Leonardo DiCaprio Getting All His Business Told
Leonardo DiCaprio Getting All His Business Told
The Friday Post.
Happy 2023! A long post for you tonight that will definitely cut off in your inbox. Click the title to read on site.
It is unwise, in my opinion, to enter the year with any sort of expectation. I do not make any real resolutions-slash-I make the same resolutions every year. I could call this “living from a place of extreme, enlightened, Oprah-like gratitude,” or I could call it “realistic.” People just do not really change.
Like: Leonardo DiCaprio, last year, resolved to try dating a non-Rihanna woman over 25; this year, he said:
It is 2023 and DiCaprio is reportedly back to his old tricks, namely, walking near but just a little bit ahead of in an embarrassing way the model and actress and 23-year-old Victoria Lamas.
Lamas’s father, apparently a “1980s heartthrob” named Lorenzo Lamas confirmed it all to the press. “I know she likes him very much,” Lorenzo told the New York Post. “I think they met last month. I’m not sure of the circumstances, but that’s what she told me.”
“She’s very smitten,” he continued. “I told her to treat the relationship like a holiday — just enjoy it as much as you can for as long as it lasts. And if it lasts for more than a typical holiday, great. But if not, then just guard your heart, you know? Because she’s very young.”
He told his daughter that she should take “no trans-Atlantic cruises with Leo,” which took me about three minutes too many to realize was a Titanic reference.
About fifteen minutes after the call, the Post reports, Lamas was chastised by his daughter — lol — and had to call the tabloid back. “I only talked to you because I felt it would be a positive thing, but she does not feel that way,” he said. “They’re friends, they’re not in a serious relationship. And I just want that to be clear … Yeah [she’s] smitten, but they’re not dating. She’s fond of him, obviously. But they’re not dating, and she does not want that out there because that would be really bad. It’d be embarrassing for her if he should happen to read something that said that they’re dating and they’re not.”
God I love this. A date with Leo is no big thing; we should be treating it as regular and local and pedestrian as it is. But I love thinking about the Pussy Posse not even getting to properly celebrate Babylon because Lorenzo Lamas called the Post and gave them a full update on his daughter’s life. I expect another phone call to the Post in four to six days when this romance is no more. Leo, like J.Lo, does not like to be embarrassed. (Crazy, then, that he made Don’t Look Up anyway!)
New Yorkers! I’m programming a double feature at Metrograph next Friday: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three at 7pm (tickets here) followed by Inside Man at 9:30 pm (tickets here). Hope to see you there!
The Sports Section
The World Cup was reality TV, devoted Hung Up readers will recall, and the final match was the season finale. This week the United States Men’s National Team (USMNT) had something of a reunion episode.
The United States was knocked out at the Round of 16 after losing to the Netherlands (hottest team at the World Cup, not that it matters). It was fine: the US got its shit rocket by a better team. Bu throughout the USMNT’s matches, it was a mystery why a young player named Gio Reyna was not given a lot of playing time. (“Berhalter’s use of Reyna will one of the talking points that always defines World Cup 2022 for the USMNT,” the late soccer writer Grant Wahl wrote after the team’s exit.)
During some kind of little talk or whatever, the USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter accidentally spilled why Reyna was mostly benched: the player had a big attitude and didn’t put forth much of an effort during practices and friendlies. (Berhalter thought he was speaking off the record, but a newsletter published his comments, and he was obviously referring to Reyna.) Reyna got big mad in an IG caption, and that seemed like the end of it. Berhalter was likely not getting his coaching contract renewed anyway after a post-tournament tactical review, and 20-year-old Reyna would probably be a dominant player at the next World Cup in 2026. The whole Berhalter-Reyna saga was made even more dramatic by the fact that it’s basically family drama: Berhalter played with Reyna’s dad Claudio in youth soccer and in high school, and they were USMNT teammates from 1994 until 2006. Berhalter’s wife and Reyna’s wife were soccer teammates and roommates at UNC. Gio has known Berhalter his whole life.
But this week Berhalter created a Twitter account to tweet a two-page, single spaced statement. During the World Cup, he said, someone had “contacted U.S. Soccer, saying that they had information about me that would 'take me down' — an apparent effort to leverage something very personal from long ago to bring about the end of my relationship with U.S. Soccer.” In the 90s, when Berhalter was 18, he and his girlfriend (who is now his wife) got into a fight outside a bar and he kicked her in the legs. “There are zero excuses for my actions that night,” he wrote in the statement. “It was a shameful moment and one that I regret to this day.” He apologized, his wife forgave him, and they have been married for 25 years. She signed the statement, along with Gregg.
Immediately after the Berhalter tweet, the USMNT released a statement that was Scandal-levels of incomprehensible: The team announced it hired a firm to look into the Berhalter incident, but during the course of that investigation it had also unearthed “potential inappropriate behavior towards multiple members of our staff by individuals outside of our organization.”
On Wednesday, ESPN reported that Gio Reyna’s parents, Claudio and Danielle, admitted to telling U.S. Soccer the Berhalter story. “I thought it was especially unfair that Gio, who had apologized for acting immaturely about his playing time, was still being dragged through the mud,” Danielle Reyna said in a statement to ESPN, “when Gregg had asked for and received forgiveness for doing something so much worse at the same age.”
Danielle said she didn’t expect it to be investigated, but that Berhalter’s statement “significantly minimizes” what she recalls happened that night. (“While in Qatar, I shared my frustrations about my son's World Cup experience with a number of close friends,” Claudio added in a statement to The Athletic. “However, at no time did I ever threaten anyone, nor would I ever do so.”)
Meanwhile, my favorite players of this World Cup (Kylian Mbappé and Achraf Hakimi) came to New York City:
Just Mary J. Blige levels of living life like it’s golden.
Survivor: Speaker of the House
I have been watching quite a lot of Survivor since the last time we spoke — more on this later — but nothing could’ve prepared me for the latest Survivor season: Congressman Kevin McCarthy continually not winning enough votes to be voted Speaker of the House.
McCarthy has failed to outwit and outplay, so he has decided to outlast: Across four days and thirteen (!) votes, a clique of super-ultra-conservatives have refused to vote for McCarthy, thereby denying him the speakership. All 212 Democrats, meanwhile, have unanimously voted for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (who was the subject of a federal investigation into sexual encounters with teenage girls and who generally looks like a Pixar movie bully) sent a letter to the Architect of the Capitol asking why McCarthy is allowed to occupy the Speaker’s office. “I write to inform you that the Speaker of the House Office located in the U.S. Capitol Building is currently occupied by Rep. Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz said in the letter. “As of [Tuesday], the 117th Congress adjourned sine die, and a Speaker from the 118th Congress has not been elected … no member can lay claim to this office.”
I’m sorry, I know, I hate to laugh at these people because they are all completely horrible and racist and pathetic but: Lmao. I wish Kevin McCarthy a happy thirteen more losses! These people are in a bed of their own making and I won’t hear them complain about the 17-thread count sheets! I will go back to watching the season finale of Survivor: House of Representatives on C-SPAN.
Spare Update
I survived all six hours of the Harry and Meghan Netflix doc series and came away with one real conclusion: This is a family of locals. Sorry — I know! — but every one of them: locals. Of course a light skinned Leo had them in a tailspin! This family of locals was outmatched. This family is so boringly obsessed with the spotlight (local), has no taste or charm (local), get bent out of shape over non-drama (local). Even this tell-all … a bit local to me, sorry … without the guiding, shaping hand of Ms. Oprah Winfrey, this book is a 2015 Buzzfeed listicle of disorganized trivia.
Anyway: The biggest revelations from this week of Spare leaks.
- Harry wore that Nazi uniform to a Halloween party in 2005 on William and Kate’s advice: “They both howled,” Harry says, according to Page Six, when he sought their advice on the costume idea. “Worse than Willy's leotard outfit! Way more ridiculous! Which, again, was the point."
- The brothers got into a physical fight over Meghan: “He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast,” Harry wrote, according to Us Weekly. “He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dogs’ bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”
- He doesn’t like Camilla, per Page Six, which would be a bigger revelation if it appeared anyone likes Camilla.
- Harry killed 25 people during his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, per the Daily Mail.
- Characters actually not welcome here: William and Kate “were regular — nay, religious — viewers of Suits,’” according to Page Six, but bullied her anyway!
Julia Fox Julia Fox-ing
Julia Fox is so damn good at being Julia Fox: commanding our attention, being outrageous, having fun. (So many people, by contrast, insist on being their regular selves, and somehow remain very bad at it.) On WWHL, Fox alluded to her pre-Kanye date with Drake: “Being on a private jet, cuddled on the jet, landed, got some Chanel bags," Fox told Andy Cohen. "It was great, yeah."
Fox went on a date with Drake in 2020. She is so completely his type and so completely out of his league it is really majestic to consider. I’d actually forgotten this tweet (thank you Lainey!) but them linking up has always seemed like a no-brainer to me:
Documentary … now!
Speaking of women Drake doesn’t have a chance with: Rihanna! Peter Berg, director/hot patsy in The Last Seduction, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter this week. He gave an update on the Rihanna documentary he’s directing that is definitely in the process of happening but also definitely not happening anytime soon.
“Waiting for her to approve it. It’s done and sold, and Amazon’s ready. She’s a perfectionist, so we keep adding. It’s been six and a half years of filming, so, yeah, it’s ready to come out,” he said. “We’re just waiting on her to say, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be a 10-year project.”
Berg says he’s willing to wait ten years, though, because obviously. “When Rihanna asked me to make a doc, I thought she was joking. My work tends to be a bit more masculine, at least on the surface,” he said. Berg directed Friday Night Lights, developed the series, and directed Rihanna in Battleship. “But this has allowed me to dip in and out of her life while I’m doing other things. I’ve loved it — watching her in the studio, seeing her turn Fenty into this billion-dollar entity and, now, being a mom. It’s such an enriching experience, I don’t really care how long it takes.” Somewhere in Los Angeles, Leonardo DiCaprio is reading this and nodding his head vigorously, and also readying his reel just in case.
News Briefs
Celine Dion fans protested the Rolling Stone offices when Celine Dion was left off a list she didn’t belong on. (Rolling Stone)
Tom Hanks on nepotism: “It doesn’t matter what our last names are.” Mayhaps — but it does matter what our first names are! How do you name a baby Cheston Marlon and act surprised when he misbehaves? (Vanity Fair)
Speaking of nepotism: This looks like the Reformation font. Lol.
It is, in my opinion, a self-drag of Hailey Bieber to refer to herself as a nepo baby because it totally discounts that she had the most iconic pop culture entrances of all time which was: being discovered by Caity Weaver doing absolutely nothing but sitting on a bed during the course of Justin Bieber’s 2016 GQ profile. Let’s see some of those other girls pull off that.
RHOSLC star Jen Shah was sentenced so 6.5 years in prison, along with five years of supervised release, on Friday. (TMZ)
Bad Bunny threw a rude fan’s phone:
Which Allison Williams profile did you read this week? Wired’s, Vulture’s or Town and Country’s? I read none, because there is not a lot about Allison Williams that I feel particularly moved to find out, but I did revisit Marnie singing “Stronger” on Girls.
That’s all this week! Thank you for reading. This weekend I will be seated for M3GAN, and listening to this mix on repeat:
Have a good weekend!
why was?? bad bunny's?? entire posse wearing white bandanas?? they look like army nurses in world war 1
Just read McCarthy finally won the speaker vote. After 15 ballots. I'm honestly gonna miss it I love when twitter comes together to dunk on a loser of the week and god...what better loser of the week can you get.