he boasted. And, of course, he reminded the crowd: “I’m really rich…that’s the kind of thinking you need for this country. It sounds crass, it’s not crass.”

A team of accountants, he said, has been toiling for months to calculate his total net worth of $8 billion, and assets of $9.24 billion.

“That’s the kind of thinking our country needs,” he said in apparent reference to his wealth. “We have the opposite thinking. We have losers. We have people that don’t have it. We have people that are morally corrupt.”

Trumpalooza was unlike any regular candidate’s announcement. Reporters from Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight and gossip reporters from Page Six filled the marble basement of Trump Tower. Unlike the kick-off acts of the more deliberate candidates, where regular Americans are placed in closest proximity to the candidate, and the press is shunted to the back of the room, supporters were kept upstairs while area closest to Trump was reserved for hundreds of reporters and television cameras. A crowd filled up three floors of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, leaning over the amber-colored mirrored walls, waving signs that said: “Donald, We need YOU!!!” The soundtrack of the event was pure schmaltz, featuring pieces from Phantom of the Opera and Cats.

“This is beyond anybody’s expectations,” Trump crowed from the podium, after descending the escalator with his wife, Melania, dressed in stiletto heels and a strapless white dress. “There’s been no crowd like this. Some of the candidates they went in, they didn’t know the air conditioning didn’t work and they sweated like dogs…They didn’t know the room was too big because there was nobody was there. How are they going to beat ISIS?”

He vowed: “nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump.” And he said America was currently losing to other world powers like China. “I’m not saying they’re stupid, I like China,” he said. “I just sold an apartment for $15 million to someone from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?”

Trump criticized President Obama for failing to be a cheerleader for the United States, and said as president he would immediately repeal Obama’s “illegal” executive action on immigration. But he said Obama would be welcome on his golf courses. “I have the best courses in the world,” he said. “If he’d like to play that’s fine. In fact, I want him to leave early and play, that would be a very good thing.”

[From Politico]

I truly wonder why Trump didn’t run in 2012. As much as all of these Republicans want to bash Obama and call him every name in the book, they were scared about running against him, weren’t they? I wonder why they’re not scared of Hillary Clinton. Speaking of, the Democratic National Committee welcomed Trump into the race with this statement: “Today, Donald Trump became the second major Republican candidate to announce for president in two days. He adds some much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the GOP field, and we look forward to hearing more about his ideas for the nation.” I hope Trump gets some ice for that BURN.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, WENN.

Yesterday we heard from Rachel Dolezal, the former Spokane, WA NAACP president who posed as an African American woman for years. Dolezal used a combination of self tanners, fake hair and an invented backstory, complete with made up racist bigotry, to boost the claim that she was born as a black woman. She even claimed that a black man, a personal friend, was her biological father, when her father is in fact white, as is her mother. There’s more to this complicated story, with the crux being that the woman lies openly and seems to have sociopathic tendencies.

In her appearance on The Today Show yesterday, Dolezal portrayed herself as a victim of the media. She had a lot of long winded explanations and never apologized for her deception, nor did she apologize in her statement resigning from the NAACP. Dolezal had another, more in-depth interview yesterday, with Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC. She talked a good game, as we heard on The Today Show, but she rarely answered questions directly and instead gave lots of details which sounded embellished. You can read a transcript of the interview here and clips are here.

I’m not going to excerpt much from the interview, because to me it’s not what she said it’s what she didn’t say. She was entirely too slick, and I came away from this with the impression that she’s a charismatic con artist. Here’s Dolezal’s response to the questions of whether she’s a con artist. She didn’t sweat it at all, nor did she answer yes or no. She also talked around the issue of cultural appropriation, bringing it up without really addressing it.

On if she’s a con artist
I don’t think so, you know. I don’t think anything that I have done with regard to the movement, my work, my life, my identity, I mean, it’s all been very thoughtful and careful, sometimes decisions have been made for survival reasons or to protect people that I love. And all things included, when it boils down, the entire world could say stand down. But when it comes to being there for my kids, for my sister, I would never stand down on that.

It’s been hard for me to actually have the courage to be there for myself because my life and kind of my past, my journey, has been to be so heavily aware of the needs of other people in times to organize, strategize and advocate for and protect those interests. And so at this point, I’m kind of thrust into, you know, are you going to be there for yourself? Are you not? Are you going to back down, you know, stand down, stand up, what’s going to happen? And I’ve really kind of taken the personal and the organizational and in the last three days –

– OK. Here’s family, kids, NAACP, accountability, my students, all these things, my work. And here’s my family and here’s my — and then there’s me.

And what is in the big picture interest? And so my resignation yesterday, I really came to see that and I came from ultimately conversation with my oldest son, which, you know, he’s like (INAUDIBLE), I can’t — like now’s the time when.

On people being angry at her
They don’t know me. They really don’t know what I’ve actually walked through and how hard it is. This has not been something that just is a casual, you know come-and-go sort of identity you know, or an identity crisis. It’s something that I’ve paid away. And people have asked like, you know, I guess, go back to being white.

If you’re rejected by the black community, what do you do?

I’ll be me. I’ll be me because you know, I feel like at the same time, I never want to be a liability to the cause. And I take that very seriously in consideration there’s so much to process with sort of going from being celebrated as a black woman and loving how that feels by all the students that I mentor and like feeling like, oh, I can be me and they get me and I get them and we can talk about, you know, yes, you know, just Iggy Azalea and cultural appropriation and all these things. And it’s just — I teach (INAUDIBLE) culture classes, I teach black studies. I teach like seven of them.

[From MSNBC Transcript]

It’s a simple question: are you a con artist or not? The answer should be “yes” or “no”. Instead she claims that she doesn’t “think” she is and then goes into a long non-answer about how she’s “there for” her family and her job. It’s unclear what she even means, which seems to be typical of the way she speaks. She had a similar lengthy non-response to the question of why she sued Howard University.

Also in the interview, Dolezal claimed that she didn’t get paid for her position with the NAACP or for her role on the police accountability board. She also worked as a part time instructor for Eastern Washington University, which has since removed her profile from their website. It’s thought that her contract for next year will not be renewed.

Dolezal may have another option for employment now that she’s infamous for pretending to be a black woman. Radar online reports that she’s been offered at least two reality shows and is about to hire a publicist and agent. TLC should get right on that. I’ve heard they may have an opening in their schedule.