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'This Is Us' Season Four Finale Recap: Who Is the Mother of Kevin's Child?


Back at Toby and Kate’s house, Kevin and Rebecca have a heart-to-heart. She admits she changed her mind about the clinical trial because she began to view it as “an investment in my future.” Kevin now knows. Rebecca knows that Kevin knows. And we know that World War III is about to break out when Kevin confronts Randall. The scene that follows is one of the most intense this show has ever done. At first, Randall pretends he has no idea what Kevin is talking about, before finally admitting he needed to do whatever was necessary to give their mom the best possible chance. Kevin is furious that Randall couldn’t side with him just this once. Randall tries to walk away, but Kevin goes after him. Then Madison shows up at the house, and Kevin says it’s not a good time. Randall ends up leaving, and Madison blurts out that she’s pregnant. “You’re the father,” she says. “And I know I’m a complete stranger to you, and I know how much you love your high-school girlfriend, but I’ve decided I’m going to go through with this. You don’t know my medical history, but this is kind of a miracle for me. But I need you to know I will not ask anything of you, emotionally, financially, all of it. You can still find the great love story you deserve.” Kevin whispers he might pass out and says he needs some air, but isn’t walking away from the conversation.

Of course, when he goes outside for air, he runs into Randall. The two argue about who’s really been there for Rebecca over the years. Then Kevin says if he was there the night of the fire, he would have been able to save Jack. Randall counters, “But you weren’t there, and when he died, he died ashamed of you. I think that’s the part that really gets you…the shame he felt for you and the pride he felt for me. You’ll never know what it’s like to devote yourself to anyone other than yourself. You’ll pretend but it will just be a performance. A tired, stale performance, like all of your performances.”

The whole thing is awful, sad, and beyond uncomfortable. Kevin then says he used to think the worst thing that happened to him was the day his dad died, but it was actually the day they brought Randall home. Shit. Kevin goes back to the house and declares that he’s all in with Madison. “I’m sick of chasing ghosts,” he says. “I’m all in, Madison. Whatever you need, I’m all in. I want to be a father. I think I’d be great at it.” Madison then admits she’s not just pregnant with his child, but his children. Twins. While this is all happening, we see Cassidy pay Nicky a visit in his trailer, followed by Sophie in Time’s Square looking up at Kevin’s cologne ad. (You just know we haven’t seen the last of them. Well played, Dan Fogelman.)

In the last few minutes, older Kevin—with a wedding ring on—is back at Rebecca’s bedside. His twin daughter is there, too. Nicky’s there as well and wearing a wedding ring. When Randall enters, Kevin puts his hand on his brother’s back. So no matter what’s happened in the time since, they’ll come together when it counts.

Whew. With so much to unpack, we called up Justin Hartley to get more details on those scenes with Sterling K. Brown, my theory about Kevin’s future, and more. Read on.

Glamour: What did you think when you read the finale script?



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Taylor Swift Shares That Her Mother, Andrea, Has a Brain Tumor


Taylor Swift hasn’t stopped since releasing her seventh album, Lover last August. Since then, she’s been busy with a limited tour, press for the head-scratcher Cats (she has no regrets), plans to re-record her previous material, and preparing the premiere of Taylor Swift: Miss Americana, a Netflix documentary about her career and her place in pop culture that comes out on January 31. But between it all, Swift has been dealing with some pretty devastating family news: She revealed this week that her mother Andrea, who’s been battling cancer since 2015, has a brain tumor, which doctors discovered through her treatment.

Swift opened up about her mom’s health in a long profile that Variety ran this week. Their relationship has been a close-knit one, and Swift has already written two songs—”Soon You’ll Get Better” and “The Best Day”—about her battle with cancer. “Almost every decision I make, I talk to her about it first. So obviously it was a really big deal to ever speak about her illness,” Swift said during the interview before talking about the tough moment in which the tumor was discovered. “While she was going through treatment, they found a brain tumor. And the symptoms of what a person goes through when they have a brain tumor is nothing like what we’ve ever been through with her cancer before. So it’s just been a really hard time for us as a family.”

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Swift explained that her mother is part of the reason why she’s planning to only play four stadium dates in America this summer and several festivals in Europe. “I feel like I haven’t done festivals, really, since early in my career—they’re fun and bring people together in a really cool way. But I also wanted to be able to work as much as I can handle right now, with everything that’s going on at home. And I wanted to figure out a way that I could do both those things,” she said.

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She went further into what Andrea is going through and added, “I mean, we don’t know what is going to happen. We don’t know what treatment we’re going to choose. It just was the decision to make at the time, for right now, for what’s going on.”



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Prince William Says Losing His Mother, Princess Diana, at a Young Age Was a 'Pain Like No Other'


When Princess Diana was tragically killed in a car accident in 1997, the world mourned. But her death had a profound effect on her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, who were just 15 and 12, respectively, at the time.

In recent years, both the princes have opened up publicly about how they were affected by their mother’s death in their efforts to raise awareness about mental health. Now, in a preview clip for the BBC special A Royal Team Talk: Tackling Mental Health, which features a conversation with British soccer stars, William is more candid than ever. “I think when you are bereaved at a very young age, anytime really, but particularly at a young age—I can resonate closely to that—you feel a pain like no other pain,” he says.”And you know that in your life it’s going to be very difficult to come across something that is going to be an even worse pain than that.”

Prince William and Prince Harry during the funeral procession for Princess Diana.

AFP/Getty Images

“It also brings you so close to all those other people out there who have been bereaved,” William continued. “So instantly, when you talk to someone else… You can almost see it in their eyes sometimes.” He wants people to feel more comfortable sharing their pain in hopes of being able to help one another. “There has to be a moment for that,” William says, referring to having that British “stiff upper lip.” “We’re not robots.”

Prince Harry also talked about feeling the loss of Diana after the birth of his first son, Archie, with Meghan Markle. “He said missing a mother is like missing some kind of security, how you need that as a son, and it falls away when you lose your mother,” Dennis van der Stroon said of his conversation with Harry during a recent Invictus Games event in the Netherlands. “He said he meets a lot of people in his work who have lost a mother, father, sister, brother, or relatives, and when he hears their story, as he heard my story, he said he doesn’t feel so alone.”

Diana Princess Of Wales Prince William Prince Harry Visit The 'Thorpe Park' Amusement Park
Julian Parker/Getty Images

While the circumstances are definitely sad, it really is wonderful to see the princes talk so openly about their grieving process as a way to encourage transparency and honest conversations around mental health—and directly affect the lives of others.



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My Mother Died Before I Had the Chance to Say Goodbye. Here's What Mother's Day Means to Me.


My mom died two years ago this spring. She had complications from a stem cell transplant to rid her of lymphoma. She was only 58 years old.

The night before she died, my aunt texted me that my mother was in the ER and that I should call her. This was a common thing, her going to the ER, because of her breathing condition. I thought, “I can’t do this right now.” I had two events that night, back-to-back, and was preparing for meetings the next morning. On the car ride home, I took my time on Instagram and fell asleep on the couch watching My So Called Life. I had thought to call her all night, and then just forgot. This would haunt me for a long time. I woke up at 4am EST which would have been 1am PST (she was in Oregon), and I felt a wave of electricity wash over me. I fell back asleep and then woke up in a panic to get to work. As I was rushing to the subway, I saw a text from my aunt that said “Call me!”

I almost waited until I got out of the subway in Soho. (It’s important to understand that my mom had been sick for many years, and trips to the ER had sadly become a normal occurrence.) But I called my aunt right away and when she picked up the phone, she said, “Honey, I’m so sorry, but your mom had an episode last night and is gone.” I couldn’t believe it. The air completely left my lungs. She told me my mom was unconscious, but still had a heart beat. I FaceTimed her right then, in the middle of the street and hysterical. I was able to tell her that I loved her and what an amazing mother she was, as she left this world and crossed over to the next. I believe she heard every word I said. When I hung up the phone with her, I just collapsed into the street and cried, “I wasn’t ready” and “I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

The writer with her two children.

Courtesy Sara Larson

With Mother’s Day this weekend and the recent birth of my son, whom she never got to meet, I’ve been thinking a lot about her and how hard it has been to walk through this time without her. I’ve been replaying my last conversation with her, which took place a week before she died. It was a normal afternoon lunch break chat and I remember feeling frustrated with her because she was a little blues-y. I also thought I might be pregnant (which I wasn’t—although I had been trying for almost two years at this point) and wanted to tell her, but decided not to because I didn’t want to get my hopes up. With the two-year anniversary of her memoriam, I was hit with the realization of how much I truly missed her during this pregnancy and would have loved to hear her voice even for five minutes to assure me that my delivery would go well and that I shouldn’t be afraid.

It still feels surreal that she’s not here and as I look at my children I just miss her and wish they could experience her love and light. For a long time, I beat myself up that I hadn’t called her the night before. I found out that she had wanted to call me and my brothers and even had her phone brought to her in the hospital bed but was so short of breath that she never called. I never called. What would I have said to her in that last conversation? And would it have been so different from the previous one I’d just had with her? We always ended our phone calls with “I love you.” But would it have been it different to actually feel like I was saying goodbye? Would I even have known that that’s what I was doing?



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Mother Thinks Women at the University of Notre Dame Should Stop Wearing Leggings


The legging problem—that’s the title of a recent letter to the editor published in the University of Notre Dame’s student newspaper The Observer. That’s right, a concerned mother thinks young women at the university are causing a major problem with their choice of attire.

The woman, Maryann White, says she’s not trying to “insult anyone or infringe upon anyone’s rights” but that she’s simply “a Catholic mother of four sons with a problem that only girls can solve: leggings.” That’s right, ladies—your choice of pants is a problem for all the boys of the world, in her opinion.

“I was at Mass at the Basilica with my family,” she writes. “In front of us was a group of young women, all wearing very snug-fitting leggings and all wearing short-waisted tops (so that the lower body was uncovered except for the leggings). Some of them truly looked as though the leggings had been painted on them.”

“A world in which women continue to be depicted as ‘babes’ by movies, video games, music videos, etc. makes it hard on Catholic mothers to teach their sons that women are someone’s daughters and sisters,” she continued. “That women should be viewed first as people—and all people should be considered with respect.”

Instead, she says she doesn’t understand why women would choose to wear a garment that exposes “their nether regions” and that she was “ashamed” for the women she saw wearing them to Mass. “I thought of all the other men around and behind us who couldn’t help but see their behinds. My sons know better than to ogle a woman’s body — certainly when I’m around (and hopefully, also when I’m not),” she explained. “They didn’t stare, and they didn’t comment afterwards. But you couldn’t help but see those blackly naked rear ends. I didn’t want to see them—but they were unavoidable. How much more difficult for young guys to ignore them.” White then makes the leap to comparing the wearing of leggings to nakedness that she wants to “throw a blanket over” in hopes of protecting the poor boys who won’t be able to help themselves.

Oh man, that’s a lot to unpack. But let me, an avid legging-as-pants wearer, say that my choice of clothing should in no way—ever—affect whether or not another person can keep themselves from respecting me and my personal boundaries. That’s true for every woman whether she’s wearing a skirt somebody deems too short, her favorite pair of leggings, or skintight jeans. It’s low-key victim blaming and my comfy pants and I want no part of it. Debating what is and is not appropriate for women to wear is certainly nothing new—but it is exhausting and, frankly, annoying considering it’s 2019.

Many female students at Notre Dame agreed.

The Washington Post reports that more than 1000 students had plans to participate in a protest by wearing leggings to class this week. “Participating in #LeggingsDayND with @Irish4RepHealth and thousands of other ND community members in defiance of those who feel entitled to police womxn’s appearance & shift the blame for impropriety,” grad student Kate Bermingham wrote on Twitter.

Another woman at the university wrote about the protests on Facebook announcing Leggings Pride Day: “Hello legging lovers of the Notre Dame Community! Don’t leave your leggings behind(s) tomorrow and join in our legging wearing hedonism! (Or not because what you wear is completely your own choice!) Love your leggings, love your body, love yourself!”

The students then showed off their leggings on social media.

Others off-campus also showed their support.

Turns out many of the male students White is so worried about are a little more evolved, and also thought White’s letter was problematic. “I was raised to respect women no matter what they are wearing. So, I think women should be able to wear leggings if they want to,” one student told The Observer. “In my opinion, I would never tell someone else how they can or cannot dress, because that is a personal choice, and it doesn’t affect me,” another said. “So, why should I tell other people what to do?”

It’s not clear exactly how many students participated in the protests, but I think the organizers made their point—and started a real conversation on campus about how people try to police and judge women’s bodies and choices. Maryann White is probably horrified. I’m just proud.



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The Queen Reportedly Invited Meghan Markle's Mother To Spend Christmas With The Royals


Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, will have a very merry Christmas, thanks to the Queen: According to The Daily Mail, Queen Elizabeth II has personally invited Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, to join the royal family for their traditional holiday celebrations in Sandringham.

According to a source, the invitation is a “mark of [the Queen’s] respect” for Meghan, who is expecting her first child with husband Prince Harry sometime in the spring. Furthermore, she likely extended the invite to Doria as Meghan has no other family in the country. (The palace declined to comment to The Daily Mail about the invitation.)

Though it might seem normal to invite in-laws over for the holidays, The Daily Mail explained, the invitation for Doria would indeed be a break with royal protocol as non-royals typically don’t spend the night at the family’s Norfolk estate. Though Kate’s parents have attended Christmas mass with the royal family before, they have never stayed at Sandringham. Instead, they typically stay at the nearby Anmer Hall.

But really, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the royal family would invite Doria over for the holidays. After all, the Windsors seemed to welcome her with open arms for Meghan and Harry’s wedding in May.

As for what the group will get up to during the holiday season, People explained, the royals are really just like us. Each year, the family kicks things off with a gift exchange. But it’s not just any exchange: Instead, the family gives the silliest, most over-the-top and inappropriate gifts possible (Kate reportedly gave Harry a plastic Grow Your Own Girlfriend kit a few Christmases ago). Next, the family heads outside for a quick game of soccer, followed by a hearty dinner, which consists of “something festive, some game, like pheasant or venison, and roasted wintery vegetables, like parsnips,” according to chef Darren McGrady, who worked for the Windsors for more than a decade.

Sure, they’ll be doing this all in a centuries-old estate, surrounded by staff and security, but hey, stars are just like us, right?

Related Content:
Meghan Markle’s Mom Released the Sweetest Statement About the Royal Baby News
Meghan Markle’s Mom, Doria Ragland, Is Reportedly Planning to Move to the U.K.
Meghan Markle Just Took Her Mom to Her First Royal Engagement



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