Last week, a couple of suspicious stories came out about Ben Affleck being a relatable everyman. They were both in the “he’s rich and famous, but struggles with packages and coffee delivery while looking exasperated” vein. It could have been a “great minds” thing, that happens a lot in our industry because we’ve been following the same celebrities for years and end up coming up with similar ideas. (I try not to read other blogs’ takes before writing a story for that reason.) Plus those photos of him went viral. However we’ve seen Ben Affleck try to control the press narrative, to a ridiculous degree, for years. He’s dictated questions in press junkets, has given blow-by-blow updates about his relationship status, bitched repeatedly at being called out by tabloids ten years ago, and even tried to whitewash his own ancestors. So when I see stories about poor Ben I wonder if it’s some kind of new PR strategy, especially when the stories all sound similar. It isn’t a bad one, actually. Here are excerpts from those two articles, with more at the sources.

Vice title: We Are All Ben Affleck and His Dunkin
Recently, mention of the former Ben half of Bennifer and Bennifer 2.0 conjures up images of giant cups of Dunkin, stacks of mail, and paparazzi strolls with his now-ex-girlfriend Ana de Armas, not to mention a cardboard cutout of de Armas being stuffed into a trash can. Ben Affleck has crossed over into meme territory, and we can’t look away because in him, we see ourselves at our most defeated…

Affleck is no different than, say, Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears in that he’s experienced public personal traumas, and the fact that he’s openly discussed his struggles can make the jokes a bit hard to stomach. Even so, the images of him fumbling with a stack of mail and a huge cup of Dunks are painfully human and deeply relatable in their mundanity. While we can all comprehend that Ben Affleck is technically a human person, seeing a celebrity of his stature chugging his Dunkies with an arm full of Amazon packages is mesmerizing. Like, he could probably pay someone to get his mail and coffee, right?

Esquire title: Ben Affleck Is the Only Relatable Celebrity
Then it was announced that Ben and Ana had broken up, the reasons unspecified. Soon, a life-size cut out of her was being dumped in the bin outside of his house. There were no more trips to Whole Foods, the iced coffee order was for one, not two. Who gets to keep the dogs? Over the weekend, Ben was photographed wrestling with approximately 103 Amazon parcels, a Dunkin’ Donuts cup placed precariously atop the pile’s peak, a grimace spread across his stubbled face. Breakups are always rubbish, but especially so when everyone wants to see yours play out in real-time on Just Jared and TMZ.

Ben Affleck is the only relatable celebrity because, despite having an Oscar and being worth $150 million (I googled it), he wears dodgy jeans and smokes actual cigarettes and has bad tattoos. With no red carpets, premieres or glossy paparazzi opportunities, he has become a sort of street style anti-hero; the king of the Whole Foods car park and the suburban pavement, in a pair of old Sambas and a pained expression. The gloss of money and fame melt into the Calabasas concrete. As things have gone from bad to is-it-over-yet? over the last 12 months, the only thing to do is to forget how to get dressed, buy too many things from Amazon and go on silly little walks for a silly little coffee. Ben Affleck is the king of that. King of the melancholy, Sisyphean stroll. See you again tomorrow, yeah? What’s your coffee order? Who cares.

[From Vice and Esquire]

Vice linked this earlier article in The Ringer about Ben, which says essentially the same thing as Vice and Esquire, that he’s relatable because he’s gone through a lot and drinks Dunkin’ coffee instead of Starbucks, essentially. The narratives are strikingly similar and all three stories mention Dunkin Donuts, his back tattoo and his smoking. The fact that these are more prestige publications makes me really think they were encouraged by Ben’s people. As I said he could do worse, and he often does. Then again, he could change his perspective instead of trying to use the press to change ours. I listened to that over hour long podcast with him a couple of weekends ago. I didn’t hear much gratitude nor did he seem able to move past the consequences of how he treated his then-fiance ten years ago.

There’s definitely one thing I can relate to Ben Affleck on though, and that’s ordering too much crap from Amazon.

Photos credit: Backgrid

In April of last year, we learned that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge hired Harry and Meghan’s former social media guy, David Watkins, following the formalization of the Sussexit. By the end of March 2020, the Sussexes no longer had their office in Buckingham Palace, which they only needed because Kate and William were screwing them over constantly, in many different ways, when they were all together under the Kensington Palace banner. During Harry and Meghan’s brief time with their separate office, they made some interesting hires and David Watkins was largely credited – alongside Meghan herself – with the success of the SussexRoyal Instagram. The success of SussexRoyal also led to William and Kate buying bot-followers to “stay ahead” of the Sussexes’ IG follower-count. Then, in the end, Will and Kate just hired Watkins when they successfully exiled M&H.

I bring this up because since the Cambridges hired Watkins, I’ve noticed a difference in their social media, especially with the staging and editing of videos. While it’s generally been an improvement – Will and Kate were half-assing everything on social media before Meghan came around – it’s been also been really strange. Kate has largely been copying Meghan in style and staging for Zoom calls, and Kate’s whole launch of her “Five Big Insights” late last year was a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The whole “launch” was just a series of Kensington Palace-produced videos designed to fluff up Kate and distract from the fact that her “five big insights” project was just dumb busy work. Still, Watkins has clearly told Kate that she needs to mix things up and show different sides to herself in different locations. Which is how we got a video of Kate talking about Children’s Mental Health Week on what looks like the middle of a morning jog:

Tomorrow is the start of Children’s Mental Health Week – an opportunity to remind ourselves not just how important our own children’s mental health is but also parental wellbeing too.

We look forward to sharing more about the year’s theme of expressing yourself this week. pic.twitter.com/nQRmgkJWxM

— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) January 31, 2021

Okay, this is what I don’t understand, and I hope the KP team is reading this, because holy sh-t are they bad at their jobs: if you’re going to put your duchess outside, interrupting her morning run on her country estate and making her film this video, then surely you would want to connect that outdoor/exercise/fresh air energy into what she’s saying?? She lists the “creative ways” kids can share their thoughts and feelings: through art, photography, drama, music and poetry. Where is “take a walk with your parents”? Where is “play football in the back garden with your dad”? Connect the imagery with the text! Otherwise it’s too disconnected, and that’s what we come away with – yet another attempt by Kate and her team to make her look relatable, when really she looks like she half-assed this and just wanted to film the video for her patronage (Place2Be) before she took some “time for herself.” We all know she’s exhausted and overworked, the poor sausage.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, KP social media.

This weekend, there was a completely bizarre surge of nonsensical royal stories, mostly old stuff which has been “newly rediscovered” or regurigitated stories with some new and stupid twist. This story is all of the above. It seems that HRH Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, took her name (but not her title) off of Archie’s birth certificate. She did this in 2019, and the royal commentators are trying to make Meghan sound like she was being purposefully awful, or like she was trying to “snub” Duchess Kate. It’s the weirdest thing.

Harry and Meghan secretly erased her first names from son Archie’s birth papers. “Rachel Meghan” was taken out to leave just “Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Sussex”. The unprecedented move could be seen as a snub to the Cambridges who have included Kate’s names on her children’s certificates. It may also be viewed as Harry aligning his wife with mum Di, who always used “Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales”.

Archie was born on May 6, 2019, and his birth was registered on May 17. The change was made on June 5 amid rumours of a growing rift between Harry, brother William and their partners. Days later, the Sussexes walked away from the Fab Four’s joint charity. Within months they quit royal life.

The Queen’s ex-press secretary Dickie Arbiter said: “Maybe this was an early part of their plan.”

Lady Colin Campbell, who spotted the amendment, said: “It is extraordinary and raises all kinds of questions about what the Sussexes were thinking.”

Expert Ingrid Seward said: “For a royal to change a birth certificate is unprecedented but to remove forenames is remarkable. Perhaps this is another sign they were desperate to do something different to the Cambridges.”

[From The Sun]

In case you were wondering how in the world this could be interpreted as a “snub” of William and Kate, Kate is listed on her children’s birth certificates as “Catherine Elizabeth Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge,” and her occupation is listed as “Princess of the United Kingdom.” Meghan’s occupation is also listed the same way on Archie’s birth certificate, but almost one month exactly after Archie was born, the Sussexes went back and changed the birth certificate so that it merely had Meghan’s royal title. My first thought was that there are set rules about names and titles appearing on legal documents like a birth certificate, and it’s not like Meghan was making this decision solo. As it turns out, Meghan was (justifiably) pissed off about this particular story and the royal reporters unhinged suggestion that Archie’s birth certificate would be in any way a “snub” of g–damn Kate. Meghan issued this statement through her rep:

“The change of name on public documents in 2019 was dictated by The Palace, as confirmed by documents from senior Palace officials. This was not requested by Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex nor by The Duke of Sussex. To see this U.K. tabloid and their carnival of so-called ‘experts’ chose to deceptively whip this into a calculated family ‘snub’ and suggest that she would oddly want to be nameless on her child’s birth certificate, or any other legal document, would be laughable were it not offensive. There’s a lot going on in the world; let’s focus on that rather than creating clickbait.”

[Meghan’s statement via ET Canada]

Yep. As I said, these decisions aren’t made alone in a room, by just the parents, especially in royal situations. It sounds like when Archie was born, Harry and Meghan did copy what Kate and William had done for their kids’ birth certificates, then the palace made them go back after a month and edit out Meghan’s name. Which is racist and dehumanizing – the Black duchess wasn’t allowed to PUT HER NAME on her son’s birth certificate, and that was dictated to the Sussexes by the Palace. That alone should have been the story, but then some idiots in the royal commentary group decided to make this racist curiosity into their normal dumbf–k melodrama. Meghan SNUBBED Kate by… being the victim racists!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Due to the massive spike in cases in LA at the end and beginning of last year most productions there have shut down. Covid case numbers nationwide and in LA county have improved the past couple of weeks, thankfully. We recently heard Tom Cruise ranting at crew members on the set of the seventh Mission Impossible movie because they weren’t properly distancing. Cruise’s diatribe had a mixed reception. He sounded abusive on one hand, but summed up a lot of people’s frustration with those unwilling to take covid seriously. It’s possible Tom may have been one of the only people on set who could have gotten through to the crew. That doesn’t make what he did right or acceptable.

Buzzfeed has a new expose in which they speak with unnamed coronavirus safety people in Hollywood. They’re overwhelmingly low-level workers, often PAs, who don’t have the authority to enforce rules on set. Plus none of the people Buzzfeed interviewed were trained in medical or scientific fields. They were just given a job title and expected to figure out how to keep cast and crew safe. Actors would rant about covid being the same as the flu (because there are actors who get their worldview from Fox News and Facebook just like the rest of the population). There was nothing the covid safety person could do except say that’s interesting and ask them to put their mask back on. They do a lot of testing on sets, but it gives people a false sense of security and is inadequate. Here’s part of Buzzfeed’s writeup, which I highly recommend you read at the source.

Lack of resources and adequate training, conflicting messages from executives, and no industry standards have pushed some of the people in charge of keeping Hollywood’s sets safe during a raging pandemic to the breaking point. Others have had to make up the rules as they go just to keep the train from going off the track.

“This pandemic is only a year old, so as we learn more, we have to change what we’re doing,” the Warner Bros. employee said. “The ripple effects are so chaotic, and we’re the ones who take the brunt of it. The executives at Warner Bros. sit in their at-home offices and issue these mandates, but we have to deal with the crew’s fears and complaints.”

A COVID compliance assistant who works on an Amazon Studios show and also asked to remain anonymous said they received no training or additional information.

“I have no formal training. I have no medical training. I don’t know anything more or less about coronavirus than the next person,” the employee said…

The Warner Bros. employee, who spends their days managing safety on set and their nights and weekends answering emails and phone calls from concerned crew members, said they do work with a couple of production assistants specifically dedicated to handling COVID safety, as well as a registered nurse. But despite taking several online training courses, they’re not a medical professional and feel ill-equipped to handle every possible scenario.

“There are so many situations that are unprecedented. They can train you to a certain point, but at the same time, you just have to be really good on your toes,” the employee said. “I would get really frustrated at first about the lack of communication from higher-ups until I realized they just want me to solve all of the problems and questions. They just want me to govern the show. Once I understood that, I stopped looking for someone else to tell me what to do.”

“Some people act frustrated when I try to just do my job — it’s very much an ego thing in that regard,” the employee said. “I try to calmly reiterate and explain what I’ve been tasked to do, which also isn’t much. I’m just trying to operate on the minimal instruction I’ve been given.”

Another production assistant in charge of COVID safety on a documentary about Britney Spears over the summer also said they didn’t receive any training on how to keep everyone safe, and that it was uncomfortable to enforce what guidelines there were when everyone was their superior.

They recalled someone on set who kept refusing to wear a mask, even coming over at one point to “go on and on saying, ‘More people die from the flu [than COVID-19] every year.’”

“And I can’t say anything back because I’m a PA,” the assistant said. “I just responded, ‘Interesting, I didn’t know that.’ He would only wear his mask for maybe 10-minute increments, and we’d have to keep reminding him.”

[From Buzzfeed]

A year ago I would say this is surprising, disappointing and they should be ashamed for giving assistants this job instead of hiring medical experts or scientists. Productions hire medical experts all the time as consultants for plotlines! After 10 months stuck at home due to gross incompetence and willful negligence, I’m not surprised as this is typical. It’s not about protecting people, it’s about keeping up appearances so they can continue business as usual. A lot of productions have shut down and the people tasked with making the remaining ones safe are doing the best they can in that situation. A lack of planning and top-down direction are making it scary and frustrating. We’ve seen that play out in so many ways that hurt the people who work the hardest.

These are photos from the sets of Only Murders in the Buildings in NYC with Selena Gomez, Mission Impossible 7 in Venice with Tom Cruise, and Across the River and Into The Trees, also in Venice with Liev Schreiber. Credit: Backgrid

One of the saddest things about Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial is that Rudy Giuliani and the Angry Fart Brigade won’t be there, defending Trump to the Senate. Rudy and his treason-farts are “witnesses” to Trump’s crimes, which is just another way of saying that Rudy’s nuts are in the inciting-an-insurrection vice as well. So Trump had to hire some lawyers outside of his narrow and flatulent circle of wingnuts, traitors and insane asylum escapees. He went with old-guard Republican lawyers who would actually be qualified to defend a former president or litigate what actually happened. Except now those dudes and ladies have quit.

Former President Donald Trump’s five impeachment defense attorneys have left a little more than a week before his trial is set to begin, according to people familiar with the case, amid a disagreement over his legal strategy. It was a dramatic development in the second impeachment trial for Trump, who has struggled to find lawyers willing to take his case. And now, with legal briefs due next week and a trial set to begin only days later, Trump is clinging to his election fraud charade and suddenly finds himself without legal representation.

Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, who were expected to be two of the lead attorneys, are no longer on the team. A source familiar with the changes said it was a mutual decision for both to leave the legal team. As the lead attorney, Bowers assembled the team. Josh Howard, a North Carolina attorney who was recently added to the team, has also left, according to another source familiar with the changes. Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris, from South Carolina, are no longer involved with the case, either. No other attorneys have announced they are working on Trump’s impeachment defense.

A person familiar with the departures told CNN that Trump wanted the attorneys to argue there was mass election fraud and that the election was stolen from him rather than focus on the legality of convicting a president after he’s left office. Trump was not receptive to the discussions about how they should proceed in that regard. The attorneys had not yet been paid any advance fees and a letter of intent was never signed.

[From CNN]

“Trump wanted the attorneys to argue there was mass election fraud and that the election was stolen from him rather than focus on the legality of convicting a president after he’s left office.” Yeah, I figured it would be something like that. It’s strange to think – or maybe not – that when he was in the White House, Trump was really only surrounding himself with sycophantic and fart-soaked yes-men who would just repeat whatever unhinged lie he wanted. Now that he’s out of the White House, the real world is here and his actual, professional lawyers didn’t want to just argue his deranged conspiracy. Because they know that they would be disbarred. The impeachment trial is going to be a mess though. It’s my hope that in addition to the impeachment hearing, we start getting announcements about the House and Senate having major hearings on what went down, why there were so many f–k ups on January 6th, and who facilitated the terrorist attack on the inside.

Also, Trump hired two new lawyers after his old ones quit:

Trump will be represented by David Schoen and Bruce Castor in his impeachment trial.

David Schoen is best known for meeting with Jeffrey Epstein in prison to represent him before Epstein died.

Bruce Castor is best known as a PA DA who refused to prosecute Bill Cosby.

— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) January 31, 2021

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

NPR’s Terry Gross was on The Tonight Show last week. It’s so weird seeing her talk because I’ve listened to her interviews on NPR for decades. I knew what she looked like but it’s different to see video of a person when you’re so accustomed to just hearing their voice. Terry was Zooming in from a room that looked jammed with records, books and CDs. They weren’t just behind her they were to the side and the ceiling. Terry told Jimmy that was their dining room and living room and that she moves the computer off the table so she can eat there. Terry, 69, has been married to Francis Davis, a writer and jazz critic for The Village Voice, since 1994. They live in Philadelphia.

This interview was really cool in that I learned that Terry isn’t face to face with her interview subjects! They just go to a booth where they listen to her on headphones. Plus she got a little vulnerable and I found that endearing.

Where she’s zooming from
I’m at home in what is both our living room and our dining room. There’s a table here. We eat at it, it is also my desk. When we eat I shove the computer and everything aside. Put the plates down, we’re done. The computer comes right back.

On how many records she has
I have no idea, probably thousands. Every wall in our home has records, books or CDs. Then we have a storage unit that’s a large room offsite that has a lot more.

How she keeps her cat away from the records
We have a cat named Rowdy. He thinks that the bottom row of albums is his scratchpad. We didn’t declaw him because it’s cruel to the cat. He just [scratches] all over the spines of the albums and it was killing them. Cats don’t like tinfoil so I have tinfoil drapes over the records. When people come to visit, which they rarely do. I have to explain that we’re not crazy. We don’t have the tinfoil to protect us from crazy microwaves that are deadly.

On how she’s doing working from home now
I always have had this division between my personal self and my professional self. My professional self feels competent. In my private self I feel just more incompetent and more insecure and small. Suddenly the home self and the Fresh Air professional self were together in the same room speaking to really important guests. That’s been really interesting to me.

[From The Tonight Show on YouTube]

I like having things around as long as there’s not a lot of clutter around me. I’m a medium-level collector in that I’ll keep things for a while but don’t have a problem getting rid of them. We’ve talked about saving books before, and I have to admit I don’t save most of them! I’m not a huge reader unfortunately, and I like music but everything is online now. Record and book collections can be very valuable, but it would be uncomfortable to me to have even a full room of books and records like this, not to mention an entire house. Terry is cool with it and it came across as kind of cute and eccentric. She and her husband obviously love books and music.

As for Terry I came away from this interview feeling like I knew her. She reminds me of some of my mom’s sweet friends, the kind liberal ladies in her book club. Oh and she made me feel better about myself because she said no matter how hard she tries she can’t stop saying filler words like “um” or “so.” I just edit most of that out of our podcast!

Here’s that interview:

Embed from Getty Images

I love these photos of Terry with Obama! She got the 2015 National Humanities Medal.
Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Last October Kelly Rowland announced her second pregnancy through a photoshoot for Women’s Health magazine. Kelly said at the time that she and husband Tim Weatherspoon decided to “try” to get pregnant to see what happened because they were in lockdown with nothing to do. That’s so cute, they just basically had a love fest in lockdown that produced a seedling and I love. Anyways, Kelly posted on her Instagram that she gave birth to her second son, Noah Jon, on the 21st of January. Kelly wrote that Noah came on the “21st day, of the 21st year, of the 21st century.” In her Women’s Health interview Kelly said that she wanted the birth to be as natural as possible and would not be induced like she was with Titan. In her birth announcement Kelly revealed that son Titan named his little brother and has been in sibling heaven spending time with him. According to Kelly, her second child will be her last because she plans to shut down shop. Below is more on the announcement via People:

The “Coffee” singer, 39, welcomed her second child with husband Tim Weatherspoon, son Noah Jon, she announced on Saturday.

“On the 21st day, of the 21st year, of the 21st Century, Noah Jon Weatherspoon greeted us,” she wrote on Instagram alongside an adorable shot of he
r newborn spending time with his big brother Titan Jewell, 6.

“We are truly grateful,” Rowland added, going on to note that her son was born at 8:13 p.m. on Jan. 21.

“Me and my husband were in the middle of COVID just like everybody else … and there’s not much to do in the house,” she joked at the time. “We were like, ‘We’ll just try for a baby, we’ll see what happens because we don’t know how long this is gonna last.’ ”

“Literally, by the grace of God, God blessed us with a new life. We’re just really excited,” the Destiny’s Child alum added.

The artist said above all else, her son couldn’t wait to meet the baby, teasing at the time: “Titan already named the baby. He knows what he’s having and he is excited,” said the mom, joking, “But when the baby’s here, that’s when you’re really gonna know what the deal is, because he’s used to all the attention.”

Will there be a third baby soon? Rowland further added that she is “closed for shop, ladies and gentlemen,” when it comes to having another child. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this the second time around, which makes it my last, that’s for damn sure,” she previously told PEOPLE.

[From People]

I am so happy for Kelly. Kelly really deserves this little happy family that she has managed to create with her husband while maintaining her career. I am glad that she and the baby are healthy and that she is just living her best life. I love that her son Noah came on the 21st, making his birth a bit auspicious. I also love how Kelly was like, “this uterus is no longer open for business.” You better let them know sis. It is so adorable that Titan looks just like Kelly. Little man Titan looks like he has so much personality.

It is a beautiful thing to see someone you like succeed and Kelly has been succeeding since leaving Destiny’s Child. There was a time when I thought her talent would go unrecognized for several reasons, the biggest being colorism. While Kelly’s career may not have blown like Beyonce’s I don’t believe in comparing the two. I also don’t think Kelly and Beyonce compete against each other either. Kelly has definitely managed to find her own lane and I truly enjoy listening to her music, watching her on The Voice Australia, and seeing her little family grow. I am also happy that Kelly has found a man that seems to truly love her and want her to be happy. I wish nothing but the best for Kelly and her little family. The sky’s the limit for this child of destiny and I look forward to seeing what moves Kelly makes in her future.

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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their Sussexit plans almost one full year ago. In the immediate wake of the Sussexit announcement, the Countess of Wessex was pushed as a “replacement” for the Sussexes. It was bizarre to see the concerted effort to make Sophie into a bigger deal – she’s been around for two decades, and while the Queen likes her a lot, Sophie is pretty boring. To see her pushed as a replacement for the dynamic Sussexes… well, it was odd. But it kept happening over the course of 2020. As it turned out, the biggest headline Sophie got over the course of the year was when she went maskless to a crowded Christmas event with the Cambridges. Very strange. But here’s one more attempt to make her a bigger deal:

The Countess of Wessex wanted ‘a bigger role in the Royal Family’ but was ‘overshadowed by senior royals’, according to a royal expert. Sophie, 55, enjoys a particularly close relationship with her mother-in-law the Queen, 94, and represents the Crown both at home and overseas. This year has seen the mother-of-two step into the forefront of The Firm’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, with the Countess volunteering at food banks and charity shops to help the needy.

Now royal expert Phil Dampier has said ‘rising star’ Sophie’s ‘time has come’, telling the Express: ‘I think Sophie was always willing to take a bigger role, but she was overshadowed by more senior royals.’

He said the Countess now has a higher profile than her husband Prince Edward, with whom she lives at Bagshot Park alongside their two children Lady Louise, 17, and VIscount James, 12.

Phil added that Lady Louise gets ‘a lot of inspiration’ from her mother, and could be the next rising royal star. Calling the teenager ‘highly intelligent’, he explained: ‘Their daughter Lady Louise could turn out to be a star in her own right and will get a lot of inspiration from her mum.’

Sophie – who is married to the Queen’s youngest son Prince Edward – has been at the forefront of the Royal Family’s response to the global crisis. Speaking of her volunteering efforts, Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty, who branded her a ‘royal key worker,’ commented: ‘She is making a difference in a very understated, very “Sophie” way.’

Meanwhile Peregrine Armstrong-Jones, of Bentley’s Entertainment, told PEOPLE magazine: ‘There’s no fanfare. These are private visits done in her own private time. When she leaves our kitchens, she generally then goes on to do more projects in different hospitals.’

A friend added: ‘She was brought up by her parents and there was going to be no free ride in her family. She wasn’t born to be the eldest daughter of a duke and duchess and find a marvelous marriage and polish her tiaras.’

[From The Daily Mail]

This is just the fundamental issue within the Windsor clan: the absolute desperation at “not being showy” or “not taking attention away from the Queen/Charles/William,” and the end result is that the most acceptable royals are the most boring and charisma-free, so boring that they’re easily overshadowed by other dull royals. That’s the Windsor Trap: by elevating the laziest and dullest, they’re increasingly becoming too boring to function. But yeah, I get that the Queen has a plan to make Sophie and Edward into the staid, charisma-free replacements for Harry and Meghan. That’s been abundantly clear over the past year. Also: the press needs to STOP trying to make Lady Louise into something. She’s a child!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.

Many people theorized that as soon as Donald Trump lost the election, Melania Trump would leave him and file for divorce. It was said that she can’t stand him, that she avoided him constantly at the White House, that they barely spoke. Other people said “not so fast.” The version of Melania which I now believe is one where she truly doesn’t give a sh-t either way – she’s a self-absorbed golddigger trophy wife who only wants a comfortable, lazy existence, and she can have a husband or an ex-husband, her life goals are the same. So… how does this fit in? Apparently, Melania is organizing her own post-First Lady office so she can extend her Be Best busy work. The f–k?

Former first lady Melania Trump is establishing a post-White House office in Palm Beach, Florida, according to two sources familiar with her plans. Her intention is to “maintain ‘Be Best,’” said one of the sources, Trump’s loosely defined initiative that looks to help children. During her time in the White House, “Be Best” existed as a broad, three-pillared initiative, consisting of children’s health and well-being, safety online and prevention of social media bullying and the impact of the opioid crisis on children.

Trump often did little to help clarify or expand on her platform during her time in the White House, often going weeks between Be Best-focused public events. The East Wing policy office was not robustly staffed, at times sat vacant, and at most had one full-time, dedicated East Wing employee.

Trump’s post-White House office will consist of three of her White House staff members, the sources confirmed to CNN. Hayley D’Antuono served for four years as the former first lady’s director of operations and trip supervisor, and is now Trump’s chief of staff. Mary “Casey” Finzer was a low-level staff assistant in the East Wing office, and one of her tasks included keeping stock of Trump’s “gift closet,” according to a source, where gifted items were kept and wrapped to be distributed at school or hospital events and for trips. Finzer is now a part of the operational and administrative side Trump’s post-White House team. Marcia Kelly, who served as an unpaid senior adviser to Trump when she was in the White House, is also staying onboard for the post-White House office, though it is unclear whether she will now receive a salary.

Both sources indicate Trump’s office is for now functioning out of former President Donald Trump’s private club, Mar-a-Lago, which also is where the former first family is living, and the staff members are at times working remotely. Melania Trump is looking for separate office space in the Palm Beach area. Melania Trump exited the White House with the lowest favorability rating of her tenure as first lady, according to a recent CNN poll.

[From CNN]

… What is she up to? I can’t wrap my head around it. She’s clearly not going to DO anything with “Be Best,” so what is the goal here? Is it just basic image upkeep for a “former First Lady”? Or did Melania get a taste of independence and now she wants to have “her own office” like someone important? Or is it something else? I feel like it’s very possible that this is some kind of grift.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

You know that feeling when you’ve been halfway following an actor’s career for years and you always assumed that you and the actor were close in age? And then you read someone like “Simon Baker has separated from his wife of 29 years” and you’re like “holy sh-t did they get married when they were 10 years old?!?!” That’s where I am right now. I also always forget that people actually know who Simon Baker is. The Mentalist ran for seven seasons, it was a popular network show and Simon was nominated for big awards for it (SAG and Golden Globe). Beyond that show, he’s had a varied career for decades in film and TV. So… famous actor Simon Baker, who I thought was my age, is separating from his wife of 29 years. Insanity.

Simon Baker and his wife Rebecca Rigg have separated after 29 years of marriage, PEOPLE can exclusively confirm. The two quietly split last April.

“We remain close friends and our three children will always be the most important focus of our lives,” Baker and Riggs said a joint statement. The former Mentalist star and Rigg share three children: Stella, 27, Claude, 22, and Harry, 19.

Baker, 51, and Rigg, 53, met in the early 1990s and went on to star in the Australian soap opera, E Street. The actor previously opened up to PEOPLE about his marriage, explaining why he and Rigg never celebrated their wedding anniversary.

“We’ve never really been big on it. Anniversaries, they’re an odd thing, aren’t they?” Baker said in 2018. “I think we put too much pressure on it. It’s not like that with us. We’re a team. Most of the time, 99 percent of the time, we’re really great friends. So I don’t need to mark it with great things.”

[From People]

So, they got together in their early 20s. Their oldest child is 27! Lordy, I’m more shocked by everyone’s ages than I am by the split, although the split seems notable. After 29 years and three kids together, you’re going to choose to start a new single life? Please don’t tell me that he’s got a side chick. Please don’t tell me that he’s going to start celebrating anniversaries NOW.

Rebecca is beautiful too. Damn, they were a hot couple. How did this hot Aussie couple separate and yet so many other couples are sticking it out, possibly through gritted teeth?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.