The Paparazzi Photos That Defined 2024
Hung Up x Gossip Time!
More from Hung Up this week: Something on this desk is gonna fall and crush Sabrina Carpenter and you’ll know who warned you first!!! … Selener getting married … Vintage Issey Miyake bandanas, a signature scent, and more things my favorite writers are gifting and hoping to receive.
When you think about 2024, from “My eyes see Oppenheimer” to Glicked, what’s the one image that sums up the last 12 months? Before I put this whole year in my rearview (very much The Town voice),
(of the essential newsletter ) and I met in a Google Doc to run through the best, weirdest, most iconic paparazzi shots (and one IG story screenshot) of the year. The criteria: We each made a list of a half-dozen photos, made a case for each of them, and then annotated each other’s selections (in italics).These are listed in chronological order, from the Golden Globes to Bennifer’s breakup, and beyond.
Hunter’s pick: Golden Globes: Timmy and Kylie and Selena and Taylor (and Keleigh) - January 8
I can’t decide which is the more thrilling, vexing image: Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner finally making a formal appearance together, sitting side by side at the Golden Globes, or Selena Gomez gossiping about it with Taylor Swift and Keleigh (Kelly) Teller. Both were lightning rods for gossip. Was Kylie keeping an eye out for Selener? Was Selena definitely gossiping about her Only Murders co-stars hooking up? I think everything is true, all of it. It all happened, and we all watched it live.
AJ: Okay, this makes me excited for the Golden Globes again. I also love that this ended with Gomez commenting on an E! News Instagram post in her signature style: “Noooooo I told Taylor about two of my friends who hooked up. Not that that’s anyone [sic] business.”
Hunter’s pick: Taylor Swift kissing Travis Kelce after a football game (not the big one) - February
Is this a copout since I already wrote about it? Who cares. There was no one more dominant this year than Taylor Swift (other contenders: Charli XCX and Joe Biden, unfortunately) and her continued romance with her football boyfriend. He won the Super Bowl and she finally completed her life sentence on the Eras Tour! But this is the defining image from their year: her nasty little glitter manicure. The shaping, the length, the color, the horror! They’ll be together forever.
AJ: It’s so bad. I wonder if Gigi Hadid (designer of Swift’s $700 cashmere sweater) was annoyed about it.
Allie’s pick: Gigi Hadid and Bradley Cooper “kissing” at Via Carota - March 15
Rest in peace to New York City’s outdoor dining sheds — you made it so much easier for paparazzi to capture magical moments such as this. Here we have true soulmates Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid “kissing passionately,” as TMZ put it. Yes, that is what happened. Note that Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski and Tan France were sitting across the table.
HH: The only thing I can see in these photos is how good Bradley Cooper’s (certainly Turkish) new growth is along his hairline. It is a little bit unbelievable to me that the more major “new couples” of this year are these two and … Jeremy Allen White and Molly Gordon?? We used to be a country…
Allie’s pick: Kris Jenner’s Instagram story of Meghan Markle’s jam - April 24
Okay, this is not technically a paparazzi photo, but it is my most important document from 2024. The Kardashian matriarch posted the above image on April 24, signaling that Meghan Markle’s artisanal jam company American Riviera Orchard was making moves. I love everything about this display: the lemons, the superfluous crinkly paper, the fact that Jenner’s jam was sample number 13 out of 50. (Who got number one? Michelle Obama?) Of course, it is now December, and Markle’s company has yet to actually launch. I am so mad I can’t buy my friends and family this jam for Christmas.
HH: Something I think about a lot — and I have to thank you for it, Allie, because you brought it to my attention — is Meghan Markle saying that she spends “a lot of time just Googling, looking for brands.” I am addicted to that sentence, the way those words feel in my mouth. I can’t imagine those words strung together organically; I think about that sentence and I want to complain about a landscape architect never being on time … a problematic cobbler … an aloof woman who makes beautiful hand-painted wallpaper — I am suddenly on Big Little Lies and my problems are all rich and domestic.
I need American Riviera Orchard, the knockoff Flamingo Estate jam company (not the new age private school where you can call teachers by their first names, as the name suggests), desperately. And now I wonder if Kris happened to really like it and finish it, is there a secret stash for her to re-up, or is it really and truly unavailable to all?
Allie’s pick: Natalie Portman and Paul Mescal smoking - May 30
This was so FUN. A freshly divorced Natalie Portman smoking and laughing and flirting with an absolutely giddy Paul Mescal outside a bar in London – what could be better? Sources claimed the two were “just friends,” and Mescal obviously ended up with Gracie Abrams, but I think we can all agree that something exciting happened here.
HH: HOW COULD I FORGET ABOUT THIS. It feels like a million years ago now. I can’t wait to be a woman in my 40s with my government-mandated young, hot boyfriend (Anne Hathaway, Olivia Wilde kinda, Nicole Kidman in not one movie this year but two). In another, better timeline Natalie Portman and Paul Mescal are dating and smoking cigs at the farmers market and I don’t know who Gracie Abrams is. (Also in that timeline, Taylor Swift and Matty Healy never dated.)
Hunter’s pick: Bennifer at Violet’s graduation - May 30
They hadn’t been photographed together since May 19, Ben missed J.Lo’s big Met Gala moment, divorce rumors were in every tabloid. Eventually, when Lopez actually would file for divorce, she’d list the couple’s date of separation as April 26, 2024. A month later, though, they gamely smiled through Affleck’s daughter Violet’s high school graduation.
AJ: I’ll say this for J.Lo, she seems to genuinely care about her stepkids, which is nice. And she always has one of these floral, ladies-who-lunch dresses ready to go for family occasions. Ben: What more do you want?
Allie’s pick: Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater at the Stanley Cup Finals - June 10
These two silly billies. After news of their on-set affair rocked musical theater kids and girls’ girls everywhere last year, Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater mostly stayed out of view for the first part of 2024 — until they made their public debut at the Stanley Cup Finals in Florida. What? Why? Is Slater a big hockey fan? Perhaps Grande is strangely loyal to her hometown team? Or maybe their PR teams determined this was the least offensive event they could attend together? I guess they look like they’re having fun.
HH: So strange and I can’t even begin to imagine the reasoning here. Their first appearance together should’ve been taking Nonna to see Wicked in Boca. Why did we need this moment in the summer, months before the movie was even out?
Allie’s pick: Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Hugh Jackman at the It Ends With Us premiere - August 7
The crew!!! It really makes me laugh that Lively and Reynolds dragged Jackman into this mess. At the time, I wondered why they couldn’t get him a date, but now we know that he was months into an affair with Sutton Foster. My thoughts and prayers go out to her as she will most likely be forced to join the gang in 2025.
HH: Now that you’ve brought it up… I cannot comprehend that the Deadpool and Wolverine movie press tour is kind of the Wicked press tour for people who, I don’t know drive or have both front yards and backyards. I have to privilege Blake Lively at the London screening of It Ends With Us when the rumors were finally floating about the dueling edits and, in the middle of that maelstrom, she chose her ugliest dress yet.
Allie’s pick: Bennifer reunited at the Beverly Hills Hotel - September 16
This photo gave me so much hope. Sure, it looks like Ben is kind of yelling at J.Lo while clutching his Coke Zero, but sources told Page Six at the time that he “couldn’t keep his hands off” her once they got inside the hotel. Unfortunately, they are reportedly still divorcing. Why God?
HH: You know the tweet about how you’ll never catch J.Lo looking crazy, canceled tour, canceled marriage, flopping movie, and all? There’s no better evidence than her look at this lunch. The high-waisted bell bottoms, the cropped sweater, the big bag? The way Ben Affleck looks resigned to just wearing clothes but she put together an outfit. They were never going to work, and I can’t wait for them to try it all again in 20 years.
Hunter’s pick: Timothée Chalamet at the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest - October 28
I mean obviously. That it happened, that he showed, that Club Chalamet said he wouldn’t — bellisima.
AJ: With all apologies to CC, I have never been a huge Timmy fan, but now I get it. The thrill of upending expectations! I guess this is why he’s a star.
Hunter’s pick: Healthcare CEO shooter flirts at a hostel - December 8
So there’s this modern-day Robin Hood … who happens to be super hot …
AJ: Photo of the year.
