I believe in forgiveness. I believe in second chances. And I believe in @KevinHart4real. pic.twitter.com/oJxfGXhU4P
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) January 4, 2019
–Ellen Degeneres doesn’t usually step in it, but hoo boy did she screw up today by having Kevin Hart on her show and pushing for him to be reinstated as the Oscar host. There was sooo much wrong here. It should have been a conversation about what he learned, how he’s sorry, what he’s doing for the black LGBTQ community, etc. But instead, Hart insisted he had already apologized for the tweets years ago (he hadn’t), while Ellen fed into his conspiracy theories and helped him re-frame the legitimate criticisms of his anti-gay tweet as a baseless onslaught by a mob of “haters”, which just made things worse. (Their insistence that the whole thing was a carefully timed “attack” cooked up by trolls combing through his 40k tweets to find hateful ones irked me the most. Haven’t they ever heard of Twitter Advanced Search? It took me 3 seconds to find this one. And this one. And ALL OF THESE.) The Ringer aptly dubbed their conversation “a baffling exercise in celebrity self-preservation.” This guy also summed it up very well.
-Also, good on Vulture for doing a deep dive into Hart‘s supposed “apologies.”
-Meanwhile, the Academy is reportedly open to Hart hosting as soon as he says the word.
–John Legend was the only artist who was willing to speak out against R. Kelly in Lifetime’s docu-series. He tweeted: “To everyone telling me how courageous I am for appearing in the doc, it didn’t feel risky at all. I believe these women and don’t give a f–k about protecting a serial child rapist. Easy decision.”
–Brie Larson doing 275lbs weighted hip thrusts for a cookie is a mood.
-All of the covers for W’s Best Performances of the Year issue are so, so good!
-Speaking of good covers, I love everything about Emma Stone on British Vogue.
-Is it the end of the era for celebrity apps? First the Kardashians shut down theirs, and now it’s Taylor Swift’s turn.
-Oh god. Drake may be making new music with Chris Brown.
–Remi Malek confirmed he’s dating his Bohemian Rhapsody costar Lucy Boynton.
-TV critics Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall wrote a new book called The Sopranos Sessions. (Their last book, TV – The Book, is my fave coffee table read.) They interviewed Sopranos creator David Chase and when he was talking about the infamous final scene, he called it a “death scene.” Huh.
–Gywneth Paltrow got in on the Brad Pitt meme action.
–These photos made everyone think Madonna got butt implants, but she would prefer everyone shut up about it.
-Is Marvel really retconning Loki‘s supervillain role? Wasn’t mind control (or at least an altered state) often a little implied in those movies?
-This was a really fun Roxane Gay interview.
-Speaking of good interviews, I could read Ethan Hawke waxing poetic about life and art all day.
-The reviews for Lindsay Lohan’s new reality show have me intrigued.
–Elle Fanning and Rebecca Hall star in the Teen Spirit trailer. (Great, great use of a Robyn song.)
