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Jessica Simpson

Jessica Simpson Buys Back Her Name

jessica simpson bloomberg

-Bloomberg’s latest cover story is about how Jessica Simpson’s billion-dollar fashion brand fell into the hands of the wrong company, and her expensive two-year battle to get it back that involved getting a loan, going to bankruptcy court, and considering borrowing against her mortgage.

–Denzel Washington says he doesn’t even remember clashing with Ellen Pompeo on the Grey’s Anatomy set, which is a delicious burn.

–Kayne West’s new girlfriend Julia Fox once did a Paper Magazine photoshoot with Pete Davidson, who is Kim Kardashian‘s new boyfriend. Conspiracy theories abound.

–Billie Eilish and Kanye West are reportedly slated to headline Coachella on Saturday and Sunday night, respectively.

–Nicolas Cage and his wife are expecting a baby.

-No disrespect to West Side Story’s Ariana Debose but she’s not even the lead of that movie and yet she’s hosting SNL next weekend. This seems to be more about Omnicron than her, but yay for Broadway fans.

-Yikes. Production on Star Trek: Picard has been shut down since Monday after more than 50 people(!) tested positive for covid.

–Jessica Chastain was on Ellen’s show and told a story about the time she threw a party and her grandmother sat on Bradley Cooper’s lap. “He looked horrified, actually. He had never met her. He didn’t know who she was. I saw it kinda happening in slow motion where I was like, ‘No!’ I just started going, ‘It’s my grandma! It’s my grandma!’ Then he was like, ‘Okay. Hi, Grandma.”

-I really liked this article on all the literary allusions and alliterations in The Lost Daughter.

–Jason Bateman and Laura Linney fight personal demons in the season 4 trailer of Ozark.

–Tom Holland says he once pitched Sony on an origin film in which he plays a young James Bond. “It didn’t really make sense. It didn’t work. It was the dream of a young kid, and I don’t think the Bond estate were particularly interested.”

-Sopranos star Michael Imperioli will lead season two of The White Lotus.

–Joyce Carol Oates is always a wild follow on Twitter, but yesterday was even more wild than usual.

–Britney Spears is back to posting nudes on Instagram and we all have to be ok with it because she’s allowed to do whatever the hell she wants. (Her earlier post about how excited she was to go to a restaurant and how she hadn’t had a glass of wine in 13 years kind of broke my heart.)

-Search Party returns tomorrow for its final season and I can’t wait.

-There was a fascinating Vulture article in the fall about how someone in the book industry kept stealing manuscripts, and no one knew who it was. They finally found him! The FBI arrested a young rights coordinator at a major publisher.

–Janet Jackson reflects on stardom and scrutiny in the trailer for her new doc.

–John Cusack stars in the Pursuit trailer. I can’t believe Emile Hirsch is still allowed to be cast in things…

Carey Mulligan and Emerald Fennell are Promising Young Women

-Christmas Day is going to be a bonanza of new content. We’ve got Bridgeton on Netflix, Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max and Promising Young Woman on video on demand. (I had no idea that writer-director of PYW is Emerald Fennell, who played Camilla on the most recent season of The Crown.) She and Carey Mulligan cover Variety and talk about making the most audacious, feminist movie of the year.

-Speaking of cover stories, this is a very good one from THR on the career implosion of Johnny Depp, a casualty of Hollywood’s sycophant culture in which his wild spending and substance abuse were rarely challenged. “He’s just never been told no for the past 35 years.” Some of the highlights: despite being fired from Fantastic Beasts after only shooting one scene, he’ll still be paid his full $16-million fee due to him having “a pay-or-play contract, which requires that he be fully compensated whether or not the film is made and even if it is recast,” production on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales had to be shut down for two weeks after Depp reportedly swallowed eight ecstasy pills, and his romantic partners allegedly include former co-stars Angelina Jolie, Marion Cotillard, and Keira Knightley.

–Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn cover the latest issue of People and talk about their 37-year relationship. “People who have been together for a long time, they experience something that only people who have been together for a long time can talk about and relate to. For people like us, the marriage certificate wasn’t going to create anything that otherwise we wouldn’t have.”

-This is a great piece on how 2020 was the year celebrities lost their shine. “With little else to do, celebrities have been showing their asses at every opportunity. Similarly, as we sit at home with nothing to do, we have been more than willing to hand their asses to them with newfound rigour.” (Dolly Parton is the only celeb I can think of who is ending the year with an even stronger reputation than she started it with.)

-Is EVERYONE going to be in the new Spider-Man movie? Charlie Cox is reportedly reprising his Netflix role as Daredevil in MCU’s Spider-Man 3.

-Disgraced Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz has entered treatment for anxiety, depression, and burnout.

-A True Blood reboot is in the works at HBO. This is weird, mostly because there are SO many buzzy supernatural books out there right now that they could adapt instead. When True Blood was good, it was good but I remember longgggg stretches where it was very, very bad.

–Shawn Mendes played Spill Your Guts with James Corden and had to eat blood and pork jelly to avoid picking between who he liked collaborating with more: Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift. He also refused to answer how much he’s been paid for his Armani endorsement, which led to him eating scorpion dusted plantains.

–Nicolas Cage enthusiastically gives an etymological lesson on the word “pussy” in the first trailer for Netflix’s History of Swear Words, debuting Jan 5.

–Natalie Portman appeared on Dax Shepard’s podcast discussed how “being sexualized as a child took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid. It made me feel like the way I can be safe is to be like, ‘I’m conservative, and I’m serious, and you should respect me, and I’m smart and don’t look at me that way.'”

-Memoirs continue to be a cash cow for celebs. Amazon Studios is prepping a new docuseries about Jessica Simpson based on her memoir, while Mariah Carey says she’s in talks for a potential movie or TV series based on hers.

-Mariah also gave props to Vulture’s latest article on her pop perfection.

–Victoria Beckham gushed about son Brooklyn’s wife-to-be Nicola Peltz in a new interview. “They’re so happy. She’s wonderful, sweet, and kind. She’s such a lovely, warm woman. We couldn’t have asked for Brooklyn to meet a more adorable lady. We’re very, very happy. We love her, he’s so happy.”

–Jason Sudeikis talked about how his character on Ted Lasso was inspired by Robin Williams. I didn’t think I was going to like that show, but it ended up as one of my faves of the year.

-The Riverdale season 5 trailer proves the show is still as bonkers as ever.

-A married man is tricked into a murder scheme by a police detective in the trailer for Fatale, starring Michael Ealy and Hilary Swank.

Hollywood Preps for the Oscars

–Rebel Wilson‘s post seems to indicate that Brad and Leo will be front row at the Oscars — and on an aisle. I know there’s no host this year, but if one of the presenters does in-crowd schtick, they’ll be prime targets.

-One of the most predictable categories at Sunday night’s Oscars is Best Supporting Actor, with everyone pretty certain that Brad Pitt has it in the bag. This is a good look on how he ran the perfect campaign.

-Meanwhile, most of the stars at Sundance believe Pitt‘s character killed his wife in the movie.

-Another day, another “honest” Oscar ballot, this one from a producer. His take on Hustlers is disgusting, he felt he needed “a scorecard to keep track of [Little Women’s] timeline” and his favourite movie of last year was Yesterday. It’s so sexiest and dumb, I can’t even imagine what it was like before the Hollywood Reporter toned it down.

-I’m am really loving all the in-depth cinematography interviews this week. Here’s one with Uncut Gems’ cinematographer on a camera tool for focus-pulling that kept the film’s haywire movements in focus even though the actors didn’t use marks.

–Greta Gerwig did Vogue’s 73 Questions on the Sony lot.

-Whoa. The six stars of Friends are reportedly set to get paid $3-4 million each to reunite for what basically sounds like an hourlong interview.

–Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are now making bank doing private events.

–Gillian Anderson did an ASMR video to promote the new season of Sex Education and she’s really, really good at it.

–John Mulaney had to cancel a show in Toronto because he’ll be hosting SNL that weekend — and he got Lorne Michaels to write him a note excusing his absence.

-Also, when did John Mulaney go from looking “unconventionally attractive” to “we all want to climb him like a tree“?

-This is disappointing. Despite great reviews (it’s currently at 83% fresh) Birds of Prey is currently tracking for a $33.5M opening weekend, below its $50M-$55M projections.

-In happier box office news, Little Women just surpassed $100 million at domestic box office.

–This tweet about a terrible, terrible profile Vanity Fair once did on Jessica Simpson, plus Ronan Farrow’s story about the first time he met her has everyone realizing that we all probably owe her an apology.

-I do not know what Harvey Weinstein‘s defense attorney, Donna Rotunno, was trying to do by appearing on The Daily podcast today, but whatever positioning or sympathy she was hoping for totally backfired. Near the end of the interview, the NYT reporter asked a final, seemingly last-minute question: had she ever been sexually assaulted? “I have not,” Rotunno answered, and that seemed like it would be the end. But after a pause she added “Because I would never put myself in that position.” I was listening to it on the subway and I GASPED.

-Well, this sucks: a judge sided with Dr. Luke and Kesha was found guilty of defamation for telling Lady Gaga that Dr. Luke raped Katy Perry. She must now pay him $370,000.

-Survivor host Jeff Probst reveals he recently suffered from amnesia for three hours. Apparently its called Transient Global Amnesia and it’s a real thing that can happen.

-This story about inadvertently being a jerk to Colin Firth is hilarious. “Firth had finally buried his heartthrob past, won an Oscar for a serious movie, and as if in a horror movie, I reached out from the grave and grabbed his well-formed ankle.”

-A new sitcom called Mythic Quest is out today on Apple+ and critics are loving it.

-This has been talked about a lot on Twitter so I’m glad The Hollywood Reporter is putting a spotlight on how productions don’t provide makeup artists and hair stylists who are familiar with natural textures and dark skin tones.

–Jesse Eisenberg, Clémence Poésy and Ed Helms star in the trailer for the WWII drama Resistance.