Taylor Swift’s tenth studio album, Midnights, came out at (you guessed it) midnight last night. Then Taylor decided to pour on the drama with a surprise “3 am” drop of seven songs which did not make it onto the 13-song album, but which are still spiritually part of Midnights. Spotify seemingly crashed for thousands of Swifties at some point. Tay-Tay’s still got it. The reviews are already coming in too, with a lot of music critics calling this one of her better albums. She posted this with the announcement of the 3 am drop:

Surprise! I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour. However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13. I’m calling them 3am tracks. Lately I’ve been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks. So it’s 3am and I’m giving them to you now.

[From Swift’s IG]

Interestingly enough, Taylor also debuted a “trailer” for her new music videos for Midnights. The trailer first appeared on Thursday Night Football, then she posted it on her social media. One thing I’ll give her – she’s one of the few artists spending real money on her music videos these days, and Taylor has always emphasized that the imagery is almost always as important as the music. She spent a lot on these music videos and she’s been prepping the videos and this release for a while.

Tay also posted a loving message to her producer/collaborator Jack Antonoff and all of her other collaborators on this album.

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King Charles III has lost his first prime minister. Charles and Liz Truss were both new on their respective jobs back in that dreadful week in September, when Charles’s mother died shortly after meeting Liz Truss. I’m not saying Liz Truss’s presence killed the queen, but I’m not NOT saying it either. In any case, Truss’s government has come to an inglorious end in just a brief 44 days. What a wild ride it was – Charles barely got a chance to brief against Truss, but he did make one valiant effort when he practically gave a full interview to the Times about how Truss banned him from going to a climate conference. Still, the new king demands a cookie for not “interfering” in the Tory political crisis in the first seven weeks of his reign. From Vanity Fair’s curious story about how King Charles weathered the Truss storm:

Charles’s penultimate meeting with Truss: When King Charles III and then prime minister Liz Truss convened at Buckingham Palace for their first weekly meeting on October 12, the recently installed monarch tried to lighten the mood with a quip in a video that was later distributed to the press. “So you’ve come back again?” he asked. “Dear, oh, dear.” The BBC later reported that he was commenting on a logistics snafu that meant she had been to the palace twice that day. But as frustration mounted with Truss and the financial and political crises she had seemingly sparked in a matter of weeks as prime minister, Charles’s apparently weary comment seemed to reflect the national mood. Ultimately, it might be all we ever hear from the king about the last month of tumult at 10 Downing Street.

Please give Charles a cookie for not interfering: Though Charles is famously opinionated, he has said he understood his job would change when he became king. It was always going to be a difficult adjustment no matter what was going on in the British government, but Truss’s struggles with her own party have likely outstripped his nightmares. In that sense, his ability to serve as head of state without making waves throughout the Truss tenure may mark the first major test of his reign. To remain silent on the declining ratings and grim economic outlook, the king instead engaged in a bit of counterprogramming, [making appearances to charities and initiatives in Scotland and London.]

Charles looked busy & stable compared to Truss’s wall-to-wall shambles: It was a good example of why the monarchy has come to stand for stability—as the head of state, his schedule isn’t at the whims of a functioning government. But of course, there must be limits to how long the diplomatic work can continue while everything else is in shambles.

Neutral Charles: From the death of Queen Elizabeth II to the fiscal crisis caused by the introduction of a budget calling for ample tax cuts, Truss’s six weeks at the helm of the British government were uniquely complicated, and Charles made it through without compromising his neutrality or weighing in publicly. But the challenges facing the British political system are just beginning, and an energy crisis is just around the corner. If the Conservative Party can’t come to a solution that pleases the general public, it will raise questions about the ability of the constitutional monarchy to function in its current form.

[From Vanity Fair]

Again, I have to underline the point: a nearly 75-year-old man – an actual KING – is desperate for credit and praise for not inserting himself into the political catastrophe that is the Tory Party. Charles desperately wants people to see him as a wise elder statesman, so he has to POINT OUT that he was not doing anything while the British government imploded in a blaze of bad policy, Tory-on-Tory crime and general incompetence. I mean, it’s true – he didn’t insert himself. Truss burned out in 44 days without any interference from Charles. But surely one could ask: if the point of a monarch is to not do anything, even in a time of calamitous political crisis, then what’s the point of having a monarch?

Also: the whole reason King Charles III didn’t insert himself into the Trusshambles is because his focus for the past month has almost solely been on his unhinged campaign against The Crown.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Jane Barlow/Avalon.

On Monday, shipping will begin on new quarters, the first piece of U.S. currency to feature an Asian American person. The person in question is Anna May Wong, a Chinese-American actress considered to be the first Chinese-American Hollywood movie star and first Chinese-American actress to become internationally known. Anna May was active as an actress for about 40 years, from the 1920s until her untimely death of a heart attack at age 56 in 1961. Despite her prolificness, she, of course, faced a ton of adversity and discrimination during her years as an actress and for a time even left the U.S. for supposedly greener pastures in Europe (where she was criticized for seeming too American).

The first piece of U.S. currency to carry the likeness of an Asian American will begin shipping on Monday, according to the U.S. Mint.

On the tails side of a new quarter will be the Chinese American actress Anna May Wong, chin resting on her hand, framed by the “bright lights of a marquee sign,” the Mint said. Wong’s coin is the fifth in a series of quarters to feature prominent American women. There has been “overwhelming demand” and most of the coins are already sold out, according to the Mint’s website.

Wong is regarded as Hollywood’s first Asian American movie star. The third-generation American’s career took off at a time of widespread anti-Asian xenophobia, with the Chinese Exclusion Act still in effect. She gained fame for her roles in silent films like “The Toll of the Sea” (1922) – one of the first Technicolor movies – and “The Thief of Bagdad” (1924).

But as an Asian woman, she was often relegated to playing the villain, the enslaved person or the maid, so much so that she has often been referred to as “the actress who died a thousand deaths.”

“I was so tired of the parts I had to play,” Wong said in a 1933 interview, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain of the piece, and so cruel a villain – murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass. We are not like that.”

While Wong was hailed for her beauty, the compliment usually came with the disclaimers that she was “exotic” or “oriental.”

She tried to break out from playing the antagonist but met resistance, in part due to restrictions on interracial displays of affection. Wong vied for the starring role of O-Lan in the 1937 film “The Good Earth” but was instead offered the role of Lotus, a sex worker who becomes the concubine of O-Lan’s husband.

She declined, refusing to be the sole Asian cast member – lead roles were given to White actors – in the “only unsympathetic role,” she said. The White actress who was cast as O-Lan, Luise Rainer, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film.

“Wong sought to be valued as an actress, a woman with vision and ambition, and an American, all at a time when U.S. society could not imagine a Chinese American woman beyond the limits of racialized and gendered stereotypes of Asian women as exotic and foreign,” said Karen Leong, a professor of Asian Pacific American studies at Arizona State University and the author of a book on prominent Asian American women, including Wong.

“As the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, she faced constant discrimination, frequently being typecast and passed over for lead roles in favor of non-Asian actresses,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said in a statement Tuesday. “She is remembered not only as a great actress, but also as an advocate for increased representation of Asian Americans in film and media.”

The new quarter is not the first major recognition of Wong’s legacy. She was the first Asian American actress to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 1960. Nearly six decades later, Lucy Liu became the second. Liu cited the contributions of Wong – whom she called “a pioneer while enduring racism, marginalization, and exclusion” – as a factor behind her success.

Wong is the subject of an upcoming biopic, starring actress Gemma Chan, who gained international fame in “Crazy Rich Asians” (2018), one of the most successful Hollywood films with a majority-Asian cast.

Chan said in a statement when the biopic was announced that the “challenges and prejudice [Wong] faced in the early 20th century as an actress speak directly to the conversations and the world we are navigating today.” The British actress also paid homage to Wong with her 2021 Met Gala look.

Wong died in 1961 at the age of 56. Though a century has passed since she appeared in “The Toll,” Asian Americans are still underrepresented in American films. According to a 2021 survey by the University of Southern California of 1,300 popular films from 2007 to 2019, only 29 featured an Asian lead or co-lead, and 21 had a Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander lead or co-lead, totaling just over 3 percent of the films examined. Asians and Pacific Islanders make up more than 6 percent of the U.S. population, according to 2020 census figures.

[From The Washington Post via Yahoo! Entertainment]

I’d love to snag and save one of these coins, but apparently most are already sold out. (I was hoping as coins they’d just be in circulation.) Anna May’s story is inspiring, yet heart-breaking. She faced so much discrimination and exotification and was disheartened by being forced to play so many stereotypical roles, the tropes of which are still present in American media to this day. I wrote about representations of Asian-American women in American media for my college thesis in 2011 and it’s shocking/not-shocking how little things have changed. Sure, some progress has been made in terms of representation and stores and the tide is starting to turn, but that’s a fairly recent development and it tends to be limited to certain actors and stories. My aunt and I love that Anna May refused the studio that wanted to cast her in yet another stereotypical villain role (which was ultimately given to a white actress in wtf yellowface).

Anna May was truly ahead of her time in terms of fighting against stereotypes that persisted for nearly 100 years past her heyday. Anna May was also the first Asian-American actress to get a Hollywood Walk of Fame star and will be portrayed by Gemma Chan in a long overdue biopic. Though I wish they’d found an Asian American instead of British actress to play such an iconic character, I’m just glad her story is being told and hopefully more people learn about it through that and through these coins.

Photos credit: Carl Van Vechten/Avalon.red, History/Avalon.red, UPPA/Photoshot/Avalon, US Mint

When MeToo began in the fall of 2017 with the reporting around Harvey Weinstein’s serial sexual predation, rumors began circulating that additional Hollywood predators should be and would be outed in short order. Anthony Rapp was the first person to come out and put his name to an accusation against Kevin Spacey. Rapp was the tipping point, and dozens of men and boys came forward after Rapp to talk about how Spacey assaulted them, harassed them, raped them. It was never just one victim one time – Spacey has a decades-long history of hurting young men and boys. Because Rapp was brave enough to come forward and tell his story, his bravery emboldened dozens of other victims to come forward.

In recent years, Rapp ended up pressing charges against Spacey using the Child Victims Act, a federal protection which intends to make it easier for victims to come forward years after the initial crimes. Rapp’s accusation was deemed “battery” under the statute, because Spacey (then 26 years old) tried to “seduce,” fondle and kiss a then-14-year-old Rapp. On Thursday, a federal jury found that Spacey was not liable for battery.

A federal jury in Manhattan found Kevin Spacey not liable for battery on Thursday in a civil case brought by the actor Anthony Rapp, who accused Mr. Spacey of climbing on top of him and making a sexual advance more than 30 years ago when Mr. Rapp was 14.

The 11-person jury in the Federal District Court in Manhattan spent less than 90 minutes deliberating over the evidence against Mr. Spacey, who denied the accusation on the stand. The trial hinged on Mr. Rapp’s account of a night in 1986, when, he said, he attended a party at Mr. Spacey’s New York apartment during a Broadway season in which both of them were acting in plays. Mr. Spacey, who was 26 at the time, denied that such an encounter ever occurred.

The jury found that Mr. Spacey did not touch a sexual or intimate part of Mr. Rapp’s, meaning it could not find him liable under the Child Victims Act, a New York State law that allowed Mr. Rapp to bring his claim. The law included a look-back window during which old claims that had already passed the statute of limitations could be revived.

After the verdict was read, Mr. Spacey stood up with tears in his eyes. He hugged his lawyers briefly and shared a longer hug with his assistant. Mr. Rapp was stoic and straight-faced, as he had been through the entire proceeding.

“We’re just grateful that the jury saw the truth,” Jennifer L. Keller, one of Mr. Spacey’s lawyers, said after the verdict.

Richard M. Steigman, one of Mr. Rapp’s lawyers, said, “The jury has spoken.”

Mr. Rapp’s claim was one of the most prominent in the early days of the #MeToo movement, as accusers started to come forward with allegations against high-profile men in the entertainment, political and business worlds. Mr. Spacey quickly experienced career blowback and was ultimately removed from “House of Cards.” The disclosure by Mr. Rapp, which BuzzFeed News published in October 2017, was followed by more than a dozen other sexual misconduct accusations against Mr. Spacey. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault charges in Britain.

[From The NY Times]

It’s completely insane that “you don’t remember it the right way because you were a kid” is a reasonable explanation as opposed to “this horrific moment of abuse was seared into a 14-year-old child’s memory because it was so damaging.” This is why so many victims don’t come forward, plain and simple. I still believe Anthony Rapp, I always believed him. His story was heartbreaking and he was incredibly brave for telling his story and pursuing justice against his abuser. This jury is disgusting.

Things Kevin Spacey did in court: He cried. He apologized for apologizing. He talked about his abusive father. His lawyers characterized Anthony Rapp as “jealous” (at age 14) of Spacey’s interest in other men.

The jury sided with Spacey. We’ve seen this before. https://t.co/Zmfb6PqHTy

— Kat Tenbarge (@kattenbarge) October 20, 2022

Photos courtesy of Instar, David Longendyke / Avalon, Joe Sutter, PacificCoastNews / Avalon and Justin Ng / Avalon.

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Reba McEntire is starring in Big Sky: Deadly Trails. I guess it’s some kind of mystery series. Clearly I haven’t seen it but it looks good, I’m just surprised to see Reba not in a comedy. She has an interview in the latest People to promote it and she spoke about her son, racecar driver Shelby Blackstock. Shelby is Brandon Blackstock’s half-brother. Brandon is Kelly Clarkson’s ex, and he made Kelly’s life a living hell. Shelby’s dad is Narvel Blackstone, to whom Reba was married from 1989-2015. Narvel left Reba and moved on with one of her best friends. Despite all of this, Reba said that Shelby was raised not to be a jerk. She made a point to teach him that if he wanted to be liked, he couldn’t be a spoiled brat.

She’s an enduring legend of country music, but Reba McEntire doesn’t see her exalted status as a free pass for tardiness.

After calling in to her PEOPLE interview earlier this month a mere three minutes late, she apologizes not once, but twice, for running behind.

“Mama and Daddy always said to me, ‘If you tell somebody you’re going to be somewhere at a certain time, you show up,” she says in this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday. “That’s the way I was raised.”

When McEntire, 67, became a mom to her son Shelby (with ex-husband Narvel Blackstock) in 1990, she made sure to pass down those same values she learned growing up in Chockie, Oklahoma.

“When we would play games or cards, I’d never let Shelby win,” she says. “He wouldn’t have learned anything that way. I always told Shelby, ‘I’ll always love you, but I want other people to like you. So don’t be a little jerk. Don’t be a spoiled brat.’”

Those words seem to have resonated with Shelby, 32, as “a lot of people have told me you would never know [he] had been blessed with the life he was given,” McEntire says.

“I’m very proud of him,” she says. “He was a kid who had ADHD and could barely read in school, and now he’s read 10 books this year. He’s always trying to improve and do better. His daddy did a great job too.”

[From People]

I did a quick Google search and have not found any stories to suggest Shelby is a gigantic, spoiled brat, so maybe the lessons sunk in. He just got married to social influencer Marissa Branch in a huge Disney wedding last February. But his parents are rich and famous and he’s a racecar driver and it was a wedding, people go all out for those. It’s nice that Reba has made such a concerted effort to stay friendly with Narvel in the press, especially since the divorce was so hard on her. Even in this interview she’s giving him credit for Shelby being a good guy. But since we know how Brandon turned out, I think Reba can take the credit for Shelby. Although she also gave a shout out to her nannies who helped raise Shelby while she was working on her career. I love when successful people admit they have help doing “it all.”

As for the Don’t Be a Jerk lesson, I wish they taught that in schools. I chuckled when Reba brought up not letting Shelby win at cards when he was a kid. Parents feel very strongly about whether you should let your kid win at games or not. Ask you parent friends if you have any. But be ready, there’s no gray area on that subject for most.

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With Grey’s Anatomy this season, everything old is new again. They’re basically rebooting the show with Ellen Pompeo stepping back and focusing on a new class of interns, there’s a new Shepherd with dreamy hair, Kate Walsh will be recurring, and Jesse Williams will be appearing and directing. And now, Greg Germann, who left the show with Jesse Williams’ character during the terrible covid season, will be returning as well. Gee, it’s almost as if the show isn’t working and they have to bring back old characters to drum up interest.

Jesse Williams is not the only Grey’s Anatomy alum returning to the ABC drama next month.

TVLine has learned exclusively that Greg Germann is set to reprise his role as Tom Koracick in the Nov. 3 episode, the same installment that marks Williams’ comeback as Jackson Avery.

Germann left what had become a series-regular role in Season 17, when Koracick, having won his battle with COVID but having lost Teddy to Owen, decided to move to Boston to help Jackson run his mother’s Catherine Fox Foundation.

In the Nov. 3 outing, Koracick reaches out to Catherine (who is in Boston) regarding a personal matter. Meredith, meanwhile, also spends the episode in Boston, catching up with Jackson.

After exiting Grey’s last year, Germann joined the second and final season of Netflix’s Firefly Lane (which kicks off Dec. 2) in a recurring role. The Ally McBeal vet also turns up in this week’s episode of The Good Fight.

When Germann’s Grey’s departure was announced in May 2021, showrunner Krista Vernoff all but confirmed that Koracick would be back.

“Greg Germann is a comic genius and we are so lucky that he brought his talents to our show these last few years,” Vernoff said at the time. “We will miss Greg terribly in the day to day — but we plan to see Tom Koracick again!”

[From TV Line]

The only things I can think of Greg Germann in offhand are House of Lies and Grey’s. In both he managed to play a funny and super annoying, but ultimately sympathetic character. I was a little surprised they didn’t let him die of his covid when he last appeared, but that would have been far too realistic for Grey’s, which prefers death by more statistically unlikely means like plane crashes. I’m bitter about the many unnecessary deaths, but I do appreciate that they bring back characters that simply moved away and took other jobs, as is more typical than never again seeing old colleagues/friends when you live in a major city and remain in the same industry. And it’s interesting to get the details about these upcoming episodes. It’s already known that Ellen Pompeo is stepping back, so it’s interesting that she’s headed to Boston for a bit before whenever she’s written out for that longer stretch. But yes, the fact that they have to have all these guest appearances to pull people in may not bode well for the reboot, or at the very least it may not bode well for their confidence in the reboot.

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Charlize Theron wore Dior to the School for Good & Evil premiere. [RCFA]
Noomi Rapace brought some major ruffle drama in Rome. [GFY]
Don Lemon & Mary Trump joke about Bigly playing “YMCA” at his rallies. [OMG Blog]
Anna Faris says Ivan Reitman sexually harassed her. [Dlisted]
The Glass Onion is apparently very good. [LaineyGossip]
IKEA did a collection inspired by Diwali?? [Tom & Lorenzo]
Tim Allen continues to be a cocaine-trafficking douchebag. [Pajiba]
Is Kendall Jenner a Mean Girl? Kendall says no! [JustJared]
Pennsylvanians, please support John Fetterman. [Buzzfeed]
DOJ prosecutors say they have enough to charge Donald Trump. [Towleroad]
Vanessa Hudgens loves Halloween. [Egotastic]
Why are restaurateurs defending James Corden? Let this story die! [Gawker]

King Charles is absolutely losing his damn mind. Buckingham Palace is 100% behind the deranged campaign against The Crown. It’s not Prince William, it’s not Kate, it’s not Sophie or Edward or any of the rest of them. It’s all about Charles and Camilla. The thing is, before this moment, Camilla’s response was completely mature – she acknowledged that she watched The Crown, she befriended several of the actors in The Crown, and she also talked about how it wasn’t a documentary. But Camilla is participating in Charles’s delusional campaign at this point, even going so far as to rope in some of her friends in the industry. Judi Dench is one of Camilla’s friends. Dench has just written an “open letter” to Netflix, demanding that they put some kind of disclaimer about the fictional nature of The Crown. Here’s Dench’s letter, which I’m willing to bet was written by someone in Buckingham Palace:

Sir, Sir John Major is not alone in his concerns that the latest series of The Crown will present an inaccurate and hurtful account of history (News, Oct 17). Indeed, the closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.

While many will recognise The Crown for the brilliant but fictionalised account of events that it is, I fear that a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true. Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series — that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence — this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.

No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged. Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a “fictionalised drama” the programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.

The time has come for Netflix to reconsider — for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve its reputation in the eyes of its British subscribers.

Dame Judi Dench
London W1

[From The Times]

This is hilarious. First of all, Netflix executives have barely spent any money on promotion – why would they need to spend money when every British paper and all of the king’s friends are Streisand-Effecting Season 5? Season 5 is going to be one of the most-watched programs in Netflix history. Second of all, Dame Judi Dench has worked on tons of historical dramas and weirdly, she’s never demanded that disclaimers be shown ahead of Shakespeare in Love or Mrs. Brown (about one of Queen Victoria’s love affairs!!) or Victoria & Abdul (about another one of Queen Victoria’s relationships!). Shouldn’t it be consistent with fictionalized historical dramatizations? Or does it only count when Charles is salty?

Another thing: “I fear that a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true.” These people are beside themselves with worry that Americans are too dumb to understand that they’re witnessing a dramatization. But please, let’s keep up the fact-checking, especially for the episode where Charles and Camilla’s Tampon Phone Call is recreated verbatim.

I’m just really sad that Buckingham Palace will use an 87-year-old mostly-blind woman in their pathetic campaign. Isn’t there anyone who can tell King Charles that this whole thing is tasteless?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Liz Truss became prime minister of the United Kingdom roughly seven weeks ago. It has not even been two full menstrual cycles, and word on the street is that Truss won’t last the week. The Truss government has been in shambles from day one, especially considering that within hours of meeting Truss, Queen Elizabeth II was like “I’ve seen enough” and promptly died. Following the period of mourning, Truss has tried a Thatcher-like tax cut and a wholesale slashing of British entitlement programs. Her cabinet is in disarray, her would-be Tory allies are abandoning her at a steady clip and honestly, she might not last the day.

Liz Truss is fighting to save her job as Britain’s prime minister after more of her own lawmakers called for her to quit, incensed by a shambolic parliamentary vote and the resignation of her home secretary late on Wednesday. Truss’s government has “12 hours” to “turn the ship around,” Conservative lawmaker Simon Hoare said on Thursday, after a vote on whether to ban controversial fracking for shale gas descended into chaos.

Lawmakers reported that aides for Truss manhandled MPs into the voting lobby to force them to vote against the ban. The government initially presented the vote as a confidence motion in Truss’s government, but confusion remains about whether it was. A Downing Street spokesperson said on Thursday that Conservative lawmakers who didn’t participate in Wednesday evening’s vote will face disciplinary action, PA media said.

The chaos came hours after Suella Braverman, Truss’ home secretary or interior minister, dramatically resigned just six weeks into her job with a blistering attack on the PM’s leadership.

“The business of government relies upon people accepting responsibility for their mistakes. Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics,” Braverman wrote in a critique of Truss’s numerous U-turns on taxes and public spending. I have concerns about the direction of this government. Not only have we broken key pledges that were promised to our voters, but I have serious concerns about this Government’s commitment to honoring manifesto commitments.”

Truss, who fired her finance minister just last week after a disastrous and since-ditched financial plan caused turmoil on the markets, must now focus on getting to the weekend without her own MPs moving to oust her.

[From CNN]

I’ve heard people say that they miss Boris Johnson, that’s how bad it is. Don’t skip over the part where, in Parliament yesterday, there were physical altercations and “bullying.” Tory-on-Tory crimes are happening. It’s fascinating. This is the British political system Rupert Murdoch and Viscount Rothermere want though. This is what the domination of a far-right-wing media agenda will get you. What’s also fascinating is that as yet another Tory government collapses, the current king is… whining about a Netflix show.

Update: Reportedly, Truss is going to resign as PM today. Like, within the next few hours. OH MY GOD.

Labour’s Chris Bryant says he saw MPs being “physically manhandled” and “bullied” in the voting lobbies.

…this was supposed to be Liz Truss’ “confidence” vote. pic.twitter.com/YZUoOMZQfo

— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) October 19, 2022

In case you missed this, the hot new livestream in the UK is “Will Liz Truss outlast this lettuce?” She will not.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

The latest episode of the Duchess of Sussex’s Archetypes podcast dropped on Tuesday morning. Instead of listening to the 50-minute podcast and judging Meghan’s words directly from the pod, there seems to be a whole trend for celebrity women to “read a TMZ headline about Meghan and react publicly.” Like, even if you don’t have 50 minutes to listen to every Archetypes pod, Meghan’s talk about her days on Deal or No Deal are part of the first ten minutes! You can seriously listen to it for free and judge her based on her words, without any tabloid filter! It’s that easy! Claudia Jordan didn’t get the memo and she wrote a whole-ass Instagram Story about sh-t she didn’t listen to. It seems like Whoopi Goldberg did the same on yesterday’s episode of The View.

Whoopi Goldberg is taking issue with some of Meghan Markle’s recent comments about her time on the game show Deal or No Deal. On Wednesday’s episode of The View, the Oscar-winning actress questioned what Markle, 41, recently revealed during her Archetypes podcast. In the episode that aired Tuesday, the Duchess of Sussex — then an aspiring actress — shared her experience as a “briefcase girl” on the NBC show, telling guest Paris Hilton she felt “objectified.” Markle said she eventually left the show because of these feelings.

Markle’s thoughts didn’t resonate with Goldberg, 66. “On that show, you basically had a suitcase and they wanted to know: ‘Is this the deal you want, or is this not the deal you want?’” the Sister Act actress said to her co-hosts.

“I don’t know that the people who are sitting there are thinking about you like that,” continued Goldberg. “They’re thinking, I want the money.”

Goldberg noted, “[Wheel of Fortune hostess] Vanna White is always in something interesting and beautiful, and she’s been doing this. The objectification might be coming from you and how you felt about how these women were being portrayed, and that’s what you have to change — because we’re performers. When you’re a performer, you take the gig.”

As The View roundtable continued to discuss Markle’s comments, Goldberg talked about what’s expected in Hollywood. “We’re not journalists, we’re actors,” she said. “You left, and that was your prerogative. But I feel bad because I don’t think people were looking at these girls like this, I think people wanted the money.”

Goldberg added later, “That’s TV, baby. But, what did you think you were going to? You know that’s what the show was.”

[From People]

Meghan literally spoke about how grateful she was to work on Deal or No Deal and be part of the union and have healthcare. She said that the spray tan vouchers and the bra-padding were all part of the job and she didn’t complain, but she did leave the show because she wanted to do something different. Whoopi argues that Meghan shouldn’t have FELT OBJECTIFIED because the contestants weren’t focusing on the looks of the Briefcase Girls… even though the women were all required to wear skimpy clothes, pad their bras, get spray tans and suck in their stomachs. Sure. Good talk, Whoopi. Seriously, what is with people this week?

MEGHAN MARKLE FELT OBJECTIFIED ON ‘DEAL OR NO DEAL’: Markle looked back at the beginning of her career in show business and admits being conflicted about her time as one of the briefcase-opening assistants on the game show — #TheView panel weighs in. https://t.co/cVclFZyKV0 pic.twitter.com/28ZhCR3DZN

— The View (@TheView) October 19, 2022

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, ‘The View.