Unfortunately, new episodes of Game of Thrones aren’t airing until April 2019—but while we wait, we can enjoy a reunion from two of the OG characters: Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa). Clarke shared a photo on Instagram Sunday (June 3) of Momoa holding her on the Iron Throne during a GoT cast party this weekend. Clarke captioned the picture, “FYI…This is the closest you’ll ever get to me attempting ‘that lift’ from dirty dancing. Yes, my man is sitting. Yes, there’s no lake. And yes, I have no idea I’m NOT being raised above his head.” Momoa uploaded photos of himself and Clarke to his Instagram and captioned them, “Moon of my life @emilia_clarke every time I leave you my face hurts from smiling to much. I Fucking love you forever.”
See the posts for yourself, below:
Momoa and Clarke weren’t the only Game of Thrones stars who were reunited at the Ireland bash. Momoa also shared a photo of Kit Harington (Jon Snow) on the Iron Throne with him, while Clarke was caught posing with Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Dany’s right-hand woman, Missandei.
Though Momoa’s Drogo was (spoiler alert) killed off in season 1, he and Clarke have shared cute Insta moments before; back in November, they met up for drinks and selfies, with Clarke captioning a photo of the pair, “When life is so good that your sun and stars is in your city…you lose your eyes and gain 5 grins ? (and gins).”
Season 8 is set to be the last for GoT, and Clarke has already shot her final scene as Dany. The Mother of Dragons got emotional during her final moments on set, explaining in a Vanity Fair interview, “It f*cked me up. Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is… ” Still, fans shouldn’t despair when they consider there are a mere six epodes left in the series; with a cast this close, there will always be plenty of opportunities for your favorite characters to get back together. Even if it’s only in a world without dragons.
Apparently North West, daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, is already well on her way to embracing the KarJenner lifestyle—which involves, among other things, very nice bags. The almost-5-year-old has officially become the proud owner of a $750 Alexander Wang Marti Micro leopard print shoulder bag, which retails for a casual $750 and includes plenty of room for crayons and other preschooler essentials.
North, the oldest of the Kardashian-West kids, received the handbag from its designer, Alexander Wang, who sent the gift to the toddler in advance of her fifth birthday.
“North, happy birthday! Every girl needs a lil sparkle. Hope you <3 it. Alex,” the note accompanying the gift read. (Alex, if you’re reading this: My birthday’s in December, I’m approaching my late 20s, and like you said, every girl needs a little sparkle.)
On Friday, Kim Kardashian West posted the gift to her Instagram Stories, showing off her daughter’s brand-new designer item. “Oh my God, North is the luckiest girl in the world,” she says in the video. “Who gets like, this bag from Alexander Wang? I wanna steal it. Alex, thank you so much. I might steal this.”
But that wasn’t all: Kim also showed off another smaller clutch in the video, this one embellished with tiny crystals. “Wait, look at this Wang bag that North got,” the TV star said. “I cannot even believe it. Love it.”
Nothing, it seems, has been more difficult to remedy than the issue of racism and implicit bias in this country, but this week, coffeehouse juggernaut Starbucks attempted to at least begin the conversation when they shut down more than 8,000 of their stores for a day of racial bias training following the April arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia location, sending the internet into a flurry of think pieces and expert quotes that had people wondering: Can a day of company training really fix a problem of this scope?
If the training video Starbucks showed is any indication, they’re at least using historical context to address exclusion. The passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 may have outlawed discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion or national origin, but in the video—released to the public Tuesday—the landmark law serves as a framework for understanding just how difficult it is to change hearts and minds, especially when it comes to the implicit biases we hold.
In the film, created by award-winning documentarian Stanley Nelson and underwritten by Starbucks, a narrator explores how access to public spaces has been regulated in this country, and how those areas have been made largely unattainable to black people. When blacks—who are maligned by stereotypes that have been intensified by the historical stink of slavery—enter those public spaces, it has been a punishable offense. That was no more evident than in April when two black men—Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson—visited a Philadelphia Starbucks to attend a business meeting. While they were waiting for their friend to arrive, and after they’d asked to use the restroom, a Starbucks employee called the police, telling the 911 dispatcher that the men refused to purchase an item or leave. The call resulted in an arrest on suspicion of trespassing—though no charges were filed—and the high-profile incident sparked protests and calls for Starbucks to address what many believed to be racial profiling.
[embedded content]
“It’s time we talk about what it means to not be welcomed as an American citizen,” Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of NAACP Legal Defense Fund and senior consultant to Starbucks’s racial bias training says into the camera. And it’s a conversation Starbucks is committed to having, according to Rosalind ‘Roz’ Brewer, Starbucks’ first woman COO.
“We’ve always said that this training is a first step in a long-term journey—we cannot change ingrained behaviors and implicit biases within four hours,” she told Glamour.com, adding that the company will send representatives to a convening this summer hosted by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and will take steps toward understanding how they can address other forms of bias.
Additionally, she said, the company’s 100,000 hires each year will be receiving racial bias training upon becoming a Starbucks partner—something experts think is nonnegotiable for the chain.
“This wasn’t just a thing that was nice to do,” said Heather McGhee, president of equal-rights public policy organization Demos and an outside advisor to the training. “The executives had to believe and communicate that they couldn’t succeed as a business without addressing this issue,” McGhee said. “And I think they actually did that.”
Chafing at criticism that the training was more symbolic than effective, McGhee reiterated what the company has been saying since the bias workshop was announced—this isn’t just a one-day fix.
“I think that most of the commentary has really focused on the ‘one day’ because that’s the information that’s mostly out there, but the company has tried to get the message out that they know that one day is just the start,” she told Glamour.com. “They’re looking at ongoing, deeper training as well as reviews of their systems and practices and procedures so that the message is continuously reinforced.”
If Starbucks, which, according to TIME.com, stood to lose up to $12 million in its Tuesday afternoon closings, is investing time and money, and opening itself up to public scrutiny, in proposing racial bias training, it’s expected that the firm would make it an ongoing focus, said Tamisha J. Ponder, director of intercultural engagement at the Community College of Baltimore County.
“We know that these types of trainings need to be reinforced,” she said. “I don’t want to discredit this attempt because it speaks volumes. It’s beneficial because it’s their first discussion of racial bias, ever.” When companies and institutions implement racial bias training with this high a profile, it’s safe to assume it isn’t just for a day, Ponder said. And pulling back the layers of implicit bias and the historical context, much as the Starbucks video shows, is key.
“Before we discuss bias, we discuss the social construction of race,” Ponder said, describing her university’s approach to bias training. “By discussing race as a social construct, it exposes America’s history of legal and systemic racism and access to privilege. It lays the framework for how to discuss bias and how our country has legally supported bias to understand how you, yourself, can be biased.”
To measure the success of these trainings, Starbucks will likely do spot audits of their stores, implement retention and hiring practices to promote diversity, and measure engagement and interest in training from their employees.
Of course, there’s research that shows racial sensitivity training isn’t always effective. But considering Starbucks’s corporate Third Place policy—which aims to “create a culture of warmth and belonging where everyone is welcome” according to the website—chairman Howard Schultz’s recent directive that employees should let anyone (not just customers) use the restroom, and the company’s plan to make accessible all racial bias training material to employees, McGhee is hopeful.
“I think it needs to be a national effort…there’s so much misunderstanding about the way race and bias work in the human mind,” McGhee said. “If we’re going to be a diverse democracy, we’ve got to all—as people in this country—have better skills at interacting across lines of race.”
A person who is crazy about video games is not hard to identify. Unlike many other obsessions, video games are reasonably socially acceptable, so people tend to be very open about their love for them. In fact, gamers are often too open about their love for gaming, to the point of irritating and boring the non-gamers in their lives. A number of video gamers are consumed by their love for video games, to the point that their thoughts, time, energy and money is spent primarily on video games. Below is a list of signs to watch for that may indicate if you are video game obsessed:
The time that you spend playing video games flies by like nothing.
The people in your life know to avoid disturbing you while you are gaming.
Instead of asking you what you want for your birthday and Christmas, your friends ask you which game you want for your birthday and Christmas.
When you have a new game you have been looking forward to it might be days before anyone sees you, other than fellow gamers.
Game creators can never keep up with your gaming appetite.
A number of your closest friendships were created through a headset.
You tell people in your life what you love or enjoy about a game even when it is obvious that they are not interested.
Your gaming habits have been the topic of a negative conversations with your spouse, significant other or family.
If this list sounds all too much like yourself, it is possible that you are addicted to video games. Video game addiction is a recent phenomenon, but is considered a legitimate addiction. Video game addictions that become out of control can result in damaged relationships, poor health and the loss of jobs or good standing in school. If you think you are legitimately addicted to video games, seek addiction treatment.
I hate all sports, but there’s one basketball game I’m livid I didn’t attend: the Toronto Raptors–Cleveland Cavaliers match on Tuesday night (May 1), where people started chanting Khloé Kardashian’s name to throw off Tristan Thompson.
Tristan, if you don’t know, is a power forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers. He’s also Khloé Kardashian’s boyfriend who reportedly cheated on her just days before she gave birth to their daughter, True. Kim Kardashian more or less confirmed this on The Ellen DeGeneres show last week when she said Khloé’s doing “the best she can” and that her situation is just “so fucked up.” Regardless of the truth, though, fans are using this story as a way to throw off Thompson’s basketball performance—and that’s the kind of petty drama I live for.
So here’s what happened. Right before Thompson shot his free throws in the playoff game against the Raptors last night, a wave of people in the crowd began shouting, “Khloé! Khloé! Khloé!” But did the intimidation work? Not exactly: Thompson made his throws, and the Cavs ultimately won the game 113–112. Watch this go down for yourself, below:
Win or lose, Twitter is cheering for these (apparently) TMZ-obsessed sports fans. And I am too. Had I known I could talk celebrity gossip at a basketball game, I would’ve attended way more. Here are some hilarious responses to the drama that we found:
Khloé hasn’t commented on this situation yet, but something tells me she’ll have millions of people in her corner when she does. And they’ll chant for her loudly.
Some things Slick Woods refuses to spend her money on: clear nail polish, a comb, one of those dorky grips for her iPhone, the pricey streetwear brand Supreme. “It’s just stretched out and elongated Carhartt with labels on it,” the 21-year-old tells me over a 4:00 P.M. “lunch” in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. “Streetwear is supposed to be reliable, durable shit that makes you look poppin’ and get bitches. But if you can’t even get your phone out to get numbers because your sleeves are so long, who has time for that?” Some things she definitely has time and money for: lavish dinners with friends, weed, Backwoods cigars (to roll her weed in), extravagant floral arrangements. “I bought 16 bouquets of roses once,” she says. “They were $1,200, because they were hand-dipped purple. It was like, ‘Why did I even have $1,200 to spend on roses? What the f-ck?’ Champagne problems.”
Slick Woods’ problems haven’t always been of the champagne variety. “Now when I get unhappy about didn’t-go-my-way-type shit,” she says, “my old self is like, ‘Bitch, don’t feel bad about that.’’’ Born Simone Thompson in Minneapolis, she was six when her mom was sent to prison (Vonnya-Leah Mason is hoping to be released next year after 17 years of incarceration). Despite their physical separation, the two have remained close: “I look exactly like my mom,” Woods says proudly, showing me a photo of a woman in a white tank top, her tattoos visible. “Mom has this crazy confidence she’s always had—to the point where people hate her for it.”
Woods’ teenage years in Los Angeles were marked by substance abuse. “I would drink eight ounces of lean”—opioid-based cough syrup—“and take nine Xanax a day. I used to go days without feeding my dog sometimes, the same dog I have now. I was awful. I was broken,” she says. “The truth is, I was an addict. I did hella drugs. I overcame addiction; I would rather tell it that way.” She still struggles, she says, with post-traumatic stress disorder, which manifests itself in violent outbursts and periods of dissociation. “With PTSD, there’s times where you can’t control it,” she says. “When I feel something, it’s really hard for me to hold back.”
Role Play “I gather my aesthetic from different characters,” Woods says. “So far I’ve got Kim Possible. Tank Girl. And a little bit of Al Pacino in Scarface.”
When she was 19, a chance encounter changed everything: British model Ash Stymest noticed Woods at an L.A. bus stop and introduced her to street-style photographer David Mushegain. Seeing Mushegain’s shots—“those were the only photos of her out there,” Mushegain says—Kanye West cast the girl with the gap-toothed grin in his fall 2016 Yeezy show. “That’s literally what happened,” she says, and things moved quickly after that: She signed with an agency, booked gigs for Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs, and appeared on the cover of Love magazine. Last year Rihanna hand-picked Woods to star in ads for her Fenty Beauty line.
For Woods—who is wary of fashion’s tendency to commodify struggles like hers (“They like to take the hood, crunch it up, throw some glitter on that shit, and walk it down the runway,” she says)—working with Rihanna was a watershed moment. “Rihanna gave me that backbone. She made me feel like there’s other real people up in this industry still,” she says. It also gave her a template for navigating success on her own terms. “I like to be comfortable, and I like my friends to be comfortable too. What I’m not comfortable with is promoting things I don’t think are cool or revolutionary,” she says. “You always hear that money changes people. Even if I was paid to change, which I am, I can’t f-cking do it. I didn’t think that I was ever going to be able to make money without conforming.”
Turns out the inability to conform is precisely what has made her so commercially potent. In the era of authenticity, Woods is an ambassador for the kind of DGAF attitude that has women gleefully shelling out for color-rich matte lipsticks named Clapback and Up 2 No Good. Earlier this year WWD reported that Fenty Beauty is projected to outsell the Kardashian-Jenner cosmetics empire in 2018, which says something about the spending power of its once-underserved clientele—and the women fronting the campaign.
“There are people who really thought about how picking me and the other girls was going to play out,” Woods says. “You have to look at the numbers, you feel me? What sells sells.” No wonder Mercedes-Benz recently tapped her (alongside Solange Knowles and Hypebeast founder and CEO Kevin Ma) for their #WeWonder initiative, a global campaign promoting inclusive conversations about the future of fashion.
She Woke Up Like This “I think what makes me the happiest,” Woods says, “is watching people kiss ass for bucks and realizing, ‘Wow, I really don’t have to do that.’” Coat, jewelry, Woods’ own. Calvin Klein Underwear bralette, $28. Hanes tank top, cropped by Glamour, $10.
Hanes tank top, cropped by Glamour, $10. Heron Preston bikini top, $290 for set. L.L. Bean waders, $299. Fenty Puma by Rihanna boots, $500.
When I ask Woods how much she’s saved over the past two years, she puts it like this: “I like to have more money in the bank than followers; I think that sums it up.” At press time, @slickwoods had nearly half a million Instagram followers, so you do the math. She chases a shot of bourbon with a sip of lemonade, while a half-eaten piece of cheesecake sits in front of her. “If you have less money in the bank than you have followers, you should just stop until you figure shit out, because you haven’t figured out the algorithm of life.” Not the way Slick Woods has, that’s for damn sure.
Read on for more outtakes from Glamour features director Justine Harman’s interview with Woods:
GLAMOUR: Authenticity is being touted as the next big thing. How do you know when who you are is being commodified?
SLICK WOODS: Think about it like this: a new model shoots an ad for a brand of sunglasses. And the ad will say Marc Jacobs or Miu Miu. But when Gigi [Hadid] or Slick shoots an ad for sunglasses, it’s “Gigi’s Favorite Sunglasses.” When you’re able to turn yourself into an actual brand, that’s when the lines are less blurred. A model’s whole job is to create someone else’s vision, and that gets to me after a while. I’m like, “Damn. I got a vision, too.” I know what I look good in now, after shooting…how many campaigns? I know what I like to wear.
GLAMOUR: Did you have personal style before you were a model?
SW: Of course! That’s why I’m so particular about my style now, because I’m like, “OK, bro. You can tell me how the Céline looks right now, but can you put a Céline look together with no money in your pocket, homeless as fuck?”
Keep ’Em Guessing “I’m very boyish and I have very manly ways, but I like to throw people off with a look,” she says. “Like, ‘Damn. Is she wearing lipstick while staring at that girl’s ass?’ Yeah, that’s me.” Carhartt shirt, $70–$75.
GLAMOUR: Where does your outsize confidence come from?
SW: My mother. My mom got braces when she was, like, 13. My grandma forced her. She was like, “You don’t want to walk around with a gap in your mouth,” but [my mom] pried ’em off with a butter knife. Like, “Fuck this shit.” And I’m like, My mother would fight her own mother on beauty standards 10, 20 years before me? The fact that it just didn’t feel right to sleep at night knowing she wasn’t being 110% herself gives me a certain power.
GLAMOUR: I read that you went from not having $1 in the bank to spending $20K in one day. Is that true?
SW: One of my favorite rappers, Boogie said, “I just spent my whole damn advance in the past couple months just to compensate for times we ain’t have enough.” When you’ve walked around with $0 to your name, it’s kind of uncomfortable to have everything. I feel more comfortable when I’m struggling, because that’s what I’m used to.
GLAMOUR: With the advent of social media, models can no longer be “just models.” You’ve been very honest about your experiences with PTSD. Why do you feel so compelled to talk about things like that?
SW: For black women, we get this label of being ‘angry black women’ a lot, [so] I wanted to shed a little more light on it. I’m aggressive and I might be a little violent. I might cry. I might yell at you, because I care. I care a lot, and I want to get my point across. And I think that’s what I have brought to the fashion industry: a beautiful struggle.
Lead image fashion credits: Fenty Puma by Rihanna bodysuit, $290, shorts, $125, pants, $180, sneakers, $390.
