Gawker - Vote for us for Mayor of Hollywood

By Fran Hoepfner

His front row center seat at the Globes put all eyes on him, but he deflected at every turn

On the Vanity Fair awards-season podcast “Little Gold Men,” the hosts often refer to the person sitting front row, center stage at awards shows as the “Mayor of Hollywood.” This figure is an ambassador, so to speak, between the person winning the award and the audience. Often, the role comes with a metaphorical kissing of the ring, or a literal shoutout.

For a number of years, Jack Nicholson was the Mayor, but as he’s aged, the awards shows have futzed around with who fills that key seat. Sometimes it’s been Meryl Streep; other times, Tom Hanks. Both have served well, but neither was in attendance tonight at the Globes, which left that seat wide open for a certain interloper — Brad Pitt. Continue reading

By Olivia Craighead

Maybe she's giving 'Les Mis' another go

Last night at the Golden Globes, two of the best moments came out of winners not being in the room. First we had Regina Hall having to accept an award on Kevin Costner’s behalf, and breaking into laughter when the teleprompter told her he “so much wanted to be there” but couldn’t because he was sheltering in place in Santa Barbara due to flooding. Hall should be at every awards show presenting every award. But it’s the second moment that sent the gears in my brain into overdrive.

When former Gawker Woman of the Week Amanda Seyfried won the award for Best Actress in a Limited Series for The Dropout, presenters Cole Hauser and Moses Brings Plenty announced that she couldn’t be there because she was “deep in the process of creating a new musical.” What?? Hello??? Huh???? Myself and the gay people I follow on Twitter were shocked. We had not heard about this and demanded to know more. Continue reading

By Tarpley Hitt

Eric Geller tweeted that Pope Benedict XVI was a “homophobic pedophile protector” and “Hitler Youth alumnus”

One of Politico’s longtime cybersecurity reporters, Eric Geller, has parted with the outlet under slightly mysterious circumstances — possibly related to a tweet in which he called the late Pope Benedict XVI a “homophobic pedophile protector” and “Hitler Youth alumnus.”

Notably, the controversial Pope, who died on New Year’s Eve, was a Hitler Youth alumnus who spent the bulk of his eight years in the papacy protecting pedophiles. (In fairness, he later claimed he didn’t want to join Hitler Youth, though while saying that he did call someone “a Nazi, but an honest man.”) As for homophobia, we’ll just say that Benedict once called being gay “an intrinsic moral evil.” Continue reading

By Fran Hoepfner

The hit dance song from 'RRR' might be on an unstoppable journey to Oscar gold

Several months ago, I made the private, personal prediction that there would be two possible ways ahead to saving the Oscars. The first was that they had to give a nomination to Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well: The Short Film” music video, who hilariously did not make the short list for Live Action Short. The other prediction was that they need to show a live performance of the song “Naatu Naatu” from RRR, complete with a dance number, to save the show altogether. Though the first prediction did not come true, I am betting big on the latter now that “Naatu Naatu” and its composer M. M. Keeravani took home a Golden Globe for Best Original Song. Continue reading

By Claire Carusillo

He took a freight elevator and hid under the covers when room service came

In Prince Haz’s now-bestselling memoir Spare, readers learn that Harry jetted off to a raucous boys’ trip shortly after meeting Meghan Markle, but even the lads couldn’t keep him from pining after his sexy new gal pal. He even handwrote his lil’ lady letters during the trip after his phone died in a tragic jet-skiing mishap. These missives, which a friend of Harry’s photographed and texted to Meghan daily, kept their flame burning white hot.

After the B.W. (boys’ weekend), the lovebirds were so desperate to see each other again that Meghan flew to London and called her ginger beau as she stepped into her hotel room at Soho House. (At that point, Harry must have recovered his phone in a bag of rice.)

Come see me! she is said to have said, likely hoping to de-suit… Continue reading