I’ve just gotten used to the fact that someone (guess who) is providing us with daily updates on the state of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s marriage. Two weekends ago, Kanye and Kim took their kids to the Dominican Republic for a “make or break” family trip. It was said that the trip was Kanye’s idea, and that Kim wanted to (once again) get him away from so many of the influences around him which were not in fact helping him. Their trip to the Dominican “fortress” only lasted a week? Hm…

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West have returned to the United States after their family vacation in the Dominican Republic. On Sunday, the 43-year-old rapper and the KKW beauty mogul were spotted arriving in Miami with their four children: North, 7, Saint, 4, Chicago, 2, and 15-month-old Psalm.

“They had a good family week in the Dominican Republic. They are continuing the family vacation in Colorado,” a source tells PEOPLE. “Kim and Kanye are getting along. They both seem much happier.”

A separate source tells PEOPLE that West is “really enjoying his family time right now,” adding, “Honestly he’s in a great place and feeling creatively inspired.”

An insider recently told PEOPLE that the couple had traveled to the Dominican Republic to “focus is on their marriage.”

“They decided to travel together so they can be away in private,” the insider said. “Between the kids, work, and dealing with Kanye’s bipolar episodes, it’s been hard for her to think clearly.”

[From People]

TMZ says the trip to Colorado will likely involve “glamping,” which is just elite camping, probably in some kind of “cabin” with WiFi and plush white sofas. It’s funny to me to think that Kanye might think that Kim wants to go “glamping.” He doesn’t know her at all. I also think it’s suspicious that the “fortress” part of the trip only lasted a week. Am I the only one who thinks that, despite all of the Kardashian leaks to People, Kim is actually still considering divorce?

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West Arrive in Miami, Next Stop Colorado Glamping https://t.co/kc7AUIAqPh

— TMZ (@TMZ) August 9, 2020

Photos courtesy of Instagram, Backgrid.

NOOOO!! Just a second before I saw this news, I saw something about how today is Antonio Banderas’ 60th birthday, and the news about his birthday gave me such warmth and happiness, and now this. Antonio Banderas tested positive for Covid-19. He tweeted out the news in Spanish, but here’s a translation:

“Pain and Glory” star Antonio Banderas revealed he has tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, his 60th birthday.

“I want to make it public that today, Aug. 10, I am forced to celebrate my 60th birthday in quarantine, having tested positive for the COVID-19 disease, caused by the coronavirus,” the star tweeted in Spanish. “I would like to add that I feel relatively good, just a little more tired than usual, and am confident that I will recover as soon as possible following medical instructions that I hope will allow me to overcome the infectious period that I am suffering, and that is affecting so many people around the planet,” the actor wrote.

“I will take advantage of this isolation to read, write, rest and continue making plans to begin to give meaning to my 60 years, to which I arrive full of enthusiasm. A big hug to everyone,” Banderas concluded.

[From Variety]

I’m worried, I’m not going to lie. Antonio is in a dangerous age bracket AND he has a history of health problems – he had a heart attack a few years ago, and he changed his diet and his fitness routine after that, but I still worry. I don’t know if Antonio is in Spain or LA right now? He has homes in both countries, I’m pretty sure.

Have you guys seen Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory yet? Because Antonio 100% deserved an Oscar for that, and now would be a great time to see it.

Quiero contaros lo siguiente… pic.twitter.com/u579iBVLM0

— Antonio Banderas (@antoniobanderas) August 10, 2020

Also, the numbers just keep getting worse and worse.

Nearly 10,000 Americans have died in the last 9 days

Coronavirus Deaths in the U.S.

August 1, 2020: 153,314

August 10, 2020: 162,938

— David P Gelles (@gelles) August 10, 2020

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Finding Freedom by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand comes out tomorrow and more and more of the book’s revelations are being released as media outlets get access to the book. Page Six reports that according to the authors, a summit took place in 2019 to talk about the growing tensions between Prince W…

Finding Freedom by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand comes out tomorrow and more and more of the book’s revelations are being released as media outlets get access to the book. Page Six reports that according to the authors, a summit took place in 2019 to talk about the growing tensions between Prince W…

I won’t pretend that I’ve been hit financially by the pandemic. I have my savings, and I still have my job, which I love. If anything, I’m spending less money because I’m barely going out and I’m not eating in restaurants (I get a lot of takeout from non-chain restaurants though). But I understand my privileged financial position and I can’t believe that the federal government isn’t doing more to support people this year. This is the year where the government just needs to send everyone a $1000 check every month at the bare f–king minimum. Unemployment benefits should be expanded not curtailed. And FFS, do not touch Social Security and Medicare. But instead of all of those common sense economic policies, we’re getting sh-t like this:

President Donald Trump tried to assert executive power by signing four actions on coronavirus relief Saturday, one of which will provide as much as $400 in enhanced unemployment benefits after Democrats and the White House were unable to reach an agreement on a stimulus bill this week. But that memorandum on enhanced unemployment benefits — 25% of which states are being asked to cover — has more strings attached than the White House acknowledged and is seen as a cumbersome effort that may not help a lot of the unemployed.

The other three actions he signed include a memorandum on a payroll tax holiday for Americans earning less than $100,000 a year, an executive order on “assistance to renters and homeowners” and a memorandum on deferring student loan payments.

“I’m taking action to provide an additional or extra $400 a week and expanded benefits, $400. That’s generous but we want to take care of our people,” Trump said about his memorandum on unemployment benefits at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. But it’s more complicated than that. A state must agree to enter into a financial arrangement with the federal government for any unemployed person living there to get any of the additional benefits. And the federal government is requiring states to pick up the tab for 25% (or $100) of the $400 additional benefit each person may able to receive weekly in additional aid.

Up to $44 billion from the Disaster Relief Fund would be made available for “lost wage assistance” to supplement state payments, according to the memorandum issued by the White House shortly after Trump’s news conference.

[From CNN]

Trump signed these EOs at his Bedminster golf club, because of course he did, and he also promised to make all of these EOs “permanent,” especially the payroll tax “relief.” Payroll taxes pay into Social Security and Medicare, so basically Trump is promising to defund two social programs for seniors. Trump’s people spent the past 24 hours trying to walk that back. Some think that Trump is trying to set a bigly trap for Biden on taxes. I hope Biden is like “Social Security and Medicare need to be protected at all costs, end of.”

I have a question for all of the CPA/tax-preparer gossips out there: 2020 tax filings are going to be crazy, right? I’m already dreading it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Embed from Getty Images
Gillian Jacobs was on Late Night with Seth Meyers promoting her movie I Used to Go Here, co-starring Jemaine Clement. It’s about a writer who returns to her college alma mater to teach 15 years after she graduated. Critics say it’s kind of charming and captures that mid-30s “what am I doing with my life?” experience well. You can see the trailer here. On Late Night, Gillian said that her college experience was different than most people’s because she went to Julliard (she didn’t give the name, Seth had to say the name for her) and because she doesn’t drink. She also said that more young people are discovering Community now that it’s on Netflix. We used to watch that show on repeat, my son has seen the entire series at least three times. Here’s some of what she said and you can see the interview below:

Her mom’s family owned a brewery when she was growing up
I have never had a drink of alcohol in my life. I am a real outsider in my family. At a very young age I announced to everyone that I was never going to drink. It probably felt like a betrayal of my family and their entire legacy, but I have stuck to it.

She had a different college experience
I went to a college that had no campus, no real social life. I went to college in Manhattan. I lived in Lincoln center. So even just having a lawn to sit on would have been a dream to us. [Seth says she went to Julliard] I voluntarily chose to go to different colleges during the summer and take academic classes. I wanted to get a taste of that, to be on a real campus and to be in a lecture hall.

Kids are discovering Community now that it’s on Netflix
It went on Netflix April 1st so there’s a whole new group of people discovering it. I now have the experience of my friends’ children discovering it.

[From Late Night with Seth Meyers via YouTube]

Gillian also has a scripted podcast with Josh Gadd called Blood Ties, the second season of which is coming soon. She said she loves doing voiceover work and that she’s asked to be on several cartoons like Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Adventure Time.

I’ve only met one person who doesn’t drink after deciding at a young age like that. He just knew it wasn’t for him. I know his family too and they’re not alcoholics at all. Sometimes people just decide they’re not going to mess with it. I had to learn the hard way that drinking wasn’t for me and I still find it surprising when people can have one or two drinks and stop.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

The Windsors like to pretend that they’ve modernized to the point where any prince or princess can marry for love and that those marriages are never about money. Yet there are persistent “transactional” vibes around many of the royal marriages, from Prince William using money from his trust to help the Middletons purchase their manor home in 2012 (a year after he married Kate), to Pippa Middleton’s terribly moderately wealthy husband having to drop £100,000 into James Middleton’s failing Nazi-marshmallow business soon after TMW James married Pippa. And God knows who got paid off with that suspicious story about a cannabis factory adjacent to Middleton Manor in Bucklebury. I mean… the financials of the Middleton/Windsor clan are sketchy as hell.

But guess what? The financials of the Yorks are f–king awful too. The Yorks’ finances have always been dripping with scandal and shenanigans. No one really knows how Andrew gained and then seemingly lost a fortune overnight, as soon as Jeffrey Epstein mysteriously died. No one knows how much money Epstein lent Andrew AND Fergie over the years. No one knows why Fergie always seems to be out of money, despite her lengthy history of moneymaking schemes. Considering all that is already known about Fergie AND Andrew’s finances, why in the world would anyone want to go into business with either of them? And why did Fergie’s two new sons-in-law not get the memo until now? From Sebastian Shakespeare’s Daily Mail column:

She has welcomed both her sons-in-law in gushing style, declaring ‘never has a mother been more proud’ than when Edo Mapelli Mozzi married Princess Beatrice last month. And she observed of Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank that they ‘float with laughter and love’. But these effusions have not, alas, dissuaded both men from cutting themselves adrift from the Duchess of York — in a commercial sense, that is. In a flurry of activity remarkable even by the sometimes haphazard pattern of Fergie’s business career, I can reveal she and Mapelli Mozzi and Brooksbank became the three directors of a company, Rumpel Water Ltd, which was incorporated on June 25. Yet only three weeks later, on July 13 — just four days before Mapelli Mozzi married Beatrice in a private ceremony at Windsor — both he and Brooksbank resigned, leaving Fergie as the company’s sole director.

A spokesman for Fergie attempts to unravel this brief but extraordinary chapter in British corporate history.

‘Both sons-in-law were going to get involved but then realised they didn’t have enough time to commit to it,’ he tells me, ‘so they resigned as directors.’ Rumpel, he adds, is a ‘water-cleansing company’ whose operations may ultimately be mainly overseas — although not at the moment. ‘It’s now dormant but will start up again at some point in the future,’ explains the spokesman.

It is difficult to envisage either of Fergie’s sons-in-law returning to the Rumpel board. Mapelli Mozzi heads his own highly successful property and design company, Banda. His former fiancée, Dara Huang, with whom he has a three-year-old son, recently relocated her office to the same Kensington building in West London in which Banda is based.

Brooksbank, formerly a manager at Mahiki, the Mayfair nightclub favoured by Princes William and Harry during their carefree youth, is now a brand ambassador for Casamigos, a tequila company co-founded by George Clooney.

[From The Daily Mail]

I mean, Jack is a tequila-shill who got paid to feature Casamigos at his royal wedding (a tacky factoid which is rarely mentioned) and Edo is a real estate guy who might not be as successful as the press would have people believe. Both men are smart enough to know that they shouldn’t get involved with Fergie or Andrew financially. So why did they? And what made them both quit so suddenly? Did it have anything to do with Ghislaine Maxwell being arrested on July 2nd, approximately one week after Edo, Fergie and Jack incorporated? Woooo, I sure wish some enterprising British journalists would focus some of their energy over here.

Photos courtesy of Instagram, Avalon Red.

Apparently, there was a documentary on British television over the weekend called Harry and Meghan: The New Revelations. It was about, I suppose, the excerpts from Finding Freedom. What is hilarious to me is that there are so many British people – not to mention royal commentators – insisting that Harry and Meghan are boring and terrible and everyone needs to move on and stop paying attention to them, and yet… the British media outlets absolutely still see the Sussexes as revenue streams and cash-cows. Anyway, Andrew Morton was interviewed on the documentary and he had some notable sympathy for Meghan. Morton is best known as Princess Diana’s once-authorized biographer, and while Morton has absolutely said and done some problematic sh-t, he’s also been making some interesting points about how little the monarchy has actually changed since the days of Diana.

Lady Diana’s biographer Andrew Morton has claimed that Meghan Markle may have felt frustrated by the fact she could not speak for herself. Speaking during Channel 5 documentary, Harry and Meghan: The New Revelations, the royal author, most famous for writing Diana: Her True Story, reveals how he feels for ‘poor’ Meghan, who had wanted to do her best when she joined the royal family.

Commenting on the Duchess of Sussex’s first steps as a royal, Morton claims opinionated 21st-century woman Meghan was bound to struggle to adapt to the ‘say nothing’ royal rule of thumb – adding that Finding Freedom was her chance to set the record straight. Morton goes on to say that he believes Finding Freedom was Meghan’s way of trying to express how she approached the royal family and ‘how she was dismayed by the easy criticism of everything that she was trying to do.’

‘She’s been frustrated by the fact that she’s not been able to give her side of the story,’ he explains. ‘All kinds of stories have come out about her, and she’s not been able to answer back, and it’s something she’s found immensely frustrating.’

Morton adds that Prince Harry’s apparent hostility for the media, and especially for tabloids and paparazzi, has only grown stronger over the years. The documentary touches on the fact that Meghan, being an active, outspoken feminist and wanting to speak on different political issues, was going to experience a ‘culture clash’ with the traditional – and white – royal family. Morton also says he feels that modern woman Meghan wanted to do her best when she moved to the UK to be with Harry.

‘I feel for this poor girl, I mean, she came into this country, parachuted in,’ he explains. ‘She’s marrying into a very difficult family, that everybody finds difficult to come into. And she’s someone who didn’t know an awful lot about British history, British culture and as she said herself ‘she’s gonna hit the ground running’. And she hit the ground running, but she found she came up against a brick wall.’

Looking back at Meghan’s first engagement with the Queen, which took place at Merseyside in 2018, Morton says Meghan ‘was trying her best’ but had no idea how to behave. She didn’t know the protocol, she didn’t know the etiquette. I’ll give you a perfect example,’ he explains. ‘She went up to Liverpool with the Queen, and she’s sitting on the chairs and it’s a windy day. She doesn’t know what side of the car to get into,to get out of, what hand to hold her handbag in, and you can see that kind of confusion in her face. Meghan, even though she’s an actress, has had to swap the red carpet for the royal road show.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Was a memo sent out from the palace or something? Why are all of these (male) commentators going on and on about how “Meghan didn’t know the rules.” This is what Edward Enninful said too – that Meghan didn’t know “the rules,” which is all part of the Holy Royal Protocol, and no one has ever written these rules down and yet everyone is supposed to know the rules, and as we all saw, the rules were often applied arbitrarily or solely for Meghan. But really, the “rules” conversation is just another way to otherize Meghan and to tell her (repeatedly) that she “didn’t know her place.” Meghan legitimately did feel silenced and otherized and smeared… because they were silencing her, otherizing her and smearing her.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red and WENN.

Dear Gossips,How many times did you listen to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” this weekend or watch the video? It’s been celebrated, it’s been memed, it’s got Christina Aguilera feeling like this: “WAP” is a horny song. As Craig Jenkins writes at Vulture, it’s “Class-A Filth for the Ages”, s…

Dear Gossips,How many times did you listen to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” this weekend or watch the video? It’s been celebrated, it’s been memed, it’s got Christina Aguilera feeling like this: “WAP” is a horny song. As Craig Jenkins writes at Vulture, it’s “Class-A Filth for the Ages”, s…