Jeff Bezos pledges to eventually give his fortune to charity. [Towleroad]
Happy 50th birthday to Scorpio King Jonny Lee Miller. [Dlisted]
Daniel Craig did a commercial for Belvedere Vodka. [OMG Blog]
Julia Fox talks about (lack of) sex & patriarchy. [LaineyGossip]
More photos from the Baby2Baby gala. [RCFA]
What are some of the dumbest tweets of all time? [Pajiba]
Liam Hemsworth is still with Gabriella Brooks. [JustJared]
This is a heavy, almost matronly look on Diane Kruger. [GFY]
Yeah, Khloe & Kim Kardashian have been leaning into disordered body-image messaging and viewers are tuning out. [Buzzfeed]
Breaking: Anna Duggar wore jeans. [Starcasm]
Larsa Pippen is dating Michael Jordan’s 31-year-old son Marcus. [Egotastic]
Gigi Hadid didn’t go to Leo DiCaprio’s big birthday party?? [Gawker]
Candace Cameron Bure is very right-wing, very Evangelical Christian. She’s also the kind of new-wave fundamentalist who can reframe issues so she seems like less of a close-minded bigot. Make no mistake, though. She’s absolutely a close-minded bigot. She’s not anti-vaccine, she’s just pro-immunity! She’s not anti-LGBTQ, she just thinks gay folks shouldn’t have the right to marry or be represented positively in the media. She’s not a fundamentalist Christian hellbent on turning America into Gilead, she just “loves Jesus.” Which brings me to this story – Candace left the Hallmark Channel in April after a decade spent on making those churchy, wholesome TV movies. Candace is now working with the Great American Family network to turn that into the kind of “family values” channel where LGBTQ folks are never heard from or represented. It looks like Candace might have put the GAF network in a bit of a pickle though, because she said that sh-t explicitly.
Candace Cameron Bure does not expect the Great American Family (GAF) network, which she serves as the chief creative officer for, to feature same-sex couples in its Christmas movies. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Monday, the Fuller House alum, 46, said, “I think that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core,” when asked about the subject.
Bill Abbott, the former Hallmark Channel CEO who now runs GAF, added of featuring same-sex couples: “It’s certainly the year 2022, so we’re aware of the trends. There’s no whiteboard that says, ‘Yes, this’ or ‘No, we’ll never go here.’ ”
A representative for GAF and Bure did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment. Bure exited the Hallmark Channel in April — a network she had worked with for over a decade. The channel currently has plans to air a more diverse lineup this year, including the upcoming movie, The Holiday Sitter, which will feature a main LGBTQ love story.
Bure told the WSJ that the Great American Family has no plans to do the same, but will instead focus on other stories, like that of her first movie with the network, A Christmas … Present, which will premiere on Great American Family this month. Bure previously starred in 10 holiday-themed movies and 30 films overall for Hallmark’s Crown Media.
Now, Bure told the WSJ: “My heart wants to tell stories that have more meaning and purpose and depth behind them. I knew that the people behind Great American Family were Christians that love the Lord and wanted to promote faith programming and good family entertainment.”
The outlet said that Bure would not speak about her departure from Hallmark Channel, only telling them, “It basically is a completely different network than when I started because of the change of leadership.”
And while Hallmark executives declined to comment on Great American Family to the WSJ, a spokeswoman for Hallmark said, “We want all viewers to see themselves in our programming and everyone is welcome.”
Again, Candace is the kind of fundamentalist bigot who enjoys reframing conversations – it’s not that the Hallmark Channel is a den of LGBTQ hedonism, it’s that GAF will be so much more “wholesome.” GAF will take pains to show a world in which LGBTQ folks have no right to marry, love, exist or celebrate Christmas. You know, family values! Wholesome! Not like those pagan sodomite abortionists at the g–damn Hallmark Channel! It’s hilarious. When did “Christianity” become synonymous with “we’re scared of fictional representations of the existence of gay folks”?
I didn’t even really catch the interesting “staging” of the Windsors on Remembrance Sunday, but the Telegraph made a point of dissecting it. For most of QEII’s reign, she was down on the ground at the Cenotaph, laying her wreath. When she got much older, she gave Prince Charles the task of wreath-laying while she stood on the balcony of the Foreign Office, flanked by the most senior women in the family. QEII was always supposed to be the “center” of the image, whether she was physically laying the wreath or whether she was on the balcony. But it’s different now that King Charles III is in charge. He was centered on the ground, with William directly behind him, then Anne and Edward behind William. On the balcony, Kate and Camilla were given equal prominence.
The Queen and Princess of Wales were given equal prominence as they shared a balcony to watch the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph, ensuring that neither took the place of Queen Elizabeth II. In a break from tradition, the two senior royals stood side by side, while the Countess of Wessex stood on a separate balcony alongside the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.
The arrangement meant that no one was deemed to have replaced the late Queen by taking her central spot at the first Remembrance ceremony since her death. The monarch had stood front and centre on a Foreign Office balcony overlooking Whitehall since her son, then Prince of Wales, took on the responsibility of laying her wreath in 2017.
The late Queen missed last year’s service due to a back strain that put her temporarily out of action. Her absence meant that the Duchess of Cornwall, the Countess of Wessex and the Duchess of Cambridge stood together on a balcony, with the latter in the middle, suggesting that Camilla had opted not to pull rank by substituting herself for the monarch. However, royal sources insisted at the time that the arrangement was spontaneous, rather than being pre-planned.
This year’s arrangement ensured the family neatly avoided the issue altogether.
So last year’s balcony placement made it look like Kate was super-eager to “take the place” of QEII, with Camilla off to the side. This year, Kate and Camilla stood as “equals” on the balcony, and shifted the Countess of Wessex to a separate balcony. Really, the staging would have made more sense with Camilla in the center, flanked by Kate and Sophie on either side. Camilla IS the Queen Consort after all. But it was seemingly more important to “mean girl” Sophie. I wonder who made that call?
This week’s Archetypes podcast is “The Audacity of the Activist with Jameela Jamil and Shohreh Aghdashloo.” The Duchess of Sussex focuses on how women’s activism is diminished, mocked, ignored and marginalized across all spectrums of society. Meghan also speaks with Ilana Glazer and Lisa Tetrault, author of The Myth of Seneca Falls. I like the framing Meghan and Ilana Glazer made about “hiding your vegetables,” as in women feeling the need to soften their opinions or activism to make everything more palatable. Here’s the pod:
Honestly, for years I haven’t really been able to stand Jameela Jamil, but I listened to most of Meghan’s interview with her and I came out of it feeling differently. Meghan gives her a platform to discuss the proliferation of diet culture online, then they talk about how the media has gone after her. Jamil is right – we’re rarely seeing celebrities posting about their “fat-burning teas” or diet whatever, and she was a huge part of that change. Jamil also admits that she entered spaces and conversations that she shouldn’t have, which is a huge reason why I tuned her out years ago – she thought she was the most important person to ever speak on every issue, ever. There’s a difference between “bold, loud and passionate activist” and “a narcissist using various causes to get attention for themselves.” Jameela was both at various times.
This pod, for me, got a lot more interesting when Meghan talks to Lisa Tetrault about the history of women’s activism and women’s movements, from the Suffrage movement, to Angela Davis, Gloria Steinem and Tarana Burke. Then around the 37-minute mark, Meghan begins speaking to Shohreh Aghdashloo, the Iranian actress and activist. She was an actress in Iran before the 1979 revolution and she, like many Iranians, fled their country under the ayatollah. Shohreh made me cry – she spoke about what it was like after the shah was overthrown and how she was stoned by pro-revolutionaries. Meghan uses this conversation to highlight the murder of Mahsa Amini by Iran’s morality police and the subsequent protests all around Iran, with women removing the hijabs, cutting their hair and fighting for their rights.
In 2020, Dominic West was carrying on an affair with Lily James in broad daylight. The were working together in Italy, and they were photographed canoodling and grabbing each other, and looking generally loved-up and sexed up. Dominic has been married to Catherine FitzGerald for years. She comes from a very aristocratic family, and her family owns Glin Castle. West and FitzGerald have kids together, and they managed to stay together for the sake of the castle and their kids although there were some bizarre moments back in 2020. Interestingly, West and FitzGerald move in royal circles too – West is an ambassador with the Prince’s Trust, and King Charles has been friendly with Catherine for years as well. One could even argue that casting West as then-Prince Charles in The Crown was a massive compliment to Charles too. Which brings me to this very strange story in the Mail about how Charles called Catherine when he heard about Dominic’s affair. Hmmmlmao.
To recap: in October 2020, West and James — who played father and daughter in the TV adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit Of Love — had been pictured looking more than cosy on a mini-break in Rome. They were snapped sharing a scooter, with West apparently nuzzling her neck, and in other pictures looked like a dreamy couple having a long lunch in the sun. After the pictures were published, he flew home to his wife Catherine FitzGerald in Wiltshire and the next morning the two of them staged an excruciating photocall — his wife’s red-rimmed eyes obvious to all.
They left a note for photographers which explained: ‘Our marriage is strong and we are very much together.’ The mother-of-four had a balled-up tissue tucked into the sleeve of her jumper.
West then started to prepare to play Charles, in the throes of a passionate (and adulterous) relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. It was a bold move, but spool forward 25 months and no wife could have looked prouder than Catherine FitzGerald at the premiere of series five of The Crown on Wednesday. It was very much a family affair — the Wests’ son Senan plays Prince William in this series — and his brother and sisters were present with their parents. It was also one of those hall-of-mirrors moments where life imitates art, for as we shall see, West and his wife know King Charles very well.
In fact, the King and West’s wife are particularly close, thanks to a shared love of horticulture and Georgian architecture.
It’s said that he actually called FitzGerald at the height of the Lily James crisis to offer his support.
A friend said: ‘Charles rang Catherine up when Dominic was photographed with Lily James in Rome, saying he knows how she feels, how beastly the papers are, how hard it is to be married in the public eye. All of that. Some of us thought it rather meddlesome. She and Charles have known each other for years, decades really. He has had her do gardens with him and so on. They share a lot of interests.’
“Some of us thought it rather meddlesome. She and Charles have known each other for years, decades really. He has had her do gardens with him and so on. They share a lot of interests.” I mean, it’s not really breaking news that British royals and aristocrats are all sleeping with each other all over the place. Catherine is sort of Charles’s type, right? She has the look of a young Camilla, only prettier. And Catherine is into gardens and garden designs. Would Charles? Yes, he would. Did he? Probably not. But I’m sure Charles did call and the old dog is probably up for it.
Photos courtesy of Netflix/The Crown, Sue Andrews/Avalon, JW / Bang Showbiz / Avalon.
I finished watching The Crown Season 5 over the weekend. It was an uneven season, especially given the wealth of verifiable information about the Windsors in the 1990s. There were so many stories which weren’t even touched upon, and some of the characterizations were a bit two-dimensional. Considering the freakout from Buckingham Palace ahead of the season premiere, you would think that this season would have been wall-to-wall criticism of King Charles. It was not – Peter Morgan soft-pedaled a lot, and he force-fed his audience some Charles apologia, especially with the Tampongate phone call, the Jonathan Dimbleby interview and the utter lack of dramatization of Charles’s campaign against Diana.
That being said, what The Crown does so well is simply dramatizing events and letting the audience fill in the rest. The Windsors can’t help but look out of touch, petty, selfish, smug, self-satisfied, inappropriate, warped, ignorant, immoral and vindictive… because that’s who they really are. Anyway, Dan Wootton had to throw his hat in the ring as the latest commentator freaking out about The Crown. Wootton’s commentary added something extra special: a demand that Prince Harry MUST cancel his Netflix contract.
After weeks of non-stop hype and worrying leaks about what to expect from its ‘storylines’, I knew The Crown was going to be bad. But I had no idea it would be this bad. As you’ll know if you binged the royal drama at the weekend like me, the fifth series is an all-out assault on the credibility, reputation, heart and soul of our beloved recently departed Queen Elizabeth II, her husband Prince Philip, the new monarch King Charles and his late ex-wife Princess Diana.
While all four, like most human beings, had their failings, Peter Morgan has set out on an all-out character assassination in his re-telling of the Windsor’s trials and tribulations during the troubled 1990s era, including the family’s annus horribilis.
I’d certainly hate to think that this dark turn in the highly influential hit show’s presentation of our Royal Family has anything to do with the streaming service signing Prince Harry as its most famous staff member, adorned with a £77 million deal.
The downright malicious presentation of the late Queen as cold, unloving and cruel is in stark contrast to the compassionate and pragmatic leader described by those who worked closely with her at the time. It rankles me that Hollywood is prepared to damage the memory of our greatest ever monarch so soon after her devastating passing, not to mention the portrayal of her devoted husband Philip as an uncaring philanderer.
So surely their own grandson – well known for his various public brawls with media organisations who sully the reputation of his loved ones – must be catatonic with rage? Especially in regards to the tawdry and factually inaccurate treatment of Diana, who is wrongly portrayed as a bad mum on a solo mission to bring down the monarchy.
If The Crown was produced by any other media organisation, Harry would be firing out Archewell press statements, alerting his trigger-happy lawyers at Schillings, and giving heartrending interviews with Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King about how the horrible media is out to destroy his life. Given he’s on the payroll, what do we have instead? A telling and deeply uncomfortable silence.
It’s weird that Prince Harry is simply never complaining and never explaining about The Crown and suddenly that’s what he’s NOT supposed to do? Why aren’t the Windsors more like Harry, who has brushed off The Crown like water off a duck’s ass? Yet more evidence that “never complain, never explain” is only selectively used. Wootton then writes “the letter Harry should send to Netflix” wherein Harry complains that The Crown is “now causing damage to my family and the monarchy itself” and that Netflix should “agree not to broadcast my reality series before the coronation of my father King Charles. He is grieving his mother and deserves this time to start his reign without additional stress.” LOL.
It’s actually hilarious that the Windsors and their sycophantic press machine want to exploit their “grief over the Queen’s passing” when it comes to Netflix, but when Harry simply wanted to bring his wife to Balmoral so that they could be together while HE grieved the loss of his beloved grandmother, the Palace went apesh-t and Charles personally called Harry to tell him that Meghan was unwelcome and not part of the family. Charles made it abundantly clear during QEII’s funeral week that the Sussexes were not part of the Windsors’ future or part of the family. Don’t get mad when Harry behaves accordingly.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Netflix/The Crown.
Lauren Hutton interviews are becoming some of my favorites. She exudes care-free confidence from every pore. She seems perpetually unbothered and I wish I could pull that off. Lauren is a brand ambassador for StriVectin. She said she connected with them because of their pro-aging approach. From the start, Lauren said the brand looked to include mature women in the skincare discussion. And not in a way that made them feel bad about who they were. Lauren said the whole idea of “anti-aging” is “old-fashioned” because getting older is the goal, so why would we be anti-winning the end game?
Her lipstick routine: Clinique’s Almost Lipstick ($22) in Pink and Black Honey. [I like to] put Black Honey on the inner edges of the lips and then Pink Honey all over.
We need to ditch “anti-aging”: Whether it’s beauty or fashion, there’s an obsession with youth. But if we’re lucky, we’re all going to get old. I think it’s time to realize that anti-aging is an old-fashioned term. There’s a lot of research that shows that our attitudes have so much to do with how we age, so instead of worrying about this wrinkle or that spot, we should all be focused on taking good care of our skin and ourselves, and the industry can help shift that conversation for the future.
What keeps her grounded: Above all, LOVE. Wildland and wild animals. Books. Spending many hours outside both day and night (with no light pollution, stars, and a telescope). Hanging with my friends, cooking and eating, good movies, calling my three younger sisters, and laughing!
Her go-to scent: I don’t have one. I don’t wear perfume, but I moisturize with fresh toasted, amber-colored coconut oil that has a beautiful scent.
Just FYI, this isn’t a sponsored post for any of the products. It’s a Lauren Hutton fan post, but not sponsored. I thought her lip routine was interesting and left the brands in there because it was easier than trying to describe the colors. I also liked Lauren’s scent being her coconut oil. I rarely put on perfume. But I have this one hair styling lotion that smells so good, it’s kind of becoming my scent and I’m okay with that.
Mostly I agree with Lauren’s comments about anti-aging. I’ve bought products that promised to fade my age spots (they didn’t) or minimize my wrinkles. I’m not immune to letting the mirror depress me. But overall, I am embracing my age. Because like Lauren said, I’ve earned this. I did my time, paid my dues – I *get* to be in my 50s. Hopefully I have a couple of decades left in me and sure, I’ll pick a moisturizer that works for skin my age, or a cleanser focused on elasticity rather than acne. But I’m not interested in fighting my age, I want to work with it.
Photo credit: Cover Images and Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
Paulina Porizkova has a new book of essays coming out called No Filter: The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful. I’m sure it will be raw, Paulina doesn’t hold much back. I’m a fan, it’s interesting for me to see a successful woman willing to allow herself to be vulnerable in a public space as much as she is. I worry about the toll it takes on her, but I think that’s just how she lives her life. Like in this interview to promote her book, she talked about her late husband, Ric Ocasek. Ric and Paulina met when he was 40 and married and she was 19 and at the top of her game. They were married for 28 years before they separated but living together with their two sons. Paulina discovered Ric’s body when she was bringing him coffee. Then she found out he’d tried to squeeze her out of the will because she’d “abandoned” him. She was able to settle the estate legally, but it was a lot of heavy emotions to deal with all at once. Paulina went pretty dark the year following Ric’s death but has comes to terms with it. Now she can miss him but still remind herself what he put her through.
Paulina Porizkova wanted to die in the aftermath of her estranged husband Ric Ocasek’s death.
“I mean, how many people wouldn’t [think about it], you know?” the model, 57, tells Page Six exclusively in an interview promoting her upcoming book of essays, “No Filter: The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful.”
“It’s not even so much that I thought about how to kill myself or when to kill myself; it was just that feeling of, ‘I just don’t know how to go on. I can’t do this anymore. … I just want to go away. I can’t bear waking up tomorrow morning, being the same person with the same feelings. I can’t carry it anymore.’”
“It was really, really hard because obviously, first of all, you’re grieving a person that has been your whole life, the most important person in your life … there was so much pain just stacked up on top of each other … and then this betrayal was a lot,” she tells us.
The “Anna” actress shares that she doesn’t even remember the first year after Ocasek’s death.“I remember feeling kind of numb for a certain amount of time and then sliding into anger,” she recalls. “And then, for me, it wasn’t like, ‘I love him, I hate him, I love him, I hate him.’ It was more like, ‘You know, I miss him, but look what he did, too.’ Like, how can I miss a man who did this to me? I mean, I still miss him like that. You can’t erase parts of your entire life. It was complicated, and it will probably remain complicated for the rest of my life.”
I was a Cars fan so I liked Ric as an artist but I didn’t know anything about him. I always had a soft spot for his relationship with Paulina because she was stunningly beautiful and he, well let’s just say he wasn’t what I would have thought was her type. So I put them in the “love wins out” category. But then all of this crap came out and I saw him completely differently. I understand where Paulina is coming from with, “I miss him, but look what he did,” though. For one thing, time gives some distance. And I’m sure they had some beautiful moments together. He’s the father of her sons, that probably factors into it. They may have had a better relationship with him, and she doesn’t want to hurt that. It’s probably healthy to remember a person for who they really were, flawed but also important in our lives. I mean, I hope Paulina’s worked through it because there was a lot to process in the wake of Ric’s death.
I haven’t, though. I don’t miss him and just remember what he did. So I don’t really listen to Cars songs the same any more.
Instagram and Avalon Red
Here are some photos from the big New York premiere of The Menu, starring Anya Taylor Joy, Ralph Fiennes and Nicholas Hoult. Honestly, I thought the movie looked interesting and cool, but Ralph’s interviews are kind of ruining my old opinions about him. It might seem inconsequential because I’m sure the kids don’t care about Fiennes, but he’s the lead of the film!! His name comes before Anya’s name on all of the promotional materials! Plus, it continues to be disconcerting to see Fiennes – a once-delicately beautiful man – turn up at premieres looking like a glum mid-level banker.
As for fashion, Anya repped her Dior contract and wore this Dior cocktail dress, I guess we’re calling it. Several designers have been doing these stiff crinoline skirts and I loathe the trend/throwback. That being said, it feels “very Dior,” and this is admittedly one of the better versions of the trend. Anya definitely pulls off some interesting stuff. I would have probably removed the gloves – the different patterns of the gloves and the lace on the dress is throwing me off.
If you look closely at Hoult, you can see that he’s wearing three layers – a gorgeous greige topcoat over a beige-and-silver button-down, over some kind of sheer white tank or tee. It’s amazing. Just a little pizzazz. I love that his trousers are a bit flared too. He’s SO stylish.
The drama on Love is Blind is usually around relationships, emotional connections, and occasionally there’s a vague conflict over physical attraction or lack thereof. Last season, Shake was really gross about trying to figure out the women’s sizes in the pods and was rude about Deepti, but whatever comments he made were supposedly offscreen to third parties and not to her directly. So I think this conversation might be a first for the series. At the reunion, Zanab Jaffrey says that her former fiancé, Cole Barnett, body shamed her repeatedly in cut scenes throughout the show. When she dumped him at the altar, Zanab told Cole he’d destroyed her self-confidence. And at the reunion she shared specifics.
Zanab Jaffrey of Love Is Blind is letting fans know what happened when cameras weren’t rolling.
After leaving Cole Barnett at the altar on the season 3 “Wedding Day” finale episode, Zanab Jaffrey said Wednesday on the Netflix show’s reunion that body shaming played a part in her decision and it was her ex’s “saving grace” that those scenes were cut from the show.
“Because so much of that stuff, the pushing food away from me, asking if I’m going to eat that, trying to get me to order a salad, the daily comments about my face and my body were not used [in the show],” Jaffrey, 32, explained. “And that’s great because it really did protect you and you are now denying it, and now calling me a liar in front of all these people.”
She went on to accuse him of “trying to control what I ate and changing my eating habits,” which Barnett, 27, called “hilarious,” claiming: “I never once cared about what you ate.”
“I stopped eating,” Jaffrey continued. “I was eating a banana and a teaspoon of peanut butter just so I wouldn’t pass out on the long days we were filming.”
Jaffrey also recalled an unaired incident in which she grabbed two Cuties clementines, during which Barnett discouraged her from snacking.
“He looked at me and he goes, ‘Are you gonna eat both of those?’” she recounted. “And I said, ‘Well, yeah. That’s a serving.’ And he goes, ‘Well, we’re going out to eat later. Maybe you should save your appetite.’”
As Barnett continued to dig in his heels, Jaffrey rebutted: “This is all working out so wonderfully in your favor because they did not use it.”
Barnett later offered Jaffrey and their costars an apology as married co-hosts Nick Lachey and Vanessa Lachey closed out the reunion.
“Zay, I came here. I fell in love with you. I really did wanna get married to you, and I’m sorry for hurting you on the way and everyone else who I’ve hurt,” Barnett said. “I’m sorry I’m working on it.”
Jaffrey previously said “I don’t” to Barnett during what would have been their wedding ceremony, telling him he “single-handedly shattered my self-confidence.” She’s since opened up to PEOPLE about the decision to call it off.
“I did not stand up there and say no to the Cole that everyone got to see,” Jaffrey explained. “There was a lot more. I stand by everything I said.”
I’ve never had a boyfriend that tried to monitor my food intake, but my friends have told me about those guys and they absolutely suck. Pushing food away from her, trying to get her to order a salad — all that stuff is awful. Making comments about her face is especially cruel. Even if Cole wasn’t doing it with the intention of hurting her and he was just thoughtless, think before you speak. Thoughtless little comments like that can be so insidious. Did production cut a bunch of that stuff to protect him? Including it would certainly counteract their supposed goals of making the show more welcoming and body diverse, especially after Vanessa Lachey stepped in it and Danielle Ruhl checked her. If memory serves, only thing they really left in were Cole’s comments after the pool party rating Zanab a 9 and someone else a 10. Which is sh-tty and also very immature.
Production did include the footage from the unaired clementine story at the end of the reunion and I actually don’t think Cole said anything wrong in that particular instance. They’re eating fruit together and he’s talking about their plans to have a big dinner later when Zanab goes for the clementines. She volunteers that she’d only eaten a banana that day and he says something like “Why would you do that? I offered you a poke bowl.” Production definitely could be protecting him and their show, but the clementine story seemed different than Zanab’s memory of it.
Photos courtesy of Netflix