Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a model girlfriend hits the runway, a celebrity marriage hits the skids, and Hilary Duff hits Europe.
I need you to see this photo of Leonardo DiCaprio’s current Italian model girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti shopping in the Lower East Side on Wednesday:
Let’s zoom in:
Yes, that is a photo sticker of DiCaprio, 49, circa his Growing Pains days (1991 or so). Ceretti was not born until 1998. The couple has made their 23-year age gap work, however — they have been dating for over a year now and recently vacationed with both of their families in Rome.
Even more exciting, Ceretti made her Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show debut this week. Almost all of DiCaprio’s past girlfriends have modeled for Victoria’s Secret, so this seems to be an important step in the relationship. Ceretti told Page Six she was “really excited” to be modeling in the show.
DiCaprio’s last alleged girlfriend, Gigi Hadid, was also on the VS runway. During their months-long relationship in the fall of 2022, which seemed to consist solely of them running into each other at nightclubs and touching each other on the shoulder, sources were going to the tabloids almost every day with new, anodyne details about their “flirty” romance. That is not happening with Ceretti, which makes me think her relationship with DiCaprio is more real. But is it fulfilling? Who’s to say.
Hadid, of course, is now dating a different 49-year-old actor named Bradley Cooper. She talked about him publicly for the first time backstage at the VS show, telling Entertainment Tonight, “He is watching from home tonight. He’s on dad duty but so supportive.”
Cooper shares daughter Lea de Seine Shayk Cooper with model Irina Shayk, who also walked in the VS show. Cooper doesn’t cycle through girlfriends as quickly as DiCaprio, but he does have a type.
Zach Braff, also 49, walked a different kind of runway in Los Angeles last night. He made the long pilgrimage down the strip mall balcony that leads to the paparazzi haven Sushi Park with his apparent new girlfriend, a relatively unknown singer-songwriter named Frances Whitney. Instagram research tells me she is 26.
That’s two years younger than Braff’s last girlfriend, Florence Pugh, who spent the majority of her relationship with the actor defending their age gap on Instagram and in magazine interviews (in fact, she’s still talking about it — she referenced the criticism in her British Vogue cover story last month). Pugh is reportedly now dating the Peaky Blinders actor Finn Cole. He is 28.
Even before Justin Timberlake’s DWI arrest in the Hamptons this summer, it seemed like his marriage to Jessica Biel was on the brink. She 1) got a bob and 2) went on The View and said the couple’s relationship is a “work in progress,” and that they try to find time to connect with each other on Zoom (?).
Then Timberlake went to jail in Sag Harbor, and sources revealed to People that Biel was “not happy” about his behavior. Since then, however, Timberlake accepted a plea deal, paid a $500 fine, and went on his friend Jimmy Fallon’s show, where he did not address his decision to drink and drive. He’s moving on! And so is Biel, apparently.
This week, People exclusively reported that Timberlake has “done everything he can” to “make up for” the arrest, and “Jess thinks he’s a wonderful dad.”
“They’ve been married for a long time,” the source continued. “They have to work on their marriage like most couples. Being working parents is never easy.”
And here’s the kicker: “They are both committed to staying married.”
How romantic!
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: Hilary Duff is in Paris with no luggage! I hope she is shopping.
Finally, I’ll leave you with some grocery news out of New York:
TGIF.
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That picture of Zack Braff truly looks like evidence of a kidnapping.
That Liev bit is giving me life. Also, I feel badly when my partner and I make fun of Zach Braff sometimes. Are we being petty? Unfair? Now I don’t have to feel badly for our perfectly honed douche-o-meter! Thank you so much. 🙊