Monthly Archives

January 2020

Prince Harry on Meghan Markle: “She’s the Same Woman I Fell in Love With”

-As the palace announced details of their new arrangement with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, he commented on it during his speech at a charity dinner last night, saying “I was born into this life, and it is a great honor to serve my country and the Queen. When I lost my mum 23 years ago, you took me under your wing. You’ve looked out for me for so long, but the media is a powerful force, and my hope is one day our collective support for each other can be more powerful because this is so much bigger than just us.”

–The Queen promised she was going to deliver a swift resolution to the situation — and she succeeded. The couple will remain HRH but will no longer use the titles, they’ll continue to work with their private patronages (but three of Harry’s military patronages will end, and he’ll no longer be the Commonwealth Youth Ambassador), and they’ll repay the $3 million taxpayer funds used to renovate Frogmore Cottage, which they will keep as their UK home base and start paying rent.  Also, they plan to revisit the arrangement in 2021, which means this is all reversable should they/he decide to return to royal roles.

–Prince Harry was spotted at a London pub looking “happy” and “relaxed” in the days before the announcement.

-I don’t know about you, but I feel really icky about all the real-life shipping on my timeline surrounding those photos of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt meeting backstage at last night’s SAG Awards. Are we forgetting that he perpetuated the “sad, childless Jen” narrative (after allegedly leaving her for another woman)? Or that his last marriage ended when he did *something* on a plane so scary that the feds were called and he lost unsupervised access to his kids for years? Maybe he’s changed/evolved, but I still want less baggage for her.

-I also really, really didn’t love his line about “not getting on with his wife” in his (otherwise excellent) SAG speech. Like, why remind us of that? As Lainey summed it up: “What’s the lesson here? A beautiful man can say anything.”

-Speaking of the SAGs, Eugene and Dan Levy‘s opening bit slayed me — then continued to slay when they presented the first award.

-The cast of Parasite received a standing ovation at the SAG Awards when they presented an award. And later they won the big one! With this win and 1917 winning the Producers Guild and Golden Globe, those two have pulled ahead as the Oscar frontrunners.  I would adore a Parasite win, but I’ll take 1917 if it means Joker doesn’t get it.

–John Boyega bought his mother and father a house and their reaction was stunned silence.

–Paul Rudd continues to be excellent.

–Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake are back to presenting a united front.

–Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville play a longtime married couple struggling to cope with her breast cancer diagnosis in the trailer for Ordinary Love. Using that Magnetic Fields song feels like cheating, but ok.

Meghan Markle is In the Driver’s Seat

–Meghan Markle was spotted driving to pick up a pal at the airport in Vancouver. Meanwhile, Lainey appeared on the Today Show to discuss Meghan’s connection to Canada.

–Rihanna has reportedly split from her boyfriend of nearly three years, Hassan Jameel.

–Hank Azaria says he is officially stepping down as the voice of Apu on The Simpsons. He’s only 20 years too late.

–Liam Hemsworth and new girlfriend are in the PDA-on-a-beach stage of their relationship.

-This reads like a warning from Barack and Michelle Obama for Drake to stay away from Sasha, and I love it.

-Next week, Seth Meyers will be airing a Day Drinking segment featuring the Jonas Brothers, the Meyers Brothers and Jack McBrayer. Yes, please!

-Eminem just dropped a secret album and a new video, in which he advocates for gun control by revisiting the Las Vegas shooting of 2017. It’s all very powerful stuff, but elsewhere on the album, he appears to mock the Manchester shootings. In ‘Unaccommodating’ he signs “I’m contemplating yelling ‘bombs away’ on the game/Like I’m outside of an Ariana Grande concert waiting.”

-This clip of Renée Zellweger doing a tap dance challenge is very cute. (She’s better than I would be.)

-Not surprisingly Disney is dropping the Fox name, and is rebranding to 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures.

-Welp. Less than two weeks before the Grammy Awards, the CEO of the Recording Academy has been suspended from her role due to allegations of misconduct.

–Taika Waititi might be in talks to direct a Star Wars movie and suddenly I care again.

-HBO boss Casey Bloys says Damon Lindelof’s breakout drama Watchmen is not likely to continue without him which is good, frankly.

-Hulu presented at the TCAs today, where they defended the early Veronica Mars drop and called the backlash to the season finale “a testament” to the show’s popularity. “The intensity of that reaction was a testament to how much people like the show.” Oh yeah. Hulu loved the fans’ reaction so much, they decided not to renew it.

-Out of all the networks to present at the TCAs in the past two weeks, it feels like Hulu was the one to premiere the best trailers. There’s Little Fires Everywhere starring Reese Witherspoon, Joshua Jackson and Kerry Washington, Normal People (based on 28-year-old Sally Rooney‘s incredibly buzzy book from last year), the Hilary Clinton doc, High Fidelity starring Zoe Kravitz, and The Great starring Nicolas Hoult and Elle Fanning as Catherine the Great.

Robert Downey Jr. Makes a Little Boy’s Day

-A 10-year-old boy with autism who became verbal after getting an Iron Man helmet got to meet Robert Downey Jr. This is all incredibly sweet.

–Beyoncé’s IVY Park x adidas fashion collection is about to drop online – and I’m loving how she recruited celebs to help spread the word. (I am NOT loving how I am officially too old to pull off anything from this collection.)

–Kylie Jenner posted on Instagram “Don’t talk to me or my daughter ever again” — but no one knows who she’s talking to.

-People is reporting that Prince Harry will remain in the U.K. for meetings, prolonging his return to Canada.

-Interesting to see TV media stepping up to defend Meghan Markle.

-Not surprisingly, Gigi Hadid was dismissed from the Weinstein jury.

-I don’t watch Mindhunter but every TV critic I follow seems to love it. It’s probably not a good sign that Netflix released all the actors from their contracts. (If they decide to continue with the show, does that me renegotiating contracts? Cause that seems shady af.)

–January Jones confirms she dated Bachelor alum Nick Viall after he slid into her DMs.

-NBC unveiled their new streaming platform Peacock. It’ll have a library of NBC shows and Universal movies, as well as new projects from Norman Lear, Amy Poehler, Will Forte and Mindy Kaling,

-I finally caught up on the CW superhero crossover and it was a convoluted, emotionally empty mess — but this cameo was insane.

-I really like this piece on the inception ending of Little Women. (There’s a debate if the end scenes can be interpreted as representing the ending of the book Jo wrote rather than the life she went on to lead.)

-Um, these Zoe Kazan comments are really something.

-They may have broken up, but Jessie J was spotted hanging out with Channing Tatum and his daughter.

-Here’s the trailer for romance drama Olympic Dreams starring Nick Kroll — the first ever feature film shot in an Olympic village. I listened to Kroll talk about its production and it sounded really cool (they shot it during the 2018 Winter Olympics).

–The Lovebirds trailer has Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani playing a couple who are framed for a murder and decided to try to find the real killer. Oh, I’m gonna watch this one A LOT.