Tiger Woods was in a terrible car accident yesterday in California. He survived the crash and it does not sound like his injuries are life-threatening, but his injuries do sound career-ending. It also sounds like Tiger was very lucky to survive the crash and it could have been much, much worse if he had not been wearing his seatbelt, or if his SUV had landed differently. This is the second big car accident for Tiger – everyone remembers his first, in 2009, just as the stories about his affairs were breaking. In the 2009 crash, Tiger’s wife used one of his golf clubs to break the windows to get to him. In this accident, they had to use a halligan tool and an axe to extricate him.

Tiger Woods was conscious and speaking — but was unable to get up — when deputies arrived at the scene of his car crash in California, according to authorities. In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Los Angeles County officials released new details regarding the roll-over car accident that left the 45-year-old golfer hospitalized.

The crash occurred on the border of Rolling Hills Estates around 7:12 a.m. when Woods’ 2020 Genesis GV80 SUV was traveling northbound and downhill on Hawthorne Boulevard, according to L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva. The car struck a sign and “traveled several hundred feet from the center divider,” shearing through a tree before landing in the brush alongside the road with “major damage,” Villanueva said. There were no signs the sportsman was able to brake before he crashed.

“He was alive and he was conscious, and that’s the extent of that,” Villanueva said of Woods’ condition when deputies first arrived on scene. “There was no evidence of impairment.”

Emergency workers had to use a halligan tool and axe to extricate Woods, who was in “stable condition with serious injuries,” from the wreckage, L.A. County Fire Department chief Daryl L. Osby told reporters. “It was brought to my attention that he had serious leg injuries and that was assessed at the incident,” Osby said. “There were no other life endangering injuries to my knowledge.”

Woods was then transported to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center due to the nature of his injuries, which Osby said “met trauma center criteria.” During the press conference, Villanueva noted that Woods’ vehicle was traveling at “relatively greater speed than normal” down a curved area that “has a high frequency of accidents.” According to officials, the interior of the car was “more or less intact,” though front end was destroyed.

[From People]

I don’t know why anyone needs to be briefed about the state of the SUV? The thing is totaled and Tiger can buy a new one quite easily. But he should absolutely invest in a car a driver at this point. In addition to everything else, Tiger had his FIFTH back surgery in December, and a few days before the accident, he was telling people that he had not been practicing much and that he probably wouldn’t play the Masters. And that was before his “shattered ankle” and two leg fractures sustained in this accident. You can read more about his injuries here, and Tiger’s already been through a lengthy surgery to insert a rod into his tibia.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

As we now know, the emperor has no clothes. The supposed brain trust of advisors and seasoned professionals at Buckingham Palace is just a group of reactive, petty flunkies who are not even capable of talking the Queen out of her absolutely worst, most tone-deaf instincts. The Queen will be making a big speech on March 7th, the day before Commonwealth Day, as part of a royal extravaganza on the BBC. The royals insist that they had planned the event weeks before the news of the Sussexes’ Oprah interview came out, but I do not believe anything coming out of the Palace. As I said, they’re dumber than a box of Kate’s wiglets. They’re reacting to the Sussexes constantly. So, now that we know that the Queen wants March 7th to be about Commonwealth Day alone and not any pesky squeaky wheels in Montecito, surely the British broadcasters would support her desire and refuse to buy the rights to the Sussexes’ interview? Hahahaha.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s first major interview since splitting with the British Royal Family has sparked a hot bidding war in the U.K. for rights to air the highly coveted sit-down. Sources tell Variety that Comcast-backed pay-TV operator Sky and free-to-air player ITV are bidding for the CBS primetime special, hosted by Oprah Winfrey. It’s not believed that streaming giants Amazon or Netflix are in the running.

As of Tuesday evening, a BBC source has confirmed that the public broadcaster is not involved in the process. “The BBC is not involved in a bidding war on this.”

It’s understood that ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group, which will be selling the program overseas, is keen for the interview to land on a free-to-air broadcaster, which would ensure a significant profile in the U.K. ITV, in particular, has a proven track record hosting content featuring the British Royals, notably the annual “Royal Variety Performance,” which is attended by senior members of the Royal Family.

It’s also worth noting that Markle and Prince Harry gave one of their most high-profile interviews to date to ITV journalist Tom Bradby as part of the broadcaster’s 2019 documentary “Harry & Meghan: An African Journey,” during which Bradby famously asked Megan whether she was okay — a very human gesture that Markle even referenced in her recent op-ed in the New York Times.

The timing of the CBS special is key, and would have caused problems for the BBC from an optics perspective. The Queen’s annual Commonwealth broadcast is due to air on BBC One on Sunday, March 7, the same day as the CBS interview. Pre-recorded at Windsor Castle, the broadcast is part of the Anita Rani-hosted program “A Celebration For Commonwealth Day,” which will also feature the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Countess of Wessex.

[From Variety]

I’m also curious about how CBS/Viacom will sell the broadcast rights to, say, Commonwealth countries. I’m sure many Commonwealth countries would rather hear from Meghan and Harry as opposed to a group of white, staid, boring old colonialists. As for the UK rights, it sounds like ITV will probably win out, which is what I expected. And I chuckled at the BBC not even attempting to get the rights, because the Beeb doesn’t want to piss off Liz. Speaking of, I enjoyed this aside in Katie Nicholl’s coverage of the dueling TV programs on March 7th:

Because of the time zone difference, there will be no actual clash between the two broadcasts; Harry and Meghan’s 90-minute sitdown with Oprah will air at 8 p.m. Eastern time, which is 1 a.m. in the United Kingdom; it won’t air in the UK until later in the day on Monday. But the interest in the interview, and what the couple reveals, is likely to dominate social media chatter. A source told Vanity Fair, “The palace is hoping the service will get plenty of media coverage because Commonwealth Day is incredibly important to the Queen, she won’t be happy if anything overshadows it.”

[From Vanity Fair]

OMG, Liz just needs to take the L and go back to her palace. The only thing that’s going to happen on March 8th, Monday morning – Commonwealth Day!! – is that every single headline in the UK will be about Meghan and Harry’s interview. The Queen will be overshadowed. Commonwealth Day will be overshadowed. And the fact that Liz was so desperate to show off the remaining white family members won’t actually help matters either. That’s the only headline they might get on March 8th – “Dowdy White Royals Lecture Commonwealth Countries.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

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Mandy Moore and Taylor Goldsmith welcomed their son, August Harrison Goldsmith, into the world yesterday. According to Mandy’s caption, Gus, as he will be called, graciously arrived promptly on his due date:

Gus is here ????. Our sweet boy, August Harrison Goldsmith. He was punctual and arrived right on his due date, much to the delight of his parents. We were prepared to fall in love in all sorts of brand new ways, but it goes beyond anything we could have ever imagined.
M + T

Look at that, good looking and considerate! And so regal sounding, what with both Princess Eugenie’s and Harry and Meghan’s kids’ names. And with the same nickname as the best mouse in Cinderella – this kid’s clearly destined for a fairytale life.

Big Gus is Mandy and Taylor’s first child and they have been eagerly awaiting his arrival. Mandy had a few complications in her pregnancy that were unfortunate, but thankfully didn’t pose serious threats to either her or Gus. She had a very rough start to her pregnancy with some pronounced food aversions that required much bedrest. Although she’s had a smoother second half, she was recently diagnosed with gestational thrombocytopenia, which is when a pregnant women’s platelets drop below the normal range. While the condition is not unusual, it does require a hospital birth due to possible complications. However, after watching the documentary The Business of Giving Birth, Mandy and Taylor fell in love with the idea of having a home birth and planned a music-filled experience in their home with a playlist and Taylor playing his guitar. Although Mandy doesn’t have any issue with Western medicine, she’d been really looking forward to her sing-along birth moment and had already assembled a team of doulas and a midwife when the plan got changed. She even ended up with Home-Birth envy. But, as often happens with babies, the plan changed. They found a way to incorporate their midwife into the hospital birth and Mandy said she felt like she was getting “the best of both worlds.” I bet now that Gus is here, Mandy doesn’t even remember her home-birth envy. A happy, healthy baby – that’s what it’s all about.

Congratulations to the whole family!

Photo Credit: Instagram

Priyanka Chopra covers the latest issue of Marie Claire to promote a variety of projects. There’s Netflix’s The White Tiger, which she stars in and produced (and is already available) and she’s also talking about her memoir, Unfinished, which she completed during the pandemic lockdown in LA last year. She’s also releasing a hair-care brand, Anomaly, and she’s filming like five movies right now. Priyanka talked mostly about what she got done during the lockdown, completing her book and colorism in India. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

She got quarantine bangs. “It was one of these quarantine decisions, which I could have completely regretted, but I play a sad writer in this next movie. I don’t know why, but I feel like ‘sad writer’ means bangs.”

She tried to stay busy during lockdown: “It was the opposite of what I would normally do. I love staying in bed in pajamas. It’s my favorite thing. But when I had so much time to do that, I didn’t want to do it as much. I saw myself craving a routine.”

She finally decorated her LA home, which she shares with Nick Jonas: “We [our families] never get to meet as often as the world thinks we do, but whenever we end up together, it’s a huge-ass party. It’s all our parents, the girls and the boys.”

Spending more time with Nick: “Both of our schedules are so crazy individually that there was no world in which we would have ever had six months together. It only took a global pandemic for that to happen.”

Experiencing racism in America: “It’s so difficult to hear you talk about it right now… In high school, I feel like the kids who were after me didn’t even understand why. I think it’s that they decided that they were more powerful than someone else—me—and when you pick on someone, it’s because you’re insecure. Bullying happens to kids and adults. It happens with positions of power, and we’ve all seen that abused in multiple ways.”

She reads what people say about her online: “I am just like everyone else. In the morning when I’m driving to work or I’m having my coffee, I’m flipping through Twitter, Instagram, the news, and when my name pops up, I’m like, Alright, what are people saying? How are we feeling?” Chopra Jonas claims to read everything on the Internet about her—and her husband. “I just don’t react to it or let it affect my mental well-being,” she says.

On The White Tiger: “I don’t think it’s about the country. It’s about hunger, it’s about ambition, and it just happens to be placed in India. It could be in any other developing economy or a place where there is poverty. It just goes to show when you have an empty belly, what that can do to a man. To me, it’s a metaphor for desire and how far you go to get it.”

On her modeling jobs for skin lightening creams: “[Skin lightening] was so normalized in South Asia; it’s such a large industry that everyone was doing it. In fact, doing it is still a check [mark] when you are a female actor, but it’s awful. And it was awful for me, for a little girl who used to put talcum-powder cream on my face because I believed that dark skin was not pretty.” In Unfinished, Chopra Jonas recalls being called “dusky” by industry influencers and the media.

[From Marie Claire]

It’s true what she says about skin lightening being normalized, and colorism being so deeply ingrained in Indian culture, as it is in many Asian cultures. While Priyanka was definitely old enough to know better at the time, I sort of feel like she took the hit for it in recent years because she’s one of the few Indian stars who has a major profile in Western media. They made her “the face” of the larger colorism issue when she was only one small part. I’m also super-jealous that she was able to accomplish so much in the past year. I feel like most people were just trying to keep their head above water, and there was Priyanka, setting work goals for herself and completing tasks on time. Last thing: sad writers do NOT have bangs. We have mess buns.

Covers courtesy of Marie Claire.

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Teyonah Parris was on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week promoting the show that needs absolutely no promotion, WandaVision. I didn’t know this but Disney+ crashed last Thursday at midnight because everyone was trying to get on to watch the new episode! You could tell that Jimmy loves WandaVision and Marvel because he’s been pressing all of his guests from that show to give spoilers. When he interviewed Kat Dennings and Elizabeth Olsen I got the impression that they didn’t know spoilers at the deep level that fans might want, but Teyona might. Teyonah plays Monica Rambeau, who just came into her powers this last episode. She talked to Jimmy about that, along with the fact that she’s aware of the Easter eggs because her mom sends them to her!

On Monica Rambeau’s powers
Monica can absorb energy in the comics. It is yet to be revealed just exactly what it is in the MCU. We get a taste of the fact that there is something that is changed and we have to stay tuned to find out exactly how that will manifest itself, but in the comics she absorbs all energy in the electromagnetic spectrum.

On if she reads the fan theories
I look at the stuff people tag me in on Instagram, but as far as the theories I don’t have to go online because my mother sends me everything – the Easter eggs, the theories. She’s gotten out of control. She is on a mission. I call her “conspiracy cookie.” I’m not telling her anything, I’m not going to spoil it, she would actually be very upset if I did. But it’s very interesting, she will send them all to me.

On her mom’s reaction to the last episode
She was so into it, just the glowing, the reveal for Kathryn Hahn’s character. Also there was [an earlier] theory about the aerospace engineer. I’m like ‘so mom what about that theory?’
‘It’s not over. Anyways, we’ve moved past that.’
‘Who is we?’
‘Me and the Internet friends and people. We’ve had these theories and thoughts and now we’ve moved past that.’

On if she’s a fan of the MCU and knows about the comics
I only know because my mom sends it to me and when I don’t want to read it, she’ll read it to me. I did get introduced to Monica, her character, years ago when fans started fan casting me for the role on Twitter. They started tagging me, [I looked her up] and I realized she’s a badass, she’s pretty cool, she will probably never see the light of day. Then when they introduced her in Captain Marvel as a young girl that Akira Akbar played I was like ‘Ok, we might be getting somewhere.’

I worked with Matt Shakman who is the director for WandaVision on MadMen. MadMen was my very first time recurring on TV so that’s a pretty cool full circle moment.

[From Jimmy Kimmel Live on YouTube]

I won’t get too deep into it, because I don’t understand it, but Kimmel kept pressing Teyonah about the engineer theories that her mom mentioned. Apparently there’s a theory that WandaVision set up the origin for the Fantastic Four with a comment that Tyler Hayward made to Monica about the astronaut training program. Opinions vary about whether that was the case.

How cute is it that her mom is reading all the Easter eggs and theories and sending them to her? My mom would do that. I also love that her mom calls them her Internet friends, because my mom is like that too. She’ll call YouTube and TikTok personalities her friends, and they are in a way. Everyone is on our phone and we feel like they’re our friends. Honestly when people tell me they listen to our podcast and feel like we’re our friends, I feel the same. Anyone who will listen to me talk smack for a half hour every week is my friend. We have whole communities online around our interests too. I call my Twitter peeps my friends and they definitely are, I’ve known many for years.

Oh and Jimmy asked Teyonah if her mom brags about her. She said she has the Monica Rambeau shirt hanging on the wall in her office at work and will wait for people to ask about it. That’s sweet that she does that. She also confirmed that she’s going to be in the next Captain Marvel movie.

I can’t wait to see what’s next in WandaVision. What show are they going to imitate? They’re up to current day now, right? I’m thinking they’ll do a tribute to black-ish because that’s on ABC, which is owned by Disney, and that’s the most popular family sitcom now.

Here’s that interview!

After I saw this video I googled “silk trench coats.” All the results were too pricey for me, but someday!

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Teyonah with her mom in Mykonos before lockdown. How young is her mom? Damn!

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Our good sis Mary J. Blige just turned 50 years old last month. But Mary couldn’t turn 50 quietly, she had to stunt on folks in a gold snakeskin bikini that showed off her well toned body on a beach in Turks and Caicos. I personally can’t believe Mary is 50 but then again I’ll be 45 in April so it tracks. Mary J. was recently on Ellen DeGeneres to promote her partnership with Gold Bond (I love this brand for my skin). In the interview Mary talks about how she cried when the clock struck midnight on her birthday because she was so grateful that she made it to 50. As someone who has lost several friends over the last few years who were all under 50, I feel Mary’s gratitude about being able to be here another day longer. So many of us don’t live to see 50. Mary said during quarantine she listened to her first albums for the first time. She hates listening to herself sing or speak but the experience was eye opening. Below are a few excerpts from the interview via People:

First telling host Ellen DeGeneres that she feels “great,” Blige, who was promoting her new partnership with Gold Bond, then explained that “when it hit 12 o’clock that night, I just cried like a baby because I made it.”

“I’ve been through hell in my life and to make it to 50, it was just beautiful,” she added. “Family and friends were around, it was just beautiful.”

Last month, Blige rang in her 50th birthday by sharing a selection of snapshots from her Turks and Caicos beach vacation.

Donning a gold snakeskin halter bikini for the series of photographs, Blige accessorized her high-shine look with a pair of tinted sunglasses and an array of gold jewelry. The Grammy award-winning singer also showed off her toned physique and blonde braids in the two pics.

Later during her Ellen interview, Blige also opened up about listening to her past work for the first time amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“Well, I really didn’t like to listen to even the sound of my speaking voice, let alone, listen back to Mary. J Blige,” the “Family Affair” crooner explained to DeGeneres, 63. “But I’ve grown so much.”

“During the quarantine, I don’t know. Something just said listen to some Mary J. Blige and I did,” she continued. “I felt like an outside person doing it.”

The artist went on to explain how listening to her old music turned out to be therapeutic, helping her through the quarantine times.

“As I was listening, what blew me away was so many of the lyrics was helping me now, during quarantine and in my life,” Blige said. “And what I couldn’t understand was how could somebody so messed up — that was drinking and on drugs and just a crazy, young person — write those lyrics that can help me through everything that I’m going through right now? It was like listening to another person.”

[From People]

Mary J. has been dropping little nuggets over the last few years. Especially after going through her very public divorce a few years back. I’ll always remember Mary J’s drug-fueled toxic relationship with K-Ci from Jodeci and that crazy ass diamond ring he bought her. That relationship ended in a blaze and Mary J. found herself enduring public humiliation for several years afterward. So it was sad to me when she ended up with a guy who did the same thing to her several years later. Mary deserves better. I like how Mary said in a different interview that sometimes you have to shed people despite it being sad, you gotta let some people go. I feel like Mary has grown a lot over the last few years. Despite her very public relationships (sort of like JLo) Mary continues to make beautiful art and I am so happy that she was able to listen to her earlier work and appreciate it. Her music was literally a part of the soundtrack of my life in my early 20s. “You’re All I Need” with Method Man was my jam.

Anyways, I am glad that Mary got clean and that she is still with us because I am so tired of losing my childhood heroes. I look forward to the music that Mary will create going forward. She has come out of some dark times and those stories make for amazing songs that touch the soul. Big cousin Mary can continue “staunting on them hoes” with photos in these itty bitty bikinis. She is giving me all the motivation I need to get my ass off my sofa and shed these 60lbs. Perhaps I will adopt those jerking auntie moves that Mary is known for when she tries to dance. With that being said, I am wishing Mary decades of life to live out on this planet. Mary J’s music is a cultural touchstone for us Black kids who came of age in the 90s and we will always love her for this.

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