Yet another pocket-watching story about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s finances. By my (non-Deranger) calculations, Meghan and Harry likely have close to $150 million in assets, investments and savings. Are they spending seven figures annually on security? Sure. But in the past six years, the Sussexes have done very, very well for themselves. They’ve done so well, it’s broken the brains of their haters. Derangers will swear up and down that Meghan and Harry have spent all of their Netflix money and Spare money and that As Ever is a flop, and something something, Harry needs to come crawling back to his brother!! That’s always the endgame, that was always the plan. Well, please enjoy Page Six’s latest exclusive about the Sussexes’ “tight” finances and how Meghan is “basically the breadwinner.” Get money, Meg!!

Meghan Markle is “basically the breadwinner” in the Sussex family — and funds are “tight,” sources tell Page Six. The Duchess of Sussex is focusing on growing her “As Ever” lifestyle range after recently parting ways with partner Netflix, those who know her say, while her husband, Prince Harry, is mainly focused on his philanthropic work, which is noble but doesn’t bring in much cash.

“Money is tight,” said a source in the know, as another told us that Markle and her husband, Harry, need at least $6 million a year for operating expenses in the billionaire enclave of Montecito, California.

As Page Six revealed, the couple spends about $3 million of that on private security for the family, which includes children Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 4. They also have to make mortgage payments on their $15 million mansion.

However, Markle has a coterie of wealthy and powerful female friends, all of whom are on board to help her boost her finances. Indeed, a video Markle posted on Instagram Monday to promote “As Ever,” featuring the mom of two eating a strawberry and wistfully staring out of the window, while wearing a $63,000 diamond necklace, which was liked by Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Markle’s close pal, IT Cosmetics founder Jamie Kern Lima.

We told how Kern Lima flew Markle to the G9 Ventures Summer Summit, hosted by investor Amy Griffin, in the Hamptons in July 2024, ahead of Markle’s business launch.

Last month, Markle, 44, joined AI-powered fashion discovery platform OneOff as both an investor and a featured participant, whose personal “exclusive edits” will be available to browse and buy. She joins other investors and featured celebrities like Suki Waterhouse, Emma Chamberlain, Kate Hudson and Shay Mitchell on the platform. This enables fans to shop her wardrobe, including outfits from her recent Australia tour. The move, which earns her a percentage from sales, drew criticism for potentially prioritizing profits over her philanthropic work.

More than two dozen products from the Aussie tour sold out, according to Markle sources, with OneOff cofounder and chief executive officer Emir Talu telling WWD, “OneOff surpassed 1-plus million views of outfits on the site in the first three days since Meghan launched her page on the platform.”

Netflix and Markle severed their “As Ever” partnership in April after we revealed her tie-in show, ‘With Love, Meghan” was not returning for a third season. Markle sources let it be known that she had been left to “carry the whole thing by herself” — much to the annoyance of Netflix staffers.

There have also been rumors Markle has been speaking to Hollywood bigwigs to start acting again. Sources this week even said the former “Suits” star, who made a cameo appearance in the upcoming movie “Close Personal Friends,” was looking for a steady role on a TV show, but this was roundly denied by Sussex insiders.

[From Page Six]

“Money is tight” and then they just list all of Meghan’s revenue streams and try to gloss over the fact that the Sussexes have easily made low nine-figures in six years, and that they still have a significant amount coming in, especially (IMO) from As Ever. The reason I know these people are unhinged and they don’t know what they’re talking about is that they never acknowledge how much money the Sussexes have left on the table. If H&M were *truly* struggling financially, they would have been desperate for any commercial work or brand deals. Instead, Harry is mostly focused on unpaid philanthropic work while Meghan invested in herself and started a business. None of that says “they’re almost broke!” It does say that Meghan is the breadwinner though, which… fair enough. She totally is. And it’s amazing.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Here are some photos of Taylor Swift, out and about in NYC last night. She was with her friend Ashley Avignone, and they went to dinner at Via Carota in the West Village. I just looked at the menu… it’s great! Great variety for an Italian restaurant, lots of pastas, salads and meats. I wish we knew what Taylor ordered! That’s one thing I’ll give Taylor credit for: she tries different restaurants and she’s not stuck in the habit of just going to her two favorite places constantly.

As for fashion, this is one of Taylor’s best “street style” looks in a while. She wore a $398 Retrofête minidress in bridal white, paired with a cute Dior bag and black Gucci heels. Taylor’s street style is so hit-or-miss, but she does love to shop and she loves a miniskirt and minidress. If I had her legs, I would be pantless forever too.

Anyway, we still don’t know the where and when of Taylor and Travis Kelce’s wedding. The energy around them hasn’t seemed like they’re wedding-prepping either, or maybe they’ve just outsourced all of the labor to various wedding planners (which, again, is what I would do if I had Taylor’s money). Taylor just got back to New York as well – last week, she and Travis were in London, then they went to Greece for George Karlagtis’ wedding. That’s one of Travis’s Chiefs teammates.

While Trav and Tay were in London, they attended Poppy Delevingne’s 40th birthday party, which was also attended by Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. According to Rob Shuter, Taylor avoided the princesses like the plague and Tay “was having absolutely no part” of being introduced to them. Rude!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Well, The Mummy will officially rise again, with both Fraser and Weisz confirmed as Rick and Evelyn O’Connell. John Hannah is also returning as Evelyn’s brother, Jonathan Carnahan. Fraser recently appeared on The Tonight Show to promote his new World War II movie, Pressure. Before Jimmy Fallon even brought up that film, he asked Brendan about The Mummy 4. Brendan stopped himself before he said too much, but did joke about having to get back in action-movie shape. I’ll embed the video below and here’s a recap from People:

“The Mummy” star Brendan Fraser was in his thirties when he first became an action star with his trio of adventure movies. Now, nearly 20 years after his last outing as archaeologist Rick O’Connell, the 57-year-old actor is getting back into shape for the long-awaited “Mummy 4.”

Fraser joined Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” to tease “The Mummy 4,” which is set to release in theaters on Oct. 15, 2027. He’ll reunite with Rachel Weisz, who starred as Rick’s wife Evelyn in the first two “Mummy” movies before being replaced by Maria Bellow in the role in “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.” John Hannah, who played Evelyn’s older brother Jonathan, is also back for the sequel.

“We’re gonna get the band back together,” Fraser told Fallon. “The only way to do it. So, we are going to give the audience what they have been bothering all of us for, for the last twenty-whatever years.”

“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” was released in 2008, but was the lowest grossing film of the trilogy and received negative reviews compared to 1999’s original “The Mummy” and the 2001 sequel “The Mummy Returns.”

“I was hopeful for a long while, and then I was like, ‘I don’t know if they are.’ Then other ‘Mummy’ movies got made,” Fraser said about his return to the franchise. “But listen, what we’re gonna do is saddle back up, go back to the locations — I should probably stop talking like this, because I don’t want to give everything away.”

“The Mummy 4” will be Fraser’s first action movie in years. He won the Oscar for best actor for his 2022 drama “The Whale,” had a supporting role in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” and recently starred in last year’s awards contender “The Rental Family.”

“Please wish me luck,” he said about his “Mummy 4” training. “I’m doing my best to get this 57-year-old gear in shape.”

[From Deadline]

In the video, you can tell that Brendan was given instructions on how to answer that question. He starts off cautiously by talking about his own feelings about wanting to do it. I think he started to get excited and was about to reveal actual film information before catching it and stopping himself. To that, I have a message for Brendan: Buddy, we were on the edge of our seats. Give us some scraps while we wait for the movie’s October 2027 release.

Brendan’s joke about getting in shape was a funny thing to pivot to. I’m sure he is working hard to get back into shape, but I hope he’s being kind to himself! He famously almost died while filming a stunt for the first movie. Fans don’t care if Rick is in shape or not. He could have a dad bod for all we care. We’re just happy to have the gang back together after so long.

Here’s Brendan’s interview with Jimmy. I queued it to start at the part where they talk about The Mummy:

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, Justin Ng/Avalon, Getty

Here are some photos of the Princess of Wales’ arrival in Reggio Emilia, Italy. She actually got a good turnout at Piazza Camillo Prampolini, with hundreds of Italians clamoring to see her. See how easy that was, British press? You can just acknowledge that someone got a great reception – you don’t have to spread wildly malicious misinformation about it. You don’t have to sabotage them.
While this is far from Kate’s first international travel in recent years, it is the first time she’s traveled “for work” since 2022. It’s also the first time she’s done any kind of solo work-travel in many years. Kate doesn’t travel well, but she especially doesn’t travel well when she has to go solo.

Kate’s outfit surprised me – a bright blue pantsuit with a super-flared pant leg? The jacket also has a very strange elastic feature at the waist. I sometimes wonder if Kate is attracted to ‘70s and ‘80s silhouettes, or if she just makes modern clothes look retro by her own body type and styling. It’s definitely a weird phenomenon, because this suit is giving Saturday Night Fever. According to some Twitter fashion IDs, the suit is from Edeline Lee and her purse is from Asprey London. It actually would have been a great moment for an Italian designer or Italian label. Gucci and Versace might be too much, but Prada? Armani? A Valentino ensemble?

PS… I think they gave Kate her big award, the flag, as soon as she arrived. Update: People Magazine excitedly reports that Kate spoke Italian to some schoolchildren.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

On Tuesday, the Princess of Wales’ aides briefed the media about Kate’s two-day trip to northern Italy, which starts today. This visit isn’t structured like a state visit or royal tour. One might even say it’s more like a “quasi-royal tour” in the same vein as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s trips to Australia, Nigeria, Colombia, Jordan, etc. Kate’s Italian trip is singularly focused on Early Years, but of course she’s picking up a very special keen award as well (a flag). Still, Kate’s aides are desperately trying to fluff up this trip to make it sound like it’s the biggest, keenest and most significant tour ever.

The Princess of Wales will take her early years crusade around the world to start a conversation about the issue with renewed vigour following her cancer experience, an aide has said. Kate is expected to travel the globe promoting the importance of the crucial first few years of a child’s life starting with her trip to Italy to learn about a unique decades-long project nurturing youngsters.

The two-day visit to Reggio Emilia, near Bologna, starting on Wednesday is the beginning of a “really significant moment” after her cancer recovery, an aide has said, with Kate “taking it up a gear” in pursuit of her “global mission”.

Christian Guy, executive director of Kate’s Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, who has travelled to Italy, said early years had the same urgency as other global issues such as climate change.

Kate revealed at the start of last year she was in remission after receiving chemotherapy treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. She has not travelled abroad for a major visit since December 2022 when she went to Boston in the US with the Prince of Wales for his Earthshot Prize award ceremony.

An aide to the princess said: “Undoubtedly, this is a huge moment for the princess. Although there will be many highlights of 2026, I think this being her first official international visit, post her recovery, I think this is a really significant moment for her.”

For more than a decade early years has been central to the future Queen’s public work and the visit comes after Kate launched last week a new resource for people working with youngsters and their families from her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.

During her visit Kate will learn about the Reggio Emilia Approach, named after the city that pioneered the teaching method recognised across the globe, that stresses the importance of the parents, educators and environment – “the third teacher” – that surround a child.

The aide added: “She’s looking forward to being here, she’s energised, she’s enthused, she’s excited to see Reggio Emilia in action and meet the people here too.”

They went on to say: “She wants to look at other models around the world and really create a global conversation.”

Kate will be welcomed to Reggio Emilia by the city’s mayor, Marco Massari, who will present her with the city’s highest honour in recognition of her early years work during a town hall ceremony. The reception will feature civil leaders and Kate will be joined by some of the key figures, now in their later years, who played a key role in shaping the Emilio Reggio education philosophy.

The foundation’s executive director said about Kate: “Building on her UK and international work in this area for many years, the princess is here with her Centre for Early Childhood to lead a new global conversation about this, believing we now need to focus on early brain development and nurturing the whole child with the same urgency and sense of mission as other global challenges like climate change – if we truly want to get ahead of these challenges in the future. This is about genuine prevention.”

[From The Daily Mail]

“…Believing we now need to focus on early brain development…” It never fails to crack me up that Kate was incandescent with rage when Meghan said “baby brain” SYMPATHETICALLY to Kate, and now Kate’s whole thing is “well actually baby brains are important!” As for the new branding of Kate’s busywork – “a global mission,” bless her heart. Is she going to travel the world, listening, learning and keening about the Early Years? Or is this Italian trip just some international busywork which was hastily thrown together after the Sussexes were so well received in Australia?

Also: “She has not travelled abroad for a major visit since December 2022 when she went to Boston…” Are vacations not “major visits”? Because she’s taken multiple vacations in Mustique, France and Greece since the summer of 2024.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

In recent years, the anti-Sussex factions in the press have been quite clear: they’re gunning for the Invictus Games, and they’ll do anything to take down Invictus to “ruin” Prince Harry. It’s also been perfectly clear for years that this is Prince William’s goal as well, although I think William would actually prefer to have Invictus still exist, and then William can insert himself as the “royal patron.” But who knows – these people are more than willing to lie about Invictus, to harass veterans and target Invictus sponsors, all in an attempt to “put Harry in his place” and destroy yet another brilliant initiative founded by Harry. In July, Harry is due to visit Birmingham, England for the “One Year To Go” Invictus events. Well, because the games will be held on English soil, the British press is already doing the most to sabotage them. The Mail’s Richard Eden has a very Harry-centered exclusive about how Birmingham Invictus’ vice chair has quit. Tom Sykes’ Royalist Substack immediately picked up on Eden’s exclusive, and Sykes laid out the game plan for taking down Invictus:

A distinguished vice chairman has quit the board of Invictus after just 16 months, while four senior communications and marketing roles remain unfilled with barely 14 months to go to Prince Harry’s 2027 games.

Meanwhile my colleague Paula Froelich has reported that the biggest historical sponsor to the Games, Boeing, has jetted away, while the swollen budget for the whole thing means Invictus Games Birmingham 2027 is not exactly shaping up to be a triumphant homecoming for Prince Harry.

Let’s start with the high level departure. Melloney Poole, vice chairman of the Birmingham 2027 board of trustees, has resigned, according to a report by Richard Eden of the Daily Mail. Poole is one of the most experienced figures in the British charity world. She played a key role at the Heritage Lottery Fund, chaired the board of governors for the Regional Committee of the National Lottery Charities Board, and currently chairs the Florence Nightingale Foundation.

Most significantly, in 2015 the Ministry of Defence asked her to set up and run the Armed Forces Covenant Fund — the very heartland of the military charity sector that Invictus claims as its patch. She duly did so, and it is now an independent charitable trust.

Getting Poole, a lawyer, on board with Invictus in December 2024 to deliver the 2027 games was a genuine coup. Losing her barely sixteen months later, with the Games still over a year away, suggests there are real problems in the organisation.

A spokesman for Invictus tells the Mail Melloney “decided to step down to focus on her other interests — not least the Florence Nightingale Foundation,” adding that her “extensive leadership experience” had been “instrumental” in establishing the foundations for next year’s Games.

I’m sure it was. But people of Melloney Poole’s calibre and commitment do not walk away from prestigious board positions before the job is done on a whim, or due to bad personal time planning.

A LinkedIn post by Ritchie Rebbeck, the Games’ director of communications, reveals that Birmingham 2027 is still actively recruiting for a Communications Manager, Digital Manager, Communications Executive and a Marketing Manager—aka a large part of the comms and marketing operation!

The event seems to be running out of time to get the British public to care. But you cannot build a public profile when you haven’t hired the team to build it. This is basic stuff, and the fact that this team isn’t in place yet tells you a great deal about the state of play behind the scenes.

Which brings us to a superb piece of journalism published this week by Paula Froelich on her Substack, which is required reading for anyone following the Invictus story. Froelich has crunched the numbers behind Birmingham 2027 and laid them alongside the event that inspired the whole enterprise — the US Department of Defense Warrior Games.

The comparison is brutal. Froelich’s source, a UK marketing and event production professional, has worked up a total operating budget projection for Birmingham that lands at a working midpoint of £45 million, within a range of £30 million to £60 million. That covers venues and stadia at £5–10 million, event operations and staffing at £6–12 million, ceremonies and broadcasting at £3–9 million, accommodation and catering at £4–9 million, and a marketing and awareness line of £2–8 million.

[Birmingham] declared effective bankruptcy in September 2023, disclosing an £87 million budget deficit. It technically exited its Section 114 notice in February 2026, but remains financially fragile. Pouring tens of millions of pounds of public money into Harry’s pet project in a city that cannot fund its own basic services is, to put it as gently as possible, politically toxic.

So, we have a vice chair of the board heading for the exit, a comms team that hasn’t been hired, a sponsor list that’s shrunk, a budget that could hit £60 million, and a broke host city with a small but virulent Islamic extremist population. On current trends, Birmingham 2027 isn’t exactly going to rescue Harry’s reputation.

[From The Royalist Substack]

They really think that Harry is “in charge” of everything to do with Invictus, and that it’s Harry’s responsibility to: A) oversee Birmingham’s budget crisis, B) personally hand-hold Invictus sponsors, C) hire a communications team fourteen months in advance of the Birmingham games, D) personally stop vice-chairs from leaving, and E) stop providing Invictus-structured support to thousands of veterans in the name of cost-cutting. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Birmingham games are going to be a disaster too, which is why I didn’t understand why the Invictus board gave the 2027 games to the city. You know why they did though? Because the British government and Birmingham’s local government pledged a huge amount of money to support the games and the government wanted to use Invictus to expand their veterans programs. It’s about more than the games themselves, it’s about the support structure Invictus pioneered for wounded warriors. That’s why so many countries welcome Invictus and welcome Harry’s visits.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Demi Moore is on the Cannes Film Festival’s jury this year, so we’re going to have a lot of Demi photos in the next week-and-a-half. Unfortunately, Demi got some fresh face work ahead of Cannes, and in some photos, she fully looks like CGI. I know we’re supposed to be like “yas, queen, do whatever makes you happy,” and while I will defend Demi’s right to do whatever she wants, her cosmetic work looks downright off-kilter.

Anyway, fashion notes from Day #1: the polka-dotted jury photocall look was Jacquemus, and it’s interesting and fresh, even though I’m not a polka-dot person. It was cute though. Her evening/premiere look was also Jacquemus, a custom piece, paired with Chopard jewelry. This dress is totally whack, and I’m shocked that it’s custom. It doesn’t fit her! And it looks so dated and 1980s. I do appreciate that she brought out the big jewels though, and that Chopard necklace is epic.

Meanwhile, it looks like Demi was part of that same selling-AI-to-Hollywood meeting which included Sandra Bullock and Reese Witherspoon. In Cannes, Demi got a question about AI and her answer was no bueno.

Demi Moore weighed into the debate surrounding artificial intelligence during the Cannes Film Festival jury press conference on Tuesday, saying that “AI is here” and Hollywood should “find ways in which we can work with it.”

Asked by Variety her thoughts on how AI is impacting the movie business and if there should be more regulation in place, Moore said: “Wow, that’s a big question. I think the reality is that to resist — I always feel that against-ness breeds against-ness. AI is here. And so to fight it is to fight something that is a battle that we will lose. So to find ways in which we can work with it I think is a more valuable path to take.”

She added, “To your question of, are we doing enough to protect ourselves? I don’t know the answer to that. And so my inclination would be to say probably not.”

Moore, who was last at Cannes with her body horror hit “The Substance,” went on to say that “there’s beautiful aspects to being able to utilize” AI, but it can never replace the human experience or touch. “The truth is there really isn’t anything to fear because what it can never replace is what true art comes from, which is not the physical, it comes from the soul,” Moore said. “It comes from the spirit of each and every one of us sitting here, to each and every one of us who creates every day. And that they can never recreate through something that is technical.”

Earlier in the conference, Moore was asked if she believes speaking freely about politics can be detrimental to the movie business, to which she responded: “I would hope not.”

“Part of art is about expression, so if we start censoring ourselves then I think we shut down the very core of our creativity, which is where we can discover truth and answers,” said Moore, who was last at Cannes with her body horror hit “The Substance.”

[From Variety]

What the actual f–k is that answer? “I think the reality is that to resist — I always feel that against-ness breeds against-ness. AI is here. And so to fight it is to fight something that is a battle that we will lose.” Against-ness breeds against-ness? Are you f–king joking? You can’t be against something because that breeds more contrarian opinions! The greatest trick the AI devil ever pulled is convincing people of AI’s inevitability and dominance. I’m so disappointed in Demi. With her AI-looking face.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

I freely admit that I’ve responded to my lousy gyno exam history in the worst way — waiting too long between appointments. That approach made it hard to get answers about changes I’ve been observing. Like when all of a sudden a few years ago, my periods became irregular (whereas before I could tell time by them). Also in this same time frame, my weight has gotten worse than usual, which I thought was due to emotional eating in the wake of my father passing (three years ago in August). Until last summer when I dutifully showed up for a gyno visit with a new doctor (first and last visit: she forgot to do a breast exam, then totally gaslit me when I called her out on it), who diagnosed me with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS. The PCOS explained the irregular periods, big weight gain, and other delightful symptoms that have popped up in the later half of my thirties.

Like many areas of women’s health, PCOS is under-diagnosed and researched. Even the name isn’t accurate, as cysts are not a part of the syndrome! So after a 10-year effort involving multiple surveys and input from tens of thousands of people, PCOS is finally being renamed: polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS.

Time to desist with the ‘cyst’: As a name, PCOS had several limitations, including providing an inaccurate description of the condition, which does not manifest through cysts on the ovaries. This led patients to attribute ovarian cysts to PCOS and risk being underdiagnosed for other conditions, said Rachel Morman, chair of trustees at Verity, a U.K.-based charity and advocacy group for PCOS patients. Because doctors, too, would focus on the cystic presentation of the condition, patients could be dismissed if they didn’t present with cysts, even as they suffered from the metabolic and fertility issues linked with PCOS.

Name goals: Overall, about 22,000 people across the globe — doctors, researchers, patients, charities — shared their thoughts on a new name. Asked what they wanted a new name to accomplish, the primary response was avoiding stigma, followed by ease of communication and scientific accuracy; they preferred an accurate, descriptive name versus a generic one, and indicated a strong interest in including the involvement of the endocrine system in the condition.

A landslide! The winning candidate, PMOS, was chosen in a landslide earlier this year over two other candidates: endocrine metabolic ovulatory syndrome and ovulatory metabolic endocrine syndrome. Out of 90 voters (including doctors, researchers, patients, advocates), 87 supported it immediately, and another came around by the time the manuscript was submitted.

Dissenters were worried about men & marketing: Their concerns were primarily that the name changed too much without changing enough: It didn’t allow for the potential male expression of the condition, which is being studied and was one of the factors leading to the renaming push, while it changed the acronym, requiring a significant marketing effort to disseminate the new name.

Including men would have been a greater mistake than keeping the old name: “I fundamentally do not agree that waiting for a name change and then potentially changing it to encapsulate men is a wise thing to do. In fact, I would think that that would be even more harmful than keeping the name PCOS,” [Morman] said, adding that expanding the condition’s name to men would have diluted the resources dedicated to women, who are already shortchanged when it comes to medical research efforts and funding.

[From Stat News]

If you have the time, the full article is a highly fascinating and entertaining read. Both in terms of the science, and also the snapshot of decision making in Academia. Those big minds have BIG personalities! I mean, are you kidding me with the “But we should wait to include the men!” nonsense?? I understand the science may eventually show they belong in the conversation; but golly, I couldn’t stop thinking, “Hey men: this ONE thing isn’t about you!” And one of the two dissenters had a lengthy quote about all the rebranding she’s gonna have to do because of the name change. “I have to buy new trademarks! I have to retitle my book!” While true, those aren’t winning arguments for keeping a medical condition inaccurately named. But it was this line about the dissenters that really did me in: “Their concerns were primarily that the name changed too much without changing enough.” Tell me you’ll never be pleased without telling me you’ll never be pleased.

Photos credit: IMAGO/TIROT/BSIP/Avalon, Kaboom Pics on Pexels and iam_os on Unsplash

This week, the Hollywood Reporter pointed out that for the first time since 2017, no Hollywood studios will premiere any major films during the Cannes Film Festival. There are a handful of smaller American films in competition, but usually, one or several of the biggest studios arrange for an out-of-competition Cannes premiere to really have a glitzy promotional launch. In recent years, films like Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Top Gun: Maverick and the final Indiana Jones movie have all done their world premieres in Cannes. There’s nothing like that this year, and you can really tell, just from the opening night. The Croisette is dead as can be, and judging solely from the opening-night photos, it genuinely looks like everyone is “over” Cannes.

So, here are some fashion photos from the opening night. I’m covering Demi Moore separately, but she’s only there because she’s on the Cannes jury. As is Ruth Negga, who wore this striking green Dior. I wish there were more photos of it because it’s an interesting look.

Jane Fonda showed up in a black Gucci gown and that same crazy wig she’s been wearing a lot lately.

Joan Collins wore Stephane Rolland, and she was accompanied by Laurent Lafitte. I’m sure Dame Joan has had a lot of work done, but I appreciate the fact that she’s not Botoxed to hell and back. Just a touch of old-school glamour.

I have no idea who Maura Higgins is but she got a lot of attention in this Andrew Kwon gown. As I said, we’re really glamour-starved, because ten years ago, this was considered the bare minimum for Cannes’ opening night.

Heidi Klum, the woman who shows up for the opening of an envelope, wore this frumpy, unflattering Elie Saab.

And finally, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu wore Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Some madam-at-a-Wild West-brothel realness.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

The dogs that arrived in Smithtown [Long Island] on Friday have never seen grass. So watching them take their first step out melted our hearts.

“They’ve only seen the inside of a kennel; they’ve never been outdoors,” said Paws of War community outreach liaison Kelli Porti. “And today we wanted them to experience being outside and just being a dog.”

The dogs that arrived in Smithtown are only 10 of the 1,500 beagles from the facility in Wisconsin called Ridglan Farms.

Animal rights activists stormed the area where the dogs were being bred for medical research. Video released by activists showed what appeared to be the dogs pacing in numbered cages.

Last fall, Ridglan Farms was accused of performing procedures that constituted animal mistreatment, which the company denies. But they agreed to sell the dogs to rescue organizations for an undisclosed amount.

Paws of War in Smithtown is getting the dogs acclimated so veterans and first responders can adopt them in the coming days. Some of the volunteers are veterans themselves who understand the value in that.

“Our motto is helping both ends of the leash, and that’s what this dog will do with that vet, you know, first responder,” said volunteer veteran Michael Sweeney.

The dogs have already received medical treatment, and they’ll stay with Paws of War nearby in Nesconset until their adoptions.

Meanwhile, it is a wonderful turnaround from what they had faced.

“All of these dogs would have had a future in a laboratory somewhere, so it’s a great, great feeling to see that they are free,” said Paws of War co-founder Robert Misseri.

And certainly loved too.

[From ABC7 New York]

My dog, what a sob story. I love Paws of War’s mantra of “helping both ends of the leash.” It immediately reminded me of Ken Burns’ epic Vietnam War documentary: there’s a section where a US soldier returned home, totally f–ked up by what he just lived through. In a present-day interview, he recalls becoming so despondent that he was ready to end it all. But then the family dog walked over to him, so earnest and full of love, and pulled his person back from the brink. Gah, these damn raw onions! And speaking of, I fell down a rabbit hole watching more and more of these beagle rescue videos. I think the biggest gut punch was hearing the same sentence over and over again: “This is their first time seeing grass.” Most of these dogs are also learning how to eat and drink from bowls, because they were previously fed on the floor. My heart can’t take it!

Blessings upon all the people who made the transportation of these beagles possible, and to all the people now fostering and adopting the beagles. When I adopted my previous dog, the dearly-departed My Girl, she was skin-and-bone and definitely had PTSD. Every time she would get in an agitated state and start growling to defend her territory, I’d wait for a two-second pause and just scoop her up into a hug, telling her “I’ve got you, I love you, you’re safe.” Witnessing the relaxed, sassy, trusting girl My Girl blossomed into has been one of the great privileges of my life.

Photos are screenshots from YouTube and via Facebook

Here are some photos of King Charles and consort Camilla at a Buckingham Palace garden party on Tuesday. Charles and Camilla were supported by the Gloucesters, and it doesn’t look like any other working royals or royal-adjacents came out for the garden party. You know Prince Edward and Sophie are tired at being called in to beef up the garden-party ranks! Camilla repeated an Anna Valentine coat and she dusted off the Queen Mother’s Cartier palm brooch, an absolutely massive diamond “paisley.”

Meanwhile, Charles and Camilla will be out and about in London today for the state opening of Parliament. Charles is due to give the King’s Speech, and I would guess that there will be healthy anti-monarchy protests outside of Buckingham Palace and Parliament. Unfortunately, Charles and the monarchy are not the only unpopular ones in this equation – Keir Starmer is mired in controversy and his prime ministership is hanging on by a thread. Apparently, Starmer’s approval ratings are so low, there were some palace concerns about whether the King’s Speech should be delayed or canceled outright.

Buckingham Palace privately asked whether King Charles III should proceed as planned with the ceremonial state opening of parliament on Wednesday, as Keir Starmer faces a mounting leadership crisis that threatens to force him out of office.

According to people familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to speak freely, the king’s team made clear in conversation with Starmer’s officials the importance of protecting the monarch from any impression that he is being used for political ends.

“The Palace view is ‘we do not want to be any part of this conversation — do not bring us into it,’” said one of the people familiar with the matter.

This week, Starmer and his allies have pointed to Wednesday’s scheduled parliamentary ceremony as a key reason to let him keep his job despite crushing losses in local elections last week — and have dangled the promise of ambitious reforms, including the full nationalization of British Steel, in the coming address.

Parliament is currently between sessions, and must be formally opened to consider state business. The centerpiece of the opening ceremony is the king’s speech, which the monarch delivers to lawmakers from the gilded throne in the House of Lords. In this address, which is largely written by the prime minister’s team, the king sets out the government’s legislative plans for months ahead. But there is no certainty that those plans will survive amid a growing revolt against Starmer’s leadership from furious Labour MPs who blame him for their party’s dismal polling and disastrous election results last week.

According to the people familiar with the matter, in one recent discussion Charles’s senior aide asked top government officials including Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo whether the king should go ahead with Wednesday’s ceremony.

The Palace was told that it was constitutionally correct for the king to open parliament on Wednesday as planned, the people said. Unless parliament is formally convened again, MPs and members of the House of Lords cannot meet there to debate priorities, question ministers or pass new laws.

But in the discussions with the Palace, which also included Starmer’s office, there was a general acknowledgement that this year’s ceremony would be an awkward moment for the king.

“It is very embarrassing for the king that his government is such a shambles that he has to read out something that may or may not still be the government’s program by the end of the week,” according to the same person quoted above.

The Palace made clear that the king would fulfill his constitutional duties as required but that it should be for the politicians to handle the political crisis and the monarch should not be involved. The state opening marks the formal start to the new parliamentary session. It is full of pageantry, including soldiers on horseback, trumpet fanfares, and a horse-drawn carriage taking the king from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster.

[From Politico]

It reminds me of Charles’ first days as king in 2022, and when Liz Truss had her first audience with the new king, the first words out his mouth were “oh dear.” Truss barely held on for a month after that. Like, Charles’ relationships with his prime ministers have not been similar to his mother’s relationships with her PMs. Truss, Rishi Sunak and now Starmer… what a motley crew. What’s sad is that Charles actually gets along pretty well with Starmer. But yeah, the knives are really out for poor Keir and it’s got to hurt that palace officials were like “Starmer is politically radioactive, we don’t want any part of this!” Still, you know Charles enjoys any opportunity to wear all of the state jewels, so at least that’s one thing to look forward to. I hope Republic has a big protest scheduled!

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Yesterday, we talked a bit about Christopher Nolan’s Time Magazine cover interview, which he did in support of his adaptation of The Odyssey. One of the big stories was that Nolan finally confirmed what had been widely rumored for months, which is that he cast Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. He also has Lupita playing dual roles: Helen and her sister, Clytemnestra. Well, the right-wing bros are already losing their minds at “woke Helen of Troy,” because, you have to remember, “woke” just means “Black” to them. Not only Woke Helen of Troy, but Woke Athena, because Athena is played by Zendaya. Nolan really has a bunch of surly white guys sobbing into their Red Bulls about Black folks being included in Greek mythology. Anyway, Nolan also confirmed in this Time interview that he cast Travis Scott as “a bard.”

The punishing conditions were the point. Nolan considered casting actors to play gods throwing thunderbolts from Mount Olympus but settled on something more primal. “I became more interested in the idea that to people in that period, evidence of gods was everywhere,” he says. In Bronze Age Greece, thunder, rain, and the sun rising didn’t have scientific explanations—they represented the will of the immortals. “The wonderful thing about cinema, and IMAX in particular, is that you can take an audience to a place of immersion, feeling close to events like storms, turbulent seas, high winds. You want the audience to be on the boat with them fearing the ocean, fearing the wrath of Poseidon, the way the characters do. That to me is so much more powerful than any individual image you can have [of a god].”

Despite his reputation as a visionary, Nolan still takes notes from the studio. “I think the day we don’t take notes anymore is the day we make a crappy movie,” says Thomas. “There is the creative benefit of having people question you and to really make you justify what it is you’re doing. We also want the studio to be invested in our movie. They have to sell it.” Nolan has never run over schedule or budget, including on this film, which he shot in just 91 days, nine days ahead of schedule. “He’s kind of a machine when it comes to shooting,” says Thomas. “It’s very funny: when he’s writing, we’ll go for a hike, and he’ll say, ‘Stop going so fast.’ The minute we start shooting, his heartbeat speeds up. He’s suddenly a different person completely. He just moves fast.”

In the corner of three-time Academy Award–winning composer Ludwig Göransson’s studio sits a lyre nearly the size of a grown man, one room over from a ping-pong table that, at the push of a button, disappears into the floor. For Göransson and Nolan, the ancient and the modern are not so far apart.

Nolan instructed Göransson not to use an orchestra in the score, if only to subvert expectations for a swords-and-sandals film. “It’s not like the orchestra existed back then,” says Göransson. “It was a challenge and also an opening to try to make something unique.” Instead, Göransson rented 35 bronze gongs of varying sizes, experimented, recorded them with synths, and began sending the director songs.

Nolan also put rapper Travis Scott in the film as a bard. “I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap,” says Nolan. Even the string instrument plays a surprising role. “Chris had this idea of the sound of the lyre being the pluck of Odysseus’ bow,” says Göransson.

[From Time Magazine]

As someone said on social media (and I’m paraphrasing): the Classics professors simply need to understand that this is Nolan’s version of The Odyssey and not “the definitive pseudo-historically accurate Greek myth” version. Like, this is Nolan’s artistic freedom, how he’s interpreting the text, characters and story. I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised by his casting choices. Lupita as Helen of Troy, Zendaya as Athena and Travis Scott as a bard keeping the oral tradition alive? That’s genuinely inspired casting.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, ‘The Odyssey’ trailer. Cover courtesy of Time.