This is The Friday Post, Hung Up’s weekly roundup of celebrity mess and miscellanea. If you like this kind of thing, why not subscribe?
Lady Gaga promotes movie like no one else promotes movies — with the exception of maybe Bennifer — meaning she performs promoting her movie. Lesser/regular actors promote a performance or a physical transformation or an accent; lesser/regular actors pretend to not promote anything at all. But the press tour is part of the all of it for L. Gaga — remember her Star Is Born Venice! Remember her 100 people in a room! Remember her describing Bradley Cooper wiping off her makeup with a Neutrogena (that branding is a guess) makeup wipe?
I’m not a Little Monster — nothing personal — but I do eagerly claw for a Lady Gaga press tour. Thank father, son, and House of Gucci: we’re getting one. Gaga was on the cover of British Vogue, and finally I have something to fucking talk about. For once I don’t want an interview with fascinating, personal observations (I can read E. Alex Jung on Kumail for that!) or Zoom room stunts (every dog or baby that has ever charmingly interrupted an 90 minute video chat session) — I want artifice, pull quotes, nutso confessions. I want Lady Gaga promoting a movie! She delivered: “I only felt that I could truly do this story justice if I approached it with the eye of a curious woman who was interested in possessing a journalistic spirit so that I could read between the lines of what was happening in the film’s scenes,” she explained. “Meaning that nobody was going to tell me who Patrizia Gucci was. Not even Patrizia Gucci.”
Excuse me but: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s what else you need to read, know, study:
“I don’t know if people know this about me, but if I weren’t who I am today, I would have been a combat journalist. That was one of my dreams. When I was at the Capitol, the day before the inauguration, I remember walking around and looking for evidence of the insurrection.”
“It was nearly impossible for me to speak in the accent as a blonde. I instantly had to dye my hair, and I started to live in a way whereby anything that I looked at, anything that I touched, I started to take notice of where and when I could see money. I started to take photographs as well. I have no evidence that Patrizia was a photographer, but I thought as an exercise, and finding her interests in life, that I would become a photographer, so I took my point-and-shoot camera everywhere that I went. I noticed that Patrizia loved beautiful things. If something wasn’t beautiful, I deleted it.”
“Although age is just a number, what I feel mostly is a lot of love for the artistic community, and the artistic collective,” she says, telling me I must deliver this message from her “to the world.”
“It was the experience of a lifetime making this film because every minute of every day I thought of my ancestors in Italy, and what they had to do so that I could have a better life. I just wanted to make them proud, which is why I made the decision to make the performance about a real woman and not about the idea of a bad woman.”
“It is three years since I started working on it, and I will be fully honest and transparent: I lived as her [Reggiani] for a year and a half. And I spoke with an accent for nine months of that. Off camera. I never broke. I stayed with her.”
You can read the full British Vogue interview here. Celebrities should not under any circumstances run for political office (or, while we’re here, interview one another), but I actually wouldn’t mind if Lady Gaga continued her own investigation into the insurrection.
What Paying Subscribers Got This Week
It has been six days since I Met Roger Deakins™ and Meeting Roger Deakins™ was really a defining experience of this little thing I call My Life (not the Bill Clinton book, the Mary J. Blige album). You can read all about it here. This post really has it all: romance, intrigue, bird law, and a boy wearing an A24 sweatshirt.
It’s not unlike the Nora Ephron Ephron essay about J.F.K. in that it: does not end in a passionate affair, but rather in a woman (me) being awkward and not able to form coherent sentences and also not looking my best.
As always: if you want to be added to my paid list but cannot afford it right now, please email me!
News Briefs
Britney Spears posted and deleted an Instagram airing out her mom:
Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian hung out in Staten Island, according to TMZ.
Jay-Z only lasted just one day on Instagram.
The intense “u sold 🤠 dad's 🤠 raaaaaAAaAaAaaanch! 🤠👊🏻💥” energy of this tweet:
Crisp Ratt, who has literally never been endearing but has always been annoying, loves his wife enough to post a photo of her looking adoringly at him:
(Some have observed that the “She’s given me an amazing life, a gorgeous healthy daughter” line might be a slight to Pratt’s ex-wife Anna Faris and … it’s giving deadbeat!)
Kanye was interviewed by N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN, however to be fully transparent, too many men aired too many controversial opinions this week, so that will be covered in Tuesday night’s email.
I Wish I Could Go Back in Time And Not Been A Shailene Woodley Stan in My Youth Because Then I Wouldn’t Have to Know Who Aaron Rodgers Is Today
The Green Bay Packers QB/Shailene Woodley’s fiancé Aaron Rodgers tested positive for COVID on Wednesday. Rodgers, who is unvaccinated, told reporters in August that he was “immunized,” according to ESPN.
This has ramifications in the NFL — after Big Little Lying about being vaccinated, he broke league rules about what unvaccinated players are allowed to do — but also ramifications for everyone else: he won’t stop spreading stupid misinformation!
“I realize I’m in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now,” he said in an interview on The Pat McAfee Show on Friday. “So before the final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I’d like to set the record straight on some of the blatant lies that are out there about me now.” Rodgers, a self-described “critical thinker,” went on to thank Joe Rogan (for guidance and absolutely not medically sound consultations) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (for … inspiration?).
It’s worth noting how hilariously Shut The Fuck Up Bingo this all is: if you are (1) white and quoting MLK, (2) taking advice from Joe Rogan, (3) describing yourself as a “critical thinker” … baby it’s a wrap! I have never known someone to check all three of those boxes and be correct.
Sister Act Me
Gone Girl actor Tyler Perry told The Hollywood Reporter that the Sister Act 3 script is being written, and he is a producer on it. He said other things like: “Whoopi’s really excited” and “I think that this is just what the country needs.” Interesting, considering my phone hasn’t been ringing:
That’s all this week! Thank you for reading. This weekend I will be watching the Curtis Mayfield series on Criterion, and also continue my rewatch of Curb from the beginning. See you Sunday for Succession!
“the final nail ... in my cancel culture casket"
- Aaron Rodgers, immediately following a google search of the word "metaphor"
I assume Gaga's "age is just a number comment" is weird way of talking about Jared Leto's role?? Because I'm seriously concerned for the person who made that choice.