Can you please spell 'Gabbana'?
Britney's Bombshells, Billie's Tat, and Rom-Com Writer Rankings
Today I’m heading to Cambridge to observe a day in the life of my bestie doing cancer research at MIT (it’s also her birthday!). I’m out here writing about celebrity cats, and she’s in a lab changing the world for the better. Crazy how we both ended up becoming public servants!
The Low-Brow Lowdown
Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris are apparently dating. After her short-lived marriage to Grant Hughes, Sophia Bush is apparently dating former women’s US soccer player Ashlyn Harris.
They went on a DOUBLE DATE with the recently out-of-the-woodwork Stacy London and her longterm girlfriend Cat Yezbak, where they saw Chelsea Handler’s show in New York.
Taylor & Travis awkwardly take SNL. Playing celebrity house, the “couple” was seen holding hands on the way to dinner at Nobu, and then made a surprise cameo appearance on SNL, where the cast performed a skit about the NFL coverage surrounding their relationship.
Taylor introduced musical guest Ice Spice, which was awkward because…Taylor is 5000x more famous than her. You didn’t have to do that! You’re just taking someone else’s moment away, because now all the crowd cares about is that they just got a glimpse of Taylor Swift.
Britney Spears reveals she had a teen abortion. In her new memoir, Britney shares that her former boyfriend Justin Timberlake got her pregnant when they were in their late teens, but was not happy with the news, and they agreed on an abortion since they were too young.
Then he dumped her via text and wrote Cry Me A River.
After the story broke, Justin’s camp made the below bullshit statement:
Justin and Jessica just want everyone to grow and evolve instead of continuing to bring up the past.
Uhm, can you have a little empathy and compassion?? How about you endure 13 years of a stolen life and then tell us how you want everyone to move on from the past. Fucking piece of shit loser.
Billie Eilish gets a massive back tat. It’s something!
Famous cat Nacho Flay passes away. Bobby Flay’s adorable ginger cat Nacho passed away after 9 years on Earth and 1 cat food line that closed $14M in Series A funding. First self-made millionaire cat?! RIP.
Ranking Our 2000s Rom-Com Journalism Queens
Our 2000s rom-com queens only had one goal in mind when it came to their careers: become a Serious Journalist.
As someone who routinely writes about frivolous things, I roll my eyes soooo hard every time one of these characters whines about being passed up for covering the Big Issues. I’m like, I will happily write speculation about Kylie Jenner’s butt implants for the rest of my life.
Despite their inherent girlboss nature, most of these women’s professional ambitions end up severely sidetracked by guys named Ben who they have crushes on, so it’s time to decide once and for all who has what it takes to work in this town and who should’ve taken advantage of the 2011 media landscape to become a famous mommy blogger instead.
10. Amber Moore from A Christmas Prince
Amber Moore gets plucked out of bullpen obscurity at a fashion magazine when she’s given the opportunity to fly to Aldovia and report on playboy Prince Richard, who’s returned home to take over the throne from his late father.
Amber does one better, becoming enmeshed with the royal family when she poses as their young princess’s tutor, granting her unfettered access to Richard.
After obvi falling in love with the prince, she writes a delightful profile, but omits the exclusive adoption papers bombshell she stumbled upon in the castle because of her personal feelings. Honestly, probably not a bad move strategically if she thinks there’s a chance Rich will marry her, so she can ditch this dingy 9-5 and kick it in Aldovia full-time.
Her boss Kim is understandably pissed, and refuses to publish the piece altogether because “puff pieces” are “not our brand.” Kind of crazy coming from an editorial director who unironically uses the phrase “his royal hotness.” What was she expecting, a dissertation on the bylaws of abdication and their geopolitical impact? Like, is this Politico?
Amber takes her story indie, starting a shitty WordPress creatively titled “Amber’s Blog.” She does zero marketing, so her should-be explosive piece only garners 20,000 likes, which is basically the equivalent of what that girl Evelyn racks up in 2 hours with a 30-second TikTok about things that annoy her at middle school.
9. Abby Richter from The Ugly Truth
Abby is a producer / on-air talent (?) for a morning news show that’s underperforming, leading her network to hire her Joe Rogan-esque nemesis Mike, a self-proclaimed sex and relationships expert, to spice up their program.
Naturally, she and Mike fall into the enemies-to-lovers trope, causing the sexual tension between them to lead to. . .unsightly behavior. During a remote at a hot air balloon festival, Abby launches into an off-script tirade about her hatred of men. She starts airing her network’s dirty laundry surrounding Mike’s departure to a rival show, while the control room looks on in horror and a producer nervously assures the top boss that they’re doing “an Andy Kaufman” bit.
This peak unprofessionalism only gets worse when Mike joins her in the balloon to fight about their personal grievances toward one another, prompting Abby to start making lewd jerking off motion to the camera. All semblance of decorum has left the building. Then they make out!
8. Amy Townsend from Trainwreck
Amy is a party girl columnist at S’Nuff, a magazine dedicated to “teaching the strong-willed man how to dress, think, eat, and fuck” targeted toward a core demo of “every-fucking-one” (an answer that will get you yeeted off the set of Shark Tank in three seconds flat).
She gets assigned a profile on Aaron Conners, an up-and-coming sports doctor, despite the fact that hating sports is a core tenet of her personality (kind of like a reverse pick-me?).
Amy shows up to her introductory conversation with Aaron having done no research and makes the mistake of confessing to him that she knows nothing about his industry and is only writing the piece because she was told to. A great tactic to make your source comfortable and excited to work with you!
Amy might be a decent writer, but that’s kind of superseded by the fact that she almost hooked up with S’Nuff’s 16-year-old intern before his mom calls in the middle of their rendezvous, revealing that he’s a minor. Amy gets fired (FAIR!) and sells her Dr. Aaron piece to Vanity Fair, which really doesn’t seem like the right audience for sports journalism, but sure.
7. Josie Geller from Never Been Kissed
Josie is so desperate to prove herself as a writer that spends months undercover at a high school, attending geometry class and reliving her pubescent trauma. I would have quit on the spot!
However, Josie not only fails to rewrite her own high school history, she also fails at the objective of her entire charade, which is to write a story about the Secret Life of the American Teenager. Almost immediately, a rival newspaper scoops her on a piece about a local hangout where kids are drinking and hooking up, since Josie and her nerdy bestie can’t get past the cool kid bouncer. I recognize that cool teens are scary as hell, but Josie, you’re 25!
The story Josie finally files ends up having nothing to do with the social issues facing teens today, but rather her personal feelings about being an adult virgin and her romantic interest in the guy who was her English teacher. I’m not sure that this is what the Chicago Sun-Times was looking for, but I guess Elite Daily didn’t exist yet.
6. Bridget Jones from Bridget Jones’ Diary
After quitting her job at a publishing house because of her hot yet rude boss, Bridget Jones lucks her way into an on-screen reporter position at Sit Up Britain despite no formal training, which rom-coms will have us believe happens all the time.
While reporting at a local fire station, her producer tells her she needs to slide down the fire pole in a mini skirt (totes apprope), which leads to her unglamorously falling to the ground like a maimed antelope, broadcasting an up-the-skirt ass shot in the process.
Her boss then sends her to the High Court for a Hard-Hitting Piece™ about the extradition of a Kurdish freedom fighter. It’s been dominating the news cycle, but this is the first she’s heard of it, so naturally she’s the woman for the job!
Bridget initially misses her chance to interview the defendant because she was too busy buying cigarettes at a bodega, but thanks to her ongoing flirtations with his lawyer, she magically gets an exclusive sit-down — she squanders the opportunity by asking the most vanilla questions known to man, but we can’t judge her too harshly considering it’s basically her second day.
Prekend Wrapped
Watching: The Fall Of The House of Usher (Netflix)
Listening: The Wedding Scammer (Spotify)
Reading: “Julia Fox on Her First Day As A New York City Dominatrix” (An excerpt from her new memoir, Down The Drain)
