Just saw an interesting headline about Angelina Jolie this morning. Per the Associated Press, she’s selling a piece of art:“Christie’s auction house said Monday that the Moroccan landscape “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque” — a gift from Churchill to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt — is being sold…

Over the years, Evan Rachel Wood has repeatedly referenced her history of being in at least one abusive relationship. She’s talked about being mentally and physically abused, and raped by an intimate partner. ERW told her story at her own pace. For a while, she did not name anyone specifically, and centered her story on herself, what she learned, how she healed. Now ERW has named the person who abused her: Brian Warner, also known as Marilyn Manson. ERW and Marilyn began dating when she was 18 or 19 years old and he was almost 20 years older than her. They got together shortly after his split with then-wife Dita Von Teese in late 2006 (Dita left him, possibly when he began seeing ERW). ERW posted a message on her Instagram:

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A post shared by Evan Rachel Wood (@evanrachelwood)

I believe her. We knew at the time that there was a lot wrong with that relationship, and that he exerted a lot of control over her. I always believed that he wanted her to style herself like Dita too, remember that? They broke up a few times too, in what I now believe were probably her attempts to get away from him. Ugh. Disgusting.

After ERW posted her Instagram, three other women posted their own stories about Marilyn and how he abused them as well. As of now, Manson’s people are just flatly denying his victims’ stories. Think about how many years he’s been doing this sh-t to women. Think about his friends too and what they’re like.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

A few years after Prince George was born, Prince Charles and his team began planting stories in some of the friendly British papers. Those stories had common themes: Charles is disturbed by William’s devotion to the Middleton clan, especially Carole Middleton; Charles feels like Carole hyper-dominates William & Kate and their time; Charles doesn’t feel like he gets enough time with his grandchildren, especially “future king” George. Charles had a grudge, and in those years, we often debated whether the grudge was warranted, or whether it was just desserts, just like we often debated Carole’s apparent running of the Cambridge household for years. When You Know Who came around, suddenly – and I do mean suddenly – William and Kate were very eager to spend more time with Charles and to give him more access to their kids. So… there’s a new royal documentary and there’s apparently a lot of conversation about the role the Middletons play in the Cambridge kids’ lives, as compared to Charles’ role.

Kate Middleton’s family will have a ‘bigger influence’ on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s children than the royal family, experts have claimed. Royal commentators Jennie Bond and Tom Quinn predicted it will be Kate Middleton’s parents, Carole and Michael, who will spend the most time with Prince George, seven, Princess Charlotte, five and Prince Louis, two. Speaking in a new documentary, Quinn said it would be ‘entirely wrong’ to think the royal family will have the biggest impact on the children’s upbringing, because the Firm is ‘too formal and stuck in its ways’.

Meanwhile Bond spoke of ‘tension’ within the family, claiming Kate, 39, will always turn to her 65-year-old mother Carole for ‘help, advice and guidance’ over the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall. In Channel 5?s When the Middletons Met the Monarchy, airing on Saturday, Quinn said: ‘I suspect everyone thinks that in terms of the children, the royal family will inevitable have the most influence, but that is entirely wrong. It will be the Middletons that have the influence, because the royal family is too formal, it’s too stuck in its ways.’

Bond added: ‘I suppose there is a little tension at times between who gets to see the grandkids the most. Kate will always turn to Carole for help, advice guidance, and just get together and romping around with the kids – possibly before she would get together with Camilla and Charles.’

Quinn went on to reveal how Charles, 72, was ‘shocked and saddened’ after discovering the couple had chosen to locate their country home in Norfolk, leaving him ‘out in the cold,’ and more than 200 miles from his home of Highgrove in Gloucester.

Richard Kay also expressed how important Carole and Michael are to William, claiming that he’s always made clear that Kate’s parents will be part of their lives. ‘Prince William has said, “Look I am not always going to be available for the royal family, I have another family and that is Mike and Carole Middleton and that is very important to me and Kate and my children”.’

Vanity Fair’s Katie Nicholl agreed, adding: ‘William made it clear the Middleton’s couldn’t be cast aside.’ Kate met William while attending the University of St Andrews, and Nicholl claimed it was Carole who encouraged her daughter to enjoy the thriving party scene when the pair briefly split in 2007. ‘It was Carole that said to Kate, you go and show him what he’s missing, said Nicholl. ‘Carole knew her daughter was perfect future Queen material’.

[From The Daily Mail]

So the documentary is about the Middletons and the Windsors and the push-pull of those two families which will – apparently – determine the future of the monarchy. I mean, I think Kate relies on her mother on all things, from child-rearing to royal busy-work to running Anmer Hall and everything in between. There is no doubt in my mind that Carole inserts herself into all parts of Kate’s life, and that Kate wants and needs her mom to do just that. What has always struck me is that Carole really didn’t prepare Kate for any of it though. Both Kate and Carole were so tunnel-visioned with “catching the prince,” it then turned out that Kate was ill-suited for royal life, and she couldn’t even run a small country home without getting her mom to organize everything and decorate and make cheese toast for William and basically keep the Cambridge marriage intact. I mean… I kind of see why Charles leaked all of that negative sh-t, honestly.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN, Backgrid.

Last week, we talked about April Love Geary and her matter-of-fact statement that she had elective C-sections with all three of her children. As I said, I appreciated her honesty about her fear of vaginal birth and the pain of childbirth, and I like that she presented it as simply another “my body, my choice” conversation, which (IMO) it is. Of course, the biggest “my body, my choice” conversation is about abortion. Turns out, April had a matter-of-fact story about abortion too:

April Love Geary says getting an abortion months before she met fiancé Robin Thicke “was the right thing to do.”

The 26-year-old model opened up about her experience during an Instagram Live on Thursday after a follower asked her to talk more about how she healed from the procedure.

“So my abortion story sucks, but I’ll talk about it,” she began the video. “Healing mentally, I just knew it was the right thing to do so that’s what’s always kept me feeling okay about the decision.” Geary went to the clinic alone and “afterward, (the guy) came and picked me up and took me straight to the airport. So, you know, I did make the right decision cause, like, who does that after someone gets an abortion?”

Geary who shares three children with “Blurred Lines” singer Robin Thicke, Mia, 2, Lola, 1, and newborn son Luca, explained that therapy helped her work through the experience.

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to provide a good life for this child,” she said. “It just wasn’t the right time for me. I don’t regret it.”

It’s not the first time Geary has spoken up about getting an abortion. In 2019, she clapped back at people who criticized her choice. “I’ve been getting a bunch of DMs saying things like ‘how could you support abortion when you’re a mother yourself’ so this is MY body, MY body after having an abortion in 2014, a miscarriage in 2017, delivering a baby in 2018 and 2019,” she wrote, along with a photo of her stomach. “I’m glad I was able to make decisions about MY body without facing any type of punishment.”

[From Page Six]

An abortion in 2014 would have made her 20 years old at the time or thereabouts. Many 20-year-olds probably are not ready for motherhood and it was the wrong guy, clearly. The way she describes the story about the guy dropping her off at the airport is a bit confusing too – did she get on a plane and fly somewhere just hours after the abortion? That is… not the Planned Parenthood medical advice. And if he just dropped her off at the airport instead of taking her home, that’s pretty f–king awful too. Anyway, the medical field is way too patronizing towards women and their reproductive rights and choices. I’m happy to see that a young woman like April has been able to stick up for herself, openly communicate with doctors, abortion providers and douche exes and make her own choices.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

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I don’t know a lot about author Ann Patchett, but I read about half of her latest very popular book, The Dutch House. This is typical of how I read and is not an indictment of the book, which was decent but didn’t pull me in. I often read about half of a book and give up as my attention span is low, especially lately. Even really trashy books can’t hold my interest and instead of reading I just fall asleep watching YouTube. Ann spoke to Seth Meyers last week. She owns a book store in Nashville where she lives calls Parnassus Books. Ann said that they remained closed up until October out of an abundance of caution. Online orders picked up so much around the holidays though that she and her sister had to work late into the night. She hasn’t had to lay off any workers and they’re now open again, with restrictions. I’m writing this story because I admire how dedicated Ann, 57, is to her lifestyle. She doesn’t watch TV and hasn’t seen major shows! She also doesn’t own a cell phone and although she makes video content for Instagram someone else posts it for her. She’s never even looked at Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

On her bookstore’s Instagram account, which she doesn’t use personally
It’s all about pivoting, figuring out how keep your business alive. I am somebody who has never looked at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of it. Now I am on Instagram. The trick is I have never looked at it. A couple of times a week I make these short videos, usually wearing evening wear, in which I cuddle with a book for twenty seconds and talk about how fantastic it is. That’s my job. It’s a good job.

“You’re really missing out on social media. It is just a real pleasant place.”
I hear that about crack all the time too. It’s just amazingly good and I should try it just a little bit to see.

She doesn’t have a cell phone or watch TV
I also don’t have a cell phone. I am just a dinosaur. I write a lot and I read a lot and I live my life. I’m sure that I’m missing out on amazing things. For me to go back and catch the wave of the golden age of television – I haven’t watched The Sopranos, I haven’t watched Breaking Bad. I’m so far behind at this point I could never catch up.

[From The New Yorker]

I have a lot of questions about how she manages to do video interviews and make videos for Instagram without owning a phone. Does she just have one of her employees record the videos for her? I’m also wondering how she writes her books. Does she use a very old computer or a word processor like other authors? I tried to figure out what technology she uses to write and ended up with a lot of good advice from her on writing in general. I found an interview from 2019 where she said she had a flip phone, doesn’t text and doesn’t know how to check voicemail. So it’s not quite accurate that she doesn’t have a cell phone, although she could have gotten rid of it since.

Ann has also admitted that she’s so disconnected that she can’t write books using modern technology. She said, in 2011, “I just don’t know how to write a novel in which the characters can get in touch with all the other characters at any moment.” Many of her characters set in modern day end up losing their cell phones because of this. Giving up my phone is not something I would do as my entire job is online, but I know a lot of people wish they could disconnect more, if not entirely. She’s living life on her terms and it sounds kind of peaceful.

Here’s that interview:

Ann’s book recommendations on Instagram really sold me on a few books:

A post shared by Parnassus Books (@parnassusbooks)

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos credit: Getty. Photo on the frontpage is a screenshot from this video

Dear Gossips, When Shamier Anderson and Stephan James announced the launch of The Black Academy back in December, they shared that the initiative was about recognising and celebrating Black talent in arts and culture in Canada, and about measuring success on your own terms, reframing the benchmark o…

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex left the UK last year, the Queen made Prince Harry give up his honorary position with the Royal Marines. It was one of her most petty moves, because Harry loves the military, he loves working on military and veterans issues and he loves those communities. Because the Queen forced him out, the Daily Mail thought that they would organize a story attacking Harry for abandoning the Royal Marines, and they quoted some ancient douche who went on the record about how mad he was that Harry wouldn’t abandon his wife and child just to maintain a connection to the Royal Marines. Harry was pissed, and he denied the Daily Mail story quickly. He threatened the paper with a lawsuit, then he actually pursued legal action. The Mail ended up issuing an apology in writing. And now Harry accepted “substantial damages” from the Mail:

The Duke of Sussex has accepted an apology and “substantial damages” from The Mail On Sunday and MailOnline’s publisher over claims he snubbed the Royal Marines after stepping down as a senior royal. Jenny Afia, representing Prince Harry, said: “The baseless, false and defamatory stories published in the Mail on Sunday and on the website MailOnline constituted not only a personal attack upon the Duke’s character but also wrongly brought into question his service to this country.”

Harry sued Associated Newspapers for libel over two “almost identical” articles published in October, which included the headline “top general accuses Harry of turning his back on the Royal Marines”. The articles claimed the duke had “not been in touch… since his last appearance as an honorary Marine in March”.

At a brief remote High Court hearing on Monday morning, Harry’s lawyers said Associated Newspapers had accepted the allegations were false, “albeit after considerable damage was already done”.

It was not confirmed how much he was awarded in damages, however, Harry is donating the money to the Invictus Games Foundation, which runs the competition he set up in 2014 for wounded, injured, or sick servicemen and women. His lawyer said this will allow him to “feel something good had come out of the situation”.

The newspaper had published an apology in December, but Harry and his legal team believed it was not given the same prominence as the original articles and therefore asked for permission for the settlement to be read out in open court. Harry served as an army officer for 10 years and – as a member of the Royal Family – holds a number of honorary military titles.

[From Sky News]

I chuckled, just because I feel like Harry has adopted an American motto of “f–k around and find out.” He is pissed off at this whole situation, and it genuinely feels like his family has narrowed in on what will hurt him the most. The Queen, Charles, William, they’re all using Harry’s long-standing commitment to military causes to inflict pain, and they’re the ones behind so many of these “Harry abandoned the British military” stories. Anyway, the Daily Mail decided to f–k around and Harry made sure that they found out.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, WENN, Avalon Red.

It’s such a relief to have President Joe Biden working on all of our nation’s problems. I can’t even describe this feeling of post-Trump trauma combined with genuine happiness that political wonks are in charge. The only reasons why Pres. Biden made news this weekend are as follows: he pulled down his mask to kiss Dr. Jill; he visited Walter Reed and was respectful the entire time; he met with Republican senators in a show of bipartisanship; he went to church; he worked throughout the weekend and didn’t golf or rage-tweet. I feel like crying, I’m so happy. Meanwhile, Biden remembers how Barack Obama got bogged down in his first two years in office too, and so Biden and his team understand the importance of tackling several huge issues all at once. President Biden is extremely focused on fixing the vaccine rollout:

[The Biden team’s] plan of attack has three main elements. The first, increasing the supply of vaccine, was addressed this week with a 16% boost in the number of doses being distributed to states for the next three weeks, and with the in-the-works purchase of 200 million more doses from Pfizer and Moderna, to be delivered by the end of the summer. The unveiling of those increases was a prime illustration of the second part of Biden’s strategy: aggressively communicating the administration’s moves to combat COVID. The additional doses were anticipated to arrive even if Trump had remained president, but Biden’s team, in background briefings and press conferences, did a savvy job of selling the announcement as wholly fresh progress.

A high-ranking administration operative, however, says that focusing on credit for dosage production misses the more important point. “The Trump plan was to get a vaccine and then figure out the rest. There was absolutely zero infrastructure or planning on how to get the vaccine to the next level of people, beyond hospitals and nursing homes,” the operative says. “When we say things were worse than we thought, that’s what we mean. There was no plan for broad distribution, so that’s what we’re focused on. It’s all about shots in arms, not about how many doses.”

Which leads to the third, crucially interrelated piece of the Biden strategy: getting Congress to appropriate more than a trillion dollars toward COVID relief, including mechanisms such as mass-vaccination sites and mobile injection units. That’s why, in the past few days, Biden officials have been singing a coordinated tune, publicly and privately. “It will help significantly if Congress acts to pass the bill in front of them that will put money into the states to help them increase vaccination efforts,” the senior administration official told me. “It will be important that that be addressed for all of these plans to work. It’s more like an orchestra than a solo. Everybody has to do their part, including the Congress.”

[From Vanity Fair]

Even though the stories about vaccine production and distribution are not even *mostly* good news, there’s no longer a lazy madman at the helm, and Biden hired genuine public health experts, immunologists and vaccine-distribution experts to work on all of this. I feel like the majority of Americans understand that Biden inherited an utter catastrophe and that it’s going to take months to really get mass vaccinations under way. VF also points out that as a former VP and former powerful senator, Biden knows how to work with a narrowly Democratic-controlled Senate. He had Republican senators over to the White House this weekend and he listened to their dumbf–k plan. He extended that courtesy to them and so now he gets to say unity, bipartisanship, etc. And then he’ll take one or two of their ideas and put it in the deal he wants.

President Biden also visited Walter Reed this weekend. And he went to Mass on Saturday evening, probably because of all of the snow we got here in the mid-Atlantic which affected the roads on Sunday.

Yesterday, I visited Walter Reed for the first time as president to thank our frontline workers and members of our armed forces. Selfless, humble, and dedicated to service — these folks truly represent the best of America. pic.twitter.com/PaSwO6Np3P

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 31, 2021

Grateful for the short commute on days like these. pic.twitter.com/unUej4WhpB

— President Biden (@POTUS) February 1, 2021

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

In September 2019, just as Prince William and his wife were already jeggings-deep in their plan to marginalize and exile the Duchess of Sussex, William gave a little interview. He’s the president of the Football Association, because he’s just a normal bloke who loves football and he loves attending football matches and having it count as work. He also loves saying “mental health in football” once every few months so that people will know that William is a mental health advocate. Well, what was interesting about William’s public comments in September 2019 was the fact that these lines passed his thin, pale, neo-colonialist lips:

“People are now talking a little bit about mental health issues but I imagine talking about racism is still quite a difficult subject, especially when it’s happening in such a public fashion with Premier League matches or [in the] Champions League. We’ve got to do something about it. I’m fed up with it. I’m so bored of it.”

At the time, I was extremely focused on the “I’m so bored of it” ABOUT RACISM that I probably didn’t devote enough time to the fact that William thinks public acts of racism against football players are “quite a difficult subject” to talk about. Anyway, this is William’s history: he’s on the record saying that he’s bored of racism… in football alone. Shockingly, that was not enough to end racism. In football. The racism is still happening, perpetrated by all of those racist dumbf–ks William and Kate regularly placate and appeal to. And…now that Prince Harry is carving out “hate speech online” as one of his central issues, here’s William to remind everyone that he also cares about racism and hate speech! He’s SUPER BORED with it.

Racist abuse – whether on the pitch, in the stands, or on social media – is despicable and it must stop now. (1/3)

— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) January 31, 2021

I commend all those players, supporters, clubs and organisations who continue to call out and condemn this abuse in the strongest terms. – W (3/3)

— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) January 31, 2021

The comments on these tweets were a whole mess because people decided to throw his Keen About Racism act back into his face and remind him of just how much he sucks for what he did to Meghan, or what he didn’t do (defend her). And honestly, the “William actively participated in the racist abuse hurled at Meghan” aspect is only one part of why this Keen White Savior act is falling flat. There were “nice” comments on these tweets too, thanking William for being the only person to ever talk about racism in football, which is insane. Anyway did William fix it yet? Surely all he has to do is announce that racism in football has to stop and that’s it? Why does he have to continue to be so utterly bored with it?

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.

Last week, a couple of suspicious stories came out about Ben Affleck being a relatable everyman. They were both in the “he’s rich and famous, but struggles with packages and coffee delivery while looking exasperated” vein. It could have been a “great minds” thing, that happens a lot in our industry because we’ve been following the same celebrities for years and end up coming up with similar ideas. (I try not to read other blogs’ takes before writing a story for that reason.) Plus those photos of him went viral. However we’ve seen Ben Affleck try to control the press narrative, to a ridiculous degree, for years. He’s dictated questions in press junkets, has given blow-by-blow updates about his relationship status, bitched repeatedly at being called out by tabloids ten years ago, and even tried to whitewash his own ancestors. So when I see stories about poor Ben I wonder if it’s some kind of new PR strategy, especially when the stories all sound similar. It isn’t a bad one, actually. Here are excerpts from those two articles, with more at the sources.

Vice title: We Are All Ben Affleck and His Dunkin
Recently, mention of the former Ben half of Bennifer and Bennifer 2.0 conjures up images of giant cups of Dunkin, stacks of mail, and paparazzi strolls with his now-ex-girlfriend Ana de Armas, not to mention a cardboard cutout of de Armas being stuffed into a trash can. Ben Affleck has crossed over into meme territory, and we can’t look away because in him, we see ourselves at our most defeated…

Affleck is no different than, say, Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears in that he’s experienced public personal traumas, and the fact that he’s openly discussed his struggles can make the jokes a bit hard to stomach. Even so, the images of him fumbling with a stack of mail and a huge cup of Dunks are painfully human and deeply relatable in their mundanity. While we can all comprehend that Ben Affleck is technically a human person, seeing a celebrity of his stature chugging his Dunkies with an arm full of Amazon packages is mesmerizing. Like, he could probably pay someone to get his mail and coffee, right?

Esquire title: Ben Affleck Is the Only Relatable Celebrity
Then it was announced that Ben and Ana had broken up, the reasons unspecified. Soon, a life-size cut out of her was being dumped in the bin outside of his house. There were no more trips to Whole Foods, the iced coffee order was for one, not two. Who gets to keep the dogs? Over the weekend, Ben was photographed wrestling with approximately 103 Amazon parcels, a Dunkin’ Donuts cup placed precariously atop the pile’s peak, a grimace spread across his stubbled face. Breakups are always rubbish, but especially so when everyone wants to see yours play out in real-time on Just Jared and TMZ.

Ben Affleck is the only relatable celebrity because, despite having an Oscar and being worth $150 million (I googled it), he wears dodgy jeans and smokes actual cigarettes and has bad tattoos. With no red carpets, premieres or glossy paparazzi opportunities, he has become a sort of street style anti-hero; the king of the Whole Foods car park and the suburban pavement, in a pair of old Sambas and a pained expression. The gloss of money and fame melt into the Calabasas concrete. As things have gone from bad to is-it-over-yet? over the last 12 months, the only thing to do is to forget how to get dressed, buy too many things from Amazon and go on silly little walks for a silly little coffee. Ben Affleck is the king of that. King of the melancholy, Sisyphean stroll. See you again tomorrow, yeah? What’s your coffee order? Who cares.

[From Vice and Esquire]

Vice linked this earlier article in The Ringer about Ben, which says essentially the same thing as Vice and Esquire, that he’s relatable because he’s gone through a lot and drinks Dunkin’ coffee instead of Starbucks, essentially. The narratives are strikingly similar and all three stories mention Dunkin Donuts, his back tattoo and his smoking. The fact that these are more prestige publications makes me really think they were encouraged by Ben’s people. As I said he could do worse, and he often does. Then again, he could change his perspective instead of trying to use the press to change ours. I listened to that over hour long podcast with him a couple of weekends ago. I didn’t hear much gratitude nor did he seem able to move past the consequences of how he treated his then-fiance ten years ago.

There’s definitely one thing I can relate to Ben Affleck on though, and that’s ordering too much crap from Amazon.

Photos credit: Backgrid