This Week In Tabloids: Julia Roberts Is a Cold-Hearted Bitch of a Wife
CelebritiesWelcome back! Wednesdays are for Midweek Madness, in which Callie Beusman heads to the newsstand and buys the latest issues of Ok!, Us, In Touch, Life & Style and Star, so that together we may inhale fragrant opium vapors of gossip. This week: Kate Middleton is having twins (again? so soon?); Julia Roberts is a cold bruja; and Ryan Gosling is a meat-suit of lies.
In Touch
MY BABY IS A MIRACLE
Miraculously, Jennifer Aniston is pregnant for the one millionth time. Because this is a tabloid tale as old as time, InTouch works hard to provide new insipid and patently untrue details: Jennifer stopped highlighting her hair, which proves something is in that womb! She wants to put Tabasco sauce on “everything, including watermelon”! They want to name the baby Philippa, nickname Pippa! Ok, guys. Sure. In other news, Solange would hypothetically be paid up to $20 million to write a tell-all on Beyoncé, hypothetically revealing some big secrets. She is not actually writing said tell-all. “Solange is growing increasingly fed up with playing second fiddle to Beyoncé,” says the mag. Uh. A good way to ensure that you continue playing second fiddle to someone is to make millions of dollars writing a book entirely about them. Just sayin’. Next: Lamar Odom tried to get into a night club at which Khloe Kardashian and her new boyfriend French Montana were reveling, and he was turned away at the door. Some people think this was carefully orchestrated in order to humiliate him on camera for Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Others insist that Khloe would never partake in something that cruel and that it was just a coincidence. Such intrigue. Moving on: Cameron Diaz is dating Benji Madden from Good Charlotte. The common interest that draws them together is fitness. They are very happy, says a source.
GRADE: F (sulfuric rotten egg fart)
Life & Style
$1 BILLION DIVORCE
Beyoncé and Jay Z are headed for divorce, says Life & Style, rather inevitably. The rest of this article chronicles all the nebulous theories that the Internet tired of approx. 5 days ago (Jay cheated! Bey got her Jay-themed tattoo removed!), with this added bit of creative arithmetic: “They’re an estimated $900 million couple, so it could easily turn into a $1 billion divorce.” EASILY. $100 million might just spring forth from the earth! Moving on: Miley Cyrus’ on-stage breakdown last week — which she said was not about Liam Hemsworth — was actually about Liam Hemsworth. To wit: the editors asked a psychotherapist for her thoughts on the matter, and she responded “[Miley]’s still in love with Liam. Women do that! They want to tell him to go fuck himself. They want to hurt him.” Oh, women, always doing that. Classic women move. In other news, there are now Ryan Gosling ab truthers out there in the world (Fig. 1), which is highly unappreciated. Elsewhere in the mag, Kim and Kanye are living apart while their $11 million mansion undergoes endless renovations, and it’s causing tensions. Kim’s rep denies this. Cool story, guys.
GRADE: D- (curry craps)
Ok!
KATE’S PREGNANT!
Kate Middleton is pregnant again, too, with girl twins. The proof is mostly two (2) separate photos of her hand resting on her stomach, which is essentially the same thing as a sonogram. According to a source, William has already notified the Queen, who will slither off her treasure hoard in order to bequeath diamonds upon the infants once they are born. In other news, Beyoncé and Jay Z are having a $450 million divorce (not a $1 billion one, apparently) because of the usual suspects: infidelity rumors, Jay Z being selfish and controlling, etc etc. Sure. Elsewhere in the mag, Miley Cyrus is allegedly mad at Taylor Swift for calling her VMAs performance “grotesque,” so she’s spreading rumors that she’s a “sexless, frigid ice princess” who “bored” Harry Styles out of bed. What-evvver. Taylor is too busy buying feminist books from independent booksellers and buying antiques to care. Moving on: Reese Witherspoon’s husband Jim Toth is reportedly “disappointed” in her for getting all drunk and sloppy in an elevator at the Met Gala, since the footage of her trying to pronounce Delevingne and dispensing sex advice went viral. Ok, 1) there are way worse things she could have done in an after-party elevator, as we all know from experience, 2) the video was cute!, and 3) expecting a celebrity to not get drunk at the Met Gala is CRUEL AND UNUSUAL. No harmless drunken antic-shaming, OK!. That’s way not cool. And, finally, Ellen and Portia are going to renew their vows, which OK! sees as a blatant attempt to combat rumors about their marriage (spread by OK!), and not a cute and sweet gesture. Very cynical of you, editors. In addition, they’re considering adopting a child because they like Rosie and Sophie Grace so much. If anyone will do it, it’s those two lil’ cherubim.
GRADE: F (watery hot dog gas)
Star
$225 MILLION DIVORCE SHOCKER!
This story does its best to paint Julia Roberts as a cruel-agro-bitch-wife, alleging that she keeps husband Danny Moder “on a tight leash” and is “petrified he’ll cheat” and “rules the house with an iron fist and uses the fact that she brings in the bulk of their income to control Danny.” Danny wanted to go surfing in the South Pacific with his friends and maybe work on a documentary about ocean pollution and Julia’s first response was “I’m not funding it.” Cold! Of course, there is no actual divorce, the cover line is just how much COULD be at stake IF they split, which they have not. Moving on: Katy Perry is “out of control” because she was seen “staggering” out of a bar and is dating “international party scene” fixture Diplo. Lindsay Lohan got breast implants when she was 17 and needs to get them redone “but she’s broke.” A “pal” says she’s “desperate” to get new bazooms before the end of summer. Shouldn’t she have gotten them before “bikini” “season”? Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden are dating after being set up by Nicole Richie and a source says “she loves that he’s a bad boy with a heart of gold.” Apparently they go to the gym together for workouts all the time which is soooooo bad boy. Brawlin’ at the elliptical. Meanwhile: Bobby Cannavale asked girlfriend Rose Byrne to marry him and she said she’d have to think about it. !!!!∞ In even sadder couples news, Cara Delevingne and Michelle Rodriguez broke up. RIP Carachelle, you were boozy fun while you lasted. In the requisite Tori Spelling story, Dean’s 15-year-old son has been tweeting about how fake the show is, and says “My father is not what the show makes him, he is a good man.” Finally, “Jen’s Secret Diaries” explains that Jennifer Aniston has six leather-bound journals locked away in a safe, but was hanging out with some friends getting drunk recently and spilled what’s inside: Vince Vaughn was great in bed and in to “all kinds of stuff she’d never tried before.” John Mayer was a “spoiled manchild” but “one of the best lovers.” Bradley Cooper was “obsessed with his looks and kept using Jen’s beauty products” and Gerard Butler “underperformed between the sheets.” None of this is necessarily true but God, how great would it be if all of it were true?
GRADE: D- (booze poos)
Us
THE BODY ISSUE
The cover blares “47 pages of Jaw-dropping PHOTOS!” and what that means is previously published glossy photos of 100 celebs — Heidi Klum, Charlize Theron, Jessica Alba, Jared Leto, etc — in swimsuits or shirtless or otherwise showing off their physique. This is your mindlessly-flipping-pages-on-the-beach-Memorial-Day mag right here. Also inside: Rihanna broke up with Drake because he wanted to buy her an engagement ring but she doesn’t think of him as anything serious. Ouch. Kim and Kanye’s wedding involves a private tour of Versailles on Friday night (guests are expected to dress in vintage French royalty attire), a ceremony — sunset vows — in Florence on Saturday (“North will be carried down the aisle,” says a source) and a brunch at the Corsini Villa a Costello on Sunday afternoon. Sounds exhuasting.
GRADE: C (protein shake tummy rumbles)
Addendum
Fig. 1, from Life & Style