Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a celebrity couple puckers up, an actor and a model subtly flirt, and Hailey Bieber utters the most beautiful phrase ever spoken in the English language.
I have had Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom on Gossip Time’s Official Breakup Watch since March. They have both talked a lot this year about how much work their relationship is — Bloom described their dynamic as “really, really, really challenging,” and Perry posted about them attending the woo-woo therapy retreat The Hoffman Process and going “down to the mat” with each other in some kind of extended, tortured boxing metaphor. They made a pact to get sober together for a limited time and then talked about it publicly without explaining why. They seem to always be traveling separately, too: Perry performed at King Charles’s coronation concert in May without noted British citizen Bloom in the audience, and Bloom went on vacation to the south of France by himself over Memorial Day weekend. But now, it seems, they have found their way back to each other. They are still working on kissing, though:
The above photo was taken at Bruce Springsteen’s concert at Hyde Park in London last weekend. Perry, 38, and Bloom, 46, were seen partying alongside Chelsea Handler, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, Emma Thompson, and current US climate envoy John Kerry, naturally. Click through the slideshow below to see.
In addition to this incredibly romantic date night, Perry and Bloom also tried out a kiss in the stands at Wimbledon last week:
What do these smooches mean? Of course, it’s nice to see the couple — who got engaged back in 2019 but have never married — in the same physical location. But they are not convincing me that their relationship is going well. Breakup Watch continues.
Speaking of relationships: The tabloids still want us to think that Leo DiCaprio and Gigi Hadid are in one. People reports that the 48-year-old actor and 28-year-old model attended two of the same parties in the Hamptons over Fourth of July weekend, and you know what that means. There was potentially some shoulder touching.
“They were with separate groups of people but partied together for two nights,” a source told the tabloid. “They were flirty and Gigi looked happy. It’s pretty obvious that they are seeing each other. Maybe not exclusively, but they are definitely dating.”
The source added that inside these exclusive parties where no one can see, “there is subtle touching and flirting” between the two. Picture that — if you dare!
A source told Us Weekly, meanwhile, that DiCaprio and Hadid are “only seeing each other right now” and that DiCaprio is taking things slow because “there’s potential there, and he wants to preserve it.”
Potential for what, we must ask. And we will not get an answer.
Meanwhile, DiCaprio’s ex-girlfriend from 2017 Nina Agdal is engaged! To Logan Paul, unfortunately. The 28-year-old YouTuber-turned-WWE-fighter proposed to the 31-year-old model in Lake Como and filmed the whole thing for social media. I can’t watch the entire 17-minute video Paul put on YouTube but here’s a snippet wherein he apologizes for “being a pussy” and crying:
If anyone knows Agdal, I would love to talk to her about her life sometime.
Also engaged: former Pretty Little Liars actress Ashley Benson and oil heir Brandon Davis. Benson, 33, and Davis, 43, have been dating since the beginning of the year and have had surprisingly little public drama given Davis’s past (“firecrotch,” etc.) I wish the best to everyone.
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: I just like this outfit :)
Finally I will leave you with this tweet from People regarding a TikTok video Hailey Bieber made with the now-popular “age filter”:
It’s giving my nana’s twin.
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.
Bonus: If you’d like to read a limited-time pop-up newsletter from me all about the Barbie movie out next week, you can sign up for that here from The Washington Post! There will be just a few emails going out next week, but they will be fun.