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A post shared by Vogue (@voguemagazine) on Apr 28, 2020 at 9:11am PDT

Priyanka Chopra took part in Vogue Magazine’s “lockdown issue” which was mostly just actors, celebrities and artists doing their own photos and talking about how they’ve spent their coronavirus lockdown. I had been wondering about Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas a lot, actually. While Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner were doing tons of interviews via video conference, Nick and Pri have been relatively quiet. So quiet that some people think Priyanka is quietly gestating in lockdown. She doesn’t say anything about that in this Vogue piece, but she did talk about why she and Nick went into lockdown early:

She was an early corona-awareness person: “I got early information [about COVID-19] at the World Economic Forum in January. I attended with Global Citizen, and as the outbreak began in China, I remember there was a conversation about it. I work with the World Health Organization a lot and I’m the daughter of a physician, so I spoke to my mom and understood the severity of what it was—and what it could be if it wasn’t handled soon.”

Responsible lockdown: “Nick and I made quick decisions about the most responsible things to do, and made sure our family was taken care of—we checked in on people, and explained what the coronavirus was. We were supposed to be in India for Holi, but we cut our trip short and came back to America because we were worried about borders being locked down. Nick is a Type 1 diabetic, so we felt it was important to go into quarantine almost immediately.

She’s grateful to be bored: “I’m so grateful we’re together at this time, and that we weren’t stuck in different parts of the world because we both travel so much. And I feel incredibly blessed to be dealing with boredom, and not a lack of food or water, or the loss of a loved one. I’ve been coping by making donations to where people need help, and using my platform to promote the people who are actually on the ground, doing the work. The one thing keeping me calm is constantly reminding myself how lucky we are.

Nick is teaching her piano: “I’ve also started the piano—I make my husband teach me. I’ve never played, but I’ve always wanted to learn an instrument, so I make him give me a half-hour or 45-minute lesson every day. He’s an in-house piano teacher, an in-house physical trainer, and an in-house writing partner—it’s good. I’ve taken a hip-hop dance class too, because I miss dancing! But I’ve also been working on my book a lot, and this time is going to help me finish it. This time is, fortunately and unfortunately, given me time to think about finishing that book.

[From Vogue]

If they waited long enough to the point where they were worried about the border being closed, they waited too long? Borders weren’t being closed until mid-March. If Priyanka had all of this knowledge about the virus back in January/February, they probably should have been locked down in early March at the latest? I mean, I’m not judging her too hard, because hell, I didn’t take it seriously until March 9-15 too, but she’s talking out of both sides of her mouth here. Anyway… I’m glad they’re safe.

Photos courtesy of Instagram, Backgrid.

Of all the Insta-models and nepotism models, I always thought that Hailey Baldwin was actually pretty natural? My votes for most-tweaked-looking Insta-models would be Kylie Jenner, Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. And I’m saying that as a fan of Bella Hadid, but of course Bella had a nose job and had some other stuff tweaked. Kendall is getting lip work and Kylie looked like she got a head transplant when she turned 18. But Hailey? I genuinely thought the change in her look over the years was mostly about makeup and simple ageing. But someone posted this very old side-by-side:

Hailey Baldwin shuts down accusations she got plastic surgery and insists ‘I’ve never touched my face!’https://t.co/Ke4C0COmm3

— The Sun (@TheSun) May 23, 2020

The side-by-side comparison was deleted, and it was deleted because Hailey clapped back, as the youths say. She commented:

After an Insta user low-key accused Hailey of messing with her face, Hailey fired back to set the record alllll the way straight. “Stop using pics that are edited by makeup artists! This photo on the right is NOT what I look like….I’ve never touched my face so if you’re gonna sit around and compare me at 13 and then me at 23, at least use a natural photo that wasn’t edited so crazy.”

[From Cosmo]

Yeah, the photo is Hailey when she had barely begun puberty? It’s one thing to compare Bella Hadid’s nose at 16/17 versus someone looking different at 13! I went through the photo archives to look at Hailey’s early public appearances, and I honestly don’t see that much of a difference? The makeup is very different and that’s about it. She even has the same nose now that she had in 2011.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, WENN.

Mild spoilers for Dead to Me up until about episode 2 of season 2
James Marsden was on The Ellen Show to promote Dead to Me, the second season of which is available on Netflix now. Those of you who have seen it know what I’m referring to in the title! He was looking so cute with his hair all grown out and his face was a little fuller too. He said he started off the lockdown by giving himself a schedule and plan, but that soon went by the wayside and now he’s just binge watching Schitt’s Creek and eating ice cream. I could relate to that so much. James also revealed how he got a role on the second season of Dead to Me despite the fact that his character died at the end of the first. He called the show’s creator, Liz Feldman, to wish her well and ask if his character could survive. She wrote in a role for him as his dead character’s twin. Is that how charming James Marsden is, that he can convince a showrunner to write him in as his own goofy twin? He even admitted it was like a soap opera plot! He’s getting the most headlines for saying that Julia Roberts got him a role in Hairspray, but that’s not how it happened. He made it sound like she just said something nice about him, but that he already had the part.

On how he’s doing in lockdown
I had big ideas about what I was going to do with my day. I actually wrote down a whole daily schedule, “Wake up at 8, have an hour of meditation, eat something healthy. 11 go for a walk, social distance.” That lasted for about a week or two and then I realize that worked really well as toilet paper. Now it’s like ‘how fast can I get through a pint of ice cream.’ Schitt’s Creek I’m catching up on. It’s brilliant. Catherine O’Hara is the Meryl Streep of comedy.

On his encounter with Julia Roberts early in his career
I was sitting down with Adam Schenkman, the director [of Hairspray], Craig Zadan and Neil Meron [producers] at the time at an empty restaurant off Broadway in New York City. We were just talking about, potentially me playing the role of Corny Collins. In the middle of the interview I had a tap on my shoulder. It was Julia Roberts. She said ‘I’m sorry I didn’t want to interrupt but you’re in my favorite movie, The Notebook. I love what you do in the film and congratulations on it.’ Adam [said] ‘if you didn’t have the job already, I think that sort of seals it.’

On his role in the second season of Dead to Me
At first I was like ‘oh a twin, the kind of classic soap opera trope. Can we pull this off?’ I called Liz [at the end of the first season] and said ‘congratulations on the success, is there any way I can survive a head trauma drowning? Is there any way this guy survives this?’ We laughed about it and she emailed me back about two weeks later and said ‘I know you’re kidding but what about bringing you back as a twin brother?’ I was all for it. I know it’s kind of a silly concept, but I like how Liz leaned into the soapy element of it. It was fun.

[From Ellen on YouTube]

This reminds me to just ask more people for things. Motivational speakers always tell you just to contact people and ask for stuff and that’s hard for me! As for James’ new character, I stopped watching Dead to Me right around the time he showed up, but as I’ve mentioned before it was more about how much the characters were drinking.

I wonder who James is quarantined with. James, 46, has been dating a 31-year-old British musician named Edei since 2015. He has three children with two different women: son Jack, 18, and daughter Mary James, 14, with ex-wife Lisa Linde, whom he was married to from 2000 to 2011, and son William Luca, 6, with ex-girlfriend Rose Costa. Edei looks young, but she’s over 30 now and they’ve been together for quite a while. James keeps his life very private, doesn’t he? Maybe he also benefits from the fact that he’s at the perfect level of fame to get work and be recognizable, but not to draw a lot of interest in his personal life. He could change that if he wanted to. His girlfriend does post about him on Instagram, and they look really sweet together. He poses with her at a lot of events too.

Here’s that interview!

Embed from Getty Images

Photos credit: Netflix and Getty

****SPOILERS for Hannibal, a show which ended four years ago.

I love to binge-watch shows. I’m that kind of person. I’ll sometimes wait to watch a current show until several episodes have piled up and I can watch them altogether (I’m doing that with Billions right now). I sometimes wait until a show is already over before I start watching it. So it is with Hannibal. I’m a big Thomas Harris fan, and I’ve seen all of the film adaptations of Harris’s Hannibal Lector book series (sidenote: Hannibal Rising is an underrated film with great performances by Gong Li and Gaspard Ulliel). So I don’t know why I never watched the Hannibal TV series, but here I am. I’m currently in the second season and… good lord.

First of all, it’s a quality series. They spent MONEY on it, which is a rarity for hour-long network dramas these days. The artistic direction of the series is outstanding and disturbing in its detail. Second of all, the performances are great. I know everyone is obsessed with Mads Mikkelsen’s performance as “forty-something Hannibal Lector,” but Hugh Dancy absolutely kills it as Will Graham too. Laurence Fishburne, Hettienne Park, Gillian Anderson, Caroline Dhavernas and Raúl Esparza have all been amazing as well. The visual, dialogue and plot throwbacks to the books and movies have been brilliant.

All that being said, the police work is bugging me! While the show has better writing than most dramas, there are still some crazy leaps with the storytelling, and I do not believe that ALL of these FBI people would all collectively not be able to see Lector for who he really is. It’s bonkers! What was brilliant about Thomas Harris’s novels is that he never stressed that Lector had been working closely with tons of FBI people for years before he was caught. The core relationship was between Lector and Graham, not Lector and “a dozen FBI agents trained in behaviorial science who can’t see that they’re being constantly manipulated by a cannibal who continues to insinuate himself into every case.” I mean, I’m still watching. But I’m judging!

Anyway, the three existing seasons of Hannibal are about to go onto Netflix. Which has led Mads to suggest that Netflix should possibly finance a fourth season. He recently said in an interview that he was pissed that the show was cancelled after the third season, and that if showrunner Bryan Fuller will come back, he’ll definitely come back as Lector too. So should it happen? Four years later, should they get another season??

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? Hannibal hits Netflix in June: Is Hannibal season 4 on the way? https://netflixlife.com/2020/05/18/netflix-save-hannibal-june-2020/ #netflix #hannibal #theofficialmads

A post shared by Mads Mikkelsen Official (@theofficialmads) on May 20, 2020 at 8:15am PDT

Photos courtesy of NBC/Hannibal and Mads’ IG.

Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas were photographed, as usual, yesterday. What wasn’t usual was that they were packing up the car, with both dogs, and a few backpacks and what looked like overnight bags. Also plenty of refreshments. Seems like it could be a road trip? Or a beach trip? They went on a roa…

Matt Lauer’s most recent reentry into the public sphere has been awful. I’ve been binge-watching Hannibal (the series) and I think I can safely diagnose Lauer as a sadist with narcissistic personality disorder and he’s likely a borderline psychopath. I feel content with that diagnosis too, because why else would he be trying to force the “Ronan Farrow has no credibility” issue like he forced himself on so many coworkers and interns? As it turns out, Lauer isn’t *just* mad at Ronan Farrow. Lauer is also enraged by all of his former colleagues failing to cape for him and take his side. Especially Savannah Guthrie, the younger, prettier co-anchor he hand-picked after he got Ann Curry pushed out.

Matt Lauer feels most betrayed by former colleague and friend Savannah Guthrie after rape claims were made against him, a source exclusively reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly. The disgraced Today coanchor, 62, “was especially upset” with Guthrie’s reaction after Brooke Nevils — the former NBC staffer whose complaint led to his firing in 2017 — came forward with more details, says the source. (At the time, Guthrie had called the news “shocking and appalling” on air.)

Guthrie, 48, is not interested in patching up her friendship with Lauer either. “She refused then and still does to this very day to listen to what Matt’s got to say,” continues the source. “From the second the story came out, he feels Savannah jumped on the opportunity to bury him. It’s a betrayal in Matt’s eyes.”

Things have gotten so sour between the two that “now neither can talk with mutual friends without bringing up the other’s name,” adds the source. “It’s gotten pretty bad.”

[From Us Weekly]

Imagine being accused of multiple rapes and assaults and creating a general atmosphere of misogyny and harassment and knowing there is plenty of evidence and testimony of all of it, and then imagine being mad about people “jumping on the opportunity to bury you.” Such is Matt Lauer’s fate. He thought he was so all-powerful that all of the dumb broads he hand-picked with shake with fear before they ever wrote him off. He thought his career coup de grâce would be cataclysmic in the media world. Turns out, it was just a whimper. And I like Savannah more now that I know she’s written him off. Good for her.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

The Mondayest Thursday ever ?

A post shared by Khloe? (@khloekardashian) on May 28, 2020 at 7:53pm PDT

Khloe Kardashian made headlines last weekend when she debuted her new head on social media. Khloe has been getting extensive plastic surgery on her face and body for years now, from the Pinocchio Butt of Lies to her magically disappearing nose. But last weekend’s Instagram pics were startling, mostly because she didn’t look anything like Khloe and she seemed to be Single-White-Female-ing her best friend Malika Haqq. Well, Khloe posted some additional photos last night and she even joked about her new face:

As a host of her 112million Instagram followers swarmed the comments section, one penned: ‘Why do you look so different’, before the famously-funny star hit back: ‘My weekly face transplant clearly’, much to her fans’ delight.

[From The Mail]

Gross. I guess people think she’s being self-aware, but I have to ask: would a self-aware person do this to themselves? Dysmorphic disorder, thy name is Kardashian-Jenner.

Meanwhile, a few more Khloe-related things. One, she’s selling her Calabasas home, listing it for $18.95 million. She bought the Mediterranean Revival mansion in 2014 for $7.2 million from Justin Bieber and she did extensive renovations, including converting TWO bedrooms into a massive closet. Her home has been featured on KUWTK as well, even though the family sometimes uses stunt-homes or rentals for filming. I would say that this is a terrible time to list one’s mega-mansion, but California real estate is wacky and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Khloe unloads this in a few months. Apparently, she’s already got her eye on a larger home close by.

Following Scott Disick’s breakup with Sofia Richie, the Kardashians have been supporting Scott. They threw him a small party this week, and Khloe and Scott have been hanging out a lot. They’ve always been close. Personally, I think Scott loves Khloe more than Kourtney.

Happy birthday @letthelordbewithyou!!! Life would be SO boring without you! Thank you for being such a great brother to me. Cheers to you being spoiled and I pray this year is filled with magic. You deserve only the best! We have so much more life to live ??Forever family! I love you long time!

A post shared by Khloe? (@khloekardashian) on May 26, 2020 at 10:39am PDT

Photos courtesy of Khloe’s Instagram.

Emily Ratajkowski covers the latest issue of British GQ. She was photographed at home in New York by her husband Sebastian Bear-McClard and interviewed via Zoom. As I’ve said before, I don’t really mind Emily – most people think she’s deep as a puddle, but I find she has more interesting stuff to say than many young “hot” women. She’s spent years trying to make her half-naked selfies into some kind of feminist cause, and she goes on and on about that in this interview too. But the biggest chunk of the interview is reserved for Emily explaining why she’s still pro-Bernie Sanders and why she dislikes the Clintons and how she found Barack Obama too moderate. And I just… can’t. With her platform, with all of this… she sounds like such an a–hole. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

On parents living through quarantine: “Parents deserve some sort of medal or trophy at this time. I’m serious. I mean, one of my best friends, I was FaceTiming with her last night and she’d set our wine date for 8.15pm. She has a daughter at home who’s nine, so they have to be in the room to help her with school assignments and so on. Come bedtime and her daughter just wouldn’t fall asleep; she kept coming into the room like, “Mom, what are you doing?” Great birth control, I guess.

She’s writing: “I’m working on a book of essays. I have probably ten. But I’m trying to perfect them; that’s one of the main things I’ve been doing [in isolation]…..Nonfiction. I’d say it’s like a memoir, but with added political thinking. I’m trying to use my experience as a model and someone who has capitalised on their image and also someone who has been maybe a victim of their image. It’s complicated. I am looking at all that through a feminist perspective and just trying to decipher some of the answers. I don’t have them all yet; maybe I never will…The best writing I do is as I’m falling asleep. I take notes on my phone and I will write down anecdotes on a topic. I’ll just write them as they come; a flow of consciousness. And then usually I will look at them the next morning and, hopefully, some of it will make sense.”

She understands how Trump could win again: “This is a thing that my “left” friends sometimes get really mad at me about. My feeling is [Trump’s] re-election prospects are just a response to moderate politics. It’s the same thing that happened with Brexit; the choice to keep things as they are, centre, or vote for change and move to the right. And when you look at most working people’s realities they are interested in “How do I feed my kids?” or “How do I pay my rent?” They aren’t interested in trans rights or trans bathrooms – they are just trying to survive. When a politician comes in and says, “We’re just going to keep things the same; we’re going to keep studying, keep going as we were,” and, well, then “the centre cannot hold”. And that’s the truth. That’s why I think Bernie is so important, to offer a more extreme left alternative instead of this moderate ideology that is just not working for a lot of people. And I think it’s only going to get more extreme. Corona or not, the idea of the 99 per cent versus the one per cent isn’t going to go away. In fact, the failing economy is only going to widen the gap.

She didn’t like how Obama became a “moderate”: “I had been an Obama supporter. That was the first election I ever voted in. I was working in journalism at my high school newspaper and covered it. It was this beautiful moment and I cried, my parents cried and then we watched as Obama’s policies just sort of got more and more moderate. It was really disappointing. When Hillary was the nominee I was like, “OK. She is going be your next president after Obama.” Like everyone, I was so sure of that; there was no debating it. The RNC was a mess. She was our No1 candidate. We had the first black man, now we’re going to have the first woman. It was amazing. But, in truth, I had already felt critical of the Clinton administration and actually, as a woman, had a lot of issues with how Hillary and Bill had handled his problems to do with women. Also, digging deeper, I was not a fan of their policies. So, for me, I never felt an allegiance with the Clintons. When Bernie emerged, it was this really exciting moment. In 2016, I got involved with his campaign. I went to New Hampshire and I spoke at a rally and I met Senator Sanders. That was the beginning of our relationship.

[From British GQ]

This is going to make me sound ancient (and I do feel that way) but… the kids are not alright. I feel like maybe Americans under the age of 30 didn’t have a great political science curriculum, or they merely didn’t pay attention in all of their government/poli-sci/civics classes? I say this because there always seems to be so much “magical thinking” going on around conversations about Bernie Sanders and “moderate politics.” There are fully grown adults who truly believe that if Bernie Sanders had been the Democratic nominee, he would have magically won the election and been able to wave a magic wand and “fix” everything and turn America into a socialist paradise. And that’s not the way any of this works. And the idea that Obama and the Clintons were too moderate AND what we all need is to turn to hard-left political ideology to combat these moderate politics… I just… there are literally Nazis storming into state capitol buildings. There are literally tens of thousands of people dying because of the way Republicans mishandled everything.

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more by husband at home

A post shared by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on May 6, 2020 at 8:52am PDT

Cover courtesy of British Vogue, photos courtesy of Emily’s IG.

Dear Gossips, Yesterday on The Social, our friend Tyrone Edwards joined us to talk about mental health. What followed was a personal and powerful expression of grief and anger as he shared his fears and frustration about the racism and the violence Black people continue to experience. Here’s a clip …

Do you remember when Ben Affleck and Lindsay Shookus were house hunting together? I think she dodged a bullet and sometimes I wonder how she’s doing. She did get back with Ben after her broke up with her by being seen out with that young Playboy model, whom he took to Montana with him. Remember that? Ben and Lindsay split for good just about a year ago, after years of doing the on-off thing. So now Ben and Ana were seen looking at property in Venice together. I bet they’re looking for a bigger, nicer place where he can stay too. He’ll likely keep his mansion down the street from his kids and Jennifer.

The Daily Mail reports that”Ana and Ben were seen at the site of an unfinished property in [Venice] wearing their trusty face masks as they toured the home.” We don’t have the photos of them looking at that house but they were taken on Wednesday, the same day Anna was seen out in that tie dye sweatsuit. (That retails for $185!) The photos of them packing up Ben’s car are from Thursday.

Some of you mentioned in Wednesday’s post that Ana wasn’t just Facetiming Ben when she was photographed out shopping in Venice – she was Facetiming Ben and a couple of his kids at the same time. Ben might have been the one to call her, but if that’s the case how freaking thirsty of her to take that call and make sure the paparazzi got a shot of it. She could have told him she would call him back. Ana and Ben are all in, just like Ben and J.Lo. I was just thinking about this last night. Do you remember how J.Lo said almost nothing publicly about Ben – for years – after he broke up with her by cheating on her with strippers in Canada right before their wedding? It was so close to their wedding date that they lost deposits to caterers and event staff. Lopez was super classy about it and only threw some light shade on Ben years afterwards. Shookus was also quiet about Ben and has only done one interview where she didn’t talk about him much. Ana isn’t going to be like that. She’s going to spill the minute Ben does her wrong. Before that I bet these two do an interview talking about their life together though! I’m looking forward to that.

Look at Ana getting something from Ben’s pocket when he’s on the phone.

photos credit: Backgrid