Michelle Yeoh didn’t win a BAFTA, because Cate Blanchett keeps picking up all of the Best Actress awards. While I loved Tar, it would have been nice to see Yeoh pick up some awards too. In any case, we’ve entered the phase of the awards season where women are grabbing tuxedos and suits because they don’t want to wear one more f–king piece of shapewear. Yeoh wore this fantastic Dior suit to the BAFTAs, which was taken to the next level by Michelle’s insane drip, as the youths would say. Look at her incredible jewelry – her rings, her bracelet, her earrings. She borrowed pieces from Moussaieff – a natural Burma pink sapphire ring, diamond earrings and a pink sapphire and diamond bangle.

Danielle Deadwyler was snubbed for an Oscar nomination, but she came out to the BAFTAs looking amazing in this rich-looking Armani. Stunning.

Carey Mulligan in Dior. I get that Carey is a “real actress” and not a fashionista, but jeez, this is such a snooze. Maybe Dior gave their best look to Yeoh.

Emma Thompson in a white suit and sneakers. She looks like a gangster (compliment).

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Stuart Heritage is a journalist for the Guardian, mostly covering film, music and television industry news. He was one of two Guardian reporters tasked with the Guardian’s live-blog of last night’s BAFTAs, which was attended by Prince William and his be-gloved wife. Halfway through the Guardian’s live-blog, Heritage dropped in to tell this amazing story about witnessing William’s behavior at last year’s royal premiere of Top Gun: Maverick:

Here’s a fun little story that I think I’m allowed to tell. Earlier this year I went to the Top Gun: Maverick premiere, and Prince William was there. And he did this big long meet and greet with all the film’s stars, who are all American and therefore all automatically a bit iffy on the idea of a monarchy in the first place.

Anyway, during this meet and greet, Prince William kept pointing at his shoes, and the film’s cast all responded by doing this weird noncommittal ‘Oh’ face in return. This is because, it turns out, Prince William was wearing special shoes that had fighter jets embroidered on them.

Imagine that for a moment. You’ve made a film. The film is going to single-handedly revive the global theatrical experience. And here you are, in London, watching the future king of England point at his special aeroplane shoes. Like a child would. Imagine being Jon Hamm trying to think of something to say to a literal prince who is determined to show you his special little aeroplane shoes, because he thinks they will somehow delight you. Imagine it.

Anyway, Prince William is wearing normal shoes today. Good.

[From The Guardaian]

I mean… this is pretty bad. We kind of knew it real time, because the British papers kept talking about William’s special embroidered airplane slippers, but I didn’t know he actually pointed at his shoes repeatedly as he was being introduced to the stars of Top Gun: Maverick. That royal premiere wasn’t even the first time he saw the movie – Tom Cruise gave William and Kate a private screening before the royal premiere. William was so excited to see the movie again that he had special embroidered slippers made for the royal premiere, then he made all of the Americans admire them. Wow.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red, Instar.

The Duchess of Sussex hasn’t been seen in public since the Ripple of Hope Awards on December 6th. She hasn’t given any interviews in months, not since her promotion for her podcast, Archetypes. Meghan did not participate in her husband’s book promotion, because that’s not the way book promotion works – John Grisham’s wife isn’t sitting beside him for all of his interviews and appearances either. All of this to say, the British media is absolutely desperate for news about Meghan. They’re so desperate, they’re going through old blog posts on The Tig, and trying to hype Samantha Markle’s sad lawsuit. Enter Camilla Tominey at the Telegraph. Tominey has a new article called “Meghan is reinventing herself – and will be laughing all the way to the bank.” It’s about how Tominey thinks Meghan is making money moves behind-the-scenes and Meghan is maybe coming back to Instagram.

Tominey thinks Meghan is already back on Instagram: For months now, mystery has surrounded what appears to be the Duchess of Sussex’s new Instagram page. Last summer, a new @Meghan handle appeared on the social media site, accompanied by a previously unseen childhood photograph of the mother of two…Yet with no one other than a celebrity able to secure a handle on first-name terms, it was assumed that @Meghan would be the vehicle through which the social media-savvy Duchess relaunched her online persona. After Meghan fans began flocking to follow the page, its profile picture was changed to a pink dahlia – the symbol adopted by members of Harry and Meghan’s “Sussex Squad” of online devotees. (The emoji is a nod to Meghan’s mother Doria still referring to her daughter by her childhood nickname, “flower”). No posts and just 195 followers later, however, and the Duchess’s re-emergence on the social media scene appears to have stalled. But why?

What’s next for Meghan: So what is the next stage of the Duchess’s own journey? The appointment of a Hollywood venture capitalist who is famed for making millions of dollars for celebrities would appear to hold the clue. Adam Lilling founded Plus Capital in 2012, which says it aims to partner “the world’s top influencers – those who can affect more change in a day than most can in a lifetime – with the best entrepreneurs and operators in the world”. The Sussexes have been working with Mr Lilling for some time, having been introduced to him by mutual friend Ellen DeGeneres, a US television host, who is said to have worked with him “forever”.

Another important contact? It comes as Meghan has also been linked to Gordon Getty, following unconfirmed reports the pair were spotted having lunch together. The San Francisco billionaire is the scion of the late J Paul Getty, whose oil fortune made his family among the richest in US history. So while she may have taken a step back from the spotlight, behind the scenes, Meghan appears to once again be on manoeuvres.

Tominey quotes Tom Bower: According to Tom Bower, author of Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors, both potentially lucrative alliances suggest the Duchess is “building up to something big”. He told GB News: “The question is, how will she make a lot of money in a short period of time in the end to make sure that she doesn’t need always to parade herself as the victim of the royal family? She’s always looking for other business opportunities. What’s interesting is the people she goes to. Who is going to maximise Meghan’s popularity, who’s going to make her really big and very rich? She’s very shrewd and clever in that. She’s always looking for opportunities and for people who can help her.”

[From The Telegraph]

Tominey then suggests that Meghan is about to relaunch herself on Instagram where she’ll start doing spon-con and earning millions of dollars…? Tominey also claims that Meghan will totally write her own memoir, and that Meghan is perhaps too busy to come with Harry to the coronation. Basically, it’s a whole lotta nothing much, and I doubt that’s really Meghan’s IG handle too. The real story is: Meghan hasn’t been seen for two-and-a-half months and the British media is desperate for any kind of Sussex content. Another part of the story is that the jig is up on the British media’s stupid games – they look like what they are, a group of vindictive, abusive harassers obsessed with an American woman who moved back to America three years ago.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Here are the four acting winners from last night’s BAFTAs: Cate Blanchett won Best Actress for Tar, Austin Butler won Best Actor for Elvis, Kerry Condon won Supporting Actress for Banshees of Inisherin, and Barry Keoghan won Supporting Actor for Banshees as well. My immediate reaction was: wow, Cate is more of a sure thing than I originally believed. Everyone thought that Best Actress was more of a dogfight between Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh, but Cate is sweeping the big awards.

After that, of course we have to acknowledge that all of the winners are white. A white German man – Edward Berger, who directed All’s Quiet on the Western Front – won Best Director too, and that film picked up Best Picture. It’s a bad look. While I also want Cate to win everything for Tar, and I’m totally fine with Barry Keoghan in general, I really hope Condon and Butler don’t win Oscars. Butler especially – Elvis (the film) was a cracked-out mess and Butler has no business winning.

Fashion notes: Cate re-wore a Maison Margiela gown which she originally wore to the 2015 Oscars. Kerry wore Armani. Barry wore a spectacular Gucci suit in red. Also, there was a kerfuffle when Supporting Actress was announced – Carey Mulligan was wrongly announced as the winner, then finally Condon was called up.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

As we wait for the second half of the fourth season of You to drop, Variety has a pretty detailed profile of Penn Badgley to tide us over until March 9. It covers Penn’s career leading up to this role, his spiritual/existential crisis a few years ago, his thoughts on the Joe character, and his plans for his own future career. There’s some interesting insight in there about his Blake Lively relationship and more about his wish to stop doing sex scenes. Some highlights:

On not wanting to do sex scenes: “That aspect of Hollywood has always been very disturbing to me — and that aspect of the job, that mercurial boundary — has always been something that I actually don’t want to play with at all.” He’s also now older than his romantic interests on the show. “Didn’t used to be the case,” he says. In fact, Badgley wishes he didn’t have to do any sex scenes. “It’s important to me in my real life to not have them.” (The scenes in the current season of “You” are all done fully clothed.) “My fidelity in my relationship,” Badgley says. “It’s important to me. And actually, it was one of the reasons that I initially wanted to turn the role down. I didn’t tell anybody that. But that is why.”

On Gossip Girl and his ex, Blake Lively: For years, while doing the show, “I didn’t want to be in television,” he says, and “I was biding time a lot with Dan — I was not invested. And I’m not saying it’s a good thing! I’m saying it’s just what it was.” When he looks back on those years, “there’s two ways I see them.” “Fun and fast-paced” is the first way he’d characterize that era. But underneath was a “dark undercurrent that would bottom out in my later 20s.” I ask whether any of the darkness was substance abuse-related, and he waves me off. “To be honest, I never struggled with substance,” Badgley says. “Blake didn’t drink, and I think our relationship in some ways saved me from forcing myself to go down that road.” That’s interesting phrasing: “forcing myself to go down that road.” It indicates that when Badgley found himself facing “nothing short of a spiritual crisis,” he sought solace from all corners.

On toxic masculinity and Joe’s future: Playing someone like Joe Goldberg just wasn’t appealing, despite it being alluring to Badgley that the character subversively took “the tropes of Dan Humphrey, put it in a blender and sort of reconfigured and re-served it,” he says. But having found peace in his life, he had little desire to play someone so awful. As for how the show will end — will Joe be justly punished after everything he’s done? Badgley finds the question interesting. “Is killing Joe enough?” he wonders. “Whoever kills him is brought down to his level.” He has an idea of what Berlanti and Gamble have in mind, but won’t say what it is. “I think it’s the only way it can go,” he says.

On the future of his own career: But he feels different now, and like any savvy actor in the digital age, he’s using this spotlight to leverage new paths for himself. Badgley wants to do more as an artist — producing, directing, creating — and he’s excited about what’s next. “Things are so digital, so online,” he says. “I think you’ve got to be fully in or fully out.

[From Variety]

It’s interesting what he says about Blake and a pretty nice way to talk about your ex. By most accounts, she’s not a partier and that helped him from becoming one too. Penn does kind of give that bourbon-drinking writer vibe, which is why he’s cast as characters like Dan and Joe, so it makes sense that was something he might have been drawn to if he weren’t dating Blake. His fuller explanation of not wanting to do sex scenes anymore makes more sense. It seems like he’s trying to do right by himself and his wife and his costars, especially when they’re 5-10 years younger, as some of the women on You have been. He also says they have a five-year plan for You and it’s likely to end after next season if it gets renewed (which it will). And in addition to being a producer on You, Penn directed the penultimate episode of this season, has plans to direct a feature film, and has a production company and podcast. Apparently he’s also pretty good at TikTok for an elder millennial, which I never would have expected from him since he seems so self-serious.

Header photo from the set of Gossip Girl in 2008, credit: Edward Opinaldo, PacificCoastNews.com, other photos credit Dara Kushner/Instarimages.com and Netflix

Something happened between Megan Fox and her fiance Machine Gun Kelly just before the Super Bowl. They went to a pre-Super Bowl party and they were photographed together inside the venue, looking fine. Then Megan looked very emotional as they left the party, and within 24 hours, she posted a cryptic Instagram quoting Beyonce and deleted all of her photos of MGK, leading everyone to believe that she dumped MGK after he cheated on her. She also followed Eminem, Timothee Chalamet and a few other guys, all before abruptly deleting her IG. Megan’s people then informed People Mag that she had removed her (thorned) engagement ring and she wasn’t speaking to MGK. Then on Valentine’s Day, Megan and MGK were seen at a couples counseling office, where they stayed for several hours and after which, they left in separate cars. So, is it over? Probably not:

Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly are continuing to prioritize their relationship despite their differences, a source tells PEOPLE. While the 36-year-old actress is “still upset” following a recent dispute with Kelly, 32, the two “are working through their issues and haven’t split,” says the source.

“Megan is still upset but is not giving up on their relationship,” the source says. “He feels the same way. They are getting professional help because they want things to work out.”

Over the weekend, the Transformers actress hinted at a possible breakup from her actor-musician fiancé on Instagram before deactivating her account altogether. In the comments section of Fox’s last Instagram post, she addressed allegations that Kelly was unfaithful in their relationship with a woman named Sophie — whom fans believe to be Sophie Lloyd, the guitarist in Kelly’s band.

“He probably got with Sophie,” commented one fan, to which the Jennifer’s Body actress responded, “Maybe I got with Sophie.”

In a Wednesday statement, Lloyd’s management team said, “Sophie Lloyd is a professional, accomplished musician who has been needlessly dragged into the media based off of meritless accusations made by social media.”

They added, “Any suggestion that she has ever acted in an unprofessional manner or stepped out of her relationship are untrue. It’s disrespectful to her as a female artist and poor journalism and social commentary to be reporting anything else.”

[From People]

Your guess is as good as mine at this point. I have some thoughts about Megan and MGK’s relationship which I’ll keep to myself (for now), but their vibe has always been “unhealthy.” I get that Megan is very into astrology and soulmates and she really believes that they’ve known each other in another life, but all I can see is that Megan falls head over heels with problematic guys and then spends too much time trying to hang on to something which is well past over. In summary, MGK is not the guy you want to fight for??

PS…Page Six reports that the big issue was Megan finding “texts & DMs” on MGK’s phone. She did break up with him two weekends ago but, as People Mag says, they’re trying to work on it.

PPS… Megan denies that there’s any third party involvement.

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A post shared by Megan Fox (@meganfox)

Photos courtesy of Instagram, Cover Images, Backgrid.

I’m fond of saying that Prince William is the Tory Party’s useful idiot, and that it’s pretty clear (to me) that William is something of a “special project” for the arch-conservative political class in the UK. They’re grooming him to be the king they need. It helps that I genuinely believe William shares a lot of those conservative politics. In the UK, as in America, there’s also a close alignment between the right-wing political machine and Russia. Western neo-fascists love Vladimir Putin and the oligarchs, they love Russian money and half of them are probably being blackmailed by Russian kompromat. Speaking of, here are some years-old photos of Prince William and Russian oligarch Evgeny Lebedev, aka Lord Lebedev, the owner of the The Independent and the Evening Standard. Lord Lebedev has close ties to Queen Camilla, King Charles and William. Lebedev is far from the only significant tie between the Windsors and Putin’s oligarchs.

Speaking of, William will appear at the BAFTAs tonight, for the first time since 2020. He is the honorary president of BAFTA, although he rarely shows up and often uses his position to bully the BAFTAs. At this year’s BAFTAs, one of the Best Documentary nominees is Navalny, a film about the Russian plot to assassinate Russian dissident/Putin critic Alexei Navalny. One of the investigative journalists involved in the documentary has been banned from the BAFTAs:

An investigative journalist who helped to reveal the plot to kill Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has claimed he and his family have been “banned” by police from attending the ceremony on Sunday in London due to “a public security risk”.

Christo Grozev features in the 2022 film Navalny, which is nominated in the best documentary category. The film explores the story of Russian opposition leader Navalny and events related to his poisoning in 2020. Grozev is filmed explaining how he and fellow investigative journalist Maria Pevchikh revealed the details of the poisoning plot that indicated Russia’s involvement.

Grozev wrote on Twitter on Friday: “I was surprised to discover that my whole family and I have all been banned by British police from attending this weekend’s Bafta awards where the documentary #Navalny is nominated. The reason stated: we ‘represent a public security risk’. I understand the need to keep the public safe (although I don’t understand how my son or teenage daughter constitute risk to the public). But moments like this show the growing dangers to independent journalists around the world. These dangers don’t stem just from murderous dictators, but also from having journalists’ voices hushed – instead of amplified – by the civilised world they are trying to serve.”

In response to Grozev’s online remarks, the Metropolitan police said that police forces generally “do not and cannot” ban individuals from attending events and that decisions about attendance were down to organisers. The force said it could not comment on the safety of an individual or advice given to them, but that it was “absolutely concerned” with the “hostile intentions of foreign states” on UK soil.

[From The Guardian]

The Met police issued a statement saying, in essence, that they were not the ones banning anyone, and that it was a call being made by BAFTA organizers working closely with security. After that story came out, activist Peter Tatchell and the anti-monarchy group Republic both announced that they had received tips from sources that Prince William was the one who requested that Christo Grozev be banned from the ceremony. Is it possible that this is just a false rumor? For sure. But I wouldn’t doubt these stories at all.

BREAKING NEWS: I’ve received a tip off that Prince William’s office pressured the #BAFTA‘s to disinvite journalist Christo #Grozev who exposed the plot to kill Alexei #Navalny. Source is insiderhttps://t.co/xew2aw4eO9@RepublicStaff @GrahamSmith_ @nomoremonarchs @Billbrowder

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) February 18, 2023

We have received same information from a credible source. https://t.co/GG9ABf8094

— Republic (@RepublicStaff) February 18, 2023

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Tiger Woods is back on the golf course after dealing with horrific injuries for several years. He’s apparently hit some kind of form at the Genesis Open in Pacific Palisades. On Thursday, Tiger hit a “blistered a 323-yard drive” past his good friend and fellow pro golfer Justin Thomas. After the drive, Tiger walked towards Thomas and slid something in his hand. Thomas dropped the object quickly when he saw what it was, and Tiger put his arm around Thomas as the two men presumably laughed and teased each other. What was the object? A tampon. Get it? Because Tiger Woods is more manly than Justin Thomas. Because menstruation is a “joke.” Because women are a joke, and there’s nothing worse than being a woman who menstruates.

Tiger Woods had a gift for Justin Thomas after driving it past him on number nine.

(via @GettyImages) pic.twitter.com/HXZEQSAhEU

— Rick Gehman (@RickRunGood) February 17, 2023

@NoLayingUp @TronCarterNLU @ngschuNLU @DJPie @SportsSturm Tiger out drives Rory and JT. Am I crazy for thinking this is Tiger handing JT a tampon right after? pic.twitter.com/eevKsvDgXf

— conrad steele (@cnrdstl) February 16, 2023

Condemnation for Tiger came swiftly – more swiftly than I would have predicted. The photos and the video clip went viral immediately, so much so that when Tiger sat down to do media on Friday, he gave a half-assed apology then and there:

Following Friday’s second round at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, Woods said he didn’t mean to offend anyone.

“It was supposed to be all fun and games and obviously it hasn’t turned out that way,” Woods told reporters. “If I offended anybody, it was not the case, it was just friends having fun. As I said, if I offended anybody in any way, shape or form, I’m sorry. It was not intended to be that way. It was just we play pranks on one another all the time and virally I think this did not come across that way, but between us it was – it’s different.”

Woods handed Thomas a tampon after outdriving his playing partner on the ninth hole. Thomas immediately discarded the tampon before the two men laughed and hugged as they walked off the tee. Some on social media said the incident had sexist overtones, while England women’s soccer manager Sarina Wiegman told reporters Saturday: “It is very inappropriate, and I think he has realized that.”

“If tiger spent three months a year bleeding and coping with period pain, they’d make a whole-ass documentary about how champions overcome insurmountable obstacles,” Alex McDaniel, managing editor of USA Today’s For The Win, tweeted on Friday.

[From CNN]

What I keep thinking about is… Tiger has a teenage daughter, Sam. Sam is 15 years old. Does her dad think it’s a hilarious burn to hand her a tampon too? I get that men – bros – have a different kind of humor with one another, but jeez, this was terrible. Tiger did it in public, this wasn’t some kind of private situation. Tiger had dozens (if not hundreds) of cameras on him at that moment and he decided to do it anyway.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Gemma Chan wore Miss Sohee to the Newport Beach Film Festival. [RCFA]
The White Lotus’s Simona Tabasco & Beatrice Grannó got invited to New York Fashion Week and they’re having fun! [LaineyGossip]
What does Kendall Jenner do? Get a job! [Dlisted]
God, Pedro Pascal is just hot, all day, everyday. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Dudes really can’t handle criticism. [Pajiba]
OMG, Morgan Spector (who is hot) wore terrible clothes! [Go Fug Yourself]
Simon Le Bon seems like a lovely guy, actually. [Seriously OMG]
Camila Morrone & Suki Waterhouse both wore Michael Kors. [Just Jared]
Bing’s Sydney AI chatbot is kind of disturbing. [Jezebel]
Kim Kardashian put aliens in Skims. [Egotastic]
What’s the most cringey tattoo you’ve ever seen? [Buzzfeed]
Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News is going well. [Towleroad]

This week, the Daily Mail was desperate for news about the Duchess of Sussex, so they dusted off a 2014 post from Meghan’s old blog, The Tig. When the British media learned that Prince Harry was dating Meghan in 2016, they dug through The Tig and turned every blog post into a blaring headline, including the fact that Meghan had a popular lifestyle blog in the first place. Well, suddenly in the year of our lord Beyonce 2023, the Mail is newly enraged that Meghan referenced “Princess Kate” in 2014. Don’t you realize that this is the smoking gun which proves that Meghan was “lying” when she said she didn’t google or know much about the Windsors?? So instead of covering that Mail post specifically, here’s an excerpt from Vanity Fair’s coverage:

In 2014, Meghan Markle started a blog called The Tig, where she posted regularly about lifestyle topics and current events. Though she shut down the website in April 2017, six months after her relationship went public, the posts were preserved on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and occasionally tidbits will recirculate. On Wednesday, the Daily Mail brought back a 2014 entry she published referencing Prince William’s 2011 wedding to Kate Middleton, citing it as evidence that Meghan couldn’t have been telling the truth when she said she didn’t know much about the royals before she met Prince Harry.

In the introduction to a blog entry where she interviewed Princess Alia Al Senussi, a descendent of Libyan royalty who works in the art world, Meghan mentioned that as a child she loved tough princesses like She-Ra from the ’80s cartoon, She-Ra: Princess of Power. She also mentioned that the idea of a “princess” still exerts power on adults too. “Grown women seem to retain this childhood fantasy,” she wrote. “Just look at the pomp and circumstance surrounding the royal wedding and endless conversation about Princess Kate.”

You might think that calling her future sister-in-law “Princess Kate” might be a sign that Meghan didn’t actually know too much about royal forms of address… But to the Mail, this “suggests that she not only knew exactly who the royals were—but that she’d also formed several very strong opinions about the Monarchy and its many traditions, years before she met her future husband.”

The idea that Meghan held “very strong opinions” about her future husband and his family originates in a statement Meghan made during the March 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, when the duchess said that, as an American, she didn’t actually know too much about what joining the family would entail. “I didn’t do any research about what that would mean,” Meghan said. “I didn’t feel any need to, because everything I needed to know he was sharing with me. Everything we thought I needed to know, he was telling me.”

[From Vanity Fair]

I’ll admit, when Meghan said that to Oprah, I didn’t really believe her either. How can you date someone famous without Googling him? But as time goes on and Meghan explained further in the Netflix series (and as Harry explains in Spare), I sort of understand where she was coming from and what she meant – she didn’t research Harry because she believed he was as he presented himself to her, because she wanted to get to know him the old-fashioned way. She also just believed whatever Harry told her, and he would instruct her on how to greet his family, what to wear, etc. She didn’t feel the need to do research because Harry was teaching her what HE thought she needed to know.

At this point, as I said, I do believe that Meghan kind of came into the institution blind, with a somewhat narrow, simplistic understanding of what everything meant. I think when Meghan met Harry, she had a general idea of the identities of Harry, William, Kate and QEII, but as an American, no, she didn’t understand the monarchy or “the system.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.