The Super Bowl is this weekend. Is it just me or is that barely on anyone’s radar? I mean, there was a lot of conversation when Tom Brady – who now plays for Tampa Bay – managed to get into his millionth Super Bowl. But beyond that, everything just seems kind of muted. What’s also screwing me up is that any other year, pandemic or not, we would be hearing a lot about the Halftime Show and who will perform. The Weeknd was quietly announced as the Halftime performer a few months ago and… that was about it as far as media coverage went. Now it turns out that The Weeknd won’t even bring any guest stars into his performance?

Don’t expect any surprise stars during the Super Bowl halftime show this Sunday. The Weeknd confirmed in an interview on the NFL Network Thursday that he has no special guests lined up to join him on stage during his performance.

“I’ve been reading a lot of rumors,” he said. “There wasn’t any room to fit it in the narrative and the story I was telling in the performance. So, there’s no special guests, no.”

Several Super Bowl headliners over the years have stunned viewers with featured guests. Last year, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s joint performance also included appearances from Bad Bunny, J Balvin, and Lopez’s daughter Emme Muñiz. Katy Perry also invited other performers to join her onstage in 2015. Her set featured guest appearances from Lenny Kravitz and rapper Missy Elliott.

The Weeknd has already revealed several other details about what fans can expect to see during his halftime performance, which he told Billboard will be 24 minutes long — the longest in Super Bowl history. The 30-year-old star also said he will be performing in both the stands and on the field during the show.

“Due to the COVID, and for the safety of the players and the workers, we built a stage within the stadium,” he said. “And we’re also using the field as well. But we wanted to do something that we’ve never done before.”

[From People]

Literally every Halftime performer builds a stage within the stadium? Why is Abel like “I’m different, guys, you don’t understand, we’ve got a STAGE within the stadium!!” As for no guest stars… yeah, I don’t think the Weeknd is going to be “enough”? Coldplay is a great, beloved band with tons of hits and even they knew that they weren’t “enough” so right after they got the gig, they truly invited Beyonce and Bruno Mars to join them. Same with Katy Perry – tons of hits, a beloved pop star, etc. She was also like “I’m inviting Missy!!” Now the Weeknd is gonna make us watch 24 minutes of JUST him singing his Jackson Five Revue?

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Photos courtesy of Backgrid, social media, Avalon Red.

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It’s quite common these days for magazines to do a lot of “extra” stuff with their cover subjects beyond the official cover photoshoot and the interview. Many magazines will do bonus videos and behind-the-scenes photos and cute stuff like that. But it’s amazing to see all of the extra stuff with Angelina Jolie’s British Vogue cover. I’m so glad she agreed to the extra videos and such, and I love how British Vogue has rolled it all out over the course of the week. British Vogue posted this great photo of Angelina and four of her kids watching the election results on what was Election Night. That was right around the time of Angelina’s interview too, and she seemed relieved once the election was called for Joe Biden (which happened days after this photo).

Angelina also did the “In My Bag” video, which is where we learned that Angie has a very clean purse, free from twenty million crumpled receipts, and that she has a little stache of chocolate in her purse too. But what of Angelina’s gorgeous Los Feliz property, which was once owned by Cecil B. DeMille? Well, Vogue has another video:

I mean, these are mostly just beauty shots and B-roll, thrown together in an appealing little video. I like the glimpse of her property though, it looks lovely and I’m really jealous of that gorgeous pergola.

And there was also this photo of Angie doing Maddox’s hair, but British Vogue hasn’t posted it on their IG yet.

Angelina Jolie with her son Maddox for British Vogue. ? pic.twitter.com/GmcW4NV4Eu

— best of angelina jolie (@bestofajolie) February 2, 2021

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Instagrams and covers courtesy of British Vogue.

The night of his film’s premiere, an up-and-coming filmmaker returns home with his girlfriend, and the two proceed to argue and eat mac’n’cheese for two hours. This is the entire plot of Malcolm & Marie, a film that would be unwatchable were it not for its leads, John David Washington and Zendaya. W…

Last month, Dominion Voting Systems sued Rudy Giuliani for $1.3 billion for his significant role in the massive, fascist disinformation campaign he waged after Donald Trump lost the election. Giuliani, acting as Trump’s “election lawyer,” went on an Angry Fart tour around the country, throwing conspiracies and lies at everyone. One of the big lies was that Dominion Voting Systems had somehow “rigged” the election, or that they weren’t counting votes properly or something. Anyway, that alone should be really fun as it plays out. This will be fun as well: Smartmatic, a company which provided election technology and support, has now sued Fox News. LMAO.

In the latest volley in the battle over disinformation in the presidential election, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation has been sued by an obscure tech company that has accused his cable networks of defamation and contributing to the fervor that led to the siege of the Capitol.

The suit pits Smartmatic, which provided election technology in one county, against Donald J. Trump’s longtime favorite news outlet and three Fox anchors, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, all ardent supporters of the former president. A trial could reveal how Mr. Trump’s media backers sought to cast doubt on an election that delivered a victory to Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a loss to an incumbent who refused to accept reality.

Filed in New York State Supreme Court, Smartmatic’s suit seeks at least $2.7 billion in damages. In addition to Mr. Murdoch’s Fox Corporation, Fox News and the three star anchors, it targets Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, lawyers who made the case for election fraud as frequent guests on Fox programs while representing President Trump.

In its 276-page complaint, Smartmatic, which has requested a jury trial, argues that Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell “created a story about Smartmatic” and that “Fox joined the conspiracy to defame and disparage Smartmatic and its election technology and software. The story turned neighbor against neighbor. The story led a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol.”

Smartmatic filed the suit three months after an election repeatedly described as rigged or stolen by Mr. Trump and his supporters. Fox and its upstart competitors Newsmax and OANN gave significant broadcast time to hosts and commentators who argued against the election’s integrity at a time of a rancorous political divide, when conspiratorial notions have moved into the mainstream.

[From The NY Times]

I’m enjoying all of the chickens-coming-home-to-roost about the blatant lies and disinformation campaign which sprang up around the election. Fox News, OANN, Newsmax and all of the Murdoch-owned press outlets need to be financially liable for the dangerous conspiracies they promoted and aired. Sue them into oblivion! Also, this clip went viral earlier this week: the “MyPillow” guy, Mike Lindell, going f–king bonkers on Newsmax about election fraud and one anchor literally walking off-camera to avoid being named in another lawsuit.

Newsmax invites Mike Lindell, who advocated for a coup and spews dangerous conspiracy theories, on air. It didn’t go well. pic.twitter.com/6xzSgXlHua

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) February 2, 2021

Screencaps courtesy of Fox News.

There was a moment when Katherine Heigl had arrived, and she could have been her generation’s Jennifer Lawrence/Meg Ryan. She could have written her own Hollywood ticket, made any movie she wanted, delivered big box offices for her romantic comedies and potentially won big awards for her dramatic roles. She was a success story on television and film, and she had that girl-next-door appeal, plus she looked great on every red carpet. Then everything began to derail. She bad-mouthed one of her biggest hits, Knocked Up, and she was criticized by Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow publicly. Then she made a big show of withdrawing her name from Emmy consideration for Grey’s Anatomy, citing the fact that she “did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination.” She whined about her filming schedule when Shonda Rhimes had moved stuff around to make Heigl’s life easier. After a few years, Heigl was off Grey’s Anatomy, with Rhimes invoking her “no a–holes” policy, and Heigl’s movie career was in the dumps. Throughout it all, Heigl was managed by her mother Nancy, who also gained a sh-tty reputation.

Why the backstory? Heigl is back. She’s got a new Netflix show called Firefly Lane about female friendships and how they change over time. Katherine is sort re-introducing herself for this promotion, hoping that all is forgiven. Or, at the very least, forgotten. She’s pretty obviously trying to reclaim her tabloid narrative with a new vibe of “what’s wrong with being a ‘difficult woman’ after all?” Let’s see if it works! You can read this WaPo interview here. Some highlights:

On her many controversies: “I may have said a couple of things you didn’t like, but then that escalated to ‘she’s ungrateful,’ then that escalated to ‘she’s difficult,’ and that escalated to ‘she’s unprofessional.’ What is your definition of difficult? Somebody with an opinion that you don’t like? Now, I’m 42, and that s— pisses me off.”

On female friendship: “Any relationship that has stood the test of that kind of time is going to have moments of fallout, and if it doesn’t, that means somebody is not being honest. Somebody is not being allowed to grow, and somebody is not creating boundaries.”

On apologizing for her mistakes: “At the time, I was just quickly told to shut the f— up. The more I said I was sorry, the more they wanted it. The more terrified and scared I was of doing something wrong, the more I came across like I had really done something horribly wrong.”

Whether she would ever go back to Grey’s: “I could never say never. I think it would just be completely dependent upon the team over there, how they feel about it, and the story.”

She thinks if she had kept making hits, all would have been forgiven: “You can be the most awful, difficult, horrible person on the planet, but if you’re making them money, they’re going to keep hiring you. I knew that whatever they felt I had done that was so awful, they would overlook it if I made them money — but then my films started to make not quite as much money.”

Coming to grips with America’s racism as the mother to a Black child (her daughter Adalaide): “There is not a ton of diversity in Utah, and that was not something we even thought of because we were living in our White bubble and just kind of thinking ‘love is love.’ It was a very big eye opener. I took to seeking advice and counsel from those who are more steeped in this experience and staying up at night trying to figure out how the hell do I have this conversation with my kids?” Here, Heigl became choked up. “I know every mother of a child who has to have this conversation must feel the same, and they’re probably, like, ‘Suck it up, Heigl. This is what has to be done.’ But it feels like taking a piece of their soul.”

On her momager: “Nobody can protect you better than my mother. She is fierce. She has no fear of anybody in power. I realize a lot of young women did not and do not have that. I wish I could loan her out.”

[From The Washington Post]

My take is that I believe both arguments can be true here. On one side, Heigl was absolutely a pill and she largely destroyed her own career all by herself. On the other side, tons of people have done a lot worse than “mouthed off in several interviews” and “been unprofessional” and those people have been able to come back rather easily, if they were even forced to go away. There was always a heavy dose of industry and cultural sexism with Heigl’s story, but I remember covering her during that time period and she absolutely did so much of it to herself, oh my God. Anyway, I’m sort of glad that Netflix has given her the chance to have some kind of comeback and let’s see where it goes.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

It’s been years since I’ve really been invested in the part of the Super Bowl that is about football. For me, the Super Bowl is the commercials and also the halftime show. This will be the second halftime show produced by Jay-Z after his creative partnership with the NFL was announced last year, and…

Southern Charm’s Madison LeCroy has been hinting for a while that she had an affair with an attached guy who is a retired MLB player. I know about it because my friends who watch Bravo (Lisa, April, Ashley!) have been talking about it. For people who follow Bravo it’s been in the news for over a week. Then we heard that it was Alex Rodriguez, who is of course engaged to Jennifer Lopez. However now that we know who Madison was talking about, she’s denying ever getting physical with A-Rod, and he’s denying even knowing her beyond maybe liking her Instagram posts. Here are some details about this from two different articles on Page Six. The story is that they “only” Facetimed and messaged each other and that it happened a year ago. It’s sounds to me like she’s backtracking.

Rumors bubbled among LeCroy’s friends that she’d had “an affair” with [A-Rod] — and they exploded into the public eye after Bravo’s Andy Cohen mentioned during a “Southern Charm” reunion show “a very famous … ex-MLB player.”

But LeCroy told us Wednesday that she and A-Rod have “never met up.”

She clarified they’ve “spoken on the phone.” “That’s the truth,” she said, adding they’ve “never been physical … never had any kind of anything. Just an acquaintance.”

The Bravo star revealed, “He’s never physically cheated on his fiancée with me,” and added that she’s “talked to him randomly, but not consistent.” She did not reveal the content of the calls but said it was “innocent.”

LeCroy did not specify when the alleged calls took place. But she said the rumors took off because “it was like a game of telephone” in her social circle, and “I told the wrong person” that she’d been in contact with A-Rod.

“All this stuff was a year ago [but] it’s being aired now,” she said, after the allegations came out on the reunion show…

Meantime, LeCroy’s “Southern Charm” co-star Danni Baird alleged on the “Reality Life With Kate Casey” podcast that LeCroy previously admitted connecting with Rodriguez on FaceTime. “Months before [the show’s reunion special], I had heard … [LeCroy] had told me they were FaceTiming or something,” Baird alleged on the podcast. “I never asked more about it, or anything like that. I just didn’t tie in that he was a Major League Baseball player.”

On the reunion special, LeCroy said, without naming A-Rod, that she’d communicated on Instagram with a baseball player who reached out to her, but denied that she “flew to Miami” to hook up with him, as her castmate Craig Conover suggested.

She told Cohen at the time: “He contacted me, and yes, we DMed, but other than that there was nothing … I’ve never seen him [or] touched him,” she told Cohen.

“He doesn’t know this woman,” an insider close to the ex-MLB star exclusively told The Post on Wednesday. “Look, does this mean he didn’t DM her and liked a photo or two? I guess not, but he doesn’t know her — and he definitely didn’t hook up with her.”

[From two different articles on Page Six]

Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez have been together since 2017 and they’ve been engaged since 2019. We heard that A-Rod was sexting a Playboy model for weeks before that proposal. That woman went to the press with the texts and everything. These are just the women who we know about, we know he’s cheated on previous girlfriends. He probably has several Instagram models and reality stars he talks to, some of whom he meets up with, who keep quiet about it. Even if this happened a year ago and was only virtual it’s still cheating in my book. Is J.Lo ok with him having these type of affairs, assuming that they’re non-physical, and what does he tell her about it? I bet he does this with so many women and that’s how he scouts for hookups.

Whatever she thinks about it, Jennifer is standing by Alex. These are photos of them out to lunch together in Coral Gables, FL, on Wednesday. Multiple agencies have these photos. Jennifer is also shown outside the gym in Miami. Of course she’s still going to the gym.

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George Clooney turns 60 years old in May. I doubt people will freak out about that fact, because it’s a running joke throughout George’s career that people have always thought that he’s older than he is. He looked 40-something in his 30s, and he looked 50-something in his 40s. Maybe it’s grey-white hair, maybe it’s just his “older man” aura. Anyway, George covers the latest issue of AARP Magazine to promote The Midnight Sky, but he’s also receiving the Career Achievement Award from AARP Movies for Grownups Awards (that airs in late March). So George sat down with the magazine for older peeps and he talked about his life, his career and his family – you can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

He doesn’t wear makeup: “I’ve never worn makeup in my life. If I have to have a black eye, I’ll put a black eye on, but I’ve never had paper around my collar. I did when I first started, ‘cause I did what everybody told me I had to do. By the time I started ER, never.”

He hasn’t seen his parents since the pandemic hit: “This is an important time for them, and it’s not fair. My friends will talk about their kids and how they couldn’t go to prom, and I go, ‘It’s awful that they missed that. They’ll be fine. It’ll be a blip on their radar.’ People in their 80s, they’re, like, ‘You know, come on, man.’ ”

He’s fine with his age, for now: “Seventy will be more of a shot to the throat. I’m telling you, 70 will f— me up.”

How he kept busy during the pandemic: He stained the entire interior and exterior of his house, and all the furniture inside. “It was getting dingy, and I had buckets of stain, and I was, like, ‘Well, what else am I going to do?’ It made me feel better. And I put chicken wire all around the dog yard.” (Because the family got a Saint Bernard, an adult upgrade from Clooney’s pig, which passed away decades ago.) He also rewired his assistant’s sewing machine. And did some sewing himself. “I do a lot of sewing the kids’ clothes. And my wife’s dress that tore a couple of times. I was a bachelor for a long time and didn’t have any money, and you have to learn how to repair things. If we were on an island and you had to pick somebody to help you survive, I would pick me. Ask all of my friends and they would pick me, too. I can make a waterspout out of this and a pitcher out of that…. But I’m intimidated by anything on the internet. Like, if I push a button and something goes wrong, I panic. I’m a Luddite when it comes to that.”

He writes letters. By hand. Lots of them. Every year he goes away with Amal for a weekend and they both write each kid a letter with the date on it, as a record of where they were at that moment. He and Amal write each other letters every couple of months. “Even in lockdown, I’ll write a letter and slip it on her desk, or she’ll write a letter and leave it under the pillow. I’m a big believer in letters. I have letters from Paul Newman, Walter Cronkite, Gregory Peck. I have them framed. I put them in the house. If it were a text, it would feel different. Maybe that’s a generational thing, and maybe it won’t be that way 20 years from now, but for me, somebody sat down and wrote it.”

Naming his kids Alexander and Ella: “I didn’t want, like, weird-ass names for our kids. They’re already going to have enough trouble. It’s hard being the son of somebody famous and successful. Paul Newman’s son killed himself. Gregory Peck’s son killed himself. Bing Crosby had two sons kill themselves. I have an advantage because I’m so much older that by the time my son would feel competitive, I’ll literally be gumming bread.”

What he does with his share of the $1 billion Casamigos sale: “Four years after we started the company, our return on investment was literally a billion dollars. For three guys. It was crazy. I think we eventually each put about 700 grand in,” though by that time, he had already profited by far more than that. He didn’t invest his windfall or any of the up to $100 million he might wind up making as a spokesperson for Nespresso. “It’s in a bank. I make 1 percent or less on the money. To me, the stock market is like Vegas without the glass of tequila sitting next to you. It’s none of the fun and all of the risks.”

Put down the phone: “People are getting killed because they’re taking a shot of a car crash coming toward them. We’re living in this world where everybody is trying to make themselves fascinating or important or something. When the reality is: Put that phone down.”

[From AARP]

I enjoyed reading this interview, it was well-written by Joel Stein, who has interviewed Clooney several times before, and it’s clear they have a good rapport. The only part that made me cringe was when he named the celebrities whose sons who died by suicide… that was deeply crude and disrespectful, honestly. The rest of it… George doesn’t believe in investing money in the stock market, George hand-writes letters, George sews and repairs clothes, George loves to stay busy and do household chores. It’s not that he’s an old guy, it’s that he’s old-school about everything. He’s not even from his own generation, it’s like he thinks he’s in the WWII generation.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

After “WAP” became a smash hit for Cardi B in 2020, she’s hoping to make an equally big impact on 2021 with the release of her upcoming sophomore album. Still no release date yet, but last night she dropped her latest single “Up.” So much eye candy. The music video starts with her standing on top …

When the Obamas came into the White House, it felt like the country quickly became dizzy with giddiness at seeing an attractive, photogenic, historic First Family in the people’s house. We were obsessed with them and we wanted to know everything. Then, that white supremacist family came in and no one wanted to know anything about them. We didn’t want to see photos of them, we were not enamored with the pageantry or any of that. The Bidens in the White House… it feels different from the previous two families. They’re older, they don’t have kids in the house, they have grandkids who visit. They’re not this younger, photogenic couple (although I think Dr. Jill photographs well, she’s not the statuesque icon that Michelle is). My point is that I’m very happy that the Bidens are in the White House but I’m glad that there isn’t an obsessive interest in the superficial stuff, the imagery or the pageantry. That being said, I was so happy to see them on the cover of People! The energy is “a return to normalcy” and I’m really into it. You can see People Mag’s cover story here. Some highlights:

Dr. Jill is teaching via Zoom: Dr. Biden — or “Dr. B” to her students — is back to teaching English at Northern Virginia Community College, though instruction is over Zoom for now. She is the first presidential spouse in modern memory to juggle a separate career. “That’s my passion,” she says. “That’s my life.”

Pres. Biden on whether the White House feels like home: “It’s surreal … but it’s comfortable. We were here for eight years, just not in this part of the residence. Spent a lot of time in the Cabinet Room and the Oval with the president. So upstairs [in the private family quarters] is new.

Pres. Biden on his inauguration: “This was maybe one of the most consequential inaugurations in a long, long time — not because I was being sworn in, but in the sense of what the state of the nation is, between everything from COVID to unemployment to racial inequality. We wanted to make sure that as many Americans could participate as possible, and it turns out millions of people watched it. We have such an incredible opportunity as a country now. Not because of me but because the American people sort of had the blinders ripped off, and they realized that, man, we have problems, but we also have enormous opportunities.

Pres. Biden on the secret of their marriage: “She has a backbone like a ramrod. Everybody says marriage is 50/50. Well, sometimes you have to be 70/30. Thank God that when I’m really down, she steps in, and when she’s really down, I’m able to step in. We’ve been really supportive of one another. I’ve read all that data as well about families under pressure, and that’s why I’m glad she kept her profession. It’s really important that she’s an educator, although she took off two years when we first got married because the boys were little. It’s important that she has the things that she cares a great deal about, her independence. And yet we share each other’s dreams…She’s the glue that held it together, and I knew that I wanted to marry her shortly after I met her. … It’s not that we don’t fight and argue sometimes. I’m just lucky.”

Dr. Biden on their marriage: “All that we’ve been through together — the highs, the lows and certainly tragedy and loss — there’s that quote that says sometimes you become stronger in the fractured places. That’s what we try to achieve.

Pres. Biden on prayer & faith: “I don’t want to proselytize. My religion, for me, is a safe place. I never miss mass, because I can be alone. I mean, I’m with my family but just kind of absorbing the fundamental principle that you’ve got to treat everyone with dignity. Jill, when she wants me to get a real message, she tapes it on the mirror above the sink where I shave. And she put up a great quote from Kierkegaard saying, “Faith sees best in the dark.” Other people may meditate. For me, prayer gives me hope, and it centers me.

No nepotism: “We’re going to run this like the Obama-Biden administration. No one in our family and extended family is going to be involved in any government undertaking or foreign policy. And nobody has an office in this place.

[From People]

“She has a backbone like a ramrod” is not the compliment I would want to receive, but I get his point. Throughout the piece, he also talks about how proud he’s always been of Jill’s teaching career and how he loves that she has that independence. Jill also joked that after 40-some years and all of the tragedies they’ve survived, they don’t have anything to fight about anymore. Also love that President Biden isn’t here to proselytize – he’s always had his faith, he’s always relied on his faith, and he’s not here to perform his faith.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.