Straight Up

Fiona Harvey, the woman unearthed as 'the real-life Martha' by internet sleuths following the wild success of Baby Reindeer, gave a highly controversial interview to Piers Morgan on his YouTube channel last week, so of course we had to debrief. Was she lying? Was Piers wrong to interview her? What are the ethics of all this? Plus, since we love an age gap, we discuss Kate Moss holding hand...

Dua Lipa’s third album came out last week, huns, and we had such high hopes. So why has Radical Optimism fallen a little flat for us? This got us discussing the general ‘mood’ around the superstar: is she reaching her potential? And how authentic is her media empire, Service95, At Your Service podcast and her new production company Radical22? Plus, we’ve both watched the much-hyped new Anne Hathaw...

Bridge will soon be back on our screens with a new love interest we are VERY excited to see: young Leo Woodall. Do we like this 28 year age gap for our fave clumsy hun? We discuss! Plus, why everyone is talking about the steamy new psychosexual film Challengers, and why its star Zendaya is becoming one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. Also: our thoughts on Billie Eilish’s highly candid Ro...

Baby Reindeer is of course our main talking point this week, huns, as we debate the deeply ironic investigation undertaken by internet sleuths trying to uncover Martha and Darrien’s real identities. Sure, to uncover the ‘truth’ behind the chilling story of stalking is tempting, but is it fair to speculate when Richard Gadd has asked us not to? Ellie has also watched Nicola Peltz Beckham’s toe-curl...

The new Amy Winehouse biopic is finally out, but Back to Black has bitterly divided critics and fans. Some are disgusted by the ‘sanitisation’ of key figures such as her dad Mitch Winehouse and former husband Blake Fielder-Civil, while others are delighted to see a film that doesn’t revel in the sordid details of her drug addiction. We get into the thorny debate around the Sam Taylor-Johnson direc...

There’s yet another headline-grabbing ‘feminist’ debate raging on the internet, angels, so we give you the lowdown on The Cut’s viral piece The Case for Marrying an Older Man, from the intellectualization of gold digging (lol) to the persistent cultural misinterpretations of Lolita. Next, we debrief on the exposé on Andrew Huberman, the world’s biggest pop scientist and host of the third biggest p...

Why do the tabloids write about Katie Price nearly every day? The former glamour model better known as Jordan has said in a recent interview that her relationship with the media has changed from a ‘game’ to ‘mental health abuse’, so we get into what has prompted such a media frenzy. And, is it hypocritical of Price to say women in their 20s shouldn’t get cosmetic surgery? We also give our brutally...

In light of Kate Middleton’s recent announcement (and the prior ‘where’s Kate’ internet circus), this week we debate the fraught but symbiotic relationship between media and monarchy, from what ‘right’ we as the public have to access to the royal family, to previous privacy breaches like tampongate, Kate’s topless holiday pics and the hounding of Harry and Meghan. Next up is Ellie’s favourite new...

Male infertility accounts for half of all IVF cases, so why does society so often consider it a ‘women’s issue’? We get into the taboo around fertility and masculinity, as well as the thorny topics of egg freezing, the 'queer tax' and the commodification of reproduction in this second part of our exploration of why more and more people are putting off having children. We also dive into ple...

The startling new data revealing the sharply declining fertility rate in the UK taps into the fraught and personal conversations that we’ve been having since turning 30: are we ready to have kids, financially and emotionally? How has everything from increased gender equality and the thriving child free movement to social media and the pandemic skip affected our reasoning? We try to answer all thes...

Have there ever been so many women divided by a film as Poor Things? We get into the controversy ahead of the Oscars, and report on all the BTS gossip from our gals night at the Brit Awards (which is why we went live a little early this week! ). Plus, we dissect some seriously juicy gossip surrounding Leonardo DiCaprio and Paul Mescal, and, following last week’s chat, get into the fascinating real...

After months of her dominating the news cycle, we’re finally getting down to it and talking about Taylor Swift. From her embodiment of girlhood to the problematic PR moments she’s generated over the years, we dissect Swiftie mania and interrogate our own feelings towards pop’s brightest star. Next up is a review of debut novel The List by Yomi Adekoke, a gripping exploration of online shaming, can...

Who is it that you’re really dressing for? That’s the Q we’re debating this week in light of Emily Ratajkowski’s recent Glamour interview, where she says she “kind of feels like everybody’s bullshitting when people say, ‘Oh, no, I’m doing this for the girlies.’” Also: Sydney Sweeney’s Anyone But You, the ‘rom com with an edge’ that was one of the most talked about films of the past year, thanks to...

How did J.Lo become one of the most iconic celebrities of all time? In honour of her ninth album, which is an ode to her fourth husband Ben Affleck, we look back at Jennifer Lopez’s extraordinary life and career, from the horrific fall out from her 2003 film Gigli (which broke her and Ben up the first time and left her ‘eviscerated’ by the press), to her out-and-proud, very meta obsession with the...

The Mr and Mrs Smith reboot has landed on Amazon Prime and is already being dubbed the sexiest series on TV, starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine as spies trying to save their marriage. We get into why this show is a million times better than the iconic Noughties film, covering everything from the Brangelina curse, to why original co-writer/ Mrs Smith Phoebe Waller-Bridge exited early on. Next...

Ofc The Traitors finale fall out had to quickly be discussed prior to kicking off proceedings today, huns, followed by an analysis of the off-the-charts chemistry between Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers. Plus, Paul Mescal has been on the Louis Theroux podcast and, shocker, we’re still finding Louis’s narcissistic interview style annoying.   In the world of TV, Kathleen recommen...

You asked and so we’ve delivered huns, with a deepdive into Sofia Coppola’s new film Priscilla, starring none other than the internet’s new boyfriend Jacob Elordi. We discuss how the film sits uncomfortably within the grey area between love and coercive control, and whether it would have been described as grooming in our current era. Plus, everything we know about Jacob Elordi to date: from first...

Sex is at the top of the agenda today hunnies, with Ellie having watched Emma Stone’s insane, Oscar-tipped bonkbuster Poor Things, as well as the amazingly realistic How to Have Sex, about a girls rite of passage trip to Malia. Cue discussions about everything from sexual taboos to consensual grey areas. Meanwhile Kathleen has been paying *particular* close attention to Hollywood’s unlikely leadin...

Kanye’s wife Bianca Censori is allegedly not allowed to speak in public,  but how many of the disturbing rumours swirling around the couple are actually true? We dive into the very strange world of Ye and Bianca, Head of Architecture at Yeezy, in light of the recent slew of semi-nude images posted by Ye in ‘honour’ of his wife’s 29th birthday.  Kathleen also tells us why Michelle Keegan’s new Netf...

*TW: themes of child sexual abuse and infertility* How could a female teacher in her mid-thirties ever think it acceptable to sleep with her 12-year-old student? That’s the question at the heart of provocative new film May December, starring Julianne Moore as said teacher, Gracie, who we find living married with the former student she raped, 20 years after the crime. The film - loosely inspired by...

The three most shocking sex scenes of 2023? They’re all in one buzzy new film: class satire Saltburn, which Ellie went to see last week and reports back with all the gory details in this episode. A little less sexy but equally entertaining was Kathleen’s culture pick this week: Leave the World Behind, the apocalyptic thriller  starring Julia Roberts. We get into why it’s so realistic for 2023 and...

Prison, feuds, fake rumours, sex tape scandals, rehab stints and car chases: it’s all kicking off in part two of our investigation into Hollywood’s hottest noughties 'it girls’, gang, starting with the strange story of Nicole Richie’s adoption and subsequent route to fame via reality TV trailblazer the Simple Life.   Then, we continue to chart the toxic noughties and our then-treatment of wome...

A picture is worth a thousand words… quite literally, in the case of the infamous ‘Bimbo Summit’ picture of 2006, which saw Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan crammed into a car together after a drunken night out, at the height of Paris and Lindsay’s tabloid-fuelled feud. The picture, which was plastered on the cover of the New York Post with the headline ‘Bimbo Summit’ went viral, and...

When US megastar Billy Porter invited us for champagne at his five-star London hotel, we knew we were in for a treat, and boy, did he deliver. The Tony, Emmy and Grammy-winning actor and musician got straight up about pretty much everything, including, of course, his relationship with the press. He tells us exactly how he managed his decision to go public with his HIV diagnosis in 2021, and why he...

Jennifer Lopez was arrested with then-boyfriend P Diddy back in 1999, a scandal that had almost slipped from public view until earlier this week, when singer Cassie filed a lawsuit with a slew of disturbing allegations against the music mogul. We revisit exactly what went down on that fateful night in New York, which culminated in 14 hours in police custody for Jen, as well as the details surround...