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Kit Harington Kindly Requests That You Stop Asking Him and Rose Leslie for Pictures, Please


In recent years a handful of celebrities have taken strong stances against posing for selfies with fans on the street—and for good reason. Two of the most recent additions to this antiselfie squad are Game of Thrones stars Kit Harington and Rose Leslie, who almost certainly get stopped all the time when they’re out and about, considering they’ve both appeared in one of the biggest shows on TV and also recently announced their engagement.

In an interview published in The Guardian over the weekend, Harington opened up about how “bizarre and weird” it is to be hounded at all hours by overzealous fans. “Like, being in Spain and there being a crowd of 500, maybe 600 fans camped outside the hotel every day, and you have to get through them. It feels like being Bieber or something,” he said.

Of his being something of a Justin Bieber–level heartthrob, Harington said, “Yeah, I don’t particularly enjoy that,” before adding, “I don’t know. Do I? I’m glad I’ve experienced it, but that’s what I mean about it being eight years, then it’s done. You couldn’t go on for much longer. It’s a bit incessant.” This incessant fame, he said, “makes me snappy and it makes me uncomfortable, and I turn into a grumpy person.”

His biggest issue of all is “the photo thing,” he said, explaining that he sets aside entire days during which he’ll refuse to take photos with fans. Harington told the newspaper that although the spiel he gives fans on these no-selfie days can leave them frustrated and annoyed, “you just have to, otherwise you start feeling like a mannequin.” He continued, “Especially me and Rose, we never do a photo together. Because then it makes our relationship feel like…puppets. Like we’re a walking show.”

He went on to explain why he’s so protective of his relationship with Leslie. “I just don’t—and I won’t say much about it now—but I don’t believe in talking about one’s relationship in the press because it’s…I strongly believe it’s her relationship and mine, and anything I say here, she may not want me to say,” he said. “So I just don’t say it. I genuinely think it’s our private life.”

The couple, who met and fell in love while starring as an unlikely couple onscreen in GoT, is indeed notoriously private: Instead of revealing their engagement news in September through a tabloid or on social media, they published a small, classic announcement in The Times of London.

But they’re not the only celebrities who refuse to take photos with fans. Their Game of Thrones costar Maisie Williams told Nylon last year that “if I don’t want a picture one day, I don’t have a problem saying no. I know some people get really weird about that, like, ‘You’re so mean.’ But if I was really in love with someone, I wouldn’t just want a picture. I would want to hang out with them,” she said. And in the September 2017 issue of Vogue,], Jennifer Lawrence shared that although she’s “happy to meet people, give autographs, shake hands, and say ‘Thank you,'” she doesn’t feel bad declining selfie requests. “It’s just, if I’m on an airplane and I have no makeup on, I don’t want to take a selfie that’s going to end up on E!”

Related: Kit Harington Auditioned for Other ‘Game of Thrones’ Characters and Failed Miserably



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I F*cking Love Crying, So Stop Telling Me Not to Do It


One afternoon, when I must have been about eight, my mom told me to stop crying. I don’t remember what I was crying about, but I do remember that I responded: “But I’m already trying so hard not to!” By that young age, I’d already learned that I should hold back my tears. That when I was upset, I had to first and foremost consider the people around me so that I didn’t make them upset.

That’s how it’s been ever since. Personally? I love crying. Whether it’s out of happiness or sadness or the impact of a big realization hitting me or something else I can’t describe, I feel more in touch with whatever I am feeling when I cry. Crying allows me to process that emotion and learn from it. If I don’t, the feeling gets trapped in me and just won’t go away. But some people do not appreciate that I cry so often, so I constantly feel pressured to keep my tears in for their comfort.

I was probably in my teens when it hit me that I cried more than most people. As a six-year-old, I stayed up crying for several consecutive nights because my former babysitter had taken another job. At nine, I cried because I realized that one day, my stuffed animals wouldn’t mean so much to me. I probably cry at least once a week now. Last month, I cried because I read that Chloe Grace Moretz’s dog died, (her second deceased pet in a month!). A few weeks before that, I stopped in the middle of sex to cry because “Don’t Look Down” by Martin Garrix came on and it was just pulling at my heartstrings.

In all these instances, I wanted to cry. I know how to hold back tears if I’m in a professional setting or can’t for some other reason, but I enjoy the release. Sometimes, when I’m in a bad mood, I even search for touching articles or videos because I know I’ll feel better once I cry.

Not everyone feels that way. I always wish my boyfriend, who says he hasn’t cried since he was in the single digits, would cry in front of me. Meanwhile, he wishes I wouldn’t do it so much. Once, when I said I was just trying to connect with him, he said, “then you shouldn’t cry.” Where did we get the idea that crying in front of people blocks them off? In my experience, it brings them closer together.

The more people take issue with my crying in front of them, the less comfortable and in touch they seem to be with their own emotions. Maybe they’re afraid that engaging with me while I’m crying would force them to face feelings they don’t want to face. And that’s fine. They don’t have to.

But I’m tired of them projecting that discomfort onto me. People who tell me to stop crying aren’t actually trying to make me feel better. They know the feelings will be there whether I cry or not. They just want me to help them avoid emotions because emotions make them uncomfortable. But for me, not crying is too big a sacrifice to make for other people’s comfort.

I’m also sick of reassuring people that I’m crying out of happiness, not sadness. Because a lot of my tears can’t really be attributed to either. Often, I’m just moved. Sometimes, I’m having a breakthrough. And when I am crying out of sadness or anger, that’s not a bad thing. Feeling these feelings is not going to lead to anything disastrous! In fact, it’ll probably only lead me to greater healing and self-understanding. But not if I pretend to be happy for someone else’s sake.



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Kate on 'This Is Us' Is Great—Now Let's Stop Other-ing Plus-Size People


There were two pinnacle scenes in the first season of This Is Us: the close-up shot of Milo Ventimiglia’s butt—which broke the Internet for obvious reasons—and the moment where Kate Pearson, played brilliantly by Chrissy Metz, stepped on the scale and weighed herself, completely naked.

It’s a scene that touched millions of viewers for its vulnerability and authenticity. Kate even took her earrings off to ensure she was as light as possible on the scale, a neurotic ritual many people who’ve struggled with weight know too well (including myself—I remove my glasses). What transpired for the rest of the season was a weight-loss journey so brutally honest and relatable that it brought tears to my eyes on several occasions. Kate’s anxiety about flying, her apprehension about walking up long flights of stairs, her fear of strangers mocking her at parties: These are all emotions familiar to most plus-size people. Emotions that had never been explored on television—not with this level of empathy, at least.

Because up until this point plus-size people on TV weren’t people: They were two-dimensional caricatures designed for cheap laughs and ridicule. The Fat Best Friend was allowed to exist, sure, but she wasn’t given a love interest or any real personality. Oh, and her weight had to be referenced—usually in some kind of mean, wisecracking way—to imply bigger people deserve to be demeaned and humiliated.

That was the (awful) message pop-culture sent for years, but then This Is Us came along and presented a woman whose body and weight issues weren’t the butt of some joke. They were handled with sensitivity and kindness and decency. It sounds cheesy, but Kate’s storyline on the show truly was groundbreaking.

But it’s also only the jumping-off point. 2017 was all about representation in entertainment: queer representation, people of color representation, female representation, and, yes, plus-size representation. Granted, the majority of TV shows and movies are still about white, straight men, but we’ve certainly made progress. To keep moving forward, though, representation has to become normalization: having lots of different characters exist harmoniously without the things that make them different being, well, “things.”

Our culture, at this point, is still programmed to view plus-size people as “other.”

On This Is Us, Kate’s weight is still very much a “thing.” It’s understandable why. Our culture, at this point, is still programmed to view plus-size people as “other.” If Kate’s storyline didn’t mention her weight, fans would’ve talked about it, probably cruelly, and asked why the show wasn’t addressing it. Instead, we saw a three-dimensional character like Kate that addressed her body image issues head on.

And tackling Kate’s weight directly, oddly enough, caused viewers not to think about it so much. After a full season of the show, they’ve fallen completely in love with Kate and are now just invested in her story—wherever it goes. Weight-related or not. It doesn’t matter anymore.

Maybe This Is Us needed to acknowledge the thing that made Kate “other” and talk about it so much that it was no longer “other.” Addressing Kate’s weight directly, but empathetically, destroyed certain expectations and biases toward larger-bodied characters on screen. It humanized her. It normalized her. Now, she’s simply a character existing in the world. But it’s frustrating people wouldn’t have accepted that from the start.

Going forward, though, larger-bodied characters shouldn’t have to obsess about their weight or hate their bodies to be understood. Their mere presence on a show shouldn’t be heralded as “groundbreaking,” “important,” or “inspiring.” Those words suggest it isn’t normal to have them. It still “others,” just on the opposite side of the spectrum, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid. We needed this language before This Is Us—and Kate did move the dial forward in many ways—but we shouldn’t need it anymore.

Take, for example, Will & Grace. When the show debuted in 1998, gay characters in pop-culture were still rare and often written as stereotypes. Will Truman and Jack McFarland were two of the first ones on TV who didn’t have some kind of inner turmoil about their sexualities. They were two successful, hilarious guys who happened to be gay. It was pioneering. It needed to be called out and celebrated, so we did—but now gay men are much more a part of pop culture’s fabric. Look at Kevin Keller on Riverdale for a recent example; his sexuality isn’t explicitly mentioned on the show, and he doesn’t struggle with it. He’s just gay.

True “representation,” if we still want to call it that, will happen when we stop talking about it—and just start seeing it.

It took years for Hollywood to be comfortable with that—years of gay characters struggling with HIV/AIDS, coming out, bullying, and essentially every other stereotypical narrative. Gayness—like weight on This Is Us—had to be explicitly mentioned over and over in a humanizing way for mainstream audiences to not see it as different. Just like Sophia Burset’s transgender backstory was necessary in the first season of Orange Is the New Black but has slowly became less discussed as the show continued. Hopefully, we’ll soon reach a place where trans actors can tell trans stories that aren’t only about transitioning.

Of course, there can still be gay characters who come out and plus-size characters who struggle with weight, but these narratives don’t need to be the first points of entry. It’s important not to erase characters’ backgrounds, hardships, and identities; everyone’s lived experiences are nuanced and different, and that should be reflected in the entertainment we watch.

But queer characters, Black characters, Latina characters, plus-size characters, and anyone else who has been othered shouldn’t have to be written as archetypes in order for America to get on board. They deserve the full spectrum of human emotion. Yes, sometimes that’s dealing with very real issues like racism, size-ism, and homophobia; those shouldn’t be ignored because they still exist. Other times, however, the biggest problem of the day is letting someone on Tinder know you’re not interested. We rarely see plus-size characters deal with conflicts like that without some kind of stereotypical subplot attached—but it’s about time we did because that’s how the world works…and looks. Authentic stories about all sorts of people should be expected now—and not lauded as something revolutionary.

True “representation,” if we still want to call it that, will happen when we stop talking about it—and just start seeing it.

Related Stories:

Chrissy Metz’s Emmy Nomination Is a Win for More Than Just TV



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Chrissy Metz Wants People to Stop Asking Her if She's Having Weight-Loss Surgery


At a Hollywood Reporter roundtable earlier this year, Chrissy Metz said she’d eventually love to play a character whose storyline wasn’t centered around weight. Her character on This Is Us (Kate Pearson) is three-dimensional and nuanced, yes, but the bulk of her dialogue is about her body insecurities and desire to shed pounds. For some reason, we’re still not at a place where a plus-size character can simply exist without their weight being a thing.

This carries over into real life, too. If you go on YouTube and watch a few of Metz’s interviews, you’ll notice a trend: People always ask her about her weight. Without fail. Metz is a good sport about these questions: She answers them warmly and honestly, but it’s still frustrating she has to address it. (In some interviews, it feels like she’s even apologizing for it, which is problematic and wrong on so many levels.)

This line of questioning also infiltrates her personal life, off-camera. The actress told the Today show on Tuesday that the question she wishes people would stop asking her is whether or not she’s having weight loss surgery.

“[They ask], ‘Are you gonna be doing gastric bypass?'” Metz said. “What? Some people do feel like they’re my doctors and they have tried to diagnose me on the Internets, so that’s weird. ‘Cause like, I’m good. I’m good, but thanks. I’m good.”

Watch Metz’s interview for yourself, below:

This is a good time to remind everyone that you cannot determine a person’s health status just by looking at them. Plus-size people are routinely subjected to unfair and incorrect criticisms based solely on their appearance, and that needs to stop. We’re more than just our bodies, people.

Related Stories:

Chrissy Metz Says It’s in Her Contract to Lose Weight for This Is Us

Why Chrissy Metz Doesn’t Want Her This Is Us Character to ‘Figure Out’ Her Weight Loss Journey Quite Yet



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Help, I Can't Stop Hooking Up With Trump Supporters


When someone asks about my worst hookup, I have plenty of options to choose from, but I inevitably end up telling the same story. It’s the one where I started arguing with a Trump supporter at a bar and then before I knew it, I was waking up the next morning in his bedroom. There were flags everywhere: Ronald Reagan’s face was emblazoned on one of them, “Don’t Tread On Me” made an appearance on another. I say it was the “worst” not because the sex was bad, but because, well, see above.

This was in early 2016 and—while it doesn’t excuse my choice of partner—it was before Pussygate, before the suggestion of violence against his opponents,, and before the realities of a Trump presidency really set in. So while I found a lot of his comments abhorrent, hooking up with one of his supporters wasn’t quite the moral conundrum to me that it would become a few months later.

To my own surprise, we kept hooking up and—despite the fact that our political opinions were diametrically opposed—it didn’t feel weird. When we texted, we’d naturally argue about politics, but also about other things, like if corn or flour tortillas made for the best tacos, or whether Drake or Kendrick Lamar was the better rapper (I said Kendrick, of course). When we met up in person, that pent-up anger would turn into frustration, which would turn into a sort of competitive tension that resulted, inevitably, in sex.

I knew we’d never be anything more to each other than a hookup, but I didn’t care. The sex was hot, and it was uncomplicated in the sense that neither of us expected—or even really wanted—any strings attached. And since I was confident in my political convictions, all that witty banter about tax codes, emails, and border walls was the foreplay I never knew I needed.

I assumed it was a onetime experiment, but shortly after we ended things I started sleeping with yet another Trumpster who I was inexplicably attracted to. This, I’m sorry to say, was after Trump had secured the nomination, but in my defense I was still pretty certain we were going to elect Hillary Clinton, so I could ignore the fact that this guy’s family wore MAGA hats. Harder to ignore was his conviction that if Clinton won, we would automatically go to war—with which country, he couldn’t say, but he was certain that a woman president would lead to war because…emotions, maybe? I have no idea. He was ill-informed, sexist, and loved to start arguments with me.

But once again the thrill of the election and the friction of our differences made the passion so much more palpable in bed. So I pushed aside his ingrained bigotry and instead let it wash over me, filling me with a desire to prove him wrong—or maybe to just be on top of him.

As much as I don’t like the idea of sleeping with people whose values are clearly the opposite of my own, I can’t seem to stop, especially since the election. I’m an extremely competitive person and knowing that the guy I’m with is on the “winning” team (even though I’m still correct) just forces that competitiveness into overdrive. Even when my annoyance with Trump and his supporters turns into depression, anxiety, and frustration, I still get an odd sense of vindication after sleeping with one of them.

And it’s by no means just a way to feed into that whole “What if I can change him?” cliché. I don’t need any of these Trumpsters to actually like me. It’s merely because I’ve discovered that crazy political tension also makes for great sexual tension.

Plus, in an odd way, sleeping with Trump supporters reaffirms my own political and personal values. I don’t think I could ever have a serious relationship with a one—I can’t be with someone who won’t understand why the news sometimes causes me to burst into tears, or why I want to throw my phone across the room after reading the President’s latest tweet. For me, differing political ideologies are a deal breaker. But that only makes me more OK with accepting these flings for what they are: Opportunities for excellent hate-sex. And to be able to walk away unbothered, unburdened, and sexually satisfied makes me feel powerful at a time when many people with my liberal leanings have never felt less in control.

Is this a sustainable pattern? Probably not. For one, it occasionally brings me added stress and it isn’t really the kind of relationship I want in the long run. But for right now I can highly recommend hooking up with someone whose politics you hate.

As long as you don’t forget to vote.



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