If you need a good cry session today, Prince Harry has you covered. The royal is in New Zealand this week for his first official royal tour with his wife Meghan Markle, and he used some of the final moments of his visit to comfort a young boy who grew up without his mother.
Prince Harry was greeting crowds in Auckland on Tuesday, October 30, when he learned that a six-year-old boy named Otia had lost his mother when he was just a year old, according to The Mirror. His grandmother, Te, told Harry that Otia admired the prince, whose own mother, Princess Diana, died in a car accident when he was 12. The Duke of Sussex instantly went into dad mode and took some time to chat with the boy to let him know that everything would be OK.
“Life will always be alright, you know that? I made it to 34 years old and life is great, I’ve got a beautiful wife and a baby on the way,” he reportedly told Otia. “Your life is gonna be sorted, don’t you worry about that.”
He also joked with him to lighten the mood, asking, “You live here in Auckland? You gonna be a rugby player?”
PHOTO: Pool
Harry then offered some nice words to Otia’s grandmother by telling her she was taking good care of her grandson. “You’re doing a great job, Nan,” he said, according to Hello Magazine. “Nans are so important in our lives.” (Prince Harry and his brother William are known to be extremely close to their own grandmother, Queen Elizabeth.)
This isn’t the first time that Prince Harry and Markle have made us teary with cute kids during this royal tour. Earlier in the month, Harry found a little girl who looked just like Markle and even broke royal protocol by snapping a photo of them together. This latest moment is more proof that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who announced that they’re expecting their first child this spring, are going to be pretty great parents.
Rachel Brosnahan is hungry. “I usually have Nutella in my purse,” she says, after taking her seat at Boxwood, a restaurant nestled in the London West Hollywood Hotel. “I had Smarties in there too. I took all the condiments from the hotel in France when we were shooting Maisel—all the honeys and jams. I really love condiments.”
Maisel, of course, is The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the Amazon original series for which Brosnahan, 27, took home the 2018 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series—Musical or Comedy.
“I can already see the headline of this story,” she says. “‘My Love Affair With Condiments.’”
For the past few weeks, Brosnahan—a Milwaukee native—has been in Paris shooting the second season of Maisel, a show that’s been called “a love letter to stand-up comedy, female empowerment, and New York City,” by The Hollywood Reporter and about which New York magazine asked “Can We Talk About How Charming The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Is?” The unofficial consensus among critics and fans is that the show—much like Mad Men and Good Girls Revolt—can be added to the canon of period pieces that possess an uncanny resonance.
The series, written by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, follows Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel, a full-skirted domestic 1958 Jewish princess from the Upper West Side for whom perfection—or at least its patina—is a nonnegotiable. Midge waits until her husband falls asleep to remove her makeup and sets her alarm for dawn to reapply before he wakes up; she uses measuring tape to meticulously track and jot down the size of her ankles, calves, and thighs; and she finally—finally—gets the rabbi to come to her Yom Kippur breakfast, a worthy accomplishment for any good Jewish housewife.
By the end of the pilot, things take a turn: Midge’s mousy husband, Joel, leaves her for his secretary, but instead of getting a desk job or finding a richer husband, Midge semi-accidentally starts to test her voice at open mics nights in East Village underground comedy clubs, a fruitless passion of her husband’s. But she is good. Really good.
It’s a testament to Brosnahan that most people who watch Maisel assume she’s done stand-up or that it’s ignited an interest in doing so—she nails the loose-canon countenance that comes with amateur open mics and, later, the all-business confidence of holding an audience captive.
“The truth is no and no,” she says when I ask if she has experience with stand-up or aspirations toward it. “It’s a slightly different technical skill set—one that I’ve never really worked on and one that doesn’t always come naturally to me.”
“I’ve lost many jobs because people would say, ‘We really liked her, but she’s just not funny.’”
Based on Brosnahan’s past roles—namely as call girl Rachel Posner in House of Cards—for which she received an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series—and the wife of a scientist developing the atomic bomb in short-lived WGN America drama Manhattan, even Sherman-Palladino wasn’t sure she’d be the right person to play Midge, a character whose primary motivation is to prove to everyone around her that a housewife can be funny.
“I had a casting director [in Los Angeles who] called me up and said, ‘I know there’s literally nothing on this girl’s resum´e that will tell you she can do the part, but I feel like it’s Rachel,’” Sherman-Palladino says. “You look at her [work], and it’s either drama or half the time she’s being tied to a post or thrown in a box or shoved in the back of a van. All very dramatic.”
Brosnahan agrees. “I’m laughing [at the fact that] I’m now an award-winning comedic actress,” she says. “Like, that feels absurd! I spent most of my life being told I wasn’t funny. I’ve lost many jobs because people would say, ‘We really liked her, but she’s just not funny.’”
Still, Brosnahan didn’t take that feedback personally. “It happened enough times that there was a pattern,” she explains. “I thought, Maybe I should listen to it. Now I’ve realized you can continue to learn things, even when you’ve formed a really solid sense of self.”
Her Maisel costar Alex Borstein, who plays Midge’s tough-as-nails manager at the comedy club, views Brosnahan’s background in drama as an asset. “She’s honest and vulnerable, and that’s what I think it takes to be a really good comedic presence,” Borstein says. “She’s got a tough sensibility—and some darkness in her. Having sarcasm and having that dark comedic sense usually comes from being an underdog or having some pain. It’s a muscle.”
Sherman-Palladino wanted whoever played Midge to be “infinitely watchable,” someone “you weren’t going to get tired of staring at after, like, five minutes.” Plus, she had to be the kind of actress who could click with the very specific rhythm and rat-a-tat pattern of Sherman-Palladino’s dialogue—a stylistic signature of all her scripts. To that end, every woman who came in to audition was required to deliver three key scenes from the pilot: the speech Midge gives at her wedding, the breakup with her husband, and the character’s first stand-up set.
Brosnahan nailed all three. “A lot of really talented, wonderful actresses came in for it—great girls that I hope to work with someday,” Sherman-Palladino says. “But Rachel…she knew these scenes inside and out. By the time she walked out the door, we were like, ‘Well, that’s our girl.’”
Dinnertime. Brosnahan zeroes in on the cheeseburger and, instead of the restaurant’s house-made chips, asks for fries. She’s especially excited to see her favorite ketchup—Sir Kensington’s—is provided. “They had a truck where you could sample their condiments outside of the Frances Valentine offices in New York,” she says. (Frances Valentine is an accessories brand designed by Kate Spade, Brosnahan’s aunt.) “I have a love affair [with Sir Kensington’s ], if I’m being honest.”
Over the course of our meal, Brosnahan’s culinary passion comes up several times. She tells me about her trips with Michael Zegen, who plays Midge’s ex-husband Joel, to an “oyster ramen cocktail bar” in Manhattan’s Hamilton Heights and the time she learned how to make artichoke pizza with Rachael Ray. Her best friend, Karlee Fomalont, cites the Dave & Buster’s and Shake Shack in Times Square as go-to spots for them when I later ask her about Brosnahan.
But there’s one story, about an encounter earlier this year, that makes Brosnahan “infuriated.” She was at an influencer event for Maisel, held at a Los Angeles Jewish deli, and helping herself to fries and latkes when a man came up to her and asked, “Are you sure you want to eat that? Don’t you have a dress to fit into?”
“It wasn’t the first comment this guy had made,” Brosnahan says. “He kept asking about my personal life and my relationship status, but in a really aggressive way—as if that was the only thing of value about me. He said things like, ‘You must have a man.’” Brosnahan reminded him that the event was about her work on Maisel, not her private life, but he continued to push. The comment about her body was the breaking point. “I was shoveling a latke in my face—and very thrilled about it, mind you—when he made the food comment,” she explains. “I said, ‘I am sure I want to eat that. I love latkes! Do you want one?’ I was trying to keep it light, but I would have loved to have had a great Amy Sherman-Palladino—style clapback. It’s only in hindsight that you think of these things.”
Brosnahan had the man booted from the event. “The guy was a jackass. It was so gross, particularly in a room centered around this show. It’s sad that this behavior still exists.”
During the past few months, Brosnahan has become acutely aware that her life—the one before the hit show, before the awards, before burgers with reporters in hotels—is different. She doesn’t feel famous, but there are times, like the latke incident, when she knows she’s under scrutiny. People know how to say her last name now. Doors are opening with opportunities. Living in New York allows her to still have some anonymity, but even that’s changing.
“I didn’t realize how much I was used to and valued utter anonymity,” she says. “Not that I need to be polished, but now I wouldn’t probably go to the grocery store in Midtown with zit cream on my face.” She laughs, because she’s done it before. Recently, during a breakout, Brosnahan put some “pink stuff” on her acne and went to her local dog park. “I thought, I’m not going to see anyone I know,” she says. Of course, as soon as she got there somebody asked, “Are you….?” Brosnahan panicked and said no.
“I don’t know why I was embarrassed. People have zits, and they put shit on them. But I was mortified. I felt so uncomfortable being a perfectly normal human being,” she says. “Why are we embarrassed when that happens? Everyone does that, whether in private or in public. I get mad when I get embarrassed about stuff like that.”
It was Miley Cyrus, funnily enough, who shared a similar story with Brosnahan at a press event that reminded her to keep things in perspective. “I hope I don’t butcher her words, but when she had a zit and wanted to put pink cream on it, she did, regardless of where she was. She felt it was important to show her young and impressionable audience that it was OK, and there’s nothing shameful about it. I found that really inspiring.”
Brosnahan has found one way to make this whole fame thing work for her: by bringing awareness to her passion projects, organizations like Global Citizen and Covenant House. “There’s a responsibility that comes with this increased platform,” she says. “None of us should be silent right now, but we also need to listen.”
When asked how she’d describe herself, Brosnahan chooses words like curious,ambitious, and open. It’s surprising, given that questions about her romantic life are off-limits. “I like to keep my private life private,” she says, without hesitation. “Maybe that will change, I don’t know, but I am blessed with a really rich personal life, so it feels important for my sanity to keep it separate.”
She didn’t expect to be so guarded—“I never would have considered myself that way”—but the more attention she got, the more she realized she was deeply uncomfortable sharing that side of herself.
“I’ve worked really hard to get here, but I’m also really lucky. Nothing happens without some stars aligning.”
Fomalont also describes Brosnahan as open, though only with the people she’s close to. “It’s a balance I respect so much,” she says. “Because the impulse is to overshare, but then you lose the things that keep you grounded. She’s able to stay grounded and rooted because of the personal stuff she keeps tied to her heart, but she is engaged. It’s a delicate dance.”
Part of it is that Brosnahan likes disappearing into characters, and it can be hard for an audience to separate the art from the artist. “The most exciting thing that anyone ever says to me about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is that they didn’t realize that it was the same actress from House of Cards,” she says. “To me, that’s all I want.”
When the waitress approaches, asking if we’d like to see a dessert menu, Brosnahan is ready: “Yeah, of course.” The chocolate fondue—with fruit and a macaroon and ice-cream sandwich—stands out. (“If nothing else, the presentation alone is probably amazing. These guys really know how to throw a party.”)
While we wait, conversation turns to the Golden Globes and the moment Carol Burnett and Jennifer Aniston presented Brosnahan with her Best Actress award. “Annie was one of my favorite movies ever,” she says. “So [when I saw Burnett], I died. I’m pretty sure I went blank as I approached the stage.” As for Aniston, Brosnahan hadn’t watched Friends until two years ago. Now she’s seen every episode. “I love Ross so much! And Monica. I really enjoy the Geller siblings. I feel like I related to them the most because of their anxiety.”
That anxiety, Brosnahan says, never entirely goes away—even after winning a Golden Globe. “When we were shooting Maisel in Paris, I thought, I’ve got this. Then I got up there and was just as nervous as I was during the first season, equally horrified every single second. I was like, Shit, it never goes away.”
When dessert arrives, the spread looks like something Midge herself would have prepared for a dinner party. Each piece of fruit and cake is divided into perfect squares, like a delicious chess board. Before we ruin the illusion, I ask one last thing: “Much like the presentation of our meal, have the last six months been as amazing as it looks from my perspective?”
“There’s an element of fantasy—the fantasy of what this life looks like,” Brosnahan says. “I feel like I have one foot on either side of the fence, you know? I’m in a position where things are cool, but it’s all new. I still feel like a super-normal human being. I’ve worked really hard to get here, but I’m also really lucky. Nothing happens without some stars aligning.”
Hair by Ted Gibson at the Visionaries Agency. Manicure by Yukie Miyakawa at Kate Ryan Inc. Set design by Alex Brannian at Art Department. Makeup by Lisa Aharon for Chanel.
Facing down your sexual predator takes a strength, determination and grit that few people can understand. Just read what Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to come forward and publicly accuse Larry Nassar of sexual assault, had to do and you’ll see why.
As Denhollander wrote in a powerful new op-ed for The New York Times, she was first sexually abused by Nassar in 2000 when she was just 15 years old. It wasn’t until 2016 that Denhollander, now a lawyer, mother, and coach herself, came forward to tell her story to both the Indianapolis Star and the police.
“I came as prepared as possible: I brought medical journals showing what real pelvic floor technique looks like; my medical records showing Larry had never mentioned using techniques; other records from a nurse practitioner documenting my disclosure of abuse in 2004; my journals from that time; and a letter from a neighboring district attorney vouching for my character,” she wrote.
It should have been all business after that, but, as Denhollander explained, what happened next took her by surprise.
“My education as an attorney prepared me for the process and presentation. But absolutely nothing could have prepared me for the pain of being the first to go public with my accusations in The Indianapolis Star,” she wrote. “I lost my church. I lost my closest friends as a result of advocating for survivors who had been victimized by similar institutional failures in my own community.” Most importantly, she added, “I lost every shred of privacy.”
The things Nassar did to her, and more than 200 other women, including “degrading and humiliating sex acts without my consent or permission,” lead Denhollander to stop competing in the sport she loved at 16. Years later, his disgusting actions left her without the protective barrier of a private life as well.
“When a new friend googled my name or added me as a friend on Facebook, the most intimate details of my life became available long before we had even exchanged phone numbers. I avoided the grocery stores on some days, to make sure my children didn’t see my face on the newspaper or magazine. I was asked questions about things no one should know when I least wanted to talk,” she wrote.
Yet somehow, through all this, Denhollander knew she wasn’t just doing something good for herself by coming forward, but also something great for other past and would-be victims of both Nassar’s and other predators.
As Denhollander explained, Nassar expertly ingratiated himself into the gymnastics community and became a trusted and respected figure. Moreover, Denhollander noted, “Research shows that every pedophile is also reported an average of at least seven times before adults take the reports of abuse seriously and act on them.” This, she added, was exactly why people are often afraid to speak out after they are abused. Because it simply takes so long for someone to believe you.
Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison and will undoubtedly spend the rest of his life there. This sentence was a victory for his victims, no doubt, but what may be an even greater win would be what Denhollander added in her op-ed: “To encourage and support those brave enough to speak out against their own communities.” She added, “Ask yourself: How much is a child worth?Everyone decent human being knows the answer to that question. Now it is time to act like it.”
Taylor Swift has made a tradition out of going to Target to buy her new albums when they come out. Fans know this happens every album cycle—they expect it—and yet it’s still so surprising when she actually pops up at said Target. Exhibit A: Last night, when Swift strolled into a Nashville store to buy Reputation, and fans completely lost it.
Swift first teased the visit on Instagram Stories, showing herself and her squad piling out of a car and stampeding the Target parking lot. Once they got in, they perused the Reputation display, where Swift gave everyone a sermon about the magazines she made. “They’re different. Everything in them is different…except for the album. Because I only made one album. Just trying to be really transparent here,” she said.
It didn’t take long for fans to notice their queen was in the building. She was soon swarmed—in the best way possible—by Swifties, and TayTay couldn’t have been more gracious, posing for pics, chatting them up, and cracking jokes. Here are some of the best videos we found from the excursion:
Swift hasn’t done any traditional press for Reputation, but she’s arguably been more interactive with fans than ever during this era. She hosted several Reputation secret listening sessions—like she did with 1989—but she’s also upped her social media game (she slides into fans’ DMs on the daily now) and even opened a Reputation pop-up shop in New York City. She made a surprise visit there, too.
All of this is to say Swift seems really jazzed and happy about Reputation, despite it being her edgiest, “darkest” work to date. Old Taylor might be dead, sure, but Fan-Loving Taylor certainly isn’t.
After my mom was shot and killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, along with five other educators and 20 children, I was sure that Congress would act. They didn’t. And now 58 more people are dead following a mass shooting in Las Vegas—to say nothing of the more than 100,000 other Americans killed with guns since that December day five years ago.
The shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Las Vegas strip was the largest and deadliest mass shooting in our country’s recent history. For now. Until the next one. Because it’s not a question of if there will be another mass shooting, it’s a matter of when. How is it that our country has come to accept the regularity of these horrific acts of violence? This isn’t normal.
What should have been a fun night filled with dancing, singing, and laughing with friends instead has left dozens of people dead and more than 500 hospitalized, many with life-altering injuries. And that’s just the physical toll. No one walks away from a horrifying scene of that magnitude ever feeling safe again. For the victims and their families, there is no light, no hope. They will try to find a way out of this darkness, but I can tell you, the darkness does not leave you.
My mom, Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, was my best friend in the entire world. She was the principal of Sandy Hook School, and she died running toward the shooter that awful day, trying to protect her kids.
I thought Sandy Hook would be a wake-up call to our leaders in Congress. There was no way they could allow 20 children and six educators to be gunned down in classrooms and offer no more than “thoughts and prayers.” But that’s exactly what happened.
Today my voicemail is full. My inbox is overflowing. The messages on Facebook are pouring in. For those wondering how I’m doing—I’m angry. I’m triggered. I miss my mom. I hurt for her. I feel like I’ve failed her. Above all, I am sick over how often this happens. And I don’t want to hear one more person say it’s too early to talk about solutions to our gun violence epidemic. It’s not too early—it’s way too late.
We don’t have to live like this.
It’s time for politicians to stop cowering behind the gun lobby and start standing with families. I wish Congress could show just half the courage my mother did on December 14, 2012.
This is a defining moment for our country. Do we want to continue living in the NRA’s dystopian society of guns everywhere, for anyone, no questions asked? Do we want to continue being held hostage by the gun lobby? Or do we want to live in a country where we feel safe going to schools, concerts, shopping malls and places of worship?
I could easily let days like this knock me down. It’s all too familiar and it’s all too painful. It takes me right back to the day my mom was killed. But no matter how hard it gets, I’m going to continue fighting for stronger gun safety laws. Time after time we see that it’s far too easy for people with dangerous histories to get their hands on guns in this country.
Right now, the gun lobby is pushing legislation to gut silencer safety laws and make it easy for anyone, including convicted felons and domestic abusers, to buy a gun silencer without a background check simply by going to an unlicensed dealer. I don’t even want to think about how much worse the shooting in Las Vegas could have been if the thousands of people attending the music festival didn’t recognize the sound of gunfire coming from above them, or if first responders weren’t able to determine where the gunshots were coming from.
And that’s not all. The NRA and its allies are also pushing for so-called “Concealed Carry Reciprocity” legislation, a dangerous proposal that would gut states’ gun laws, and allow countless people to carry concealed weapons across the country with no additional background checks or gun safety training beyond what goes into an initial purchase.
For those asking what they can do—get off the sidelines. Gun violence tears families apart every day in America. Most often, it doesn’t even make the headlines—there’s simply too much to report.
If you’re not actively trying to be a part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Get up and do something. Make a call to your Congressperson or Senator. Show up to a rally. Sign a petition. Donate to local organizations that support survivors of domestic violence. Just do something.
Erica Lafferty is the daughter of Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, the principal murdered in the Sandy Hook School shooting on December 14, 2012. She is partnerships manager for Everytown for Gun Safety.
Over the years, we’ve witnessed some pretty unfortunate runway mishaps but models are nothing if not consummate professionals and, when faced with an outfit snafu on the catwalk, they usually take it in stride. That, quite literally, is what Gigi Hadid had to do at Anna Sui this evening, when she found herself down one stiletto—though, you wouldn’t even realize it, because at no point did her strut waver.
Hadid was gearing up to close Anna Sui’s Spring 2018 show, wearing her second look from the collection. The get-up required a full, head-to-toe change, down to the footwear—and, it seems that, in the backstage rush, one of her heels wasn’t properly secured. So, as she was following sister Bella down the catwalk, she continued to walk as if nothing had happened… except, if you look really closely, you’ll notice she’s simply walking on the tip of her toes.
PHOTO: Frazer Harrison
Once the lights dimmed and the models lined up for the final lap down the runway, Gigi once again appeared sans right shoe—though, this time around, Bella walked alongside her, giving her a shoulder to lean on.
PHOTO: Frazer Harrison
The show must go on, right? Plus, what was probably an uncomfortable situation turned into an adorable sister moment on the runway. Add that to the list of memorable catwalk-closingmoments from New York Fashion Week.
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