Tracee Ellis Ross was a guest on The Ellen Show when John Legend, our new SMA, was hosting. It was a delight to watch, because I like them both and their conversation was entertaining. My favorite part was when Tracee talked about going to Gabrielle Union’s Halloween party. She loved dressing up for it but she also appreciated the party’s start and end time, which was 2 to 7. She sounds just like me! I don’t like staying out later either. Tracee has a new product for curly hair which she’s promoting called Pattern. She said she owns the company and explained that it took her ten years to launch it.

On why John Legend is SMA
[You are] the epitome of what a man can be. A wonderful husband, a man that’s talented, he shows up for his community, he’s a feminist. What else is there to say?

She just turned 47
I don’t what this whole thing is about people being afraid to get older. It’s just been fantastic.

John: I think when you’re 47 and you look like you, you go around telling people ‘Oh I’m 47.’

On her ideal party time
Gabrielle Union and I are birthday twins. She always throws a birthday party. She did a California Love [theme] and I went as DJ Quik. The best part of Gabrielle’s party is that it was called from 2 to 7. Isn’t that great? If it had been called for 7 I would have been like ‘I can’t go. Too late for me.’

Her costume was so good people didn’t recognize her
Omar Epps was talking to me for quite some time and I’m like ‘it’s Tracee.’ He goes ‘Oh my god that mustache is disgusting.’

On her product line for curly-haired girls
[It’s for] anyone with curly, coily or tight-textured hair. Be patient and persistent with your dreams. It took me ten years to make this happen. It is an unmet demographic of people. There have not been products that support us with the hydration we need.

[From The Ellen Show via YouTube]

A 2 to 7pm party would cut into my nap time a little but I would much rather go to an afternoon party than an evening party any day. I am in bed by 9pm on weeknights and on the weekends if I’m doing social things I sritve for a 10pm bedtime. If there’s something I really want to do I’ll stay up until 11 but I’m not happy about it! I think a 4 to 9pm party time would be ideal but really no one is having parties that early unless they’re in the afternoon like Gabriel Union’s. Also I’m about to turn 47 and I want to have some of her attitude, that it’s fantastic to get older and be our age. You definitely give less of a sh-t what people think about you and you own your preferences, like getting to bed at a decent hour.

Here is Tracee’s Halloween costume! DJ Quik retweeted it with a pic of himself and she looks just like him!

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@traceeellisross as yours truly for Halloween. s/o @gabunion

A post shared by DJ QUIK (@djquik) on Oct 28, 2019 at 9:15am PDT

Here’s Tracee’s interview!

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A post shared by Gabrielle Union-Wade (@gabunion) on Oct 28, 2019 at 12:38pm PDT

Slay

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Suited for Queen & Slim

A post shared by Tracee Ellis Ross (@traceeellisross) on Nov 14, 2019 at 8:14pm PST

photos credit: Avalon.red and via Instagram

Did you know that Donald Trump made a “surprise” visit to Walter Reed on Saturday? I say “surprise” because usually Trump’s Saturdays are full of hate-tweeting and golf. And I say “surprise” because this trip to the hospital was not on his schedule, nor were hospital staffers given any kind of advance warning for his arrival. But… the official story is that this was just one phase of his physical?

President Trump underwent a two-hour doctor’s examination on Saturday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, which the White House said was part of a routine annual physical and included lab work. The appointment was not on the president’s schedule, in contrast to a previous physical that Mr. Trump had in February, also at Walter Reed outside Washington.

In a statement, Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Trump, 73, was taking advantage of a free weekend to begin portions of his annual physical, and was anticipating a busy schedule in 2020. She did not specify what types of tests Mr. Trump had.

“The president remains healthy and energetic without complaints, as demonstrated by his repeated vigorous rally performances in front of thousands of Americans several times a week,” Ms. Grisham said.

After his February physical, Mr. Trump’s personal physician said that the president was in “very good health” and that he should remain so “for the remainder of his presidency and beyond.”

But Dr. Sean Conley, a Navy officer who is the president’s physician, released scant details about the physical examinations that Mr. Trump underwent, or their results, as a White House physician did for President Barack Obama. Mr. Trump’s weight was listed at 243 pounds after his last physical, a four pound gain since his 2018 physical. At 6 feet 3 inches tall, Mr. Trump had a body mass index of 30.4. Anything over 30 is considered obese.

While there is no requirement for presidents to publicly release their medical records, many have over the years as a reassurance that they are up to the rigors of the job.

[From The NY Times]

I do think that a president’s medical records AND his tax returns should be released. Like, that should be the law. Don’t yell at me about medical privacy – a president (any president, not just ones I despise) is a public figure and his or her health is a vastly important part of the executive branch and the country. Especially while the dude is in office – we need information about WTF is happening. But yeah, no one is buying the whole “this was just part of his physical” story. It’s because all of these people are f–king liars, true, but it’s also because a fat, old, senile man being rushed to the hospital out of nowhere on a Saturday morning just indicates that something else was going on.

Also: Trump’s mysterious hospital visit came about 24 hours after Roger Stone was convicted of seven felonies in a federal court. Stone could face up to 50 years in prison. Stone was Trump’s longtime friend, political mentor and handy dirty trickster. Stone was one of the middlemen between Russians hacking Hillary Clinton and the DNC, Wikileaks and the Trump campaign.

Trump made an unexpected visit to the hospital then made up a blatant lie about why and his people are acting like it’s no big deal meanwhile when Hillary coughed once they were already writing her obituary.

— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) November 17, 2019

Yesterday Trump was rushed to Walter Reed. Today he hasn’t been seen in public. Tomorrow he has no planned public events. It’s time the White House provide an honest assessment of the President’s health. https://t.co/hFnO7eCECa

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) November 17, 2019

White House Press Secretary says Trump has “more energy than anybody else in the White House” and Jeanine Pirro says “he’s almost superhuman” pic.twitter.com/i5hUOuqAFU

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) November 17, 2019

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Note: please do not threadjack. This story is about the conversation around Prince Andrew’s communications failure.

It’s difficult to know where to start with Prince Andrew’s BBC interview. He came across as a pompous ass, a dull, stupid man and a coward lacking in empathy for the children abused by Jeffrey Epstein (and likely Andrew as well). You can read my coverage here, and you can see the whole video below:

Once the clips came out, I was already thinking “this is a communications disaster.” Once you watch the whole thing, that becomes even clearer. It’s not that “dumb Andrew got slaughtered by a brilliant journalist.” It’s that the interview makes it clear (repeatedly) that there never would have been a good defense. Even if he had told the truth or cried and begged for forgiveness or shown sympathy for the girls and women, it still would have been a horrific interview underlining the point that HE HAS NO DEFENSE. So instead of focusing on the reality that this dull, stupid pervert has always been a waste of time, money and space, people are merely focusing on the PR failure. Personally, I don’t think that’s wrong – the royal family are, at this point, mainly about PR. There are expectations that they’ll be good at the communications business. They are not. This interview underlines that fact. So how bad was all of this behind-the-scenes? Really bad.

The guru hired by Prince Andrew to spearhead a PR ‘fightback’ following the Jeffrey Epstein scandal ‘quit’ just weeks into job ahead of the Duke’s bombshell BBC interview, it was revealed last night. Jason Stein started as Communications Secretary to the Duke in September. But the 28-year-old sensationally left his post two weeks before the Prince’s interview with Emily Maitlis.

His abrupt departure no doubt came as a further blow to the beleaguered Prince. This comes as aides reportedly ‘argued’ as they feared the interview would leave the prince ‘terribly exposed’. One aide meanwhile thought he risked coming across as ‘an entitled idiot’.

Meanwhile, when Newsnight producers first made overtures to the Palace about a possible interview almost a year ago, Andrew’s knee-jerk response was that he didn’t want ‘to be shouted at for half an hour’. So it surprised many when, on Thursday, Andrew finally went toe-to-toe with Emily Maitlis in the middle of Buckingham Palace’s South Drawing Room for an interview about his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the claims – which he has long denied – that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. It was his first public grilling on the subject, the interview of his life in fact, but he was on home turf at least, not in some harshly lit BBC studio. This was the room that Queen Victoria commandeered the day after her coronation in 1838 for the Palace’s first ball. It was perhaps not the best setting for someone seeking to convey humility rather than entitlement, but in the end it was the cross-examination itself that would focus minds.

The Mail on Sunday has been told a similar voluntary sit-down with the FBI is highly unlikely, so after last night’s broadcast – at least as far as Andrew is concerned – the matter is closed. ‘He’s not going to be travelling to America any time soon I can tell you that,’ said one highly placed source. ‘The FBI would question him, it is that simple. They [the Palace] just aren’t going to put him in that position. You can’t have a Royal landing in the US and then being asked to take part in questioning. I think it will be quite a while before he goes there.’

While Andrew initially voiced concerns – at one point he said emphatically: ‘No, we shouldn’t do Newsnight’ – his influential private secretary Amanda Thirsk was enthusiastic and, over time, talked him round. In the end, Andrew followed his private secretary’s advice. ‘She’s like his gatekeeper and everyone knows that in the Palace,’ said another source. Amanda is a force of nature, she’s hugely influential – if Amanda wants something done it gets done. She thinks it is quite simple: that he has apologised for visiting Epstein after his release from prison and has denied all the allegations. She feels there’s nothing to see here. She just thinks the Duke has done nothing wrong… all he did was go and see his friend. He shouldn’t have done it in 2010, he’s apologised.’

[From The Daily Mail]

RIP Amanda, she’ll be blamed for this and she’ll be out of that job soon. She’ll probably resign and willingly take the fall. That’s how it would work anywhere else, but you never know with these a–holes. Can you even imagine working for Andrew and watching this interview and thinking “there, that’s done, we answered every question and now no one will talk about this ever again.” The problem isn’t with the PR, it’s with HIM. And the whole family, quite honestly.

This is a great thread:

Kicking myself for a bad decision. I declined invite from @BBCr4today to discuss Prince Andrew’s #Epstein interview before seeing the interview. But there’s so much to say about the culture of impunity Andrew embodies in this clip alone. A few thoughts…https://t.co/OQFHuqDQC1

— Catherine Mayer (@catherine_mayer) November 16, 2019

Screencaps courtesy of the BBC interview.

Embed from Getty Images
Jon Gosselin is going to be on Dr. Oz today and I’m covering the preview so that I don’t have to watch it. I reported on the Gosselin breakup at the time and came away team kids. While I think that Jon had better intentions for his kids overall, he was a mess of a person in a different, less mean way than his ex Kate. In the wake of that divorce John went through a string of girlfriends, partying and spending lavishly. So while I believe that he wanted what was best for his kids, I don’t think he would have been a more stable parent than Kate back then. In no way am I calling her a good or even a decent parent. I’m saying they’re both sh-tty in their own way. Plus it’s clear that John did not save his reality star money. According to a preview of that interview reported by People, Jon told Dr. Oz that he went bankrupt trying to fight with TLC’s lawyers and get his kids off TV. I’m sure that was part of it, but he was well on his way toward spending that money anyway. Here’s some of what he said on Dr. Oz:

I literally hung a sign on my gate saying, ‘If any crew members show up, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing. They sued me for breach of contract. I pretty much bankrupted myself. I did it for moral reasons obviously.

I’ve spent $1.7 million in lawyers fees from when TLC sued me and the divorce. TLC paid for [Kate’s] attorneys in the lawsuit and for her divorce. So I financed it by myself and she was financed by the network. Now I understand why. All she wanted was legal custody to film my kids to sustain her lifestyle and their lifestyle. That’s fame though.

Do you believe that Kate is an unfit mother?
Well I believe that her belief system is skewed. I believe her intentions in the beginning were good intentions, bringing these kids into the world, that she fought to have these kids. I think once fame and money got involved it twisted her belief system. I’ve been fighting to get my kids off TV forever.

[From YouTube clips posted on People.com]

I hope that if I ever get some windfall like the Gosselins I will be wise enough not to spend it all in one shot. Of course it’s hard to plan for crazy expensive legal fees, but at some point John could have cut bait. Kate Gosselin is a controlling mean piece of work but I think John is a passive aggressive a-hole. They both have the emotional maturity of a preteen. He’s the guy who bragged about his fame post divorce, made out with one girlfriend at Sundance, brought another one to the south of France on Christian Audigier’s yacht, dated a Star Magazine reporter and used to party with Michael Lohan. He cares deeply and definitely loves his kids. He’s not wrong about getting them off TV but what is he trying to accomplish by continuing to talk about it? He only recently got stable enough to provide a home for them. He was living in a one bedroom cabin and driving drunk with a reporter in his car in 2014. I’m glad he took in Colin especially but he’s painting himself as a martyr now and he’s been doing this for years. I clearly need more coffee and am sorry for covering this story that only annoys me.

Here are those videos:

Patrick Dempsey’s mother, Amanda, passed away in 2014 from ovarian cancer. She was first diagnosed with cancer in 1997. During those seventeen years, his mother’s cancer recurred 12 times. Patrick honored his mother, in part, by opening the Dempsey Center in his hometown of Lewiston, Maine, in 2008. The center offers free care to cancer patients. Patrick spoke about the importance of the center and about his mom last week in New York:

The Grey’s Anatomy alum, 53, spoke at The Atlantic‘s People v. Cancer event in New York City on Tuesday (hosted in partnership with SurvivorNet) about the joy he gets from offering free quality of life cancer care at the center, located in his hometown of Lewiston, Maine.

“I’m really grateful to be a part of this, and to see the impact of the center is making within the community and the state of Maine is a beautiful thing,” Dempsey told PEOPLE after the event.

He adds, “It’s an inspiring thing, and working with people who have the intention to improve other people’s lives in an altruistic way — that’s what the meaning of life is about, in my opinion, and we need more of that.”

Patrick got emotional during the Q&A when he was asked a question by a mother who is living with cancer:

During the Q&A after his talk on stage, a mother with cancer asked the actor if he could provide some examples of things his own mother shared with him during her journey so that she could share them with her two sons.

“Stories… Tell them about your life,” Dempsey answered, as he teared up. “Your kids want to know about your journey and your childhood, and you want to clear the table before they go… or not go. I’m very grateful that I had that conversation and that she had it with me, so she was free to go, too.”

[From People]

Lewiston is also the site of the Dempsey Challenge, an annual two-day walk/run/bike benefit for the center, which Patrick participates in.

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Day one of the 2019 #dempseychallenge is in the books! Thankful for all our sponsors and fundraisers who make this possible. @breakawaycancer @dempsey_center #amgen #amgenoncology #breakawaycancer

A post shared by Patrick Dempsey (@patrickdempsey) on Sep 29, 2019 at 8:45am PDT

I’m grateful to people like Patrick and others who are able to provide support, care and assistance for people who are navigating serious illnesses. (I’m also thinking of, off the top of my head, Ryan Murphy and J. K. Rowling, to name recent examples.) I agree with him about needing more people in the world to help others. I also love his bittersweet advice to the mother about telling stories to her children. Regardless of what happens, her children will want to know her stories. That’s so true. There are so many questions that I have now for relatives who have passed away that I wish I had asked them when I had the chance. I also love the story that Patrick tells about a dish that his family makes at the holidays because his mother made it, even though nobody eats it because they don’t like it. I feel like most families have similar stories about a bizarre dish that ends up on the table that very few people eat. My parents are away right now, but I’m going to see my mother in a couple of weeks, and this reminds me that I should ask her to tell me some more stories about her childhood.

Photos credit: Avalon.red

Eva Amurri is the daughter of Susan Sarandon. Eva is an actress and mommy-blogger. It’s because of her mommy-blogging that I developed a particular image of Eva as a person: she is a drama queen. Or perhaps just… melodramatic as hell. She has the ability to turn simple stories (I fired a nanny, the night nurse made a terrible mistake, or my daughter loves her Mexican nannies) into five-act dramas wherein she is always the one who is the most put-upon, the most aggrieved, the most misunderstood. It’s just… a lot. Anyway, Eva and her husband Kyle Martino have two kids, Marlowe (5) and Major (3). Eva is pregnant with their third. And now she and Kyle are splitting up. Ouch.

Eva Amurri Martino and husband Kyle Martino are going their separate ways — but they’re committed to being the best co-parenting team for their children. Both Martino and Amurri Martino (who is pregnant with their third child, a son) announced the news on Friday morning, sharing a family photo with their two kids: son Major James, 3, and daughter Marlowe Mae, 5.

“Our family is starting down a new path,” the caption on their identical posts read. “After a lot of thoughtful consideration, and work on our relationship, we have made the difficult decision to lovingly part ways as a couple. We are committed to, and excited about, raising our three beautiful children as close friends and deep partners, and we have the utmost respect for one another. We feel so grateful for the wonderful gifts we have created and received throughout our decade together.”

“We have realized over time that the best path to happiness for us as a family is in this different direction, and we look forward to forging ahead in to a new beautiful relationship, We appreciate your support and understanding as we navigate this new transition for our family,” the pair added, concluding with, “All the love, Eva & Kyle.”

[From People]

I always feel like some real sh-t has to go down for a couple to break up during a pregnancy. Do you think that’s the case here? Or was it more like Kyle not wanting to live with the unending melodrama? Or maybe one of those Mexican-American nannies sent him another sexy text and instead of telling Eva about it, he decided to go for it. My feeling is that some sh-t went down. Sad for it to happen while she’s pregnant though.

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A post shared by HAPPILY EVA AFTER (@thehappilyeva) on Nov 15, 2019 at 4:35am PST

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I wanted to take a moment to thank the people from the bottom of my heart who have reached out to both Kyle and I with love and support. ?? It is felt and appreciated on every level, and it’s important for both of us to note that he and I and the kids are doing SO well as a family through this transition. The love we have for each other that you watch us exhibit, and the joy in our lives, is not faux. It is very real and still present. This decision was not made a day ago or even a month ago. We have chosen exactly when and how everyone is learning of this but we are far in our personal process and we are in a great place. I know this type of dynamic might be confusing to some and that is ok. Our priorities lie with our health as a forever family and not with justifying our relationship. Wishing all of you peace and love, and personal happiness too! ??(And btw Baby Boy is growing and thriving. And we are SO excited for him to get here ????) #HappilyEvaAfter #HonestMotherhood ?: @juliadags ??@kylemartino

A post shared by HAPPILY EVA AFTER (@thehappilyeva) on Nov 16, 2019 at 10:43am PST

Photos courtesy of WENN, Instagram.

Back in August, Eva Longoria was on Today to talk about Dora and the Lost City of Gold, a live-action movie that continued the story of Nickelodeon’s animated series, Dora the Explorer. Eva starred as Dora’s mom, Elena. The interview took place the Monday after the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Eva, who is from Texas, spoke about how the shootings impacted her, both as someone from Texas and as a mom. (Her son, Santiago, is almost a year-and-half old.) Eva said, “I think that could have been my child, that could have been my mother. It’s always heartbreaking and horrifying.” She also spoke about what surprises her most as a mom: “What’s surprising is the anxiety I have about the world. There’s an intensity to it, like ‘I have to leave the world a better place.’ That has given me a lot more fuel for my philanthropy.” Eva recently spoke again about the connections between being a mom and her philanthropy, this time during the annual Eva Longoria Foundation Gala:

“The one thing I did not expect when Santi was born was the amount of anxiety I was going to have about the world. Like, everything affects me now: the news, articles and climate change,” the actress, 44, told Us Weekly and other reporters at the Eva Longoria Foundation Gala on Friday, November 15. “Everything scares me, and my anxiety has just gone through the roof going, ‘Oh, my God, I have a better place!’ So, it’s made my philanthropic work more intense.”

She continued: “It brought an insane intensity. I’m like, ‘We have to save the world! Oh, my God!’ I didn’t expect that. Of course, I do charity work and I do philanthropies, but now it just means so much more.”

Longoria shot down the notion that her new mindset is “debilitating,” noting that it is instead “healing” for her. “Sometimes the world’s issues are so big you feel paralyzed,” she admitted. “But I think that’s the misconception is that you have to be rich and famous to do something. And for me, every single person can do something. Like recycling or doing a charity event like this. There’s many levels of helping and doing, and so yeah, it’s sometimes overwhelming and paralyzing at the thought, but once you start doing, it’s easy.”

[From Us Weekly]

Eva founded the Eva Longoria Foundation in 2012. Its “mission is to help Latinas build better futures for themselves and their families through education and entrepreneurship.” As with today’s Patrick Dempsey story about the cancer center he founded in his mother’s honor, I appreciate that Eva is using her power to help others. I also really love what she says about trying to redirect your thinking away from feeling stymied by the chaos of the world to doing something small, no matter what that is. I feel overwhelmed by the horrors I read about on an hourly basis (never mind daily). This is a good reminder to focus my energy on what I can do, to just pick one place to focus my energy for a bit.

Embed from Getty Images

Photos credit: WENN and Getty

Prince Andrew’s BBC Newsnight interview only aired on the BBC-News cable station here in America (which I’m not sure many people have?). Which is interesting, especially given Amy Robach’s hot-mic thing where she was talking about the palace shutting down the American reporting around Jeffrey Epstein’s royal and political connections years ago. There’s a clear interest and newsworthiness for this interview and I wouldn’t be surprised if larger chunks of it were made available on network TV here in the US. As for what Andrew said… my God. Reportedly, Andrew did not see the questions beforehand and clearly, he was not prepped for the interview. Or maybe his people were like “please don’t do this, it will blow up in your face” and he was like “I do what I want.” In any case, the clips from the interview are absolutely horrendous. Keep in mind, this was conducted at Buckingham Palace. Where mummy’s favorite son is carefully protected from most things. Except this. This is an absolute mess. You can read the BBC’s “highlights” here.

On Virginia Giuffre’s claim that she was trafficked to Andrew three times: “It didn’t happen. I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened…I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever.”

The Pizza Express in Woking: Addressing Ms Giuffre’s claims that she had dined with the prince, danced with him at a nightclub, and went on to have sex with him at the house of Ghislaine Maxwell, a friend of the prince, in Belgravia, central London, he said “there are a number of things that are wrong with that story”. He said the date when Ms Giuffre says he had sex with her was 10 March 2001, when he had taken his daughter Beatrice to Pizza Express in Woking for a party before spending the night at home. “Going to Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do,” he said. “I remember it weirdly distinctly.” Ms Giuffre described him providing her with alcohol at a nightclub, but Prince Andrew said: “I don’t drink, I don’t think I’ve ever bought a drink in Tramps whenever I was there.”

On Virginia’s claims that he was sweaty: “I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don’t sweat or I didn’t sweat at the time,” he said, blaming it on “an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War”. He said he had only started to be able to sweat again “in the recent past”.

On the photo of his arm around Virginia: He said he had “absolutely no memory” of it. “Investigations that we’ve done” have been unable to prove whether the photograph was faked, he said, “because it is a photograph of a photograph of a photograph”. Prince Andrew said he did not recall going upstairs in that house, said he was not dressed as he usually would be if he was in London and added “we can’t be certain as to whether or not that’s my hand… I’m at a loss to explain this particular photograph.”

Whether he partied with Epstein: The duke rejected the perception of him as “the party prince” in the past, and said “going to Jeffrey’s was not about partying, absolutely not”. He said he had first met Epstein through his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell in 1999 but it was a “stretch” to say they were close friends and they saw each other “a maximum of three times a year”.

How close was he to Epstein? Prince Andrew acknowledged he had stayed on Epstein’s private island, visited his home in Palm Beach, Florida, and travelled on his private plane. He said he wanted to learn more about the “international business world and so that was another reason” for going to visit the 66-year-old American financier in New York, as the prince became special representative for international trade and investment. He invited Epstein to Princess Beatrice’s 18th birthday at Windsor Castle in July 2006 but said “certainly I wasn’t aware” that a warrant had been issued in May for his arrest for sex crimes.

Spending days in Epstein’s mansion in 2010: “I went there with the sole purpose of saying to him that because he had been convicted, it was inappropriate for us to be seen together.” He stayed several days and attended a dinner party, however. “It was a convenient place to stay,” he said, but added “with a benefit of all the hindsight that one can have, it was definitely the wrong thing to do”. The duke denied an account by another guest that he had been seen receiving a foot massage from a Russian woman. Asked about a picture of him and Epstein taken in Central Park in 2010, Prince Andrew said “somebody very cleverly took that photograph” but that they had not been able to “find any evidence” that Epstein had set it up.

How his family reacted to the Epstein situation: The fallout over Epstein’s arrest had been “a constant sore in the family”, the prince said. Following the allegations made against him in a 2015 deposition, Prince Andrew said the wider Royal Family “couldn’t be more supportive” and his immediate family “were at a loss”. The duke denied the episode had been damaging to the Queen, but said “it has to me, and it’s been a constant drip in the background that people want to know”. He said he would like to be able to give “closure” on the issue but “I’m just as much in the dark as many people”. He said that choosing to talk about the allegations was “almost a mental health issue to some extent for me”, adding that “it’s been nagging at my mind for a great many years”.

This moment right here: He refused to entirely disavow his relationship with Epstein, saying it had “some seriously beneficial outcomes” that were unrelated to the accusations against them both. “Do I regret the fact that he has quite obviously conducted himself in a manner unbecoming? Yes,” he said. After interviewer Emily Maitlis challenged him, describing Epstein as a sex offender, the duke said: “Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m being polite.”

[From The BBC]

Can you even imagine the palace brain trust who okayed this mess? From a PR perspective – not to mention, from a legal/criminal perspective – this was an absolute disaster. Reportedly, the Queen is “aware” that Andrew did the interview and he spoke to her ahead of time. This is how they do “damage control” – they send Andrew out to claim that he NEVER sweats (until recently) and he would never buy an underage girl a drink because he doesn’t pay for drinks and he would never pose with a trafficked girl on the second floor of Maxwell’s home, and he’s never been to the second floor and that’s why he knew where the photo was posed. Trafficking, abusing and raping children is “a manner unbecoming” and oh well, Epstein sure had a convenient townhome but he never saw anything there, or on the island or in Florida and it was all just business, nevermind all of the teenage girls giving him foot rubs which definitely never happened, so stop asking, you’re affecting his poor mental health. MY GOD.

I was going to put the vital clips here, but the BBC released the entire interview on YouTube, so just sit here in horror as you watch it.

Screencap courtesy of BBC.

I’ll say it: ten years ago, even five years ago, I thought Shia LaBeouf was really sexy. Is he the most typical “heartthrob” type? No, of course not. But he had that weird x-factor that makes a man sexy, at least to me. Something about his eyes and the way he always sold whatever romantic storyline he played. Then there were the wilderness years, when he abused alcohol and drugs and he was, at times, a violent mess. Apparently, Shia is clean and sober these days and he’s rebooting his career with Honey Boy, a film he wrote and stars in, based entirely on his childhood and his relationship with his father (Shia plays his father). He wrote it in rehab. It’s getting good reviews and who knows, maybe it will be an awards-season contender.

To promote the film, Shia did a Variety Actor-on-Actor feature with Kristen Stewart. They’re close in age (he’s 33, she’s 29), close in background (child stars who transitioned to adult actors) and they’ve both dealt with the fame machine. They have similar nervous-sort of vibes too. The way she treats him is so… gentle. It’s almost feels like a therapy session at one point. But I have to say, seeing him clean and with some weight and hearing his voice and seeing how he looks at Kristen… the old feelings came back. Shia has brought sexy back. Some highlights:

On the chips on their shoulders about feeling uneducated:

LaBeouf: I used to walk around with a pen and a pad, almost litigious, like: “Hey, what’s your name? Oh, cool.” Then I’d write it in a little notepad.

Stewart: Is it because you want people to like you?

LaBeouf: I wanted to seem studious, because I didn’t go to school and I didn’t learn how to do this acting thing.

Stewart: I have this chip right here too.

LaBeouf: What does it do to you?

Stewart: I read a lot. I’m always like, “I didn’t go to school, but …”

LaBeouf: If you get around a guy like [Anthony] Mackie [a co-star of “Seberg”] who’s gone to school, he’s got technique. Those people make me very scared.

Stewart: Why?

LaBeouf: I feel judged, like I’m an outsider. If my knitting needle breaks, I don’t have a f–king knitting needle. Guys like that, their knitting needle breaks, and they’re, like, “Let me go in the kitchen and I’ll whip something together and I’ll come back and I’ll knit this sock for you.”

On their preferred methods of working on a film set:

LaBeouf: You stay in [character, for ‘Seberg’]?

Stewart: No. I’m hugely relieved every time something is done, and I just run away from set. Time management is such a huge thing with the job. Just the anxiety of not being in control of time is really maddening for me. I can’t sustain stuff, because I just waste it. If I expend something, if something trickles out the wrong time, I am despondently unhappy because I’m, like, “Well, that was just for nothing.”

LaBeouf: Yeah. I know what you’re talking about.

Stewart: I have dreams about it. That’s my work anxiety dream. That all the timing is wrong, or they’re not rolling.

LaBeouf: You shot on film or digital? Because there is a huge difference in time management.

Stewart: We shot on film.

LaBeouf: Ouch. I can’t stand working on film anymore, because digital they just leave it going.

On happiness off the set:

LaBeouf: I think definitely the most intimate moments of my life happened on set.

Stewart: It sounds really f–ked up, but it’s not at all. It’s beautiful.

LaBeouf: I think I’m deeply dissatisfied with life.

Stewart: But this is your life.

LaBeouf: Exactly. This is where things get tricky for me. It isn’t my whole life. I have to get OK with that. It’s usually where things go awry for me is when I’m not on a set. Life gets hard.

Stewart: Do you do anything else?

LaBeouf: This is what I’m trying to develop, trying to grow.

Stewart: Take a pottery class.

LaBeouf: Maybe I will. I won’t like pottery in life. But I will love pottery on set. I don’t like ice cream in life. But if you give me ice cream on a set, I f–king love ice cream. I think that’s what this does for me. It makes me love things. This job feels like the conduit for love for me. I hold it that sacred.

Stewart: I feel you.

[From Variety]

See what I mean about how gentle she is with him? I feel like if Kristen had to talk to someone else, she would have teased him or really pressed him on some things. But instead she was just constantly reinforcing Shia, letting him know that she felt all those things too. It was sweet. And now I kind of want to see them do a romance together. Come on, that would be GOOD.

Photos courtesy of WENN, cover courtesy of Variety.

True story: with a lot of TV shows and announcements about TV shows, I really don’t pay very close attention, especially when it’s a show I don’t watch or care about. I paid attention (briefly) to American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson, enough to see it win a ton of awards and for a new generation to be introduced to that absolute fiasco of “true crime.” I remember hearing that the ACS team would do a season/series based on Bill Clinton’s impeachment, but for some reason, I thought that idea was shelved as soon as it was announced? Apparently, it was put on hold… but not because of the subject matter. It was just that the ACS team already had a bunch of other stuff they were doing, so it took them a while to get back to this. So, the next season/series of American Crime Story WILL be about the Clinton impeachment. And they’ve just cast their Bubba: CLIVE OWEN. Are you sh-tting me??

Oscar-nominated actor Clive Owen will star as Bill Clinton in Impeachment: American Crime Story, the third season of FX’s award-winning limited series franchise, which centers on the sex scandal that rocked the Clinton presidency. Owen joins Sarah Paulson, who will play Linda Tripp, Beanie Feldstein, who will play Monica Lewinsky, and Annaleigh Ashford, who will play Paula Jones in the limited series, on which Lewinsky serves as a producer. The role of Hillary Clinton is currently being cast.

Impeachment is written by Sarah Burgess who executive produces alongside returning ACS team Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Brad Falchuk, Larry Karaszewski, Scott Alexander, Alexis Martin Woodall and Paulson. Feldstein, Henrietta Conrad and Jemima Khan are also producing. The limited series is based on Jeffrey Toobin’s bestselling book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. Toobin’s 1997 book The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson served as the source material for Season 1 of American Crime Story.

Filming on Impeachment, from Fox 21 Television Studios/FX Production, is set to begin in late March. The limited series is currently slated to premiere on Sunday, September 27, 2020, about a month out from the next U.S. Presidential election, but Murphy recently indicated the date may be in flux as the filming schedule has changed.

[From Deadline]

No. No to all of this, I’m sorry. I love some of these people – Clive and Sarah Paulson – but NO. Sarah Paulson has no business playing Linda Tripp, a blousy, overweight a-hole who was best played by John Goodman on Saturday Night Live. And casting Monica Lewinsky with Beanie Feldstein is SHADY. I lived through the Clinton impeachment and while everyone made fun of Monica and her looks, she was (and is) an attractive, curvy woman. She approached Bill Clinton with a flirtatious confidence (Big Sidepiece Energy). Can Beanie Feldstein pull that off? Um, no. As for Clive… I think Clive is incredibly talented and sexy. Clive’s sexiness is dangerous and British. I have no desire to hear his exquisite British voice try to do Bill Clinton’s Arkansas drawl. It won’t work.

As for the timing of it in our current political sh-tshow… it’s not good timing. And I feel like it’s incredibly stupid to waste time and money re-litigating that sh-t when Donald Trump is a sexual predator and he’s currently doing a sh-tload of crimes.

Photos courtesy of WENN.