Helen Holmes

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyTaylor Swift may be in a way better mood in 2023 than she was during her Reputation Era, but it’s still a truth universally acknowledged: Don’t mess with one of the wealthiest and most demonstrably litigious people in the contemporary music industry. This week, the anonymous person (or people) behind Deuxmoi, the infamous celebrity gossip account that posts anonymous tips, often without reliable substantiation, made the potentially fatal mistake of doing exactly that. On Thursday, Deuxmoi was up to its usual tricks: Via an Instagram story, the gossip account insisted, as it’s done in the past, that Swift and ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn had, at one point, secretly tied the knot: they “DID have a ceremony in either 2020 or 2021 in the UK and it was described to me as ‘marriage’ by more than one person. It was NEVER made legal.”“I have no reason to lie,” Deuxmoi, which at one point was believed to be run by two women, added. This statement in particular could come back to haunt them.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jamie McCarthyDuring a recent appearance on the Back Room with Andy Ostroy podcast, actress Julianna Margulies made a series of provocative statements about Black and queer people who’ve spoken out about Israel and Palestine that are just now reaching a fever pitch of attention across social media. In the episode, Ostroy began by asking Margulies about the Holocaust Education Program she’d started in 2021 to teach children about antisemitism. “I’m seeing it clearly now that education is the most important part of a child’s life,” Margulies said. “It plants the seeds, it stops the ridiculousness of—look, I’m not even a religious Jew. I wasn’t even Bat Mitzvah’d. If anything like this had happened in the Black community—for example, 900 protestors left stranded on the tarmac in D.C. on their way to the rally because all the bus drivers walked out. If that had happened to any other marginalized community, this country would be in an uproar. But because it happened to the Jews, for some reason, it’s laughable.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Michael Buckner/Getty ImagesFor the first time since Friends actor Matthew Perry’s death in October, his stepfather, Deadline correspondent Keith Morrison, has addressed his passing. Morrison took to X, formerly Twitter, to mark Giving Tuesday, which is globally recognized as a day for championing philanthropic efforts.“This is not the sort of thing I commonly do, this pitch,” Morrison posted on Monday, alongside a link to the Matthew Perry Foundation’s website. “But this year is different. And tomorrow is Giving Tuesday. Do what you can; he would have been grateful.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesBeing Taylor Swift’s boyfriend in no way guarantees that the world will love you as much as she does. Just ask The 1975 frontman and Swift ex Matty Healy, whose edgelord comments about future Swift collaborator Ice Spice, made on a dirtbag leftist podcast, sent him running for the hills when hordes of incensed Swifties canceled him earlier this year.However, Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs tight end and current Swift paramour, has managed to ride out a few minor misconceptions–namely, that he might be dumb, or that his old tweets reveal him to be a “problematic” jock at heart–in order to become, not just Swift’s, but seemingly everyone’s, Dream Supportive Athlete Boyfriend in a remarkably short span of time.Kelce has become just as much America’s Sweetheart as Swift is, and that’s saying something. Just check out his crowning profile in the Wall Street Journal this week—accompanied by a lust-worthy photoshoot, naturally—in which the nattily groomed 6’5” Pro Bowler gushes over Swift from the comfort of his tricked-out Rolls Royce.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Buda Mendes/TAS23Late Friday night, Taylor Swift made a devastating announcement via her Instagram story: a fan in attendance at the first date of her 3-night Eras Tour engagement in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil had passed away. “I can’t believe I’m writing these words but it is with a shattered heart that I say we lost a fan earlier tonight before my show,” Swift’s post reads. “I can’t even tell you how devastated I am by this. There’s very little information I have other than the fact that she was so incredibly beautiful and far too young.”“I’m not going to be able to speak about this from stage because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it,” Swift continued. “I want to say now I feel this loss deeply and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends. This is the last thing I ever thought would happen when we decided to bring this tour to Brazil.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

ANGELA WEISSIt’s been an eventful year for married couple Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, who the latter revealed, shockingly, had been living separate lives in private since 2016, while pretending to be happily coupled in public, in her recent memoir. Now, the pair is publicly responding to claims that Will Smith had sex with Duane Martin, an actor who appeared on one episode of the Smith vehicle The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. “This story is completely fabricated and the claim is unequivocally false,” a representative for Will Smith told People on Thursday. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Trae Patton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesOn Wednesday, Lisa Kudrow became the last of the surviving core Friends cast to pay homage to Matthew Perry, who tragically passed away on Oct. 28 at age 54. Her tribute follows her co-stars Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, and Jennifer Aniston, who have each penned farewells over the past two days. Taking to Instagram, Kudrow shared a throwback photo of her and Perry at a party. In the caption she wrote, “Shot the pilot, Friends Like Us, got picked up then immediately, we were at the NBC Upfronts. Then…You suggested we play poker AND made it so much fun while we initially bonded. Thank you for that. Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said, that my muscles ached, and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY.” “Thank you for your open heart in a six way relationship that required compromise,” Kudrow continued. “And a lot of ‘talking.’ Thank you for showing up at work when you weren’t well and then, being completely brilliant. Thank you for the best 10 years a person gets to have. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for all I learned about GRACE and LOVE through knowing you. Thank you for the time I got to have with you, Matthew.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Ron DavisFollowing in the footsteps of Friends costars Matt LeBlanc and Courteney Cox, who posted heartfelt messages on Instagram dedicated to departed costar Matthew Perry yesterday, Jennifer Aniston herself took to the social media platform on Wednesday to add to the chorus of voices honoring Perry. Her message was the longest so far—and also revealed one intimate text he sent her “out of nowhere.”“Oh boy this one has cut deep... Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an insane wave of emotions that I’ve never experienced before,” Aniston wrote. “We all experience loss at some point in our lives. Loss of life or loss of love. Being able to really SIT in this grief allows you to feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone that deep. And we loved him deeply. He was such a part of our DNA.” “We were always the 6 of us,” Aniston continued. “This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be. For Matty, he KNEW he loved to make people laugh. As he said himself, if he didn’t hear the ‘laugh’ he thought he was going to die. His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard. In the last couple weeks, I’ve been pouring over our texts to one another. Laughing and crying then laughing again. I’ll keep them forever and ever. I found one text that he sent me out of nowhere one day. It says it all.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

NBCFriends star Courteney Cox broke her personal silence to pay homage to departed costar Matthew Perry on Tuesday, becoming the second cast member of the iconic sitcom to offer personal remembrances in the wake of Perry’s passing. The entire gang made a joint statement in response to Perry’s tragic death in late October, and it seems like the floodgates for individual messages may now be open. “I am so grateful for every moment I had with you Matty and I miss you every day,” Cox wrote on Instagram, under a video clip of her and Perry’s characters, Monica and Chandler, in bed together on Friends. “When you work with someone as closely as I did with Matthew, there are thousands of moments I wish I could share. For now, here’s one of my favorites.”In the clip, Ross barges into Chandler’s hotel room and whoops as Monica lies hidden under the covers. When he leaves, she pops up for air: “Do you think he knew I was here?”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Kyle Terada/USA TODAY SportsKeke Palmer’s ex-boyfriend Darius Jackson is denying her abuse allegations against him, while also levying new accusations against the actress’s mother.Last week, Palmer was granted temporary sole custody of her and Jackson’s 8-month-old son, Leodis. Palmer, who has accused Jackson of repeated instances of verbal and physical abuse, was also granted a temporary restraining order against him. TMZ reported on Monday that Jackson is denying the abuse allegations, including Palmer’s claim that he recently attacked her at her home. In her lawsuit, Palmer said that he forced his way into her home unexpectedly while she was on the phone with her mother, demanded to see Leodis, and then wrenched Palmer’s phone out of her hand and threw it into the bushes. She also alleged that Jackson made disturbing comments about their son, “including, ‘how he understood why male animals in the wild want to eat their children.’”Read more at The Daily Beast.