The New Yorker piece on Rich Paul was so good. The NYT Magazine also had a good feature on Kevin Durant that touched on some of the same points about the current Player Empowerment Era in the NBA. The NYer had a great quote from Bomani Jones about how the NBA has a real estate problem-they have franchises in a bunch…

I imagine for most celebrities it’s motivated by a desire for stability/closeness in a life that is hectic and unreal.

She did reach out via DM to tell Courtney Stodden to kill themselves. I think that’s where she surpassed Jimmy Fallon, etc.-by making it personal and not just using it to play to the crowd.

Seriously, what is wrong with this woman?  Why does she need attention from strangers this badly?  Doesn’t she have friends and family she can talk to or a therapist?

A suggestion, but try watching The Hills: New Beginnings on MTV for this. Because, maybe I’m crazy, but I feel like the murders’s row of early aughts Himbos- Justin Bobby, Brody, and Jason Waller-have all...matured.  I mean they are still dumb and varying levels of LA-kooky, but they seem to be genuinely trying to be…

Yes! And they had taken her passport because she had tried to runaway before the wedding.

This reminds me a little of the Naomi Osaka discussion. How much of elite athletics comes down to “mental toughness”?

He’s so sleazy!

Oooh I had not heard that!  I think it might be a Nicole Kidman thing, though, where she escapes but she has to leave the kids behind.

The Grimaldi’s seem more Eurotrash/Dynasty sleaze balls and less broken, sad families we shouldn’t joke about.

Yeah, “multiple surgeries”....I don’t know? And she got delayed. And she’s been trying to get away since before they were married.  Sus.

Let’s do Harry and Meghan the courtesy of leaving them alone as they’ve asked, and focus on the more gossipy, salacious royal story: that Princess Charlene of Monaco seems to be refusing to return from South Africa after Prince Albert has been named in a paternity case for the third time in their 10 year marriage.

Only straight women are allowed to be gay at awards shows!

The Vow gave me the impression that there were the people who got into this cult because they wanted someone to tell them what to do-like Catherine Oxenberg’s daughter- and others-like Allison Mack and the tall guy with the beard-who Reniere clocked for needing to have their “specialness” recognized.

Hmm, I always thought the cover of Live Through This depicted a beauty queen, the beauty queen from the song “Miss World”, which is a single on the album?

Bad Prom/Bad Cheerleader...all that’s missing is the Bad Catholic School Girl Uniform for a very old “I’m a not like other girls” trope trifecta.  Can anyone really claim this idea?

Janet Min deserves a shout-out. Under her, US Weekly became a juggernaut in the 2000s. It was a golden era that took the salaciousness of the Enquirer but glossed it up like People and the gossip-about actual, real celebrities- was TRUE!

I enjoyed it, too.  Anthony Ramos is just a shiny penny.  But was the Benny storyline originally bigger?  It seemed to be building and the actor was charismatic, but it didn’t really go anywhere?

“A certain group”? I think the overwhelming majority of famous people are not good at long term relationships. It seem much easier to name the handful that are good: Matt Damon, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, SJP....umm.

It reveals just how in bad faith this whole argument is that, for the first time ever, a celeb friend saying, “She’s cool with me though!” is enough to take someone off the problematic list.