Celebrity valentines and lawsuits
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a pop star writes a love song, a marketing team writes a press plan, and the Duchess of Sussex writes an Instagram caption.
And coming next week: a new, monthlyish column just for paid subscribers called Dating History. In Dating History, we will dive deep into the romantic pasts of some of the most interesting characters in the Gossip Time universe. Sign up now so you don’t miss the first installment! (Hint: It is all about our second-favorite 50-year-old bachelor and involves at least one actress mentioned below.)
Happy Valentine’s Day! Selena Gomez and her perfect fiancé Benny Blanco have produced a song (and a forthcoming album) as a tribute to their love. Lyrics include: “If I broke your heart would you take me back? / If I broke my arm would you sign my cast? / When I was young I would love too fast / Hope I don’t repeat my past.”
I wonder how this will age. Personally, I still listen to and enjoy Ariana Grande’s 2018 track “pete davidson.”
Grande, of course, is now ensconced in a happy relationship with her formerly married Wicked co-star Ethan Slater. She did not directly address the scandal of their early romance in a cover story for The Hollywood Reporter this week, but she did reveal her feelings on rumors, generally.
“It’ll never be unpainful,” she said. “But also, I walk with the awareness that I’m an artist and this is a path that I’ve chosen, and so I just try to protect myself so that I never start to resent the art.”
She’s sounding like an Oscar winner more and more every day! And I think she has a real shot, too, especially since her biggest competitor, Zoe Saldaña, is dealing with the fallout of her Emilia Perez co-star Karla Sofía Gascón’s insanely racist tweets.
Here’s Saldaña at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival last night with her three kids Cy, Bowie, and Zen. I love their matching suits:
You may recall that last year, Brad Pitt went public with his super cool 30-something girlfriend Ines de Ramon at the same festival. Will he be proposing to her this weekend, now that his divorce from Angelina Jolie is finally over? That would give him something to talk about on the press tour for his also super cool Formula 1 movie out in June.
Speaking of movie promotion, the SXSW premiere of Another Simple Favor, FKA A Simple Favor 2, is quickly approaching, and star Anna Kendrick is less than thrilled. Exclusive sources revealed to People this week that she does not appreciate that her co-star Blake Lively’s legal battle with Justin Baldoni is affecting the project.
Kendrick is “not used to being caught up in any drama,” a source claimed. “The comments on Instagram have upset her, especially the ones saying fans are now refusing to watch the movie because they don’t want to support Blake.”
(The comments on this post really are insane.)
Another source clarified, however, that Kendrick is not feuding with Lively, exactly. There “really is no drama or rift,” the source said. “The film is in the early stages of planning what press will look like, and Blake and Anna will be doing some things together.”
It is hard for me to imagine anyone from the marketing team choosing to put Lively in front of a journalist sometime in the next three weeks, but of course, I hope it happens. I think it is more likely that Kendrick and Lively pop up in a 30-second scripted promo video featuring Betty Booze or Blake Brown Beauty (winner of the newly created “Best Mousse” award at the 2024 People Beauty Awards).
On the legal front, Lively and Baldoni opted out of mediation this week, which means the case is inching closer to trial. WME boss Ari Emanuel came out in full support of Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds during a live taping of the Freakonomics podcast last night (random but okay). Emmanuel said he personally dropped Baldoni from the agency back in December, and that Lively and Reynolds are “really incredible people.”
“If what is alleged in her lawsuit that what happened on social media is true, just because she complained to the studio that things were unhealthy on the set, and that he was director and this man was the producer, and they did to her what is being alleged, they’re really bad people,” he said, referring to Baldoni and his production company CEO Jamey Heath. “I know Blake, I know Ryan, they’re good people.”
“In Hollywood, they have been incredibly successful,” he added of Lively and Reynolds. “People work with them, they’ve never had any bad mojo out there or treated people badly. They are charitable — we help them with their foundation — they’ve given tons of money away.”
This is the strongest statement of support Lively has gotten from anyone in Hollywood. Will it make a difference?
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: In honor of the holiday, here is a paparazzi video of Hilary Duff buying cupcakes at Crumbs before V-Day in 2013:
Finally, I must leave you with Meghan Markle’s Instagram post for her beloved husband Prince Harry today:
I will reproduce the full caption below:
“Back home taking care of our babies, and missing my Valentine, as he continues on at the Invictus Games, changing lives and reminding all of us of the power of healing and resilience through these incredible veterans and their families. Beyond proud of my husband and what he’s created.
My love, I will eat burgers & fries and fish & chips with you forever. Thank you for you.
As ever,
M”
HASHTAG LOVE WINS. Thank God this gal is back on social media.
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lol #lovewins
I found Meghan Markle's "I will eat burgers & fries and fish & chips with you forever" very Gone Girl cool girl rant, i.e "being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who...jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2"