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Kate McKinnon's Golden Globes Speech Thanked Ellen for Making It 'Less Scary' to Be Gay


Tonight, the Golden Globes honored Ellen DeGeneres with the Carol Burnett Award for Achievement in Television. Kate McKinnon presented the award to her with a heartfelt—and at times, hilarious—speech. The SNL star, of course, has famously imitated DeGeneres for years and has often appeared on her talk show. While she joked about items of clothing she’s gotten from DeGeneres (some Stan Smiths and her best button-down shirts), McKinnon opened up about how much DeGeneres’ coming out meant to her as a young gay woman.

“In 1997, when Ellen’s sitcom was at the height of its popularity, I was in my mother’s basement lifting weights in front of the mirror and thinking, ‘Am I gay?’” said McKinnon, adding, “And I was and I still am. But that’s a very scary thing to suddenly know about yourself, it’s sort of like doing 23AndMe and discovering that you have alien DNA.”

But watching that historic moment on Ellen changed everything.

“The only thing that made it less scary was seeing Ellen on TV,” McKinnon continued. “She risked her entire life and her entire career in order to tell the truth and she suffered greatly for it. Of course, attitudes change but only because brave people like Ellen jump into the fire to make them change. And if I hadn’t seen her on TV, I would’ve thought, ‘I can never be on TV, they don’t let LGBTQ people on TV,’ and more than that, I would’ve gone on thinking that I was an alien and that I maybe didn’t even have a right to be here, so thank you, Ellen, for giving me a shot.”

You can watch the speech in full, below:

Viewers got emotional watching McKinnon, too.

After DeGeneres accepted the award, she went backstage where she was asked whom she looks up to, reports Entertainment Weekly. Her response? Kate McKinnon, naturally. “I look up to—not just people that are older than me but people that are starting out now and paving the way,” DeGeneres said. “I think Kate McKinnon is brilliant, and I think she’s strong, and I think she’s brave, so I look up to her.”



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Queen Elizabeth May Have Made a Subtle Nod to *The Crown* in Her Annual Christmas Speech


Ever since The Crown premiered on Netflix in 2016, fans have wondered whether its subject, Queen Elizabeth, watches the drama—and what she thinks of it. Some reports have said that the Queen Mother approves of the series; while others have said she’s taken issue with the more fictionalized scenes. And now, new reports seem to suggest not only that the royal watches, but that she gave the hit show a subtle nod in this year’s annual Christmas speech.

On Tuesday (December 24), a photo from Queen Elizabeth’s annual Christmas Day broadcast shows the monarch seated a desk in front of a Christmas tree, surrounded by photographs of the royal family throughout the years. The Daily Mail spotted that among the desk decor was a picture of Queen Elizabeth’s handshake with the Apollo 11 crew—an event that was recreated on season 3 of The Crown.

Queen Elizabeth sits at her desk for her annual Christmas address.

STEVE PARSONS

During the seventh episode of season 3, Prince Philip watches the Apollo 11 team complete their mission and questions his own accomplishments as a result. The royal family also hosts an astronaut-themed birthday party for Prince Edward and Prince Andrew. Finally, the show depicts the famous meeting between Queen Elizabeth and the Apollo 11 team at Buckingham Palace, shown below.

Queen Elizabeth stands with the astronauts from the Apollo 11 mission

Queen Elizabeth met the Apollo 11 astronauts in 1969.

Bettmann

Queen Elizabeth portrayed by Olivia Coleman meets the Apollo 11 crew on 'The Crown.'

Queen Elizabeth’s meeting with the Apollo 11 crew was dramatized on season 3 of ‘The Crown.’

Embedding a wink to that would be a savvy pop culture move from Queen Elizabeth, indicating yet again that she’s aware of the series. But it could also be a marker of the year: 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.

Netflix Easter eggs or not, the Queen’s Christmas broadcast will have other moments for royal onlookers to chew on. Excerpts from Queen Elizabeth’s speech published by CNN say that she will address the tumultuous year in politics head-on. “Small steps taken in faith and in hope can overcome long-held differences and deep-seated divisions to bring harmony and understanding,” she said. “The path, of course, is not always smooth, and may at times this year have felt quite bumpy, but small steps can make a world of difference.”



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Taylor Swift Called Out Scooter Braun During Her Speech at Billboard's Women in Music Event


But Swift saved some of her harshest words for Braun, who acquired the rights to her masters when he purchased her former record label with backing from a private equity firm. “As your resident loud person, I feel the need to bring it up. That is the unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying up our music as if it is real estate, as if it’s an app or a shoe line. This just happened to me without my approval, consultation or consent,” she said. “After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalogue was sold to Scoter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I’m told was funded by the Soros Family, 23 Capital and the Carlyle Group. Yet to this day, none of these investors have bothered to contact me or my team directly to perform their due diligence on their investment. On their investment in me, to ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art. The music I wrote. The videos I created. Photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs.”

“Of course, Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced. I’m fairly certain he knew how I would feel about it, though. Let me just say that the definition of the toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying, ‘Well, he’s always been nice to me’ when I’m raising valid concerns about artists and their rights to own their music,” she continued. “Of course he’s nice to you. If you’re in this room you have something he needs.”

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She continued, “The fact is that private equity enabled this man to think, according to his own social media post, that he could ‘buy me.’ I’m obviously not going willingly. Yet the most amazing thing was to discover that it would be the women in our industry who would have my back and show me the most vocal support at one of the most difficult times and I will never, ever forget it. Like ever.”

Well, that’s indeed one powerful way to kick off your 30th year, Tay. We’re impressed.



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Christine Blasey Ford's ACLU ‘Courage Award’ Speech Is A Must Watch


Dr. Christine Blasey Ford made a rare public appearance to accept the ACLU of Southern California’s Rodger Baldwin Courage Award over the weekend, explaining in more depth and detail what motivated her to come forward against now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in September 2018. (Almost 14 months ago Blasey Ford testified that Kavanaugh assaulted her when both were in high school in 1982. He has denied the accusations and was later confirmed to the bench.)

“When I came forward last September, I did not feel courageous,” Blasey Ford said in her acceptance speech. “I was simply doing my duty as a citizen.” So much so, she added, that she felt certain anyone in her position would “of course do the same thing.” But what seemed to her to be an essential and obvious move had a greater impact—and came at a greater cost—than she could have anticipated.

After her appearance before the Senate committee, Blasey Ford and her family were faced with threats, forcing them to move from their home and enhance their personal security.

“I was prepared for a variety of outcomes, including being dismissed,” she said over the weekend of her decision to speak out. “I was not prepared for the venom, the consistent attacks, the vilification, the loss of personal privacy, and the collateral damages to my friends and my family. I was not prepared to be physically threatened, or forced out of our home for over three months. I have learned a lot over the past year. I have learned there’s a well-financed attack machine out there ready to flood the internet and the media anytime I raise my head. And I know it’s not going to go away.”

In coming forward, Blasey Ford faced greater scrutiny and cruelty than most of her critics can imagine. But, she went on, even in the face of relentless attacks, she found strength. “Though I underestimated the pain, I also underestimated the love and the support that I have received,” she said.

You can watch the entire speech below:

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Charlize Theron's Speech at Glamour's 2019 Women of the Year Awards Is Required Reading


Charlize Theron gave an incredible speech when she accepted her Glamour 2019 Women of the Year Award on Monday night—and it should be required reading.

The actor, who’s set to appear in the upcoming movie Bombshell, took the stage at New York’s Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on Monday, November 11.

She was introduced by her Bombshell co-star Kate McKinnon, who told the audience about the first time she was captivated by Theron—her Oscar-winning performance in Monster—and what it was like to share the stage with her on Saturday Night Live.

“For some reason I was asked to introduce Charlize Theron at this Glamour event, which is sort of like a bridge troll being asked to introduce a Queen, but trolls love snacks and green rooms, so here I am,” McKinnon joked. “What can be said about Charlize Theron, a person whose Helen of Troy-esque, ship-launching face, is absolutely the least remarkable thing about her? A person whose real-life bad-assness makes her character from Mad Max: Fury Road look lazy and selfish? A person so grand that when you meet her, it only feels right to get on the floor—but who is so nice and normal that you end up just kind of doing a little curtsey?”

She continued, “In my mind, the finest screen performance of all time is Charlize in Monster. A performance filled with so much compassion and so much humanity that I found myself thinking 1) my god, the pain of so many women in this world is so overwhelming that I can’t even move; and 2) my god I want someone to make out with me outside of a roller rink. Charlize’s finest screen work came in 2014, of course, when we did an SNL sketch together about two ladies working in a cat shelter, a sketch that would go on to win a BAFTA. But seriously, she kind of swooped in and turned a bunch of cat jokes into a fully-fleshed out drama dynamic and for that I owe her so much.”

McKinnon concluded with insight into their time together filming Bombshell. “What I owe her everything for is getting to be a part of her latest incredibly important film, Bombshell. Where she not only transforms into Megyn Kelly but she embodies every nuance of a horrifying and horrifyingly common situation, which is the Goliath that women face when they choose to come forward about sexual harassment. But these kinds of revelatory roles have become par for the course for Charlize. In whatever she does, she always stands for bravery, risk and making tough choices. She does it as an actor, as a producer, an activist, a philanthropist, and a mom. And that’s what makes her a Glamour Woman of the Year.”

Naturally, Theron’s speech was as inspiring as her work. Read it, below:

“What a night. I’m a mess, there’s nothing ‘glamour’ about my face anymore. You all fucked me up in the most beautiful way. Thank you, Kate for doing this. For asking me to be your cat lady. It’s been a privilege to work with someone so incredibly funny and talented. That is until the day you do an impression of me in a celebrity game show sketch…then you’re dead to me.

I also want to thank Sam and everybody from Glamour. It is an incredible honor to be named Woman of the Year when this is the kind of company I get to keep. Ava, Yara, Megan, Tory, Margaret, Greta, Erika, Lucia, Andrea, Mayra,…a thousand times I say yes, every time.



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Ava DuVernay's Speech at Glamour's 2019 Women of the Year Awards Must Be Read


Ava DuVernay (of course) delivered an incredible, moving speech when she accepted her Glamour 2019 Women of the Year award at Alice Tully Hall in New York on Monday, November 11.

Niecy Nash, who starred in DuVernay’s Netflix limited series When They See Us, put it best when she presented the director with her award: “Ava DuVernay affirms you and assures you; she validates your choices as an artist. She makes each actor feel like you’re her favorite—’Wait, she likes them that much, too?’ She is indeed that gorgeous dreadlocked woman we know, in the gowns, on the red carpet, but her sweet spot is on the couch, eating Pinkberry (absolutely with toppings).”

“At the core, we are two girls straight outta Compton, trying to use our talents to be of service to the world,” Nash continued. “Through her production company, Array, Ava creates opportunities for underrepresented storytellers, like a fifty percent female production crew on her latest series, Cherish The Day. Her goal for When They See Us wasn’t, ‘Let me tell a story that will be critically acclaimed, so I can be the industry darling.’ It was, ‘Let me tell a story about the pain that people have suffered. Let me shine a light of truth.’ Now that light is shining. And because she’s smart, she made sure the series was critically acclaimed too. Because the size of that light means more people will see. I am blessed to know Ava as an artist and a friend. I’m double dipping. Normally I don’t advocate jealousy but I’m saying, if you are jealous of me, rightfully so. Because what the rest of the world sees in her art, I see in her heart.”

In her interview for Glamour‘s 2019 Women of the Year profile, DuVernay spoke about what success means to her. “I am trying to disrupt systems—systems that we in this country take as gospel. We’re born into them. We abide by their rules without interrogating what the rules are meant to do, who they’re meant to serve. And you can’t disrupt what you don’t understand,” she said. “But once you understand, perhaps you engage with these things differently, no matter who you are. Perhaps you don’t assume that, because it’s a longstanding institution, it is right and fair, and you interrogate for yourself what you’ve been taught and told, and you learn to relearn for yourself.”

DuVernay elaborated on the power of interrogating those systems on stage. Read her full speech below.

“I got into town last night and my dear friend Sarah Elizabeth Lewis invited me to hang out. You know, like you don’t have to work all the time. Hang out—what’s that? Not sure. She invited me to go see a public art installation that currently sits in Times Square. By a great artist Kehinde Wiley, called called Rumors of War, maybe you’ve seen it. It’s a bronze sculpture of massive scale that reimagines monuments usually made in the likeness of white men, many of whom had a demonstrated history of white supremacy. This be reimagining those sculptures in a likeness of a black man on a horse, valiantly riding for the future with a city united in a search for presence of excellence.

As I was walking away from Times Square with Sarah and Kehinde and our friend Brian today a woman stopped me to tell me she loved “Queen Sugar” and all the women directors who make the show and that she’s read about us achieving in gender parity on our upcoming show Cherish The Day. She said, sorry I get emotional, she said, ‘Keep bringing the truth with you. And the truth is, you’re excellent.’ This woman on the street.

I kept thinking about her warmth and those words and that woman and her faith. ‘Keep bringing the truth with you. And the truth is you are excellent,’ and her her encouragement to me to speak those words that we really connected with. Ideas I’ve been having lately around inclusion, and my truth within that term. What does that mean? Does it mean enough? Are we taking it further? Are we interrogating with the word is?



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