Prince Harry was out and about in London over the weekend. Harry has been in Australia for a few weeks, and he’s already headed back after this weekend’s events. Which means he’s going to miss the birth of his new niece or nephew. Which… is that really a big deal? Harry and William like to pretend that they’re close, but I get the feeling they’ve grown apart a great deal, especially over the past few years. Harry’s spent that time narrowing his focus on the public role he wants to play for decades to come: he will be a passionate advocate for wounded warriors and a hands-on head of his own Lesotho charity. In that same time, William has clung to any excuse to refuse to do any work at all. Harry was in London for the birth of Prince George but he’s not going to change his schedule for this baby, that’s all I’m saying.

Harry will spend a few more weeks in Australia, then he’s doing a tour of New Zealand from May 9-16. Many believe that following that tour, Harry will spend much of the summer in Africa, working with his Sentebale charity and perhaps doing some hands-on volunteering for various NGOs. There’s a very good chance we won’t see much of any of the younger royals for months, as Kate goes on her extended maternity leave, Harry works undercover in Africa and William does… whatever. I mean, William will be working for Bond Air, but that means he won’t have many public appearances.

Meanwhile, did you hear the rumor about Harry and Jennifer Lawrence? This is just a straight up “let’s connect an eligible prince to a random actress” gossip story. They already tried it with Harry and Emma Watson, and now it’s J-Law’s turn. According to Life & Style, Harry was “keen on snagging a date” with J-Law, so he “made his aide invite her out to dinner and coupled it with an invite for her to see Kensington Palace.” Jennifer was apparently all “Nope, I’m sort of with Chris Martin, whatever.” Who in the world would say no to Harry… for Chris Martin? While I could see how J-Law would be Harry’s type (J-Law does have an “American Chelsy Davy” vibe), as Bedhead commented: “Princesses don’t fart.” It’s true. The kingdom would fall if a princess had Dorito farts.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

R&B superstar Ludacris and wife Eudoxie Mbouguiyengue celebrated her baby shower on Sunday (April 26).

Wowing in a white maxi maternity dress, the mom-to-be posed with her rapper-actor husband and his 13-year-old daughter Karma at the secret garden-themed baby shower.

“So much much #secretgarden @monicabrown @letoyaluckett,” a radiant Eudoxie Instagrammed an image with R&B singer Monica Brown.

Brown posted the above photo of the parents-to-be.

“Today was all about the love shared between these two, the memories created and the blessing we are all awaiting!! Love U @ludacris & @eudoxiee #SecretGarden #BabyBridgesShower,” Brown Instagrammed the lovely shot.

The Furious 7 star, 37, and his wife – who announced their pregnancy news last month – were wed over the holidays on the same day he popped the question.

This will be the third child for Ludacris (born Christopher Bridges), who is also dad to 16-month-old daughter Cai.

?? photo cred @primephocus

A photo posted by eudoxiee (Eh-dox-ee) (@eudoxiee) on Apr 27, 2015 at 12:10am PDT

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After blasting the UN Security Council for its inaction in Syria, Angelina Jolie returned home to Los Angeles yesterday, accompanied by Maddox and her brother, James Haven. She was informed, she was passionate, she was angry, but will she be effective? The effort is there, totally. But these are …      

Rachel McAdams is allegedly “caught” between two men. There has been widespread speculation that Rachel and Jake Gyllenhaal got friendly and continue to get friendly following their work together in Southpaw. They were recently seen having a meal together, which I guess means they’re hittin’ it. Except… Rachel is still working on True Detective Season 2. With Colin Farrell.

Sources tell Star Magazine that Rachel McAdams is also fallin’ for Colin Farrell, 38.

“Rachel and Colin definitely have chemistry – everyone on set has noticed.” Says the source. “She’s a little wary of his past with women. He was quite the playboy, so she worries about taking the relationship to the next level.

And as for Jake Gyllenhaal?

“He’d love to be exclusive with Rachel but hasn’t because he’s not sure the feeling is mutual,” says one of his confidantes.

[From Star Magazine, print edition]

If it was me… I would pick a fling or a relationship with Colin Farrell over anything with Jake Gyllenhaal. I’m sorry, but Jake still has some kind of residual taint on him after the Taylor Swift episode several years ago. I know he’s dated other ladies since then, but all I can see when I look at him is the goofy, twee, cuddlefest-happy thing with Swifty.

As for Colin… yes, he used to be a bad boy. Yes, I think he still has some issues when it comes to women and relationships. But… I think his priority these days is fatherhood. He told The Sunday Times this weekend: “I have not dated for, ooh, four years now. It’s just not happening, what with the work, the kids and my life. I know it’s not what people expect to hear, but that’s the honest truth.” The Sony Hack revealed some documentation to back this up – apparently, Colin has said no to several high-profile projects just because it would mean that he would have to be away from his sons for months at a time. So what does that mean for a potential relationship with Rachel? Hm…

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

New dads Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent shared the first photo of their daughter Poppy via Instagram Sunday.

“Perspective. Our daughter continues to be the biggest gift, the most spectacular teacher,” Rachel Zoe’s former assistant captioned the precious black and white image. “#handinhandwego.”

First-time father Berkus went on to repost the photo.

The couple – who have been married for nearly one year – welcomed Poppy via surrogate mother on March 23.

The celebrity interior designer shared the happy news via social media.

“We are so excited to finally be a family of 3! As anyone with a newborn knows, we have our work cut out for us but couldn’t be happier to be embarking on this life changing journey that is parenthood,” he wrote. “Thank you all for your well wishes and support.”

Before Poppy was born, Berkus opened up to Elle Decor about preparing for their daughter’s arrival.

“We have a lot of ideas floating around, a Pinterest page, and a file of things saved that we like, but we haven’t really decided yet,” he said. “Because I’m Jewish, I’m not doing the nursery in advance. But our ideas are kind of an extension of our own design philosophy anyway.”

He added: “My philosophy for years has been to think about the things that are going to grow with the child and the pieces that we can incorporate that are sort of unexpected. Like for the changing table, does it have to be from a catalog or can the base of it be something interesting with a top that we order from online? I think that what’s important is that this is probably the last moment where you’re going to be able to design something for your kid without factoring in their opinion. So this is it, just go for it and it’s a whole different conversation by the time they’re 3 or 4 and you’re trying to figure out how to incorporate cartoon sheets.”

View image | gettyimages.com

Bruce indicated in his 20/20 interview that people should still use the male pronoun to refer to him
In Bruce Jenner’s groundbreaking 20/20 interview, he addressed the issue of what his ex-wives knew about his transition. Bruce clarified that he’d always been heterosexual and that this was a separate issue from his gender identity. He also said that the first person he told about his gender issues was his first wife, Chrystie. Chrystie thought she could “fix” him, he explained. When he was separated from Chrystie, he fell in love with his soon-to-be second wife, Linda Thompson, a singer-songwriter and actress who had dated Elvis. Bruce didn’t tell Linda about his gender identity until they were married and had two young boys together.

Bruce admitted to Diane Sawyer that he “wasn’t as fair as I should have been” to the women in his life. That includes Kris Jenner, although Kris knew about Bruce’s transition for some time as he was taking female hormones for five years in the 80s and still had breasts when he met her. (Bruce stopped the hormones as he wasn’t ready to go through with it.) He admits that he “downplayed it some” to Kris because he didn’t want to hurt her. It sounds like Kris was accepting but that she expected Bruce to keep it private. He spoke glowingly about her and their years together and called her a good person. As Kaiser reported yesterday, he said that if Kris was ok with his transition he’d probably still be with her.

That may have been the case with his second wife, Linda, too. In a new first-person editorial on The Huffington Post, Linda explains how she learned that Bruce was transgender and how hard it was to take. She went to therapy with him and it sounds like they really tried to make it work. Linda writes that she couldn’t be married to a woman, though. I’m including some excerpts below but if you’re interested and have time I really encourage you to read her full essay.

On her awesome life with Bruce
Bruce and I actually made quite a great couple at the time. We got along exceedingly well and enjoyed many of the same activities, once he taught me how to do the sports that he enjoyed. Bruce taught me how to jet ski, water ski, snow ski, play tennis, eat healthfully, work out regularly, and basically lose my fear of getting my hair wet and opening my eyes underwater. Well, I may be exaggerating about losing my fear, but it is fair to say that Bruce unleashed a natural athlete in me. I became a pretty good tennis player, and Bruce and I even hosted our own celebrity tennis tournament benefiting United Cerebral Palsy in Children for several years. It was called the Bruce and Linda Jenner Love Match.

Bruce and I spent our days living at the beach, jet skiing, walking on the beach every morning with our coffee, sailing on a Hobie Cat, playing tennis, and otherwise just enjoying each other and many of the same activities. I thought we lived a pretty idyllic life.

How Bruce told her he identified as a woman
When Brody was about 18 months old and Brandon was about 3 and a half years old, Bruce came to me one day with a very somber look on his face and said, “There’s something about me that I really need to tell you, something you need to know.” I truly thought he might possibly tell me he had had an affair while on the road. But that’s not what he wanted to confess to me. Bruce told me that he identified as a woman. Not understanding exactly what he meant, I questioned him. “What do you mean you identify as a woman?” I asked. “What does that mean?” He replied that it meant that for as long as he could remember, he had looked in the mirror and seen a masculine image staring back at him where there should have been a feminine reflection. Bruce lamented, “I have lived in the wrong skin, the wrong body, my whole life. It is a living hell for me, and I really feel that I would like to move forward with the process of becoming a woman, the woman I have always been inside.”

People have asked me, “Were there any signs or clues through the years that Bruce might have had this issue? Any evidence he wore your clothes?” No. Not a clue. Nothing. Nada. Never.

How she learned about Bruce’s gender identity
I would venture to say that 30 years ago, very few of us were adequately educated about the world of gender dysphoria. I certainly wasn’t. I was living in my little Malibu cocoon of marital, motherly bliss with my world-champion, muscular, athletic, handsome husband. So my reaction to Bruce’s shocking declaration was one of confusion, even desperation. I suggested that we go to therapy. I needed to understand fully what Bruce’s issue was, and then to determine if it was something we could overcome or “fix.” I was naïve. As I said, I was pretty ignorant of the fact that being transgender isn’t something that can be overcome, fixed, prayed away, exorcised or obliterated by any other arcane notion. Being transgender, like being gay, tall, short, white, black, male, or female, is another part of the human condition that makes each individual unique, and something over which we have no control. We are who we are in the deepest recesses of our minds, hearts and identities. I had to learn that life lesson and apply it to my own expectations for my future and the future of my family.

I found a therapist who specialized in gender dysphoria. Her name was Dr. Gertrude Hill, and we began going to her right away. She was a lovely woman who very calmly, and as gently as she could, massacred me with the information that broke my heart into a million pieces. She told me in one of the first few sessions, “Linda, this is who Bruce is. His identity is that of a woman, and that will never, ever go away. You have a choice to make. If Bruce goes through with his gender reassignment, as he is now planning to do, you have the option of staying with him after he becomes she, or you can divorce him and move on with your life.” She told us that 25 percent of transgender people commit suicide because they are so depressed and feel so hopeless.

How they split up
As devastated as I was, my heart bled for Bruce and what he must have lived with his entire life. It’s impossible for those of us who are comfortable living in our own skin to fully grasp what an imprisonment that must feel like to be born into the wrong body. I know it’s difficult to understand, to emotionally or even intelligently wrap your head around. It was extremely difficult for me to comprehend, and adjust my life accordingly to, the realization that the man I had married — the very masculine, gorgeous, ideal, wonderful hunk of a man — would be no more. The human entity was still alive, but it truly was like mourning the death of the person I had grown to know and love.

Bruce and I separated after going to therapy for about six months — just to exhaust any hope of keeping our family together. Being married to a woman was not what I had envisioned for my life.

[From The Huffington Post]

I really loved reading about Linda and Bruce’s life together in the 80s. It sounds so wonderful, like a constant sporty vacation complete with glamorous celebrity events. There’s so much more in Linda’s story, including a lot of respect and admiration for everything Bruce put himself through to transition. She admits that he wasn’t always present in their boys’ lives, but it sounds like she understood.

Incidentally, both Chrystie and Linda gave positive supporting statements to ABC about Bruce’s transition. 20/20 reported that Kris said “no comment,” however Kris denies this. She tweeted to Perez Hilton. “f*k you Perez no one asked me to comment ….and I’m sitting with Bruce now watching this show so let’s keep it real…LOL….” It’s dumb to attack Perez when he was just repeating what was on 20/20. Kris did tweet something really nice about Bruce.

Not only was I able to call him my husband for 25 years and father of my children, I am now able to call him my hero.

— Kris Jenner (@KrisJenner) April 25, 2015

There are so many other reasons to demonize Kris Jenner, I don’t think I can fault her for initially saying “no comment,” although she’s obviously touchy about it. It’s doubtful that she’d ever be able to write as eloquent and supportive an essay as Linda Thompson just did, but Linda had the benefit of decades to think about it and understand. She came across as such an understanding, thoughtful lady. If you find out years after you’re married that your spouse identifies as a gender you’re not even attracted to, that’s got to be hard to deal with.

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

True Detective Season 2 premieres on HBO on June 21 right after the current season of Game Of Thrones comes to an end. Even though that’s still 7 weeks away and they’re still shooting the final episodes, Colin Farrell just gave an interview to The Sunday Times. Early promotion?

He talks about…      

Scarlett Johansson covers this week’s issue of Parade. The cover is a bit whack and I sort of find of amusing that an “artiste” like ScarJo has to go “downmarket” to Parade. But that’s what happens when you’re shilling a massive comic-book movie which needs to make more than a billion dollars. And while ScarJo doesn’t need to give up any juicy gossip for Parade, she still managed to throw in some interesting tidbits about her current marriage (to Romain Dauriac) and her former marriage (to Ryan Reynolds). Some highlights from Parade:

Where she lives: “I live a little bit of everywhere. My husband and I and the baby are a little bit nomadic at the moment.”

An allusion to her marriage to Ryan Reynolds: “Acting is a very strange world to be co-existing in. It’s very volatile. There’s always going to be the more successful person. It’s related to rejection. Because actors, if they’re not having success, connect it directly to unpopularity—to the fact that nobody wants them. It’s not necessarily true. I’m constantly rejected.

Marriage is hard: “It takes a lot of work. It takes a man who’s not only confident in the love that you have for one another, but confident in what he has going on in his own career. He has to be in a field that’s completely different from yours. My husband’s also involved in art. What’s important to him is the recognition that he gets from his job, and that has nothing to do with my job.”

Her current husband: “We like to go out and go dancing. Other times, we like to sit at home and eat Thai food and watch House Hunters International for four hours. And we’re interested in each other’s worlds. He’s interested in my weird, alien entertainment world. It fascinates him because it’s so different than what he knows. And I like to go to art openings with him and talk about art and emerging artists with him. That’s his passion.”

Her relationship with Chris Evans: “I’ve known Chris since I was 17, when we did The Perfect Score. This is our fifth movie together. We’re like Bogart and Bacall.”

She doesn’t want her daughter in the spotlight: “It’s hard. On the one hand, you don’t want to isolate your kids, but you don’t want to make your kids feel like freaks: There’s this fascination with famous kids, like they’re celebrity spawn.”

Parenting rules: “I think you just have to encourage your kids to be who they are, be themselves and not live in the shadow of your accomplishments.”

[From Parade]

I feel her on House Hunters International. I can turn it off when it’s a regular House Hunters marathon but when it’s a marathon of the HH International? It gets really difficult. Especially if there are families moving to cool cities and they actually have money to spend on good real estate.

As for the stuff about being married to an actor… her comments are begging to be parsed, right? “It’s very volatile. There’s always going to be the more successful person.” Meaning… Ryan had issues with Scarlett’s success while they were married? She was becoming one of the most in-demand actresses and winning Tony Awards for her stage turns while Ryan was… working on Green Lantern. This is also begging to be parsed: Marriage “takes a man who’s not only confident in the love that you have for one another, but confident in what he has going on in his own career.” Do I spy some very pointed shade? Hm.

Photos courtesy of Parade, WENN.

Mad Men Season 7 Episode 11 recap

Yes, we’ve done it before. We’ve seen this go down – the passion and ticking clock and the corralling of clients. I got just as excited this time as I did back then. I wanted to see the excitement and adrenaline start to flow like it did years ago when they s…      

Blake Lively has a decent new interview with the Los Angeles Times. Blake has been enjoying the past week of wall-to-wall press, probably because it’s her first film press tour since 2012. She’s been doing a major (and bizarre) fashion show in New York, but I kind of think the fashion show has just been to deflect from the fact that, oh right, Blake is kind of boring in interviews. She doesn’t have a lot to say in general. So why pick up on this LAT interview? Well, she actually had her baby with her in the interview – she was breastfeeding and she asked the LAT reporter not to describe it in the article (which the reporter does not). Blake also tells some lies about how she announced her pregnancy, because I guess she thinks we’re stupid. Some highlights:

Blake didn’t want to tell people she was pregnant? Lively hoped to conceal her pregnancy until she gave birth but shared the news at seven months because she found out that paparazzi had taken pictures of her (and her growing stomach) on vacation with Reynolds.

She didn’t think ‘Gossip Girl’ was about the quality of the content. “If it was about the content, they wouldn’t hand us our script pages minutes before shooting. You’re part of this machine — this pop culture phenomenon — but as an actor, the quality of your work is definitely compromised because of that. When I finished the last season, I didn’t feel good at it anymore. I didn’t feel stimulated. It had become muscle memory, but not good muscle memory — like bad-habit muscle memory.”

The bad reviews of her lifestyle site, Preserve: “You feel like you’re in high school and being bullied,” Lively says of the negative reviews. James, who was bouncing on her lap, gurgled. “Excuse me! She has a lot to say on the subject. She hates bullying.”

She’s sticking with Preserve: “I’m a lot better at this than I am at acting. I always feel like I’m faking it when I’m acting. I do the best I can do to tell the story in the best way, but I always feel really lucky when I get a job. I feel confident when I’m cooking or decorating. It’s something I control beginning, middle and end. That ownership feels good.”

She wants more kids: “It’s addictive…Having a baby is just living in the constant unexpected. You never know when you’re gonna get crapped on or when you’re gonna get a big smile or when that smile immediately turns into hysterics. It might be like living with a drug addict. But you have a baby and you think, ‘I can’t imagine ever not having a baby,’ because they grow up so quickly. I’d be an 80-year-old woman with a baby if I could.”

[From The LAT]

Oh, so much here to parse. First of all… while the paparazzi might have gotten photos of Blake’s pregnant belly, let’s be real, she used her pregnancy announcement to shill the launch of Preserve. She literally posted the first “bump photo” on Preserve as part of the launch of the site. And yes, she’s “better” at Preserve-ing than she is at acting, although that’s setting the bar pretty low. And no, what we said about Preserve wasn’t “bullying.” We were utterly justified in mocking the crappy functionality of the site AND the cheesy, offensive writing. Anyone remember her stupid “Allure of Antebellum” post? Because it was so quaint and lovely in the American South when black folks were slaves, right? SO ALLURING.

And why is Blake criticizing Gossip Girl so much these days? Chica, that’s the show that made you famous. Stop biting the hand that fed you and made you a household name.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.