Last weekend I watched J.Lo’s movie-musical-music-video-mashup This Is Me…Now. It was weird and wild and crazy and unintentionally cheesy/hilarious and I didn’t like a lot of the choreography and some of the acting was 😒 .

AND it was beautiful and spectacular and the choreo that was good was SO! GOOD! and it made me cry at least 7 times and JLo served incredible looks throughout and both the very beginning and very end were so gorgeously well-done that they made you wanna forget all of the what-the-hell-IS-this between stuff!

So yeah, it was entertaining 🤷🏻‍♀️

And then I watched the documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told, which is about the making of This Is Me…Now, and man oh man, my loves. I cannot stop thinking about it.

And I have already watched it again! Twice!

I’m not a die-hard fan of Jennifer Lopez; I do, however, find her endlessly fascinating. She’s one of the few people who, if all she ever did was just make documentary after documentary of her just living her life, I would watch all of them! I am a very self-absorbed person who does not give a single shit about what most people do all day, but when it comes to Jennifer Lopez, I very much care!!!

And that’s why I couldn’t get enough of The Greatest Love Story Never Told. We got to see a Softer Side of Sears with her Netflix doc Halftime, but in this one, Jennifer really gives us everything, including Ben Affleck Talking. She cries a lot in it! Which made me cry a lot! And you will too, probably!

I also did not realize how much I have in common with Jennifer Lopez? Besides both of us being middle chil’ren who loved to dance, have had the same friends for the past 20 years, and who are now adults who basically say, “private life? what for?!?”, paid subscribers of The End of The Beginning will understand why the love story between her and Ben felt so TEoTB-coded (except for, y’know, the whole canceling the wedding due to overbearing paparazzi/media attention thing). For those of you who did not want to pay $5 to receive more emails from me, I will not be telling you more about this and you will also probably never know if I have ever had any romantic feelings for anyone ever in my whole entire life!

The other thing I loved is that, while I’ve always thought of J.Lo as more of a performer or entertainer than a capital A Artiste, I related to her firm feelings that no one else needs to “get” This Is Me…Now or why she was doing it; it’s just something she has to make for herself, as an Artist. I believe that anyone who truly cares about creating or putting art into the world will eventually come to that same place sooner or later. When it’s really on your heart to create something, it can’t matter to you how it’s received or whether or not other people will like it. Sometimes, admittedly, this results in a sophomore book/album flop, or a Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines project, or a This Is Me…Now don’t-call-it-a-music-video-movie…thus, it might be something you feel you have to do, but that does not mean that it’s the key to success!

The ironic thing is that after watching J.Lo say this over and over again that in the doc…it does tend to give one (i.e., me) a lil’ bit of a renewed respect for the movie. There are other points in the doc where it’s revealed just how much it does actually hurt Jennifer to not be taken more seriously, and truthfully I don’t think the movie is gonna help with that. Whether it’s a certified failure flop of a thing we’ll be mocking for years to come or a future camp classic favorite à la Mahogany or Burlesque …I don’t know. I even don’t know if we’re still really talking about it two weeks after it premiered (except for me, obviously, with this newsletter, but this was also originally supposed to be in last week’s newsletter).

This week I listened to a couple of podcasts that ripped apart these two projects and it reminded me that, when it comes to celeb stuff like this, your girl almost always comes from a Place of Yes. It’s the same me that got mad at my 2nd grade teacher for telling us that the moon isn’t made of cheese - just let us believe in our fairytales and dreams, lady!!! We’re 7 years old, for god sakes - you can tell us about science when we have to start paying taxes! And that’s how I feel about reality shows and celeb docs - I don’t want to KNOW that the cast of The Traitors isn’t actually staying overnight in the castle, and I don’t wanna hear about how J.Lo is obviously not close friends with Jane Fonda because Jane didn’t even know it was Jennifer calling when they had that one phone conversation! Just let me have those things!! Where was Leah Remini when it came to both Jennifer’s wedding and documentary? I don’t know?! She was probably busy somewhere, trying to take down Scientology, just like I’m busy over here, pretending that they’re still the bestest of friends! Kay? Let me live in my delusions and I will allow Jennifer Lynn Lopez to live in hers!!!

So anyway…I guess what I’m trying to say with all of this is that J.Lo and I are basically the same person. Who knew?? Certainly not you, I bet!

The Real Traitors Are The Friends We Made Along The Way

Season 2 of The Traitors wrapped with the finale episode AND the reunion on Thursday, and boy oh boy, my loves…I was NOT WELL.

Now, if you’ll kindly remember that I called it in last week’s newsletter:

And honestly, I don’t care if any of the above win, but I just don’t want Trishelle to win, and I REALLY want CT to win.

I do think, though, based on reunion photos, that it’s going to be Trishelle and CT at the end. This is JUST a guess - I haven’t read any spoilers, I don’t know anything about anything - but in the span of the season, it also makes a lot of sense that Trishelle and CT would finally buddy up for real and make The Challenge alumni proud by successfully casting any lingering Traitors out.

Turns out I was right: Trishelle and CT won. What I didn’t expect was that the way they won would have me cyber-bullying Trishelle and breaking up my decades-old marriage to CT.

To sum up, Kate the Traitor decided to kill Sheree instead of Trishelle, which would end up being the worst mistake a Traitor has ever made in the history of this game. The hilarious thing is that, when Sheree gets her kill notice, she turns on her brain for the first time during this game and rightfully guesses that Kate is a Traitor.

Sandra got voted out at the last Round Table, leaving MJ, Trishelle, and CT at the final fire. MJ was happy and ready to end the game, but Trishelle and CT threw red bags into the final fire, forcing another vote. When I saw the way Trishelle and CT were looking at each other and NOT making eye contact with MJ, I started screaming, because I could tell that the two of them were about to double-cross MJ.

BUT THEN: CT voted for MJ, MJ voted for Trishelle, and Trishelle voted for CT.

Trishelle was STILL! MAD! that CT didn’t light her torch at that one immunity circle, and didn’t like that CT had changed his vote from Kate to Sandra at the last Round Table. CT was like, “You’re obviously in love with me and everyone can tell but let’s just you and me finish this thing together and we can not talk about it later.” So then the two of them voted MJ out, which felt shitty and dirty because despite CT giving this whole song and dance that Trishelle was the only one he knew he could trust (and like, why? You absolutely should not), they both KNEW MJ was a Faithful and so it felt like they just voted her out to be greedy and shitty.

I don’t even know how to collect my thoughts on this because logically, Trishelle wrote down CT’s name first, which she keeps bringing up as a way to prove that her and CT didn’t have a long-standing gameplay to vote out whoever was at the final fire with them. But also, Trishelle wrote CT’s name down to punish him for not loving her back and then when they had to vote again, she wrote MJ’s name down, so now MJ has to be the victim of y’alls secret little love thing? Like that’s fucked up.

I felt so strongly about it that I tweeted about it! A LOT!

You know what else is fucked up? How at the reunion, all the gamers were like, “MJ, why are you still mad, this is a GAME.” Exsqueeze me, Janelle, Trishelle, and Johnny Bananas? You talkin’?

Also, if Trishelle and CT think it’s over per MJ…they don’t know MJ. She was VERY STUPID on The Traitors and thus seemed a lil’ sweet and air-headed, but they have never seen her fight or hold a grudge. For those of us who have…oof.

Anyway, I was SO hyped up about how this season turned out that I spent my entire Friday being pissed about it, and now I don’t even care anymore!

Other haps of the week:

• Real Housewives of Miami officially wrapped an AMAZING, ICONIC season with the last episode of their reunion last Thursday, and wow wow wow, did it HIT. Adriana read from the Bible! Larsa Pippen continued to be a dumb mean baby mouth-breather who just “I know you are but what am I” during every single disagreement! We all learned that we HATE Marcus Jordan now - he said that none of the other women would even be allowed to do the dishes at his dad’s house, which…considering most of the women on the cast are Latina and Haitian?! THE FUCK YOU SAY?! - and now we never want to see him again!

There was a live performance of the operatic “Ava Maria” which was then set to a dance party remix (and no joke, it honestly slapped!)! And then even AFTER the reunion officially ended, we still got, like, 10 minutes of drama as the cast and crew were wrapping!! We laughed, we cried, we screamed, we danced.

If you have not been watching what is absolutely THE BEST Housewives franchise not just on TV right now but arguably that ever was, there are only 6 seasons to catch up on (and I would usually tell you to skip season 1 since it was supposed to be an entirely different show called “Miami Social Club” so it’s kind of boring BUT it shows Lara’s original face + body and it gives us another season of the now late Mama Elsa, who is a treasure worth more than gold). They also go FAST because EVERY! SINGLE! EPISODE! is packed with so much glamour and color and drama and laughs. I LIVE for this show, y’all, and I’m so sad that we now have to wait at least a half year for another season of it!

• Erika Jayne’s Bet It All On Blonde doc premiered last week. I wasn’t gonna watch it because I resent the fact that Bravo keeps trying to force Erika upon us even though The Housewife & The Hustler (Parts 1 AND 2) exist, AND I was super pissed that they shoved the RHOM reunion to Thursday so they could show the doc on Wednesday right after the RHOBH reunion. But I still ended up watching it because that’s just who I be, and I’m so curious how Erika is able to express empathy and remorse for Tom’s victims in her doc but not in the last 2 seasons of RHOBH??? Make it make sense.

• The Oscars happened on Sunday (you can watch the whole thing on Hulu right now if you missed it) and man, what a return to form. The pandemmie was hard on award shows, and on movies in general. There’s been a couple years when I think it’s safe to say that not a lot of us cared about most of the movies up for awards, but this year so many people had FEELINGS about the movies and talent nominated for awards, and that’s when you know you’re in for a great show. And the Academy Award creative and production team did not let us down! There were so many great bits and pairings and the “I’m Just Ken” performance was such a great spectacle (Slash!! Did y’all know that man is REALLY into dinosaurs?!) and the speeches…man. I just loved it.

My husband Cillian won for Best Actor (so proud of you, baby! I love you 😘), and even though I really wanted Lily to win for Best Actress, Emma Stone really gave us a moment with that speech.

Movies are back, baby!!!!!!

• WHERE IS KATE?!! We talked about this a little bit last week with the release of that grainy Blackberry 2005 photo of “Kate” riding in the car with someone who looks like her mom, but now it’s just all gotten way worse??

  The photo of Kate and her kids that was supposedly taken by Prince William a week ago has since been proved to be so badly photoshopped (Kate’s face was literally taken from a Vogue Cover she did around a year ago) and AI’ed that the AP released a full kill notice for it. Kensington Palace then posted a social media “sorry I’m so bad at photoshop, my bad” post that was supposedly from Kate (which…even if that’s TRUE, why is SHE editing official photos vs not a paid palace professional?). Then another photo was released to the media of paparazzi “catching” Prince William accompanying Kate on her way to a private appointment, except, haha, it just so happens that Kate’s facing away from the camera and THAT photo is grainy, too - must be a real shortage of professional cameras in the UK!!!! Anyway, that photo has since been proven to be an altered photo that was taken this past Christmas.

  So something truly dodgy is going on. My favorite theory of late is that William and that Turnip Toff, Rose (The Marchioness of Cholmondeley, pronounced “Chumley”) have a secret love child and Kate found out and is officially OVER IT and so she’s taken the kids and is pulling a Katie Holmes on the William and the Monarchy. And if that is true, then I wish her nothing but the best! Go to the US, girl! No matter what happened between you before, I’m pretty sure that Harry and Meghan will still take you in! The three of you together can take down the whole rotted Firm from the inside out!

Anyway, that’s it for this week! Next week we’ll probably get back to talking about some real-life stuff in addition to cultural events, but in the meantime, feel free to use the comment section on this here Substack to sound off on any pop culture nonsense you have feelings about, because as you can tell from the length of this post, there is a LOT to discuss!

See You By The Seaside, Cindy -

-AC