Madonna has a really good new interview with Out Magazine, and it’s actually one of the best pieces I’ve read in a while. Shocking, I know. For some reason, I’ve been liking Madonna’s interviews in particular lately, and this Out piece might be her best one. It’s not just what she says – although the conversation goes from Joan of Arc to women’s rights to Detroit – but the analysis of Madonna’s decades-long relationship with the LGBT community. If you have ten minutes, it’s definitely worth the read. Some highlights:

Madonna on the theories that Joan of Arc was gay: “Why was she gay? Come on! OK, she dressed like a boy and she cut off her hair. That’s what the church tried to say. Also that the dauphin who supported her, that he was gay. According to historians, the dauphin is the one who supplied her with the army, the cavalry, whatever, to take on England. Did they thank her for that? Of course not. They went, ‘Wait a minute, how could a girl do that? There must be something wrong with her.’ ”

She relates to Joan of Arc: “I can relate. Sometimes I’m getting burned at the stake metaphorically. Though not right this second.”

On gay rights being ahead of women’s rights: “Gay rights are way more advanced than women’s rights. People are a lot more open-minded to the gay community than they are to women, period… It’s moved along for the gay community, for the African-American community, but women are still just trading on their ass. To me, the last great frontier is women…. Women are still the most marginalized group. You’re still categorized—you’re still either a virgin or a whore. If you’re a certain age, you’re not allowed to express your sexuality, be single, or date younger men.”

On wishing that she were gay: “I didn’t feel like straight men understood me. They just wanted to have sex with me. Gay men understood me, and I felt comfortable around them. There was only that one problem, which is that they didn’t want to have sex with me! So…conundrum! I was like, ‘How am I ever going to get a date? Maybe if I cut my hair and I lose a lot of weight, someone will mistake me for a guy and ask me out.”

[From Out Magazine]

It seems like Madonna didn’t so much wish she was gay as she wished she was a gay man. Look at her career, look her approach to her career and her life: she’s less a straight woman and more of a gay man. I also think it’s interesting that the “Queen Bee” of gay culture is telling gay men – in one of the biggest LGBT publications in the country – that they still have it easier than the average woman. That male privilege extends to gay men too, and women still have to “trade on their ass.” She’s not wrong, you know?

Photos courtesy of WENN, Madonna’s Instagram.

Oh, I was hoping we would get a repeat of this coat! I remember this “Dalmatian print” Hobbs coat from Duchess Kate’s first pregnancy – she wore it to a boat christening in 2013 and I kind of loved it on her. Kate rarely does animal prints and I thought this was a surprisingly great look for her. So I’m glad she repeated the coat today, for her appearances in Margate. I really like that she paired the coat with black shoes and a jaunty, bouncy ponytail too. We have to praise her whenever she does an event without her hair falling into her face a million times.

First on the agenda today was a stop by the “Self: Image and Identity” exhibition at the Turner Contemporary art gallery in Margate. She will also stop by Resort Studios. Tomorrow is Downton Abbey day! I also have to say, because it’s actually worth noting: Kate’s second pregnancy hasn’t had any big Marilyn Moments. I think it’s because she actually hasn’t worn any maternity miniskirts.

Meanwhile, People Magazine had a story yesterday about how Kate might be expecting a girl. When Kate was shopping in Chelsea, at one of “her favorite stores,” Amaia, Kate was apparently “drawn to the girls’ clothes.” I actually don’t think Kate and William know what they’re having. That’s what they’ve said and I believe them. Kate might be hoping for a girl (I bet William is too), but don’t think she’s expecting a girl just because she was checking out the girls’ clothes.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I’m probably going to sound crazy, but I actually think this is best Kim Kardashian’s blonde has looked all week. It doesn’t look like white-blonde straw in these photos. Like, she found some really good conditioner, maybe? Granted, I’m reassessing my opinion once I’m getting a look at the close-ups, but from a distance, the blonde doesn’t look as terrifyingly damaged as it did a few days ago.

As for her outfit, Kim is wearing head-to-toe Givenchy. Her friend Riccardo Tisci gave her this Spring/Summer 2015 ensemble to wear before the pieces are even available in stores. Is it wrong to like the coat? I like the coat. The rest of the outfit is too small – the Daily Mail had pics of Kim without the coat, and it looks like the pants are unnaturally cinched (to the point where it must be difficult to sit down properly).

Kim went shopping by herself yesterday – according to the photo agency, she stopped by Didier Ludot (a vintage clothing shop) and La Perla (lingerie). With her dead eyes and expressionless face, I was reminded of someone else… this is how Katie Holmes used to look when she was with Tom Cruise. Like, Katie was always spaced out and wandering around cities, shopping and looking like she was on drugs. Now that’s Kim. It’s like Kanye West is a one-person cult and we might need to FREE KATFACE.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

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Benedict Cumberbatch and his wife Sophie Hunterbatch made their first post-honeymoon appearance last night in London, at Buckingham Palace. They only do royal appearances now, darling. Benedict and Sophie joined Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, for a charity dinner to raise money for the MND Association (MND = motor neurone disease). Benedict is an ambassador for the MND Association and has been for years (that’s why his Ice Bucket Challenge was so over-the-top). Also at the dinner? Stephen Hawking and his ex-wife Jane Hawking. The Princess Royal is the royal patron for the MND Association, just one of her many good works.

Sophie sure loves gowns with pockets, doesn’t she? I don’t have the designer ID on this, but considering she wore so many Erdem gowns throughout the awards season and considering Erdem’s pocket-friendly designs, many believe this is Erdem. Could be. Her bump is pretty big too. Where are we on the birth schedule betting? I don’t know who will give birth first, Sophie or Jessica Biel. Both of them look ready to pop.

As for Bendy… well, he has a brief moment where he’s not rushing around doing ten different projects. I believe the Sherlock special has wrapped principle filming and Benedict’s rehearsals for Hamlet will be starting up soon enough. Then he’s got Doctor Strange. Busy, busy, busy. At this event, Benedict wore blue velvet (sigh) and he kept his arm around Sophie throughout the night.

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

Photos courtesy of WENN, Getty.

Chloe Sevigny has always been a shade-throwing hipster Mean Girl. And it’s sort of been glorious. I mean, it’s Chloe Sevigny! She’s not trying to get your approval. She’s not trying to make you like her. She throws shade because she doesn’t care for some upstart hussies and that’s that. One of my favorite Chloe-beefs was her constant shade for Gwyneth Paltrow. More than a decade ago, Chloe pointed out that Gwyneth was just trying to be Carolyn Bessette (so true), and Chloe continued the shade parade at the Met Gala a few years ago, when Chloe smirked at Gwyneth’s sleeves.

Anyway, Chloe has a new interview with V Magazine and she has words about Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, Angelina Jolie and more. The point of the interview is that Chloe has put together a coffee table book full of her life as Chloe Sevigny. Some highlights:

Why she wanted to reclaim her own aesthetic: “the Internet has all these terrible images, plus Google Image is boundless and never ending….”

She’s not about “good taste”: “Everyone is so obsessed with good taste, and I find that really boring. It wasn’t about every cover and every ad I’ve been in. I was really selective and wanted to set a mood and capture this spirit of not, like, the pretty girl, the sexy girl, but a different quality. I’m not arching my back in every photo.

Criticism, Vincent Gallo & aging: “When Brown Bunny came out, there was a real puritanical press onslaught. They dragged me over the coals. Doing something transgressive like that, it was kind of inevitable, starting off with Kids. I love Vincent [Gallo] as an artist. We’re not friends anymore, which kind of makes me sad. Maybe we will be again one day. Now that I’m getting old, though, it’s hard to see people you haven’t seen in a while because everybody ages so much and I don’t want him to see me older. But yeah, other than that, people love to say that snide, “She’s so indie, cooler-than-cool” stuff. I don’t take offense to any of it.

Marketing & movie stars: “So much is about marketing and selling the product. They’ll have a really peppy funny girl on the talk show rounds, and everybody adores her and loves her and wants to be her or f–k her, and then so many more people want to watch the movie or TV show. I understand that star quality, how much value that carries. I love when a movie star is a great movie star. I think Angelina Jolie is a great movie star. I don’t think I can be that, or just be an actor. I don’t think I have the charisma. Which is probably why I never reached another level. I like Emma Stone. Whenever she’s herself, she’s really cute. Jennifer Lawrence I find annoying. Too crass.”

[From V Magazine]

Jennifer Lawrence is crass? Eh, I can see how a random person would describe J-Law as crass, but coming from an artist/bohemian like Chloe, it seems rather judgy. I mean, Chloe gave Vincent Gallo an on-camera hummer. THAT is crass. But I find myself agreeing with Chloe about the value of star quality and how that translates into financial success. I also agree with her about Angelina Jolie being a “great movie star.” As for Emma Stone… “Whenever she’s herself, she’s really cute.” Meaning that whenever Emma is playing a character, it’s NOT cute? Ha.

For those die-hard Sevigny fans, go and read the full interview – she references Terry Richardson and Larry Clark a few times, and gives an account of wandering into Clark’s art-filled apartment when she was still in high school. It reads like the beginning of an after-school special about what happens when teenage girls get invited to random strangers’ apartments to be “filmed” for an “art project.”

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Last year, I covered one of Jeremy Clarkson’s seemingly endless racist controversies, and it seems like people were interested in him, so here we go again. Clarkson is the decade-long host of the BBC’s Top Gear (seen in the US on BBC America). Top Gear does celebrity interviews, they get celebrities to drive a tricky course in a reasonably priced car, and they also do non-celebrity road trips around various countries. In the past few years alone, Clarkson has been acting like a neo-colonialist buffoon, alienating Argentinians, referring to an Asian man as a “slope,” using the n-word (and then lying about it), mocking disabled people, alienating all of India and describing Mexicans as “lazy” and “feckless.” Seriously. And it’s only now that the BBC has gotten around to doing a temporary suspension. So mysterious, you guys.

Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended by the BBC “following a fracas” with a producer. The corporation said the 54-year-old presenter had been suspended “pending an investigation”.

“No one else has been suspended. Top Gear will not be broadcast this Sunday,” it said.

Clarkson was given what he called his “final warning” last May after claims he used a racist word while filming the popular BBC motoring show. At the time, he said the BBC had told him he would be sacked if he made “one more offensive remark, anywhere, at any time”. The BBC gave no further details on the current incident involving Clarkson, and said it would not be making any further statements at this time. Clarkson’s representatives have yet to reply to requests for a comment.

[From BBC]

So what was involved with this “fracas”? No one knows for sure. The Daily Mail says Clarkson threw a punch at a male producer. Seriously, and that was what went too far? Not when he said striking workers should be shot? Not all the racist crap?

Obviously, Clarkson has been making “jokes” on Twitter about his suspension – go here to read some of them. There are also a lot of Clarkson fan-boys signing a petition to force the BBC to reinstate him. Hm… is it like the Duck Dynasty thing in America? Like, Clarkson can be as racist and offensive as possible and there will still be knuckle-dragging jackasses who defend him because “people are too sensitive” and “political correctness has gone too far” and “you should be allowed to punch your coworkers, mate.”

Photos courtesy of WENN.

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Paris Fashion week has been all about pap walks, ill-advised peroxide jobs and photobombs. So it’s a pleasure to see a set of not-so-fresh faces on the runway. Some serious fashion. Blue Steel, if you will.

Derek Zoolander and “Hansel, so hot right now. Hansel.” made a surprise visit to the Valentino show. Their fierce stances and duckfaces ushered in an aura of hushed respect from the audience. Or perhaps people were trying not to laugh. Does it matter? You can see their runway walk in this video.

Really, this was simply a visit from Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson to announce their mutual career returns with Zoolander 2. Is anyone excited for this sequel? I don’t know. Twitter lit up with the #valentino tag when Zoolander and Hansel hit the runway. They posed with Anna Wintour backstage (for Mario Testino) and made a selfie-stick video backstage. Anna Wintour smiled. Be afraid.

You’d better work it, boys.

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

Photos courtesy of Getty, Mario Testino/Vogue & WENN

View image | gettyimages.com

Paris Fashion week has been all about pap walks, ill-advised peroxide jobs and photobombs. So it’s a pleasure to see a set of not-so-fresh faces on the runway. Some serious fashion. Blue Steel, if you will.

Derek Zoolander and “Hansel, so hot right now. Hansel.” made a surprise visit to the Valentino show. Their fierce stances and duckfaces ushered in an aura of hushed respect from the audience. Or perhaps people were trying not to laugh. Does it matter? You can see their runway walk in this video.

Really, this was simply a visit from Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson to announce their mutual career returns with Zoolander 2. Is anyone excited for this sequel? I don’t know. Twitter lit up with the #valentino tag when Zoolander and Hansel hit the runway. They posed with Anna Wintour backstage (for Mario Testino) and made a selfie-stick video backstage. Anna Wintour smiled. Be afraid.

You’d better work it, boys.

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

Photos courtesy of Getty, Mario Testino/Vogue & WENN

Here are some photos of Iggy Azalea pouting on a horse in Calabasas a few days ago. These are a nice change from red carpet pics, no? Only last month, Iggy Azalea bragged to GQ magazine about her staying power and her upcoming first arena tour. Iggy talked about how hard she worked on stage design. She was excited to engage with her fans. Then Iggy kept getting into Twitter fights over substantive issues. She eventually quit social media over superficial stuff.

I expected Iggy to take some time away from the spotlight. She started giving radio interviews about how she deserved respect from other rappers, and she would have rejected a Grammy. Now Iggy’s attitude has jeopardized her 24-date, cross-country arena tour. The Wrap broke a story about Iggy’s deep riff with her “core team” (T.I.). She’s reportedly “increasingly unresponsive to her management and refuses to engage in promotion.” Iggy refuses to talk about her music to the media. She’s only complaining. Tickets weren’t selling, and her opening acts (Nick Jonas and Tinashe) weren’t happy.

After the Wrap released their exclusive, Billboard dropped a bomb. Iggy’s tour has been officially rescheduled to begin in the fall (instead of April). Def Jam Recordings simply says, “to accommodate for creative team availability and tour productions, it was determined that the tour will not be ready this spring.” The opening acts walked and won’t return.

Iggy’s a pill, but objectively, I wonder why anyone believed Iggy could pull off an arena tour. Iggy broke some Billboard records last year, but all of her hit singles are duets. What was she planning on doing — carting several artists along with her during the entirety of the tour?

Bye girl. Until next time.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN

I used to think that Gwyneth Paltrow would never deign to appear on a television show. Surely she would find the experience too peasanty, right? But then she kept appearing on Glee, mostly because she was trying to make her singing career happen, and partly because she’s been banging one of the Glee producers for a while. As the years have gone by, I tend to believe that Gwyneth really isn’t getting the kind of film offers she believes are her due (coughMortdecaicough), so why not simply look for more television work? Would that help or hurt Gwyneth’s brand these days? She is trying to shill more to the commoners, after all. Fine, she’ll do TV! But only if it’s HBO! And that’s just what Lena Dunham was hoping for.

Kerry Washington isn’t the only mega-star Lena Dunham wants to see on Girls. She also wouldn’t mind adding Gwyneth Paltrow to her long list of celeb guest stars.

“We would love it,” Dunham told me at the Girls PaleyFest panel.

“Fingers crossed,” her producing partner Jenni Konner added.

Dunham said, “We’d be very grateful.”

She and Konner recently had an Instagram lovefest with the Oscar winner. Dunham marked her first “foodgram” when she posted a photo of turkey chili that Konner had made from a recipe featured in Paltrow’s cookbook, It’s All Good: Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great.

“Fact: @campsucks [Konner] makes a mean turkey chili care of @gwynethpaltrow’s It’s All Good,” she wrote. “This is probably the only foodgram I’ll ever do- I just felt so loved. Another fact- as I took home my doggie bag Jenni joyfully yelled “it’s protein packed!”

Dunham told me, “Jenny made me that chili and I took it back to the hotel where I was staying. I had room service heat it up for me and then I just couldn’t shut up about the chili!”

[From E! News]

Gwyneth would probably fit into the Girls world pretty well. I mean, that’s her world. Second-generation Hollywood/New York upper-crust/rich white girl/expensive education/born on third base and thinks she hit a triple. Would Gwyneth deign to guest-star on it? Probably.

Speaking of Gwyneth’s upper-crust world, she posted this for International Women’s Day on Sunday. I know this is just a collection of her previous Instagrams, but surely she’s deigned to take a photograph of a rare friend who happens to also be a woman of color? This collection is very white, that’s all I’m saying.

Shouldn’t everyday be all of us equally day? I guess we’re #notthere #internationalwomensday @iwd2015 @clintonfoundation

A video posted by Gwyneth Paltrow (@gwynethpaltrow) on Mar 8, 2015 at 8:09pm PDT

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.