Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: an actor cancels his relationship’s “hard launch,” an actress cancels her 11-year marriage, and Hilary Duff cancels candles (just kidding).
No one has been more anxious this awards season than Bradley Cooper. The 49-year-old actor-DIRECTOR has been running around selling cheesesteaks for charity, bringing his six-year-old daughter to movie premieres, and getting papped with his new girlfriend Gigi Hadid constantly, all in the hopes the Academy will see fit to award Maestro with something this Sunday night. Earlier this week, Page Six reported that Cooper was preparing to “hard launch” his relationship with Hadid, 28, at the Vanity Fair party after the ceremony — the final act of a desperate man. But apparently he’s thought better of it, because Page Six has now completely rewritten the story to say the opposite (without issuing a correction, tsk tsk).
On Tuesday, Page Six reported Cooper and Hadid would attend the Vanity Fair party and possibly even walk the red carpet together, which I guess would count as the “hard launch.”
“It’s definitely getting more serious, they are totally into each other,” a source added convincingly.
But Page Six has since edited the story, which still has the url “bradley-cooper-will-go-to-oscars-with-gigi-hadid,” to say that Cooper in fact plans to have a “quiet night” after the ceremony with his “mom and best friend” and will not be attending the Vanity Fair party at all. Boooo!
What happened here? Somebody’s publicist got their wires crossed, and Hadid seems pissed about it, because now sources are telling Entertainment Tonight that she has no plans to attend the ceremony or the after parties because she is focusing on being a mom. “Gigi is not attending the Oscars with Bradley and will be at home with her daughter,” said one source.
I’m sorry to say that I think this marks the end of Cooper and Hadid’s magical romance. Oh well. We’ll always have Cooper’s “Ellen” boxers:
One actress who will definitely be going to the Oscars solo: Natalie Portman. Eight months after the French tabloid Voici reported that her ballet-dancer husband Benjamin Millepied had an affair with a 25-year-old French climate activist, Portman has quietly settled her divorce. People, naturally, got the exclusive: According to the tabloid, Portman actually filed back in July, shortly after the affair news broke, and now she and Millepied wrapped up the case in France. All this time, Portman has declined to comment on the affair rumors, but she did pick Nora Ephron’s Heartburn for her book club this month. And now her “friends” have let People in on how she’s doing.
“It was initially really tough for her, but her friends rallied around her and helped get her through the worst of it,” a source told the tabloid. “Natalie is coming out of a really tough and painful year but she's come out the other side of it stronger and is finding joy in her family, friends and work.”
She also looks great? I loved her outfit for the Indie Spirit Awards last month:
Millepied, People graciously noted, has been “busy” working as the choreographer on Dune 2. As for Camille Étienne, the young climate activist he reportedly hooked up with last year? She has never commented on the rumors and seems to be for-real busy promoting her latest book Pour un soulèvement écologique (For an Environmental Uprising). What an interesting world we live in.
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: Hilary Duff, who for some reason launched a line of plug-in air fresheners last fall, has finally broken her silence on whether or not she still uses candles. The answer? Yes.
“I love candles, so this is not taking the place of any candles,” she told Better Homes & Gardens this week. “And there’s always opportunities to burn candles, but I love that [the plug-in air fresheners are] always going.”
Finally, I’ll leave you with this shot of former countess and Real Housewife Luann de Lesseps leaving a lunch date with Mary-Kate Olsen’s ex-husband Olivier Sarkozy in New York this week:
Sure why not?
Thanks so much for opening this email. And thank you especially to paid subscribers! Your contributions keep this operation running, and I love you. If you haven’t subscribed yet and would like to, you can do so in the box above. As always, feel free to share your thoughts and theories in the comments or by replying directly.
The whole Portman/Millipied thing only started EIGHT MONTHS ago? If you had asked me I would have sworn it's been going on for at least a year and a half/2 years. Time truly has no meaning.
Based purely on that one photo I get a vibe that Sarko and the Countess UNDERSTAND each other.