I genuinely hope no one watches Saturday Night Live anymore. The writers room has been overtaken by misogynists, antisemites and right-wing Elon Musk fanboys. Recently, Dave Chappelle guest-hosted and his monologue was despicable, and it should have marked a total overhaul of SNL’s producing and writing staff. It did not. That speaks volumes. Now, I realize that a lot of celebrities still dream of guest-hosting SNL and I’m sure that’s what happened with Keke Palmer. Keke is having another amazing year and of course she was thrilled about getting the SNL call. Instead of using her monologue to punch down on marginalized communities, she used her monologue to announce her pregnancy!

Keke Palmer is going to be a mom! The actress, 29, is pregnant and expecting her first baby with boyfriend Darius Jackson, she revealed while hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend for the first time.

“There’s some rumors going around, people have been in my comments saying, ‘Keke’s having a baby, Keke’s pregnant,’ and I wanna set the record straight — I am!” Palmer exclaimed, ripping open a long gray jacket to reveal her growing baby bump on the Studio 8H stage.

“I gotta say, though, it is bad when people on the internet spread rumors about you y’all, but it’s even worse when they’re correct. I mean, like, I was trying so hard to keep it on the down low, cause I got a lot of stuff going on, you know?” she continued. “… But honestly this has been the biggest blessing, and I am so excited. Guys, I’m going to be a mom.”

Palmer added: “Even though some people feel a little weird about me having a baby cause I was a child actor, I just wanna say, look, I’m 29, I’m grown, I have sex, I own a home, I stormed the Capitol on January 6, you know? Things adults do.”

[From People]

I honestly didn’t know that Keke had an official boyfriend, but she’s been with Darius Jackson for about a year and a half. He’s cute too. She’s right about not being able to hide it – her Instagram comments were littered with people bump-watching and noting how she was hiding her mid-section. Her boobs tell the story too – they look amazing!! Anyway, congrats to Keke!!

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red, screencap courtesy of NBC.

Love is Blind season three was interesting because I really wasn’t rooting for anyone, except Nancy. But by herself, because I certainly did not want her pairing to succeed and believed she deserved way better from jump. Each couple had one person that seemed pretty awful or unreasonable, and one person that seemed boring or annoying but looked better in comparison to their partner. Out of the five engaged couples that came out of the season, only two are still together. The other three couples either broke up for good on their wedding day, or more recently due to cheating allegations in the case of Raven Ross and SK Alagbada.

Just two couples from season one are still together and no couples from season two are together anymore.

Alexa Alfia & Brennon Lemieux – Still Together
Alexa and Brennon got married on the show and they are still going strong as a couple as of November 2022.

Zanab Jaffrey & Cole Barnett – Not Together
Zanab and Cole split on their wedding day after she said no at the altar.

Nancy Rodriguez & Bartise Bowden – Not Together
Nancy and Bartise split on their wedding day. He said no at the altar, though she said yes.

Raven Ross & Sikiru Alagbada – Not Together
Raven and Sikiru are still together as of November 2022, but they are not married. Sikiru said no on their wedding day, though they remained a couple.
Update: The couple announced on November 21, 2022 that they have split for good following a handful of cheating allegations.

Colleen Reed & Matt Bolton – Still Together
Colleen and Matt got married on their wedding day and are still together as of November 2022, but they are not living together yet.

[From Just Jared]

From the first season of the show, two couples got and stayed married, and one couple did not marry, but continued to date, and then broke up. From the second season of the show, two couples got married and got divorced a year later. This third season kept up the two marriage streak and the one continued relationship/breakup, but will it follow the divorce streak from the second season? Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me either way. Alexa and Brennon do seem legit, but they had very different lifestyles going into this and while it seems he’s adapted to hers, there’s always the potential for problems. And Matt is a walking red flag, but it seems like Colleen really wants to be married, so we’ll see. I hope SK and Raven don’t get back together after he publicly embarrassed her multiple times. I’m glad neither Nancy and Bartise nor Zanab and Cole attempted to continue dating after the show. Both men are immature, insensitive jerks, Zanab seems like she has some stuff to work through, and I just want Nancy to meet a nice normal guy and stay far away from that reality TV influencer life.

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photos credit: Sara Mally/Netflix and via Instagram

Just after Netflix premiered the Harry & Meghan teaser trailer, a Kensington Palace source huffed to Valentine Low at the Times: “They are two people who are accepting awards for themselves, talking about themselves, doing programmes about themselves. [William and Kate are] active members of the royal family who have a job to shine a spotlight on other people, give awards to other people. That’s the contrast.” Well, funny story – you know the big, keen Earthshot Awards which were endlessly previewed and served as a huge aggrandizement for Prince William to magnanimously “give a platform” to people doing groundbreaking environmental work? Well, William didn’t even want those Earthshot prize winners in Boston with him. Please, he might have had to touch someone poor. They did a satellite link-up for the Earthshot finalists and winners. Which wouldn’t be so egregious except that William burned through millions of dollars to put on an “awards show” with celebrities in attendance.

The food was plant-based, the flowers grown locally and the carpet, as is now tradition, was green. Guests invited to the second annual Earthshot Awards were whisked to the venue in electric taxis and encouraged to recycle pre-loved outfits.

Five budding winners each won £1 million to scale up their projects.

“A million dollars is significant,” Justin Winters, executive director of climate philanthropy organisation One Earth told the Boston Globe. “For a lot of these nonprofits and companies, it’s a game-changing investment. But I would say in this case, the level of attention and partnerships that are brought to the table — to the finalists and the award winners — are really significant.”

In order to reduce the carbon footprint, all finalists were filmed on home turf, joining the ceremony via a live video feed.

The Princess was among those who presented an award, warning that air pollution “poses a threat that knows no borders.”

Guests were treated to performances by Ellie Goulding, Annie Lennox, and Billie Eilish. After the show, the Prince and Princess went backstage to thank the celebrities who had taken part.

The royals flew home on a British Airways flight overnight to be reunited with their three children.

[From The Telegraph]

Arguably, the best thing one could say about Earthshot is that William is platforming diverse people making diverse solutions to environmental issues, and that Earthshot could become a place to facilitate innovation, growth and collaboration within sustainable and environmental industries. Except that for William, all of the Earthshot winners should literally stay at home, not meet with each other, not fuel collaboration or innovation, and here’s some money and now shut up about it while he chums it up with Rami Malek. They seriously made celebrities fly into Boston for a big awards show… and then didn’t invite the nominees to come to Boston. He made them stay at home. He doesn’t think that looks bad or that it should have been organized differently. He does not believe that prize winners should actually be feted and recognized for their work in person.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

The only conspiracy involving Kim Kardashian possibly “cheating” on Kanye West was the one about Drake. The Drake-Keke theory made a lot of sense to me. The others don’t because, personally, I don’t think Kim is particularly interested in sex. Sure, she performs sexiness in a rote, plastic way, but ultimately, she doesn’t seem interested in the act, only in the performance. All of that to say, I doubt Kim cheated on Kanye and if she did, it was probably more of an emotional affair more than anything else. According to Kanye though, he “caught” her having affairs when they were together. His latest claim – before he was suspended from Twitter – was that he caught Kim in bed with Chris Paul, a basketball player currently playing for Phoenix. Well, sources close to Kim are saying NOPE.

Kim Kardashian was not “caught” cheating with Chris Paul, sources tell Page Six, debunking Kanye West’s claim in his latest Twitter tirade.

“This is not true, and sadly it’s an ongoing pattern with Kanye — attacking Kim to redirect everyone’s attention after a day of crazy antics where he has said every hateful and offensive thing he can possibly dream of,” an insider says, referencing the disgraced rapper’s anti-Semitic “Infowars” interview Thursday.

“He has a history of falsely accusing her of also having affairs with Meek Mill, Drake and countless others,” the source continues, accusing West of “deflecti[ing] his own awful behavior” with attempts to “abuse and slut-shame” his ex-wife.

“She wants to be left alone so she can focus on the well-being of their children,” the insider adds.

West, 45, took to Twitter for a wild rant on Thursday night before his account was suspended again due to “incitement to violence.”

Moments before his social media profile was deactivated, West wrote, “Before we get outa here, I caught this guy with Kim. Goodnight.”

[From Page Six]

Yeah. I think the “source” is correct. I think Kanye is just talking sh-t about Kim. I doubt he’s making some conscious decision to deflect – it’s more like he’s in a manic and delusional state and he’s just saying ridiculous and offensive sh-t.

I’ve also seen a lot of people blaming Kim for not doing more to, what? Limit the kids’ time with Kanye in some way? Or go for full custody? I get what she’s doing though, and please remember that for much of this year, Kanye was fully stalking and harassing her publicly, out in the open. I think Kim is taking the long view, which is that everything about the divorce and custody will be done systematically, with evidence and lawyers, over a period of years. The divorce was just finalized a week ago, for goodness sake. Right now, the kids are with her most of the time anyway, and I absolutely believe that she’s prepared to revisit the custodial issue at some point, possibly very soon.

These are photos of Kim partying with Khloe, Jonathan Cheban (he’s back!) and Serena Williams in Miami in recent days.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Here are some photos of the Prince of Wales and Princess of Wales during their daytime activities on Friday, before Friday evening’s Earthshot Awards. Kate donned her Harvard Wiglet and wore a $1150 Emilia Wickstead dress with a houndstooth pattern. This dress is very Kate – pinched, prim, too conservative. If the choice is between “flattering her slim figure” and “emphasizing how thin she is,” Kate will always choose the latter. Kate apparently brought a pen and notepad and “took notes” in between her jazz hands performance with the Harvard academics.

Meanwhile, Prince William did a tour of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The tour was led by Caroline Kennedy and her son Jack Schlossberg (who is nice-looking and baby-faced at 29). After the tour, William got his photo-op with President Biden, who was in Boston for a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraiser. Biden stopped by the Kennedy Library and their staffs organized the photo-op outside the building. Biden is, as always, a great pol and a good glad-hander. He turned up, shook hands and gave Peg his photo-op. I find it interesting that Kate wasn’t included, but I wouldn’t read too much into it, honestly. This was clearly done on Biden’s schedule and availability, and Kate’s staff had already planned out her Harvard visit before the Waleses figured out the logistics of adding on the Biden photo-op last minute.

I saw a lot of people talking about this NY Times piece called “Bostonians’ Take on the Royals’ Whirlwind Visit? Whatevah.” Basically, the Times sent a reporter to Boston to cover the lack of enthusiasm for the Waleses. Most Bostonians didn’t care one way or the other, but some were actively unimpressed by these two. One Boston woman even said she couldn’t talk about Will and Kate because she’ll “get mad” about how they treated the Duchess of Sussex.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Ian Vogler/Avalon Red, Cover Images.

The trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is here!! I don’t care, I love Indiana Jones and I will watch this! Antonio Banderas is in it!!! [Pajiba]
I agree that many of these Christmas candies suck, but I love peppermint bark. I love most mint-chocolate candies though, so… [Dlisted]
Lainey on the Harry & Meghan trailer. [LaineyGossip]
Jenna Ortega was in Iron Man 3? [Seriously OMG]
House Republicans finally deleted that “Kanye. Elon. Trump” tweet. [Jezebel]
Would you wear Pete Wentz’s cardi? [Go Fug Yourself]
Gawker thinks the Waleses’ Boston trip is a flop too. [Gawker]
Apartheid emerald heir Elon Musk says words about Kanye West. [Just Jared]
Irina Shayk models for a Chanel fragrance. [Egotastic]
I don’t want to talk about this disgusting Lindsay Lohan-Pepsi thing. [Buzzfeed]
Mindy Kaling wore (a bad) Saint Laurent. [RCFA]
The Trump Org. trial is nearing its end. [Towleroad]

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You know how the new Princess of Wales is constantly being praised for her “diplomatic dressing” when she’s usually just cosplaying flags? Well, good news, she can’t even do that much in America. These are photos of Prince William and Kate’s trip to Greentown Labs in Somerville, Massachusetts. Kate wore a Roland Mouret suit in burgundy with a pink pussybow blouse and a $4,664 Chanel purse. You know what would have been “diplomatic dressing”? Wearing at least one American designer in your first few events in Boston. She’s so bad at this. And by “this” I mean “wearing clothes.” This ensemble is hideous and dated. I’m sure the suit might have looked interesting if it was styled differently but this ain’t it. I also cannot believe how much William and Kate are color-coordinating their outfits. It’s so cheesy.

Meanwhile, basically every Somerville resident was mad about all of the street closures and traffic chaos for this photo-op. Even a city councilor vented about their visit on Twitter, saying “I didn’t invite these people.” LMAO.

While some in Somerville, Massachusetts, are appreciative of the fact that the British royals will bring some positive attention to Greentown Labs, an incubator for start-ups aiming to tackle the climate crisis with tech-fueled innovation, others are annoyed about the inconveniences the Wales’s visit will cause for the city—traffic, for example.

A main concern on the social channels is how difficult it will allegedly be for residents to get to grocery store Market Basket, located on Somerville Avenue. A block of the avenue, from Dane Street to School Street, will be blocked during William and Kate’s visit to the area today, according to an email city officials sent to residents on Wednesday, The Boston Globe reported.

Both directions of travel, the sidewalks, and parking will also be closed to the public, and the MBTA’s route 87 bus will be temporarily rerouted, the city reportedly said, adding that the move was made “to accommodate security measures for the British royal visit.”

A spokesperson for Market Basket said the store will remain open, with access from the Union Square side, per the Globe. But even the Somerville city councilor is outraged at the possibility of having one entrance to the local supermarket temporarily, partially blocked for the royals’ historic visit—their first to the U.S. since 2014.

“Hey, did you know that the royal family is visiting Ward 2 tomorrow? Yeah, me neither until I read it in the press,” City Councilor Jefferson Thomas Scott wrote on Twitter yesterday upon the royals’ arrival in Boston. “I didn’t invite these people and was unaware of this visit until you found out too. The City is not handling the Prince and Princess of Wales’ itinerary, so the times of these transits and closures ending is unknown.”

[From Harper’s Bazaar]

I mean, there will always be upset locals wherever the royals go, but it feels more pointed because it’s Will and Kate and they’re clearly inconveniencing a small community just so they can get a bored photo-op. Speaking of, they used children of color as diversity props again and their social media team didn’t double-check the spelling of Somerville.

1500 words on how the Prince and Princess of Wales spelled Somerville wrong pic.twitter.com/Vekx3MviKa

— Megan Johnson (@megansarahj) December 1, 2022

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

Here are some more photos of the Prince and Princess of Wales on Day 2 of their Boston Flop Tour. They were doing something at Boston Harbour and both of them looked like they were freezing their nards off. Welcome to Boston in December, knuckleheads. William’s teeth were chattering as he (I assume) muttered something racist.

Anyway, the story continues to be how this Boston trip is a flop, just like their Caribbean tour was in March. I suspect this trip was always going to flop, just because William and Kate are incompetent, but there’s an added dimension to it because of the Susan Hussey-racism mess, plus the Sussexes’s Netflix trailer dropping on Thursday. So what can we expect from William? During the Caribbean Flop Tour, he and Kate were completely unable to change their staid, colonialist plans and imagery, and all that happened post-tour is that William threw a tantrum and blamed his staff. He is incapable of doing something genuine and unscripted without coming across like what he is: a lazy, incurious bully constantly on the knife’s edge of being incandescent with rage. The Daily Beast’s Royalist column had a lengthy op-ed about how William is reacting to the Hussey debacle and the Sussexes’ docuseries. Here’s the most interesting part:

A family friend of the prince told The Daily Beast that William would likely now be trying to figure out the best way to continue his trip to the U.S…. and not to be diverted by the latest royal racism scandal back home.

“William ultimately subscribes to his grandmother’s ‘keep calm and carry on’ school of thinking, and that is what he will be doing, trying to get the focus back on the award,” the friend said.

Asked if this meant he would risk being seen as effectively pretending the comments by Lady Susan Hussey hadn’t happened, or confronting their consequences and significance for the royal family, the friend said, “He condemned the remarks in no uncertain terms. He just won’t be going on Oprah to talk about it.”

A spokesperson for the prince declined to comment further on the remarks Wednesday evening, with his team known to be determined to avoid being “distracted” by issues not related to the Earthshot prize.

Their high-profile visit to America this week was meant to be part of William and Kate’s fightback, making it clear the monarchy is not going to cede America to Harry and Meghan without a fight. However, the scandal—and the deeply offensive way that Hussey addressed Fulani—also focuses attention on not only what Harry and Meghan claimed were the attitudes they faced within the institution, but why they are receiving the award Sunday at the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation Ripple of Hope Gala in New York.

If anything, the scandal shows why the Ripple of Hope award is—damningly for the royal family—well-merited, and why “keeping calm and carrying on” is perhaps the very opposite of how William should be approaching the fallout from Hussey’s remarks.

[From The Daily Beast]

Exactly – it’s one thing to not want to be distracted from your big shiny Earthshot keenery and it’s another thing entirely to be so utterly tone-deaf and blind to your own privilege that you think ignoring racism will make it go away. Susan Hussey is William’s godmother and Hussey was one of Queen Elizabeth’s closest ladies-in-waiting. Susan Hussey was appointed to some high-up emeritus position within Buckingham Palace by William’s father. Susan Hussey is a racist whose abusive behavior made a Black activist feel unwelcome, disrespected and hopeless inside Buckingham Palace. William’s silence is complicity, and his inability to improvise is one of his most significant faults.

Also: William didn’t “condemn” Hussey in “no uncertain terms.” His spokesperson merely signed off on the palace’s statement. The Oprah crack comes across poorly too. But it shows that Harry still lives rent-free in William’s head.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have many amazing qualities, but one of my favorites is “they’re effortless thunder-stealers.” Harry and Meghan can just exist, breathe, thrive and the royal thunder is STOLEN. Considering how many times the Sussexes were mentioned by Kensington Palace in the lead up to Prince William and Kate’s Boston trip, you would have thought that the Waleses would expect this, to have their thunder stolen by the people who live rent-free in their minds. But no, William and Kate are incandescent with rage that Netflix dropped the Harry & Meghan teaser yesterday, on Day 2 of the Boston Flop Tour. Now “sources” are screaming and crying about the Sussexes launching a “coordinated campaign” against the Waleses. Don’t you know that Earthshot is like the Super Bowl?? *sob*

The release of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix trailer is believed to be a “coordinated campaign” to overshadow the Prince and Princess of Wales’ big US visit, sources told Page Six. The dramatic teaser for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s hotly anticipated six-part docuseries, “Harry & Meghan,” dropped early Thursday, while Prince William and Kate Middleton were in the middle of their big Boston visit — for William’s pet cause, the Earthshot Prize ceremony, which has been touted as his “Super Bowl.” Markle’s friend, journalist Omid Scobie, seemed to make the point clear when he tweeted out the trailer on Thursday: “If tomorrow is Prince William’s Super Bowl, then here’s your Halftime Show.”

One palace insider told Page Six they believe the Sussexes are trying to “disrupt and clash” with William and Kate’s American visit. Royal watcher Hugo Vickers, a friend of the royal family, told Page Six of the timing: “Surprise, surprise, how very boring of Harry and Meghan. But this sort of thing is inevitable. It does sound a bit pretentious what they have produced.”

One well-placed royal insider told Page Six: “If the Sussexes are worried they’ll look diminished and less credible in comparison to the Prince and Princess of Wales’ first overseas tour in this new era, they’ve overplayed their hand with a string of PR announcements designed to clash with Waleses’ visit this week.”

Other sources were at pains, however, to say that Harry and Markle had nothing to do with the timing of the docuseries trailer, adding that it was decided by Netflix chiefs. Page Six is told that, in fact, the Sussexes had asked for it to be released on Monday, Nov. 28, ahead of the show’s Dec. 8 launch date.

The royal insider pointed out that, while the Sussexes claim to be a “privacy-obsessed couple, the 60-second trailer contains intimate images, moments and places never before shared — and with raw emotion. It’s hard not to make a Kardashian comparison with the Hollywood vibe.”

All of this has palace insiders worried about exactly what will be said in the show — and if it will feel like a declaration of war.

“At one point is enough going to be enough?” the palace insider source asked. Asked what the ultimate impact on Harry and Markle’s relationship with the royal family could be, the insider said: “This is upsetting, but I very much doubt the king’s son will be banned from attending his coronation.”

[From Page Six]

I actually believe that the Sussexes would have preferred to release the Netflix trailer before the Waleses’ Boston trip, just like I believe that it was Netflix’s call and Netflix loves poking the Windsor bear. And how does the trailer “diminish” the Sussexes? If anything, they succeeded in stealing the keen thunder and Will and Kate should be f–king grateful. Their trip is a f–king flop, they’re getting booed and barely anyone wants to see them and a huge racist catastrophe exploded while they were mid-flight to Boston. Will & Kate should send the Sussexes flowers and a box of cashews for changing the subject.

“This is upsetting, but I very much doubt the king’s son will be banned from attending his coronation.” That means that Charles is issuing a toothless threat to his younger son: I won’t hesitate to ban you from the coronation, stop it now! It’s toothless because it will look incredibly bad for Charles if he “bans” Harry from the coronation.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, Cover Images, Backgrid.

The Royal Variety show is an annual fundraiser for the Royal Variety Charity, a fundraiser which raises money (through ticket sales) for retired entertainers or entertainers in poor health. Queen Elizabeth was patron of the charity, but it’s currently without a royal patron. Which brings me to my theory that King Charles is going to “give” the Earl and Countess of Wessex a few high-profile patronages, just enough to keep them on a leash, all while refusing to give them any kind of title upgrade. I suspect that Edward and/or Sophie will be made the new patron(s) of this charity.

Last night, the Wessexes were the “guest royals” for the Royal Variety Show. Considering this is supposed to be one of the most glamorous and A-list nights on the royal calendar, you would have thought that… I don’t know, maybe Sophie would have gone more glam? I know none of the “working royal” women can actually DO glam. So Sophie wore a perfectly fine Erdem dress with sleeves. I’m holding two contradicting thoughts at once: this look is frumpy and unflattering on Sophie, and I also kind of like the dress. It’s the perfect dress for when you don’t want to go body-con and you just want to be comfortable at a black-tie event. I also think she could have zazzed it up with bigger jewelry and a tighter chignon.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red, David Parry / Avalon.