As we discussed last week, Michael Weatherly sexually harassed his costar Eliza Dushku and CBS ended up paying her $9.5 million. Dushku guest starred on CBS’s Bull, and she was promised that her guest-star gig would become a full-time role. The full-time role never panned out, because Dushku rightly complained when Weatherly repeatedly said inappropriate things to her. CBS tried to fight Dushku’s lawsuit, but she had a pretty clear-cut case and they awarded her the $9.5 million as part of a very quiet settlement. The settlement only came to light because CBS has been doing a far-ranging investigation into Les Moonves, their long-time president/CEO, who was ousted this year after dozens of women came forward and spoke about his history of sexual harassment, sexual abuse and assault, and the toxic culture he created at CBS. As it turns out, Les Moonves oversaw the Dushku settlement himself:

As accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein and others began flooding Hollywood early this year, CBS’ then-CEO Les Moonves stepped in to settle claims against one of the network’s biggest stars. Moonves was deeply and directly involved in the $9.5 million payout that CBS forked over to Eliza Dushku in January after the actor accused Bull lead Michael Weatherly of sexual harassment on the first season of the CBS drama, we’ve learned. Additionally, the confidential payment was sneaked into Bull’s production budget in an effort apparently motivated to avoid the sum popping up on the company’s books, sources say.

The confidential agreement was struck while CBS was engaging in ultimately unsuccessful talks of a potential merger with Viacom. The settlement and its machinations were not known to then-COO Joe Ianniello, who became acting CEO after Moonves resigned in September after a dozen women accused him of sexual aggression.

“Moonves was intimately involved in the Bull situation, as he was in almost all settlement talks and deals at CBS,” according to a person with knowledge of the situation. “The guy micromanaged this kind of stuff,” the source added of the Dushku settlement.

[From Deadline]

And people wonder why Weatherly felt like he could get away with acting that creepy and toxic way – it was because Les Moonves had his back, and Les Moonves created the creepy and toxic culture from top to bottom at CBS.

Speaking of, two of Michael Weatherly’s former female costars (both on NCIS) posted photos of him and messages of support. Sasha Alexander worked with Weatherly on the first seasons of NCIS, and Pauley Perrette worked with Weatherly for more than a decade on NCIS. I don’t doubt that both women have good things to say about Weatherly, and that they both consider him a friend. But again, that’s not a solid argument – “he didn’t sexually harass me, therefore he wouldn’t sexually harass anyone!”

This man… I love, respect, trust, and I KNOW. TWO decades of friendship and respect. The best. I love you @M_Weatherly Always and forever. pic.twitter.com/654ATa83w4

— Pauley Perrette (@PauleyP) December 15, 2018

I have been in trenches w/ my friend ?@M_Weatherly?. Always laughs, true friend & ?? as big as they come. pic.twitter.com/kiJz4ACyJA

— Sasha Alexander (@sashaalexander) December 15, 2018

Photos courtesy of CBS/’Bull’.

For more than seven years, we’ve heard about the Duchess of Cambridge’s keenness. She’s keen about so much – keen to really get going, keen to truly take on more work, keen to become a full-time royal. Despite all of the “she’s so keen” PR, we mostly see Kate as someone keen to NOT work. But that was before… you know. Now that she’s had her third baby, Kate’s keenness has come along once again. For months, we’ve been hearing that Kate will do a big launch for her new charity project, something she’s been working on for a while, something which will be the biggest thing she’s ever undertaken. It’s supposed to involve kids and mental health and the people who have fallen through the cracks of “Broken Britain.” The launch date seems to be getting pushed back – I could have sworn that Kate was supposed to launch it this month. But now she’ll launch it in January, maybe. And the Daily Express had a big hype piece about it:

The Duchess of Cambridge aims to become the Royal Family’s charity powerhouse next year and prove her credentials as a future queen. Kate, 36, who visited Her Majesty alone at Buckingham Palace last week, is to put any petty squabbles with sister-in-law Meghan Markle behind her. After months of planning, she is to announce a fresh care initiative for struggling children in the new year, which could change the balance between royalty and politics. A team of academics, advisers, experts and aides has been working with Kate for around a year and studying Britain’s most crippling social problems. Aides believe that the project will cement the duchess’s future as a serious-minded, hard-working royal and future monarch.

One family friend explained: “There are those who are satisfied to turn up to get headlines and raise money, and there are those who want to get stuck in and make a difference. That is very much Catherine. If you’re looking for the causes of poverty, poor mental health, poor housing and poor social care, the politics also have to be dealt with. So there might be bumpy times ahead for her. But she has given this everything she’s got and is determined to make it work. Catherine would be the last person in the world to use the phrase Queen of Hearts but if the crown fits…?”

The mother-of-three’s campaign is being co-ordinated with the Royal Foundation charity, set up by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. Her aide Aida Cable – head of the foundation’s young people programmes – has been liaising with independent experts. Aida, daughter of Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable, is expected to submit a final report for Kate’s approval within the next few weeks, prior to the new year launch. The duchess’s plans are understood to have the full backing of the Queen and of veteran social campaigner Prince Charles.

[From The Daily Express]

“Catherine would be the last person in the world to use the phrase Queen of Hearts but if the crown fits…?” LMAO.

“There are those who are satisfied to turn up to get headlines and raise money…” That’s literally what’s expected of royal patrons. Many charities don’t want a duchess or a prince mucking around in the minutiae of their work because their work is complicated. Most charities really need a royal or celebrity patron who will come in and raise the profile of the charity and help them fundraise. And, incidentally, Kate has been terrible at that. She fails to show up at her patronages’ fundraisers, she fails to adequately represent them in public events, and there was a lot of talk that some of her patronages were looking to toss her aside and get new patrons.

As for the larger narrative of “Future Queen Kate’s Years of Keenness Has Finally Led to This,” we’ll see how the launch goes. I’m sure Kate has assembled a large team of people who have done a lot of work, for which Kate will get/take “credit.” But mostly I think Kate will be launching some initiative which will be like Heads Together – an umbrella organization for several different existing charities, and Kate will get credit for creating more of a bureaucracy around them.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.

Here are some photos of Donald & Melania Trump at the White House Congressional Christmas party. Melania’s hair seems to have gone back to a darker shade, which makes me wonder what that blonde tragedy was all about. Was it just a wig? Last week, Melania debuted her blonde rat’s nest tragedy hairstyle in an interview on Fox News. In the same interview, Melania bashed anyone and everyone who offers any kind of criticism of her or her husband, calling those critics “opportunists who are using my name or my family name to advance themselves. From comedians, to journalists, to performers, book writers…” This from the same a–hole who wore the “I Don’t Really Care, DO U?” jacket to see caged children at the border. The same a–hole who spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars doing colonialist photoshoot in Africa. The same opportunist a–hole who used the Obama name to spread racist Birther conspiracies and advance herself.

After that Fox News interview, CNN posted an op-ed by Kate Andersen Brower in which Brower took Melania to task for being a terrible FLOTUS who doesn’t understand the role, especially given Mel’s comments in the Fox News interview. Which is true – Melania approached the FLOTUS role like she approaches everything else: like a lazy trophy wife who doesn’t give a sh-t. Melania can go weeks without doing anything publicly, her Be Best initiative is a joke, and her plummeting approval numbers show that fewer people are buying Mel’s bulls–t.

After CNN published Brower’s op-ed, Melania’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham decided to respond with her own competing op-ed, which you can read here. Grisham is very devoted to Melania, as we’ve seen over the past two years. I’ll give Melania some credit – her bare bones East Wing staff is a million times more stable than her husband’s West Wing. But even Grisham can’t hide Melania’s pettiness, laziness and racism. It’s sort of hilarious to even see Grisham inadvertently prove Brower’s point, which is that Melania is the worst FLOTUS in decades, that Mel doesn’t understand the role, that Melania is a petty and juvenile rich bitch. Grisham wants Melania to get “credit” for doing a handful of events this month, like Melania is the most magnanimous princess in the royal Bigly court, when it’s clear from Grisham’s words that Melania truly only keeps up a bare-bones schedule just so she can say she’s doing *something*.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

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Earlier this month, Cardi B announced that she had split from Offset, her undercover husband. Everyone knew that Cardi and Offset were together, but they only revealed that they’d quietly gotten married months after the fact. I am convinced that the divorce will probably be one of the biggest “messy” stories of 2019, but I was impressed with Cardi’s maturity in her split announcement. She didn’t attack Offset or denigrate him in any way. She really sounded like her priority was taking care of herself and their daughter Kulture, and that she still loved Offset and hoped they could coparent.

Unfortunately, a lot of people around Cardi and a lot of her fans were like “Cardi and Offset should get back together” or “this is just some stunt, they’re obviously still together.” No and no. Cardi knows her own mind. Respect that. Her fans should respect that she’s done with Offset, and Offset should respect that she’s done with him. Offset hasn’t respected that. Offset has been making a lot of noise about how he’s going to “win her back” and convince her to be together again, like he wasn’t cheating on her throughout their marriage or whatever.

Over the weekend, Cardi was in the middle of her performance at Rolling Loud when Offset “crashed” the stage. Offset had roses and a microphone, and he seemed to beg her for forgiveness, and for her to take him back. No one heard what Cardi said, but she didn’t throw her arms around him and announce their reunion, so I think we can assume that she was not into this sh-t. Here’s the video:

.@OffsetYRN offers @iamcardib an apology. [via @rapradar] pic.twitter.com/fOenMgaGdo

— Complex (@Complex) December 16, 2018

To all the young women and young men out there who think this is romantic, please stop. Granted, I’m old-school in that I almost always think that a big, PUBLIC gesture is going to be tacky and gross. But this specific move – to emotionally manipulate his estranged wife WHILE SHE’S WORKING, in public – is actually making me feel sick to my stomach. Cardi let the world know she was done with Offset, and the people around her don’t have her back at all. They were working with Offset so that he could do this emotionally manipulative stunt. To all the young people out there: when a man or a woman says NO, they mean it. This behavior is a red flag.

Hours later, Cardi behaved like so many women behave in these situations – she tried to smooth things over and minimize her ex’s creepy, toxic, manipulative behavior. I understand that she doesn’t want people to really go in on Offset. But for a lot of people, this is a teachable moment about respect, consent, relationship red flags and emotional manipulation.

.@iamcardib responds: pic.twitter.com/3uTdw57DQ5

— Complex (@Complex) December 16, 2018

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Photos courtesy of Backgrid and Getty.

Well, I was wrong. I thought the British tabloids would lighten up on the Duchess of Sussex ahead of Christmas, but as it turns out…not so much. Good Morning Britain organized a surprise for their broadcast this morning: an exclusive interview with Thomas Markle, in which he calls his daughter “controlling.” He also begged the Queen to step in and, like, order Meghan to answer his texts. Yeah. I still don’t care. Thomas Markle is only pulling these stunts because A) the racist British media will do anything to attack Meghan, including pay her father for these bullsh-t exclusives and B) he has no access, no new information, and he knows he needs “new” stuff to talk about if he’s going to continue to get paid. Or not, whatever. The British media doesn’t seem to mind that he hasn’t spoken to Meghan since May. They’re just going to keep paying him to act like a stunt queen a–hole.

Meanwhile, speaking of the Queen and Meghan, apparently the Queen did summon Meghan and Harry to Buckingham Palace last week. And it was about Her Maj passing on some patronages to Meghan:

The Duchess of Sussex is set to receive her first royal patronage from the Queen in the new year, as the monarch looks to further reduce her workload after turning 92 this year. Discussions are said to be ‘ongoing’ as to what role Meghan will take on, with royal insiders speculating that the former actress could be handed causes that reflect her interest in feminism and the arts.

The Duchess, 37, is reported to have met the Queen for tea at Buckingham Palace, along with her husband Prince Harry, last week to discuss her potential new patronages, with an announcement set to be made by February. She will then visit each of the charities or organisations ahead of giving birth to the couple’s first child in the spring, according to the Sunday Times.

[From The Daily Mail]

I hope Meghan gets a good patronage! I’d love it if it was something to do with the arts. I bet the royals really regret giving the BAFTA presidency to Prince William – since taking on the presidency, he’s only attended the BAFTAs a handful of times, he’s never attended the BAFTA reception at Kensington Palace, and he basically acts like BAFTA is some huge ass-ache. Why not give it to Meghan??? But more likely, she’ll get something related to theater, or maybe an arts program.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red and Backgrid.

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I only watched the first couple episodes of Revenge, which aired on ABC for four seasons, from 2011 to 2015. It didn’t pull me in for some reason but it was wildly popular. Emily Vancamp and Josh Bowman have been together since the show started, they played a couple on Revenge and even got married on the show, and now they’re married for real. They got married Saturday in the Bahamas. I want to go to a tropical wedding now. We just saw Malin Akerman’s wedding in Mexico which looked like so much fun! Maybe I’ll just go to the tanning booth for 10 minutes and imagine. Anyway unfortunately there aren’t any photos of the actual wedding, but we have some details along with pictures of their pretend on screen wedding.

Emily VanCamp and Josh Bowman, who played couple Emily Thorne and Daniel Grayson on the ABC primetime soap a few years ago, got married for real this Saturday in the Bahamas, in front of family and friends, according to People and Us Weekly.

The 32-year-old Canadian actress and 30-year-old British actor have been together for more than seven years and got engaged in May 2017…

In 2014, VanCamp spoke with Elle Canada about her relationship with Bowman, which has been largely private.

“I barely talk about him in interviews, to be honest. It’s just really funny in the moments when we’re playing these absolutely absurd things. I call him ‘wife-beater Daniel,’” she joked. “It’s hard for my family to watch—it’s also hard for them to see me in that light. But we’re actors. None of that lives in any of us. Thank God!”

She also talked about her desire to start a family.

“How excited I am to have children!” she said. “I find myself dreaming about it all the time.”

[From E! Online]

Judging from what Emily has said about keeping her private life to herself, and the fact that her Instagram is kind of vague, I guess she’s just not the demonstrative type. That’s her prerogative, and I find it sweet that these two got married married after seven years together and over a year and a half engagement. I know some people want to make it official right away and feel like they know, but I like hearing about these longer engagements that end up in happy marriages. Anyway congratulations to Emily and Josh! I want to see their real wedding photos now.

??

A post shared by Emily VanCamp (@emilyvancamp) on May 11, 2017 at 12:54pm PDT

How cute are they together?
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Whenever I read an update on the various criminal charges or civil suits against Harvey Weinstein, I get depressed. I’m really worried that Weinstein is going to end up largely unpunished for his decades of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape. I’m really worried that while Weinstein has “lost his career,” he’ll never see the inside of a jail cell, and he’ll basically live out his life in semi-retirement in Europe or whatever. So I’m happy that women are still suing him and pressing charges and really trying to make him pay for his decades of abuse. One woman – who is unnamed in court papers, going only by Jane Doe – has sued Weinstein, claiming that he sexually abused her for years. The details of the lawsuit are horrific – you can read Doe’s claims here.

Within the filing, Doe claims that one of the ways Weinstein tried to talk her into sleeping with him was by bragging about how he slept with Jennifer Lawrence. After he initially assaulted Doe at Sundance in 2013, months later they met again and this happened:

Later that year, she claims they met in NYC to discuss a film called, “Vampire Academy.” They had a dinner meeting and afterward they went to his office, and Doe claims he kneeled in front of her and forcibly performed oral sex on her. In the suit, she says she was sobbing … and Weinstein responded by saying, “I slept with Jennifer Lawrence and look where she is; she has just won an Oscar.”

[From TMZ]

I believe Doe’s story – that Weinstein forced himself on her and bragged/lied about J-Law – because it’s keeping with a million other stories we’ve heard about Weinstein. Many of his victims said that Weinstein’s M.O. was to “brag” about his “conquests” to them. Just as many stories involved Weinstein forcibly performing oral sex. After Doe’s lawsuit was filed, Jennifer Lawrence issued a statement through her rep:

“My heart breaks for all the women who were victimized by Harvey Weinstein. I have never had anything but a professional relationship with him. This is yet another example of the predatory tactics and lies that he engaged in to lure countless women.”

[From Page Six]

Weinstein also released a statement, wherein he whines about how Jane Doe is “defaming” him, etc. Whatever. I believe Jane Doe. And I believe Jennifer Lawrence too – I always believed her. I don’t think Weinstein ever assaulted her or pursued her or whatever. At most, I think he probably said inappropriate things to her, things which would be considered sexual harassment, stuff that Jennifer (and other women) would have minimized to herself, you know? As we saw with Darren Aronofsky and David O. Russell, Jennifer tends to not understand when powerful men are being abusive towards her.

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Photos courtesy of Getty.

First of all, I’m not trying to be clickbaity in the title, although I’m not above that. If I wrote out that the gift was “a shower curtain with their giant faces on it,” it wouldn’t fit in our title format of two lines. We keep them short so the layout is consistent on computers. Also I am covering this because I wanted to say that Ashton Kutcher is one of two celebrities I know of to have blocked me on Twitter. The other one is Jessica Alba. I don’t comment on celebrities’ tweets so they must not have liked it when we covered the stupid things they said. Anyway this story is funny and cute and I wanted to talk about it. Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis had a giant photo of themselves put on a shower curtain and they gave this as a gift to Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell. The image is above and here’s what Dax wrote:

daxshepardWhat a generous Christmas gift from the Kunis-Kutcher family. A beautiful shower curtain for the attic(t) bathroom!

I don’t listen to Dax Shepard’s podcast but I should because I could surely get a bunch of stories out of it. I think he records it in the attic bathroom he mentioned where there’s an inlaw suite, right? This shower curtain will be a great conversation piece there. E! reminds us that Dax is starring on The Ranch with Ashton on Netflix, which is helpful because no one watches that. Dax and Kristen were also on an episode of Punk’d.

Also, how cute a gift is this? It’s stupid, it’s funny and it’s perfect for rich people who don’t need anything. My favorite dumb celebrity gift/prank story is about Robert Redford and Paul Newman. I covered this ten years ago and I still think about it occasionally. These two sent a wrecked Porsche to each other. Redford sent the trashed Porsche to Newman for his 50th birthday. Newman had it compacted and sent it back! Then Redford hired a local sculptor to make it into garden art and sent it back to Newman. They never even talked about it!

Oh and remember how some woman came forward last week claiming to have hooked up with Dax 9 years ago, when he was dating his now wife, Kristen Bell. Dax wrote that it was 13 years ago and pointed out that the woman has sold stories about her relationships with other random celebrities including Kid Rock and Matthew Perry. Well Kristen hasn’t responded, but she did record a video thanking Dax for giving her a cordless Dyson vacuum. That was in her IG stories but I missed it. She posted a bunch of stuff from their holiday party though, including a weird table she had custom made last year for a white elephant gift. It had udders on it. The person who ended up with it had it adapted with kegs so that the beer came out of the udders! That’s genius. Sometimes I do get jealous of celebrities.

Dax and Ashton in 2004. They look so young!
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Since I’m a ‘90s Girl, I have very clear memories of Shania Twain’s rise to power. Shania was a country artist, of course, but then she was one of the women who really took country twangin’ mainstream. Shania was one of the biggest crossover artists ever, in the history of country music. Almost like the proto-Taylor Swift, if you will. Back then, we had Shania and Faith Hill, and then in the late ‘90s, the Dixie Chicks had a huge amount of crossover cred. But who are the country-pop crossover artists today? Who are the biggest female names in country now? I would say Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Jennifer Nettles and… ?? While Carrie has had some crossover success, it does feel like there are only a handful of big-name women in country right now, and while they’re successful, none of them are really mirroring the Shania’s path. Shania has noticed too. She sat down with E! News to talk about the state of women in country music these days:

When asked about “women in country music today.” “What women?!” Shania continued to explain how disappointed she is that there are “too few” women in it. Female presence on the radio is a whole other can of worms, too. “We are not making radio progress, but we are making very small, steady steps towards awareness that we’re lacking women on country radio.”

A return to Real Country. “We have too much of the sameness right now. I’m a little bit bored of it, and I want to pick it up. The only way to do that is to be proactive. I wanted a show that, when you talk about diversity, that includes gender diversity, style diversity, lifestyle diversity.” She’s also “fed up with the ageist and sexist thing” when it comes to limits on helping talent break into the scene.

In her day: “When I first came on the scene in country music, the limits were way too narrow for me, and it was hard for me. There are a lot of artists out there who are intimidated of what they believe country music is…I want to show them there are no limits.” For any women out there wanting to get her foot in the door, the “Any Man of Mine” artist is all ears. She heeded, “I want to know who you are and I want to help you. I want to give you an opportunity.”

[From E! News]

While I’ve never been into country music, I respect Shania for trying to fight for the soul of country. It does seem like the country music scene has been overrun by the Bro Country types, the toxically masculine dudes who can only sing about redneck sh-t and getting drunk. While that definitely has a place in country music, the biggest country stars have always been the women, historically. And sometimes it feels like these music genres are going backwards, which is what Shania is talking about.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Kenya Moore is already thinking about giving her newborn daughter a sibling despite a difficult pregnancy and delivery. The 47-year-old Real Housewives of Atlanta alum gave birth to her daughter Brooklyn Doris on November 4.

Even though the reality star had more than her fair share of complications during her pregnancy including an emergency c-section Moore says she and her husband Marc Daly aren’t ruling out expanding their family.

Moore spoke to People this week and admitted, “I don’t know if my body can do it, but we would love to have one more. “I want a little boy!”

Moore went on to explain, “At first, when I was starting to feel really bad in my pregnancy, I was like, ‘I cannot possibly do this again.’ But within the first week after giving birth, I don’t know — I missed the baby bump! I missed the whole thing of carrying her, feeling her move inside me and all that stuff. I would love to feel that again.”

And if conceiving for a second time isn’t in the cards for Moore she is open to other possibilities like adoption. Becoming a mother has been a lifelong dream of Moore’s. “I finally have everything I’ve dreamed of,” Kenya Moore shares. “This little angel … she’s so beautiful. I feel so blessed. It’s all been so worth it.”

Since the reality star daughter’s arrival her husband Daly, 48, has been a doting father and his wife’s biggest support system. “He has been the best father. He changes her diaper. He even tried to dress her one day. He lays her on her stomach and they watch TV and just hang out together. He talks to her the whole time. He really has been the most incredible doting dad. It just makes me have more respect for him.”

#marcdaly wasn’t ready for #babydaly’s kicks today ???#babybump #babykicks #ThatsMrsDalyToYou

A post shared by Kenya Moore Daly (@thekenyamoore) on Sep 24, 2018 at 6:14pm PDT

And it sounds like her daughter is a strong little lady just like her mama. “She’s a strong baby. She doesn’t cry a whole lot, unless she’s hungry or she’s cold. You take her clothes off or give her a wipe that’s too cold, and then she starts wailing! But she makes 101 faces, and makes me laugh. … We’re so in love.”

The post Kenya Moore has More Babies on the Way… appeared first on Celebrity Baby Scoop.