A-Rod plays "Fix You"
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a star cancels her fourth wedding, an actress meets a mystery man, and Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers spon for Disney World.
When do you think celebs will start having big, tabloid-friendly weddings again? Clearly, Jennifer Lopez wanted to have one with Alex Rodriguez: She told Elle in January that the couple had postponed their wedding twice due to COVID.
“We had planned what we really, really wanted to do,” — a grand celebration in Italy — “but I don’t know if we’ll be able to re-create that,” she said. Now, it looks like Lopez and Rodriguez’s plans are canceled for good. After weeks of rumors and ill-timed Page Six leaks, the couple revealed in an exclusive statement to the Today show yesterday that they’re splitting up:
“We have realized we are better as friends and look forward to remaining so. We will continue to work together and support each other on our shared businesses and projects. We wish the best for each other and one another’s children. Out of respect for them, the only other comment we have to say is thank you to everyone who has sent kind words and support.”
Signs of a breakup have been flashing since the beginning of this year. First, A-Rod was caught FaceTiming with a Bravo reality star, Madison LeCroy, who talked all about it with Page Six. (She told the gossip outlet yesterday that she wishes Lopez and Rodriguez the best.) Then, in March, Page Six reported that the couple was officially done, forcing them to release a statement to People admitting they were “working through some things.” This week, it seems, they came to a decision: Lopez posted photos on Instagram where she was not wearing her $1.8 million emerald-cut engagement ring.
And on Wednesday, Rodriguez shared a truly incredible Instagram Story: a video panning over photos of the couple together soundtracked by Coldplay’s “Fix You.”
This was J-Lo’s fifth engagement, and it would have been her fourth wedding. I have hope she will find love again, because she’s very good at it. Rodriguez, meanwhile, will probably “hook up with a fitness model,” as predicted earlier this year by Rodriguez’s primary antagonist, Jose Canseco. Weirdly, Canseco has yet to comment on the breakup news — his latest tweet is below.
While we won’t have the pleasure of witnessing a Lopez wedding this summer, another pop star might give us something. Us Weekly reports that Ariana Grande and her real estate agent fiancé Dalton Gomez are moving forward with a “small and intimate” celebration, perhaps in June.
“Ariana and Dalton’s wedding will happen early summer,” a source told the tabloid. “They have been looking at venues in a few different cities but are most likely choosing California.”
Of course, Grande has broken off an engagement before, too. But Us Weekly’s source says Grande and Gomez are “beyond obsessed with each other,” so.
What makes a man a “mystery man”? If the Daily Mail can’t identify him, then he’s a mystery. Such is the case with a gentleman seen walking his dog and enjoying an iced coffee with the very photogenic actress Ana de Armas this week. De Armas, who is definitely not getting back together with Ben Affleck, was photographed with this guy on Monday, and the tabloids still don’t have a name for him.
Some Twitter users have suggested he is Martiño Rivas, a Spanish actor and de Armas’s former co-star. But based on the photos, I don’t think it’s him. The guy kind of looks like This Is Us star and Chrishell Stause’s ex-husband Justin Hartley, but it’s not him, either. If you know who de Armas’s dog-walking pal is, please come forward.
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: “To pierce my nose or not to pierce my nose” — that is the question Hilary Duff posed on Instagram Stories two days ago.
Finally, I’ll leave you with the strangest celebrity video I’ve seen in quite some time:
It’s the recently engaged Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers sitting in Walt Disney World’s Grand Floridian Resort and casually creating some masked and sponsored content. The video was posted by a Disney fan vlog called “Chip & Co,” but it was apparently shot by Disney’s in-house ad agency. I can’t decide which part is more unsettling: When Rodgers suggests that Woodley struggles with brushing her teeth, or when Woodley confidently declares that Avatar — a film that only recently became a Disney property after the 21 Century Fox merger — is her favorite Disney movie. Enjoy!
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Sending their official statement to the Today Show is a real boomer move