Katy Perry & her terrible bangs supported Orlando Bloom at the TIFF premiere of his latest film, The Cut. I’m getting a vibe about their marriage. [JustJared]
The trailer for Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Incredible that Ryan Murphy cast Javier Bardem & Chloe Sevigny as the parents. [OMG Blog]
Naomi Campbell & Anna Wintour are beefing in public. [LaineyGossip]
Every five years or so, people suddenly learn that Abraham Lincoln had a male BFF and they slept in the same bed for years. [Jezebel]
Brat Summer has phased into Demure Autumn? [Pajiba]
Florence Pugh discusses shaving her head for a role. [Buzzfeed]
Simone Biles went to the US Open! [Socialite Life]
Billy Ray Cyrus’s divorce wig is struggling. [Seriously OMG]
Dakota Johnson & others at the Bulgari event. [RCFA]

Embed from Getty Images

On the last day of the Paris Olympics, Prince William and Kate posted a video where they congratulated the British Olympians for all they did. William and Kate couldn’t be bothered to actually congratulate specific athletes or do anything but make a last-minute video. The biggest piece of news was William had grown a scraggly, sad-sack vacation beard after one month of summer holidaying. Dutiful royal reporters quickly declared that William’s bender beard turned him into a “hot dad” and William’s most loyal sycophants discussed how William’s beard was all about reopening the “beard war” with Prince Harry, because Harry has a beard and William wants to be Harry and have everything that Harry has.

When we briefly saw William drive to church at Balmoral a few weeks after that, William had shaved the sad beard. But look, the beard is back! If we can even call this pathetic stubble a beard. William stepped out on Thursday in London to visit the Homelessness: Reframed exhibit at the Saatchi Gallery. William’s dumbf–k Homewards campaign is somehow involved in this exhibit, and Kensington Palace has been hyping this peggy appearance for weeks. Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast embarrassed himself with this headline: “Hot Prince William Is Back With His Official New Stubble.” *hork*

William already has too many nicknames around here – Baldy, Peg, Peggington, Huevo, The Other Brother. Should we give him a new name in honor of this terrible attempt at cosplaying Prince Harry? How about Huevo Peludo (Hairy Egg)? Temu Jason Statham came to mind, although I think William would consider that a win. Statham is smart enough to shave off everything up top, while Huevo Peludo clings to those wispy little hairs and tries to comb them over. The one “nice” thing I’ll give him is that the stubble makes his eyes pop. But other than that, there is so much ugliness, inside and out.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

There was another school shooting this week, which was the first week of school for many American kids. A 14-year-old with an AR-style weapon murdered four people at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Two students and two teachers are dead, the shooter is in custody, and the authorities have also arrested the shooter’s father. First and foremost, we need another ban on assault-weapons. There is no reason for anyone – especially a 14-year-old – to have access to an AR-15. The shooter’s father apparently gave the weapon to his son as a gift, terrifyingly enough (and an explanation for why the father has been arrested). All of this is a tragic backstory for JD Vance’s latest political masterstroke: telling an audience in Arizona that school shootings are a fact of life.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Thursday that he lamented that school shootings are a “fact of life” and argued the U.S. needs to harden security to prevent more carnage like the shooting this week that left four dead in Georgia.

“If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said at a rally in Phoenix. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”

The Ohio senator was asked by a journalist what can be done to stop school shootings. He said further restricting access to guns, as many Democrats advocate, won’t end them, noting they happen in states with both lax and strict gun laws. He touted efforts in Congress to give schools more money for security.

“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”

Vance said he doesn’t like the idea of his own kids going to a school with hardened security, “but that’s increasingly the reality that we live in.”

[From AP]

“These psychos” = a 14-year-old who was on the authorities’ radar for months, who was gifted a weapon of war by his father. Instead of shrugging and saying what amounts to “it is what it is,” perhaps some common-sense gun laws would be more effective? It’s also pathetic because after that Republican shot up Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally in July, both Trump and Vance are doing their stump speeches behind walls of bulletproof plexiglass, like the late, great Hannibal Lector.

JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform pic.twitter.com/ISNRuXneg6

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 6, 2024

a picture of the guy who says shootings are a “fact of life” https://t.co/sMMf9Ms3tT pic.twitter.com/3nfb68R2Kt

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 6, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.

They devote 10,000 word diatribes on Prince Harry, trying to convince themselves that he is unhappy, that he misses the UK, that he has regrets about choosing his wife and children over being the Windsors’ scapegoat. Their obsession with Harry has long been a window into their own dysfunction and increasingly poor mental health. They project all of their rage, regret and racism onto him. How dare he choose his Black wife over US? How dare he land on his feet? How dare he find happiness away from us? How dare he live in a mansion, doesn’t he know he’s the spare? Why didn’t he come crawling back to us, broke and divorced? Those are the spoilers for this latest uncomfortable read in The Telegraph. The piece is “How Prince Harry fills his days away from the spotlight; Ahead of his 40th birthday, we explore the Duke of Sussex’s day-to-day life – and the rumours that he wants to come home.” It was written by Hannah Furness and it is a very sad piece. Sad for the Telegraph, sad for the British media, sad for the Windsors. They are so hopelessly obsessed with Harry and at no point did Furness or anyone else ask themselves “why do we have this all-consuming interest in and fury for a man who left us five years ago?” Some highlights:

Life in Montecito: Gone is the royal duty; the engagements shaking hands with volunteers on a wet Wednesday back in Britain. But gone too are the palaces, the honorary military titles, and many of the old friends who would drag him down the pub or reminisce over their schooldays and Army escapades. Instead, there is Montecito. Walks on the beach, bike rides, school runs and jellyfish kites flown on the lawn. Flanked by security on the rare occasions he is seen in public, Prince Harry is in demand but under the radar. He works out, occasionally goes out for dinner, hosts new friends at his nine-bedroom home (complete with 16 bathrooms and a swimming pool).

A future in his own hands: The future, for the first time in his life, is Harry’s alone to decide. No longer under the eye of his hated palace officials, his path is his own to choose. “There is so much good work happening,” a member of their team has said. Prince Harry’s new circle is small but “amazing”, insists an ally, and Harry is “doing great”. Others, quoted in different Sunday newspapers, claim he’s an “angry boy” feeling “more and more isolated in California”. “Does he look like a man who is unhappy?” counters a separate source, citing recent smiling photographs of Harry and Meghan in Colombia. Never has one man been described so differently depending on who you speak to and what you read.

Harry doesn’t take Foreign Office advice! Not entirely unlike his royal tours of old in content, [the Colombia tour] was low on official handshakes and diplomacy but high on hugs, and scrapped the advice of the Foreign Office in favour of being personally hosted by the country’s vice-president. It caused bemusement in some quarters back in Britain, with the recurring theme of “why?”. The Sussexes’ new style of overseas tours is “embarrassing”, says a long-term royal observer. But the sole reporter who covered the Colombia trip for Harper’s Bazaar was won over, saying their “warmth and compassion” showed the “intentionality they bring to the way they use their platform”.

Harry’s day-to-day life: There is meditation (a 30-40-minute session each day, scheduled in to make sure it happens) and exercise (formerly at Barry’s Bootcamp in LA, more recently with personal trainers). He chats with his staff, enjoys the garden, marvels at the local birds, does the school run, and walks the dogs. He and the Duchess have been seen occasionally at local steakhouse Lucky’s and upmarket Italian restaurant Tre Lune. The friends they are seen with are high-powered: millionaires, billionaires, business leaders, successful entrepreneurs, producers. Harry has video calls with his team and some of his old charities, sometimes wearing sheepskin slippers under his desk as he works in a shared office with his wife.

The Sussexes’ neighbors are dying to socialize with them: “It’s paradise living here,” says Richard Mineards, a well-connected society columnist for the Montecito Journal who lives, he jokes, a “tiara’s toss” from them in the exclusive area of Riven Rock. “They live rather splendidly, it couldn’t be a nicer place. It’s a very wealthy community, we have a lot of people giving a lot of money to our cultural organisations as well as charities, but we don’t see them.” The couple are conspicuous, he added, for their security, particularly after first moving there during the pandemic: “We have got a lot of very rich and very famous people here, and none of them have a security retinue like the Sussexes. The community is waiting for them – they’re gnashing at the bit. The cachet of a Duke and Duchess!”

The royal status: There is no question that the Sussexes’ deals have come rolling in as a result of their former titles and status – one glance at their new website displays their full titles and a coat of arms, which looks remarkably regal to the untrained eye. But the site’s biography of Harry describes a “humanitarian, military veteran, mental health advocate, and environmental campaigner” with no mention of his birthright. “The people they work with and in the countries they seem to want to visit largely don’t know or care about the ins and outs of Harry leaving the working Royal family,” one source said. “They will always see him as the grandson of the Queen [Elizabeth II] or son of Diana. The technicalities of whether he’s an HRH… I don’t think it means much to ordinary people.”

The Windsors don’t even think about Harry! With Harry 5,000 miles away, the Royal family back home has been dealing with battles of its own. The illnesses of the King and Princess of Wales have focused minds in the palaces, with all energies – personal and professional – going towards keeping the show on the road and nursing the monarchy’s star players back to health. There is simply less time to ponder other dramas. While Prince William may once have dwelt on his relationship with his younger brother, one friend said, “his wife is the centre of his world. His father is ill. It brings things into focus”.

[From The Telegraph]

“The Sussexes’ new style of overseas tours is “embarrassing”, says a long-term royal observer.” As embarrassing as colonialist cosplay and getting fired live on television in Jamaica? As embarrassing as Camilla’s drunk ass not even getting out of the car in Kenya? What’s embarrassing the Windsors is that they were too jealous, short-sighted and petty to manage their brightest stars. Five years of trying to convince everyone that Harry is miserable, that he’ll come back eventually, that we don’t need Harry anyway. It’s all blown up in their faces.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Alexander Skarsgard is modeling for Calvin Klein again! [Socialite Life]
Will Robert Pattinson do a sequel to The Batman? [Pajiba]
Winona Ryder & Keanu Reeves still call each other husband & wife. [Just Jared]
Joaquin Phoenix is gonna babygirl his way out of controversy. [LaineyGossip]
Kate Winslet is promoting Lee yet again. [Go Fug Yourself]
Does Demi Moore remember her most famous lines? [OMG Blog]
Oh, Gemma Chan looks cute! [RCFA]
I didn’t even know that Paula Abdul was still touring. [Seriously OMG]
Getting to know Before the 90 Days’ Loren. [Starcasm]
The “Hawk Tuah” lady is launching a podcast. [Hollywood Life]
Jeopardy questions about movies. [Buzzfeed]

sleek and laidback. Alexander Skarsgård captures fall energy.

discover the new campaign. directed by Mert Alas. pic.twitter.com/eapc4ckVIj

— calvinklein (@CalvinKlein) September 4, 2024

LMAO, this is too good. Every year, Bill Clinton hosts the Clinton Global Initiative to coincide with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. World leaders, philanthropists, activists and politicos are already in town for the UN, and many make their way to CGI’s meeting to attend speeches, Q&A sessions and forums. Many world leaders appear at both the UN and CGI. This year, one of those world leaders will be Prince Harry.

Prince Harry, actor Matt Damon, and World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andrés are set to speak at the 2024 Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York on Sept. 23 and 24, the Clinton Foundation announced Thursday.

The theme of this year’s gathering of political, business and philanthropic leaders is “What’s Working” – an effort to shine a spotlight on potential solutions and effective aid in a tumultuous period marked by war, increased income inequality and food insecurity.

Former President Bill Clinton said this year’s Clinton Global Initiative would “double down” on the progress made on the climate crisis, global health, gun violence, and other important issues.

“We started CGI because we wanted to have a meeting where people didn’t just talk about big problems, but where we could roll up our sleeves and get something done,” he said in a statement to The Associated Press. “It’s more important than ever to be optimistic and realize we all have the ability to make a difference.”

Since returning in 2022 after a six-year hiatus, CGI has tried to maintain an optimistic tone, while also developing new ways to help, including the launch last year of The CGI Ukraine Action Network, a collaboration between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine.

The Duke of Sussex plans to discuss the launch of The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Network, an initiative supporting parents whose children have suffered or died due to online harms. He also plans to address his nonprofit’s collaboration with the World Health Organization and others to end violence against children, an issue he and his wife Meghan outlined on a recent trip to Colombia.

Water.org co-founder and Oscar winner Damon is expected to discuss the status of the $1 billion plan he announced in 2022 to give 100 million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America lasting access to water and sanitation.

[From CNY]

Harry is rolling with the Clintons, WHO, The HALO Trust, Save the Children, Travalyst, African Parks, and on and on. And all week, his brother has been throwing a very public tantrum, spreading lies about how Harry is desperate to return to the UK to do ribbon-cuttings. It’s just too good. What’s next, is Harry going to address the UN General Assembly? Will he do a Q&A session with Bill Clinton? Will he take actual meetings in the UN building? Also: now I’m kind of bummed that Meghan won’t be joining Harry on this trip, because that would really make Salt Islanders’ heads explode.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images and Backgrid.

I have a theory about gossip. My theory is that American presidential election years – and Summer Olympics years – are exceptionally bonkers when it comes to gossip. 2012, 2016 and 2020 were especially crazy years in celebrity gossip, royal gossip and political gossip. 2024 is the same. This year, it feels like whenever there’s a holiday weekend, things just go haywire too. It happened during the Independence Day holiday in July, and the Labor Day long weekend was full of political and royal drama. All of which to say, I’m still playing catch-up on all of the deranged royal stuff – in addition to lies about Prince Harry “plotting his return from exile” and freakouts about Harry’s sudden appearance at Robert Fellowes’ funeral, the haters are also doing too much around Harry’s 40th birthday on September 15th. It’s a big birthday, worthy of celebration. I assume Meghan will bake him a cake and he will spend the special day with his kids and people he loves. But Prince William and his media allies are determined to impose themselves on Harry. They’re insisting that Harry is having a “mid-life crisis.” Projection, thy name is Huevo. Some highlights from this Page Six piece, which is basically a continuation of that nasty piece in the Times of London a few weeks ago.

William won’t wish Harry a happy birthday!! Prince Harry is preparing to turn 40 on September 15 — but it is pretty safe to assume his brother, Prince William, the future King of England, won’t be wishing him a happy birthday. The renegade royal will enter his fifth decade with an A-list party organized by his wife Meghan Markle, 42, Page Six is told. But it will be in Montecito, California, 5,000 miles away from the father and brother he grew up with after the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana, when he was just 12 years old.

William does not want Harry at his coronation. “William is not speaking to Harry,” said one source. “Harry is not the issue here.” Another royal insider who has known them both said, “William is furious. I’m not sure what can ever be done to mend fences.”

Harry at 40: As Harry turns 40, sources say he has become “more comfortable” in California and within his life. “I think he has his convictions and he is determined, but I also think he’s more unburdened than before,” said a friend.

No more books: When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex originally signed a three-book deal with Random House as part of a rumored $20 million contract, announced in 2021, Page Six was told it included Harry’s memoir, a book which Harry and Markle were set to write together and a book from Markle herself. But we’re now told there are no plans for any more books.

Meghan’s American Riviera Orchard: The Sussexes are currently working with their Archewell Foundation and tied in a recent faux-royal tour of Columbia with plans to promote mental health for young people. As for the launch of Markle’s lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, sources say that’s still up in the air. “That is a whole other story,” said one Sussex source.

The Sussexes are fine: A Sussex pal in California said of the couple, “They are happy and enjoying their lives. You could see that from their trip to Columbia.” But one longtime friend told the Sunday Times recently that he may have an “enviable lifestyle,” on the surface but, “or the Harry I know, I can’t imagine that gilded exile in California is where he wanted to end up.”

[From Page Six]

You’d think that if Page Six puts “mid-life crisis” in the headline, the article would include some revelations about this alleged mid-life crisis. Instead, it’s full of quotes about how much William hates Harry. Makes you think, huh? Makes you wonder about which brother is having a midlife crisis. Is it the brother living in a mansion with his beautiful wife and children, doing fulfilling work and building something for himself, or is it the brother who spent 72 hours rage-shrieking about how much he hates Harry?

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

In recent weeks, Brittany Mahomes has been doing a lot to show everyone that she’s a dumbass and a supporter of Donald Trump. She’s liked a few MAGA-themed posts and comments on Instagram, and she’s thrown a few tantrums about how she doesn’t give a f–k about the “haters.” While this could have been a story about a white supremacist a–hole married to a Black football player and choosing the politics of white nationalism and white privilege, the story has become more complicated. That’s because of Brittany and Patrick Mahomes’ friendship with Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. Swift was late in coming to her political activism, but she supported the Biden-Harris ticket and her fans hope that she will endorse Harris for president. Travis’s politics are murkier and he might even be a swing voter, although I’d like to think that Travis, a longtime fan of Black women, is going to vote for Kamala Harris.

Given that the Mahomes fam and the Kelce-Swift fam socialize together and Taylor even invited them to her Rhode Island estate last month, it’s become a larger story. How do these two couples maintain their friendships? Do they just not talk about politics whatsoever? Will Taylor begin to roll back her friendship with Brittany if Brittany goes full MAGA? I don’t know. But I know that Donald Trump believes he has the full support of the Mahomes family. Trump posted this on Truth Social on Wednesday:

“I want to thank beautiful Brittany Mahomes for so strongly defending me, and the fact that MAGA is the greatest and most powerful Political Movement in the History of our now Failing Country. With Crime and Illegal Immigration totally out of control, INFLATION Ravaging all Americans, and a World that is laughing at the stupidity of our hapless “leaders,” it is nice to see someone who loves our Country, and wants to save it from DOOM. What a great couple – See you both at the Super Bowl!”

[Trump’s post via Twitter]

From Trump’s perspective, he just clings to any celebrity, however minor, showing him any kind of support. Of course Trump has followed the Mahomes story in recent weeks, and I strongly suspect Trump and his people are worried about Taylor Swift and her potential endorsement too. From Brittany’s perspective though? How embarrassing. Like, if you get used/praised like this by an adjudicated rapist, a jingoist white nationalist and a senile piece of sh-t, how is it not your rock-bottom? How can you look at yourself in the mirror?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

Over the weekend, the Mail on Sunday ran a huge front-page story about Prince Harry’s “desperation” to come back to the royal fold. Sources told the Mail that Harry wants to come back ALONE to do William’s work and be William’s scapegoat, and that Harry’s friends are begging the institution to give Harry a ribbon-cutting job. I feel strongly that this whole thing came from Kensington Palace and Prince William, likely because William, KP and the British media were all stunned that Harry quietly flew into England for Robert Fellowes’ funeral. The big “tell” that everything came from Huevo is that within the fantasist storyline, sources kept insisting that William was still furious with Harry and William would never allow Harry to come back. After the Mail got the ball rolling, “sources close to Harry” came out and said: that Mail story is bullsh-t and of course Harry has no interest in coming back to the royal fold. Well, now egg-sources have run to the Daily Beast’s Royalist to put a bow on William’s pathetic attempt to create this storyline.

The fragile ceasefire between Prince William and Prince Harry which allowed both brothers to attend their uncle’s funeral last week, collapsed in spectacular style Tuesday, as the brothers camps returned to slinging insults and demands at each other.

Prince William’s office declined to comment but allies of the prince told The Daily Beast that Harry was “a broken record” who was “pretending to not get the message that he is not wanted” after Harry’s camp told U.K. paper the Mirror that the exiled prince would be “prepared” to undertake some royal duties if he was asked to do so by the king, but only if he received an “apology” from Prince William.

The report in the Mirror said Harry remained happy with his decision to leave the royal family but would be “open” to taking up a temporary role within the family to “help out” if he was asked to do so by the king, and William apologized.

Prince William’s office declined to comment but a friend of Prince William told The Daily Beast: “Harry is a broken record at this stage. We all know he would love to be given a part-time royal role, but Queen Elizabeth was very clear that he couldn’t be half in and half out. Nothing has changed. Whoever is promulgating these ludicrous theories on Harry’s behalf is simply pretending to not get the message that he is not wanted. They are either very thick or pretending to be.”

[From The Daily Beast]

“Harry is a broken record at this stage. We all know he would love to be given a part-time royal role.” Harry’s broken record is that he’s repeatedly been asked if he wants to go back to do royal work and he’s repeatedly said no, he’s happy in California. Harry’s stated goals are more nuanced: he would actually like to be able to return to the UK for visits with family and to do some charity work within the UK. He wants to be able to see his cancer-stricken father without layers of horsey bureaucracy. William and the British media have interpreted Harry’s stated goals as “Harry is desperate to come back!” Anyway, I’m starting to get the feeling that William is doing too much to push these narratives because some sh-t is going down in other areas. Like… WTF is happening with Kate these days? Notice that no one is talking about that. Notice how this storyline has overshadowed all things Buttons.

“Whoever is promulgating these ludicrous theories on Harry’s behalf is simply pretending to not get the message that he is not wanted. They are either very thick or pretending to be.” What a self-own by William, the thick one who is promulgating these ludicrous stories.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

John McCain’s son Jimmy McCain has switched his party affiliation to “Democrat” and has now endorsed Kamala Harris. Jimmy McCain is disgusted specifically by Donald Trump’s violent Arlington stunt last week. [Pajiba]
Here’s a good summary of the Lee Daniels mess. [LaineyGossip]
Charli XCX confirms the end of brat summer. [OMG Blog]
Reese Witherspoon spent the summer with her new boyfriend? [Hollywood Life]
Donald Trump is pissing off the anti-choice people. [Jezebel]
I forgot that Nikki Hilton’s wedding gown was gorgeous. [Buzzfeed]
Leslie Manville is such an elegant woman. [RCFA]
So many celebs have come out for the US Open, including Ashley Park. [JustJared]
Jax Taylor has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. [Socialite Life]
LMAO, Madonna looks like Sabrina Carpenter. [Seriously OMG]