once upon a time in hollywood

fairytales as gossip

Hello dear subscribers,

First of all, an apology for the radio silence over the past few weeks, which is a direct result of attending a million gigs (cool!!!) in May, subsequently getting ill and being unable to do anything except watch Dopesick on Disney+ (quite dark and sad? a random ill vibe but the heart wants what it wants!).

Anyway, whilst you may not have felt my absence particularly keenly, I was disappointed in myself for missing the opportune moment to do an in depth review of the Kourtney and Travis /Dolce & Gabbana sponcon wedding. A crying shame, and one that unfortunately for you guys I am not able to move past so I’m doing a small retrospective before I get into the best of the rest. Feel free to skip if you got bored of this content 3 weeks ago - I will understand - but for those of you still here… in no particular order, here’s what I still can’t stop thinking about from the Kravis wedding, nearly a month on:

1. The tiny pasta portion sizes. Absolutely devastating! Imagine how fuming you’d be if you'd sat through literal hours of a couple’s third wedding in as many months, watching various Kardashian-Jenners attempt to scale a rock face in their silly little dresses, in the sweltering Italian heat, and when it comes to dinner - the best part - all you get is three pieces of spaghetti in tomato sauce. I mean come on. I thought these people were rich??

2. Scott Disick’s notable absence. Naturally, Kourtney’s wrongun ex boyfriend was not invited to her intimate wedding to the love of her life. Instead, he busied himself by having dinner with Rod Stewart and his wife and children, who he is apparently friends with? Either way, it’s a relief to see Scott hanging out with some people over the legal US drinking age for once. Long may it continue!

3. The veil. The wedding was reeeally aiming for “sprawling mob family returns to the old country” and whilst none of it really landed, the veil did elevate the whole affair. In fact, I hated literally everything everyone wore at this wedding, but I would go so far as to say the veil was a serve! Taking inspo from her husband-to-be’s face tattoo for the FAMILY LOYALTY RESPECT inscription on the veil is such an Adriana from the Sopranos move that I have no choice but to respect it. 10/10!

criminal :)

Now that that’s over and done with, let’s get into the real stuff. First up, our girl Britney Jean got married last weekend to her enormous personal trainer boyfriend, Sam Asghari. Everyone say congrats, Britney! The wedding took place at her LA home and Brit described it as a “fairytale”, a fairly accurate description given the Cinderella-esque levels of horse and carriage. Obviously, none of her family were in attendance, with Brit instead partying the night away with Madonna, Drew Barrymore and Selena Gomez amongst others. Madonna and Drew make a lot of sense to me but I have to admit I had no idea that Britney was friends with Selena Gomez. I mean, of all the Disney gals! Who knew! Beth, our resident Selena stan, did you know?! Please tell me because it’s been plaguing me ever since the pics came out. Although less surprising than Ansel Elgort, who was randomly also there. Maybe a seat filling gig since his acting career went down the pan?

It was gorgeous to see that Paris Hilton, Britney’s OG party partner, was also in attendance, apparently turning down the chance to DJ for President Biden - and indeed “all the other presidents from around the world” - to be there. Obsessed with this humble brag from good old Paris, who always knows how to grab a headline or two (even at someone else’s wedding!!). Frankly I want more celebrities telling us whose parties they skipped in order to attend someone else’s - this is just the right amount of low stakes drama we need from them. Lawful evil vibes. I am a bit sad that we won’t get to see footage of all the world’s leaders bopping along as Paris drops Stars Are Blind, but never say never. It could still happen! Maybe COP27?

avengers x

Moving on from weddings, I couldn’t let another week go by without some mention of Liam Payne, who has gone from bad to worse in the eyes of the public in the past few weeks. Not content with sullying his reputation by getting in deep with the NFT crowd (as longterm Emotional Speculation readers will remember), Liam sank to new depths recently by appearing on the worst podcast known to man, Logan Paul’s “Impaulsive”. I’d previously only come across this pod in snippets of sexist audio that hot women lipsync derisively to on Tiktok. I wish it has remained that way.

Amazingly, in just one hour on the show, Liam managed to eradicate what little fanbase he had left by bashing almost every one of his former bandmates, claiming he’s the most successful out of all of them and revealing that he threatened one of them (or more specifically, their hands) on tour once. Even more amazingly, he has neither retracted any of his statements nor gone into hiding from the angry Directioners (of which there were many) since, choosing instead to hit the town hard enough to get a nosebleed, with an old flame in tow, in full view of the paparazzi. A series of very bold choices from a man whose media presence has until recently been stultifyingly dull. Usually this is exactly the sort of thing I’d enjoy, but this feels a little darker than your average chaos mongering attention grab, so I can’t support it, particularly when it comes so hot on the heels of being caught cheating on his underage girlfriends. One positive thing did come out of the interview though, and that was the implication that he probably won’t be releasing more solo music for a while as he’s concentrating on the businesses he’s leaving for his child - I’m sure Harry Styles is breathing a sigh of relief that his competition has backed down.

One Direction’s break out star

And in simply enormous news, Beyoncé is gearing up to release a new album!! The run up to July 29th is gonna feel like the World Cup but for people who like pop culture. The anticipation! The excitement! The sheer number of people who’ll get involved! What a summer we’re gearing up to have. Bonus excitement as it’s rumoured that Rihanna and Ariana Grande will be appearing on the album too, amongst others. Huge!!!!!!

Before B announced her album, her 10 year old daughter Blue Ivy was making headlines for appearing at a sports game with her dad (Jay-Z) and looking exactly like Beyoncé. Can only assume it was a slow news week because “woman’s own child bears strong resemblance to her” is quite low hanging fruit… however it did prompt me to go on Blue Ivy’s Wikipedia page, which genuinely made me feel highly stressed. Let the girl live a little, guys! That being said I do think we can expect bigger things from the upcoming nepo babies than from our current crop (I’m looking at you, Iris Law). Excited to watch the next generation of Carter-Knowleses take over the world (if they want to!). Until then, I hope she gets to just hang out a little bit.

Thanks for reaching the end of yet another unhinged instalment of Emotional Speculation. I can’t promise a full return to regularity just yet, but I can guarantee that I’ll be back with more at some point. She’s elusive girls!

Until next time,

Xoxo