Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, aka QAnon Karen, is from an overwhelmingly white district in Georgia. She ran unopposed in the general election, but there was a heated primary, where some of her QAnon-conspiracy interests came to light. At the time, the Georgia GOP and the national party just kind of shrugged their shoulders. I guess there was an assumption that they couldn’t do much about it if Georgia voters wanted the ridiculous Jewish Space Lasers woman to represent them. The fact that she threatens and harasses victims of school shootings is probably a big bonus for the party. Now that she’s in the House and she’s likely planning to murder Democrats in person, suddenly there’s a big problem. I mean, the national Republican Party still isn’t doing anything about her. But House Democrats are going to try to at least block her from committees:

Top House Democrats are moving to force Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene off multiple committees this week — with or without Kevin McCarthy’s help. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer delivered an ultimatum to McCarthy on Monday: Either Republicans move on their own to strip Greene (R-Ga.) of her committee assignments within 72 hours, or Democrats will bring the issue to the House floor.

The Democrats’ move, while highly unusual, comes amid intense fury within the Democratic Caucus over Greene’s long record of incendiary rhetoric, including peddling conspiracy theories that the nation’s deadliest mass shootings were staged. Greene also endorsed violence against Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats before she was elected to Congress. Last week, Greene was officially awarded seats on the House Education and Labor Committee and the House Budget Committee.

Republicans, meanwhile, have been slow to act, with McCarthy saying only he’s planning to have a “conversation” with Greene about the mounting controversies sometime this week. The meeting between McCarthy and Greene has still not been scheduled, but could take place as early as Tuesday evening. And Greene has shown zero contrition for her past actions, tweeting over the weekend that she will “never apologize.” She also took a jab at Hoyer on Twitter Monday and revealed plans to travel to Florida “soon” to meet with former President Donald Trump, who she said supports her “100 percent.”

Democrats are already teeing up potential floor action if McCarthy doesn’t act, scheduling a Rules Committee hearing for Wednesday afternoon on a resolution to strip Greene of her committee posts.

Some Republicans are privately warning of a dangerous new precedent if Democrats make a determination about who from the minority party is best fit to serve on committees, opening up the potential for a tit-for-tat between the two parties — especially if Republicans win back the House in two years. But while Democrats privately acknowledge their action is controversial, they say Greene’s behavior and rhetoric must be addressed forcefully.

[From Politico]

Politico goes on to quote some Dems in House leadership who say that other options are on the table beyond removing Greene from committees – she could be censured or even expelled, although those moves would probably be a lot harder. The whole thing about House Republicans “privately warning of a dangerous new precedent” if Democrats remove an absolutely violent, threatening, crazy person from her committee positions is… not the threat they think it is. Greene is a danger to herself and others. She’s actively plotting to hurt people and incite further violence at the Capitol. If anything, Democrats are helping weak, spineless Republicans from themselves.

Last Friday, we also learned that Rep. Cori Bush had to move her House office to get away from Greene after Greene (who was maskless) threatened her and her staff.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had not really told her story of everything that went down, from her perspective, on January 6th. She had indicated and said outright that she feared for her life, that she had been in some kind of incident with the white supremacist terrorists who laid siege to the Capitol. I got the feeling that she was still processing the very real trauma and she would speak more about it when she was ready. She was ready last night, and she spoke at length on her Instagram Live about what went down.

As rioters threatened to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6, a staffer rushed into Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office and told her to hide. Soon after she ran into a bathroom, she heard a thunderous banging noise outside.

“Where is she? Where is she?” someone yelled, Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in an Instagram Live chat on Monday night. “And this was the moment where I thought everything was over.”

The person thumping on the doors turned out to be a police officer trying to move her to a secure location, Ocasio-Cortez said, but the harrowing moment was just the first of many as a mob of Trump supporters breached the Capitol. With around 150,000 viewers watching live, Ocasio-Cortez for the first time recounted in detail what she had earlier described as a near-death experience during the attempted insurrection. The New York Democrat also revealed during the 90-minute discussion that she is a survivor of sexual assault. She compared lawmakers like Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.), whom she accused of trying to play down the seriousness of the riot, to abusers who attempt to silence and undermine victims.

“These folks who tell us to move on, that it’s not a big deal, that we should forget what’s happened, or even telling us to apologize. These are the same tactics of abusers. And I’m a survivor of sexual assault,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez added: “I haven’t told many people that in my life. But when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other.” Representatives for Cruz and Hawley did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Monday.

Ocasio-Cortez said demanding accountability for the Capitol riot wasn’t about politics. “This is at a point where it’s not about a difference of political opinion,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “This is about just basic humanity.”

[From WaPo]

AOC has needed security from the very start. Republicans and conservative media put a target on her back, name-checking her constantly and outright telling their cult of armed psychos that AOC needed to be taken down, needed to be “put in her place.” She has gotten death threats, and there were terrorists in the Capitol on January 6th who were specifically looking for her to murder her. And no, she’s not going to just forgive and forget. This was a terrorist attack.

Both of these videos made me cry. Damn.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

With the influx of royal stories over the weekend, I kind of missed this Emily Andrews piece at the Daily Mail about how the Prince of Wales’ relationship with Prince William has changed over the past year or so. William and Charles used to be quite tricky with each other, with William stomping around and throwing tantrums and Charles just… letting it happen. But William basically made his father choose between his sons, and Charles chose William. That’s how I felt last year, and I still feel that way – that William forced the Queen and Charles to make a choice about whose “side” they would take, his or Harry’s, and both of them chose Workshy Will, the future intemperate king. So now we’re being gifted with some regularity about how William and Charles’ relationship has improved since the Sussexit Ultimatum. You can read Andrews’ full piece here. Some highlights:

Why William & Charles got closer: The fallout from Prince Andrew’s disastrous interview on BBC2?s Newsnight in late 2019 about his friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and Harry and Meghan’s decision to quit The Firm, have meant that Charles and William have come together to work with a common purpose. They seek each other’s counsel and, significantly, Charles consults his son rather than imposing his own opinions. As one aide says: ‘He’s giving William much more input. He realises that his own reign will be a shorter one than his son’s, and therefore it is crucial that William is involved in all long-term planning. They have been spending more time together and are much more aligned. Both are more comfortable in their own skin – and with each other.’

William’s focus on his own rose bushes: In his early days as a married man, William, now 38, preferred to focus on his own life in Norfolk rather than spend time with his father, who lives four hours away in Gloucestershire. Some interpreted this as a froideur between William’s court and that of Charles. Indeed, two years ago, when William was asked to appear in a TV documentary celebrating his father’s work for the Duchy of Cornwall (a responsibility that, one day, will be his), an aide tartly retorted that the Duke of Cambridge was ‘not doing anything more for his father’. That comment suggested a rivalry between the two households.

William thinks Charles uses him & his kids: There was talk, too, that William felt piqued that his father sometimes ‘used’ his son’s popularity, and that of his wife and three young children, to burnish his own image. William was particularly sensitive as he himself is reluctant to use his children (George, now seven, Charlotte, five, and Louis, two) as ‘props’. There were occasions when William made known his displeasure – such as when Charles, 72, issued an official photo of himself in which framed, private, pictures of his grandchildren could be seen in the background. For William guards their privacy like a lion protects his pride. Similarly, he was concerned when Charles’s aides revealed to the media that his gardens at Highgrove had been turned into a ‘toddler’s paradise’ for the then two-year-old George, with a specially refurbished treehouse.

William’s temper: One former member of the household said: ‘William has quite a temper and could fly off the handle at the slightest thing. His father was wary of making matters worse.’ Yet William is much more secure in his role as Prince of Wales-in-waiting. As a father-of-three and nearing his fifth decade, he is more patient and understanding. Consulted much more by his father, he has immersed himself in the workings of the Duchy of Cornwall, which funds the public, charitable and private activities of the Prince of Wales and extends across 23 counties in England and Wales.

The Sussexit: A key factor in the two men’s maturing relationship, of course, has been Harry’s move to California. Charles’s initial inclination was to try to make a half-in/ half-out Royal role work for Harry and Meghan. But ultimately he united with William and the Queen, who, at the so-called Sandringham Summit to discuss the crisis in January last year, told the Sussexes that a hybrid option would not work.

Kate was keen: Kate, 39, has also been instrumental in fostering the father/son relationship. Organising Charles’s family portrait for his 70th birthday with Harry and William, who had fallen out spectacularly, did not prove easy. She helped make it happen and ensured that all the children synchronised smiles for the camera. She has also encouraged Charles to visit their home, Anmer Hall. This is helped by the fact he is spending more time at Sandringham running the estate, which was once the preserve of his 99-year-old father.

[From The Daily Mail]

Most of this is just repackaged stuff we already knew and had heard before, that Charles and William always had a tricky relationship, that William never wanted to give his dad the time of day until Will realized how close Charles was getting to Harry and Meghan. William was the one who largely organized Harry and Meghan’s shunning and exile, with the gleeful help of many courtiers from Buckingham Palace and Clarence House courts. And now William is the last bloke standing, having forced his more charismatic brother out of the country. That being said, this story reads like Clarence House’s version of events, not Kensington Palace’s. This is Charles dictating the narrative, not William.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid, Avalon Red.

Jason Lewis is an actor. As far as I can tell, he is best known for his role as Samantha’s boyfriend on Sex in the City. I didn’t watch that series, so I am unfamiliar with him, although his IMDb also lists him on Brothers & Sisters and I liked that show. I don’t remember him in it, though. Fortunately, I don’t need to jog my memory anymore because I am striking this dude from it henceforth. Jason got his name back in the news over the weekend for shooting cats with rice and then saying he didn’t, he just shot the dirt near them. Because he’s an animal lover. Apparently, some poor kitties’ owner passed away and no one else took them in so they were left to fend for themselves. Opel Barnes, a local good Samaritan, began leaving food out for the cats, in an attempt to rescue them. However, Jason disliked the cats’ proximity to his home and began shooting at them with his pellet gun to shoo them away. When Opel confronted him, Jason defended himself by saying he’d loaded the gun with rice instead of pellets. The video is just of the two talking, there are no cats present and no shots fired so it is not triggering:

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In the video, Jason told Opel she wasn’t getting anywhere because the way she’s talking to him is “unreasonable”. That’s when she accused him of shooting at the cats for no reason and he said “unreasonable” would be to shoot with pellets, not rice, like he was. Opel asked if he really thought rice wouldn’t hurt. My gawd, anything shot from a gun can cause lethal harm. People have been killed by blanks. Plus these are feral cats so once the rice hit any of them, they would not have access to medical attention and any ensuing infection could kill them. And while we’re at it, as a former Girl Scout, I feel compelled to mention that the founder, Juliette Low, went deaf in one ear from ceremonial rice tossed on her wedding day puncturing her eardrum – so yes, rice shot from a gun is harmful. Obviously, people were outraged by this video and Jason’s admission that he was, in fact, shooting cats. So he went to TMZ, of all places, to attempt an apology:

Everyone who knows me knows my love of animals. I’ve tried for months to work with a person who is coming into the neighborhood and feeding a large group of feral cats in an effort to relocate them as they have been filling the yards with fleas and waste. I made the wrong choice in shooting rice into the dirt (not toward the cats) to spook with the noise and scare them away. To fellow animal lovers that I disappointed, I’m sorry.

[From TMZ via DListed]

*Buzzer sound* I’m sorry, but that answer failed our b*llsh*t detector. I am absolutely certain that actor Jason Lewis is not some rice sharpshooter who can guarantee where those shots were landing. Especially since a pellet gun filled with rice would result in a scatter shot, impossible to accurately train on any target. Even if the rice hit the ground it could ricochet, so this SOB could have killed birds, cats and all kinds of wildlife. If he thought the noise would scare the cats, why didn’t he just find some dogs barking on YouTube and blast that through his speakers? Bang some pots and pans. If he had to shoot something, why not a spray bottle with water, like a sane person? Or, I don’t know – let the poor women get the cats in crates and into a rescue situation.

I remember some of our fosters at the ASPCA would patiently work with stays for months to get their trust enough to bring them in to foster. I doubt Jason did anything to help Opel. There are so many ways he could have aided this situation and instead, like Opel said in the IG above, he negated all her work while endangering those cats with his recklessness. I had a sand area for my kids when they were growing up. It had no cover. I had a neighbor a few houses down who left cat food out for any strays. So our little stretch was like the Miracle Mile for the feral cats in our neighborhood. My backyard hosted them every night and it wasn’t half the size of Jason’s. But I cleaned the damn sand and surrounding areas. I sprayed for fleas and ticks and I let them be. Somehow, we all survived without guns or rice.

Photo credit: Avalon

The Hillary Thomas/Hilaria Baldwin scandal was its own hilarious thing. The outing of “Hilaria” as just another non-Spanish, non-Latina, white American woman from Boston was one of the funniest stories of the past six months. It was like our gift for surviving 2020: “Here you go, a moment of pure joy!” Hilaria’s thing was such a long-running con, and it involved so many lies, so many half-truths, so many fake accents.

So, that was all one thing. But I’m really enjoying the off-shoot of the main Hilaria story, which is other celebrities commenting on the record about how crazy it is that Alec Baldwin married a con artist who pretended to be Spanish. Amy Schumer’s comments were hilarious, and now Salma Hayek has chimed in. Salma and Alec Baldwin are friends, and there’s some theory that Alec adored Salma when they worked together on 30 Rock and that’s why Hilaria created this whole “Hola, I am from, how you say, Espana” persona. I have no idea of the timeline on that, but Salma has met Hilaria and Salma thinks it’s all… fine.

Salma Hayek is speaking out about the controversy involving Hilaria Baldwin’s heritage. On Monday, Feb. 1, the Oscar nominee—who portrayed Alec Baldwin’s love interest on 30 Rock, appeared on Andy Cohen’s radio show and addressed the accusations about Hilaria’s upbringing. “A lot of my friends asked me, ‘Did you hear about this? Oh my god!’” Salma recalled on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy. “We all lie a little bit. She makes my friend happy. She fooled me because she’s such a good mother and she has five of them! And, you know, I don’t care.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to betray or hurt anybody’s feelings,” she continued. “And I don’t know if it’s right or if it’s wrong. I’m not gonna judge somebody just because of that one thing. And I think, I feel honor that somebody wants to be, their alter ego it’s to be like something that is similar to my roots. It makes me feel proud that people are inspired because you know, I am Mexican Lebanese, but my grandparents, my ancestors on my mother’s side are Spanish.”

Salma went on to say she thinks Hilaria, who has been accused of faking her Spanish accent, is “smart to want to be Spanish,” adding, “We’re cool.”

The 53-year-old Frida actress also acknowledged that it is “a bizarre story,” but continued to defend Hilaria. “It is a bizarre story, but don’t we all create our own character in life? I mean, this might be extreme. OK. I don’t care. She’s not, not a bad person, not a bad person, a good person, a good mother and a good wife.”

Salma added that, in addition to having a good relationship with Alec, Hilaria is also “very kind to me,” noting, “That’s all I care about.”

[From E! News]

I think Salma is being very nice, but she also wants people to remember that it actually is really cool to be Spanish and of course many people would love to be able to call themselves Spanish. Again, I don’t doubt that Hillary Thomas fantasized about being “exotic” (yet white) and “from Spain,” but it’s one thing to visit the country and have those fantasies, and quite another to fake an accent for years, pretend not to know English, incorporate “Spanish culture” into your wedding claiming it’s part of “cultura de mi familia,” and taking up space which could have gone to native Spanish speakers and actual Latinas. I would have thought that Salma would at least be mad about that last part, but I guess not. She’s basically like “well, who amongst us hasn’t faked an accent for years and invented a persona to marry a movie star?”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.

Dear Gossips, Lunar New Year is ten days from now, on Friday, February 12. It will be the Year of the Ox. My ma has some thoughts on this in the days to come but since so many of us are in lockdown and some things require more planning and preparation than in previous years, with certain businesses …

As we discussed yesterday, Prince Harry was awarded damages from the Daily Mail because of their idiotic stories about how Harry had “abandoned” the Royal Marines, a patronage/honor which was taken away from him last year by the Queen. Harry was hugely upset by the implication that he would or has abandoned veterans and servicemen, and he forced the Mail to issue a public apology and he was awarded damages. But apparently Harry’s lawyers went “too far” in their condemnation of the Daily Mail. Or something, I don’t really understand this?

Prince Harry was warned by a judge not to misuse his time in court as he accepted damages from the publisher of the Mail On Sunday. Harry, 36, took action against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), who publish the Mail On Sunday, after an article said he had turned his back on the military community since he had moved to the US and left his role as a senior royal. The prince said the article was defamatory, and the paper published an apology and paid damages.

But in court it was the royal who was warned as a judge said the prince’s initial statement about the matter was “tendentious”. Harry agreed to alter the initial comments and took out criticisms of ANL, the judge said.

On Monday Jenny Afia, representing the duke, said: “The baseless, false and defamatory stories published in the Mail on Sunday and on the website MailOnline constituted not only a personal attack upon the Duke’s character but also wrongly brought into question his service to this country.” She added that the damages which had been awarded would be donated to the Invictus Games, which he set up in 2014, saying he’d made the decision “so he could feel something good had come out of the situation”.

It emerged that his original statement had been amended after a judge awarded him £2,500 for costs for the hearing.

Mr Justice Nicklin warned the duke the process of giving a statement in court was not “platform for collateral attacks” and should not be “misused”. He said: “The claimant’s original draft statement in open court was unduly tendentious and it included criticisms of the defendant which have, by agreement, now been removed or amended. It could have achieved proper vindication – and generated less by way of dispute – if it had been proposed in terms that properly reflected the purposes of a statement in open court. As reports of statements in open court are protected by privilege, the court will not permit them to be misused. A claimant cannot seek to use a statement in open court as a platform for collateral attacks on the defendant(s) and/or other third parties. If a claimant wishes publicly to make such criticisms, then s/he will have to do so by means outside the statement in open court, for example by issuing a press release.”

A statement from Harry afterward said: “Unsurprisingly, The Mail again misled their readers in December by claiming to make a charitable donation as part of an initial apology. They did no such thing. The duke is personally donating the significant damages recovered from this legal resolution to the Invictus Games Foundation.”

Harry had sought £35,000 for costs for his legal proceedings, but the judge said this was “manifestly disproportionate”, adding: “No litigant of ordinary means would reasonably consider spending such a sum on this exercise.”

[From Yahoo News UK]

How am I reading this – and I may be wrong – is that Harry’s lawyers initially wanted a strongly worded statement (perhaps even a full condemnation) to be read in court about the Daily Mail’s lies and defamation, and the judge shut it down. The judge was basically like, if you want to rip the Daily Mail a new one, don’t do it in court, do it via a press release once you get outside of the courthouse. But of course the royal press is painting this like the judge slapped down Harry. Also: while the Daily Mail did pay damages, they didn’t have to pay for Harry’s lawyers, I guess.

In addition to all of that, Harry has delayed the Invictus Games until next year. He already delayed last year’s games to this year, but yeah, it’s looking like we’re still going to be dealing with the pandemic well into spring and early summer. I was expecting the delay, just as I’m expecting Japan to cancel the Tokyo Olympics.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

We haven’t heard much from Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher during quarantine. One of the last times we talked about them, they’d developed Quarantine Wine that was regular wine, but with blank labels to write the names of the people you wished you were drinking with. However, they gave all the proceeds to charity so that was good. Then they told everyone they got their single friends teach their kids in Zoom school to give themselves a break. And now, Mila told ET that she and Ashton took a Superbowl commercial recently took get the hell out of the house for two days. However, leaving the kids ended up being weird for them, because they are so co-dependent as a family. And apparently, the pandemic’s been feeding that.

Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher reunited on the small screen — but their kids weren’t very happy about it.

The couple, who appeared together on That ’70s Show, are featured in an upcoming Cheetos Super Bowl commercial, airing Feb. 7. Two teasers have dropped over the last couple of weeks. The opportunity, Kunis told ET’s Nischelle Turner, was one that they could not pass up.

“It’s so silly! Ashton and I, we never work together. I mean, I know we worked together before…And in the midst of quarantine, they sent us this ad to do and every time I’ve ever been offered a Super Bowl ad it’s always a female having to be scantily clad,” Kunis explained while promoting her upcoming film, Breaking News in Yuba County. “And this one comes around, I started laughing so hard and Ashton was like, ‘This is kind of funny.’ And I was like, ‘We should do it!’”

However, the commercial’s comical element wasn’t the only reason the couple said yes.

“Also it was quarantine and we were stuck with our children for nine, 12, months at this moment, and I was like, ‘Two days, baby! Two days off.’ Literally we were like, ‘Yeah, OK, let’s do it.’ And so we did it,” she said with a laugh. “And I hate saying it but we were like, ‘Freedom!’…It was amazing!”

“I love my children so very much! So, so much!” she was quick to note, before adding that she has “never been so excited to wake up at five in the morning to be like, ‘I’m going to work!’ And I literally skipped out of the house. My kids were like, ‘You’re abandoning us!’ And I was like, ‘Relax.’”

Kunis and Kutcher are parents to 6-year-old daughter Wyatt and 4-year-old son Dimitri. The actress added that “it was really weird” for them to be away from their children while filming the commercial, as they are all “co-dependent.”

“Our whole family is already co-dependent, so this pandemic just feeds into our entire co-dependency,” she relayed. “And my husband and I were super co-dependent for like eight years and in this pandemic our kids are like, ‘Where are you going?” And I was like, ‘The bathroom.’ We haven’t left each other. We’re in the house. Yeah, it was really weird for them. They forgot that we have to go out of the house…”

[From ET]

I’m fascinated to see what the post-COVID landscape of this country (world) will look like. We’ll be studying the effects for decades. But if the Kunis-Kutchers are a co-dependent family, that’s probably why we haven’t heard anything from them. Would co-dependents thrive in this environment? It makes sense the pandemic would feed that type of a relationship. I don’t fully understand co-dependency and all if it’s nuances, but in my general understanding, that’s probably something else we are going to have to deal with once lockdown is done, isn’t it? There will be relationships that will have to be retrained to function apart from each other after getting to be together 24/7 for 12 months. I’m not too worried about Mila and Ashton, though, if they are dancing out the house at 5AM to get away from their kids. It sounds like they’ll handle reentry just fine. That’s no judgement from me, by the way. People keep asking where everyone is going once we are free to do so and I keep getting depressed that I can’t afford to travel anywhere. But I can afford a weekend stay at some motel. Hell yes, I will take two days away from any or all members of my family. Honestly, I bet they’d pack the car for me, too.

There are two teasers for this Cheetos ad that Mila and Ashton are in, posted below. Mila said in the interview that it was so funny. That is not represented in the teasers, but maybe they’re just saving the best bits for the Superbowl (although MC Hammer’s teaser managed to be funny in the teaser – just saying). Mila is also promoting the Breaking News in Yuba County Movie that she’s starring in with Allison Janney, Regina King, Wanda Sykes, Awkwafina, Samira Wiley and Juliette Lewis. Now that looks funny.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photo credit: ET, YouTube and Getty Images

Sunday night, Evan Rachel Wood named her abuser. For years, she’s referenced the ordeal she went through in an physically and emotionally abusive relationship. For years, ERW’s fans have assumed that she was speaking about Marilyn Manson, and she confirmed that this week. Evan said Manson “horrifically abused her” during their multi-year relationship which began when she was 18/19 years old. About 24 hours after Evan’s Instagram post, Manson responded:

Marilyn Manson is speaking out after facing abuse claims from Evan Rachel Wood and four other women.

“Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” he wrote in a statement shared on his Instagram. “My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”

[From THR]

As of this moment, four other women have come forward with stories similar to Evan, that Manson groomed them and abused them and psychologically tortured them. I think it’s pretty typical of Manson to deflect those accusations to being a “magnet for controversy,” like his attention-seeking performative shock-art shtick means he gets a pass for raping intimate partners or emotionally and physically abusing girlfriends.

The industry has already begun to cut their ties with Manson following ERW’s Instagram statement. He was dropped by his label, Loma Vista Recordings, “effective immediately.” Starz has said that they’re removing him from a guest-appearance on their series American Gods. Starz issued a statement too: “Due to the allegations made against Marilyn Manson, we have decided to remove his performance from the remaining episode he is in, scheduled to air later this season. Starz stands unequivocally with all victims and survivors of abuse.” Manson had also filmed a segment for the Shudder series Creepshow and AMC Networks has announced that the segment will not air, and he will be replaced. Manson’s former publicist (who hasn’t worked with him since last year) also said that “TCB PR believes and supports survivors of abuse.” Would I be a Debbie Downer if I noted that Manson wouldn’t be this thoroughly denounced if he wasn’t already a massive has-been?

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Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Don’t make me recap all of the stories that have come out about Armie Hammer in the past month. Hammer sounds like he’s in some kind of downward spiral and just about to hit rock bottom. According to his exes and former lovers, he’s abusive, dominant, into bondage, an emotional abuser. He’s interested in cannibalism and hurting women. In recent weeks, he’s pulled out of the film Shotgun Wedding (with Jennifer Lopez) and the TV series The Offer, and he’s reportedly in talks or loosely associated with some kind of cannibal movie.

As the reporting around Hammer has grown, his estranged wife Elizabeth Chambers has been allowing “sources” to speak on her behalf to outlets like the Daily Mail. She’s still in the Cayman Islands with their children, which is where she’s been throughout the pandemic. Now Elizabeth is issuing her own personal statement on everything that’s come out about Armie:

For weeks, I’ve been trying to process everything that has transpired. I am shocked, heartbroken, and devastated. Heartbreak aside, I am listening, and will continue to listen and educate myself on these delicate matters. I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know.

I support any victim of assault or abuse and urge anyone who has experienced this pain to seek the help she or he needs to heal.

At this time, I will not be commenting further on this matter.

My sole focus and attention will continue to be on our children, on my work and on healing during this incredibly difficult time.

Thank you for all of the love and support, and thank you in advance for your continued kindness, respect, and consideration for our children and me as we find ways to move forward.

[From Elizabeth’s Instagram]

I said in earlier posts that there have been rumors about Armie’s not-quite-vanilla sexual interests for many years, and there was always the assumption that Elizabeth shared his interests or, at the very least, knew about what he was into and perhaps implicitly allowed him to seek it out with other people. Maybe she genuinely didn’t know, or maybe she knew some of it, but the stories of his emotional and physical abuse were a huge surprise. In her mind, she probably just thought “maybe he’s just having affairs” and then all of this happened. Anyway, I do feel sorry her her and for all of Armie’s victims.

Photos courtesy of WENN and Avalon Red.