Blake Lively celebrated her 32nd birthday on Sunday, August 25, and she got a solid dose of hilarious birthday trolling on Instagram from her husband, Ryan Reynolds. But she also received some sweet tributes from her friends, including Gigi Hadid, who dedicated a heartfelt post to Lively on Tuesday.
“It’s this Queen’s birthday week and I just want to say how grateful and lucky I am to have a friend like you, B. You are a real one and inspire me in so many ways,” Hadid wrote in the caption of a photo that shows her and Lively hanging out in someone’s kitchen. “I will only be able to thank you enough by making you endless oatmeal griddle cakes and training your children to be world class disposable-camera photographers. I love you! Wishing you every blessing.”
Gigi Hadid and Blake Lively have been close for a while, and they’ve been photographed hanging out a lot at social events, including costume parties organized by Taylor Swift. (At Swift’s epic 2018 New Year’s Eve bash, Lively was Dorothy and Hadid was Mary Poppins.) Plus, Lively actually had some incredibly thoughtful birthday messages for Hadid on her birthday. When Hadid turned 24 in April (remember that denim-themed party?), Lively showered her in compliments and dedicated entire Instagram stories to how much Hadid means to her.
“You love and celebrate others. You build people up rather than tearing them down. You work so hard. You have so much appreciation. You’re present. And kind,” Lively wrote. She even revealed a couple of things about Hadid’s secret talents: “You’re insanely talented at things that no one is good at—like making chairs from scratch out of resin. And you love everyone around you so fully. I’m happy to know your sweet spirit. Yeah. I just spoke about your spirit. Things have gotten deep.”
Jane the Virgin ended its spectacular five-season run on The CW this week, and it’s clear that the show’s star, Gina Rodriguez, is feeling all the things. On Wednesday, July 31, just before the grand finale, she posted a lengthy, heartfelt post on Instagram about what the ending meant to her.
She shared a photo of herself wearing a black jacket over a wedding dress—a clue about the happy way the creators decided to end Jane the Virgin. “Wow,” she wrote. “We started shooting the first season of Jane in July 2014. A few days into shooting I turned 30 on set. Yesterday I turned 35. And today is the very last episodes, 99 and 100, airing of Jane the Virgin. Five years. Five years of love, laughter, growth, pain, surprises, deaths, new births and a shit ton of memories.”
“Thank you, Gina, for giving us Jane Villanueva and for all the lessons I have learned through this beautiful character that you portrayed amazingly and to your full potential with your entire heart. No one else could play Jane like you,” one fan wrote in the comments section. Yvonne Orji, known for playing Molly on Issa Rae’s HBO hit Insecure, added, “Amazing!!! AMAZING! 5 glorious years!!”
Gina Rodriguez wasn’t the only person who walked down memory lane before yesterday’s emotional finale. Her co-star, Justin Baldoni, who plays love interest Rafael Solano, posted an interview in which he tears up talking about the impact of getting to work on Jane. Watch it for yourself, above.
“It’s rare to get a chance to be a part of something this beautiful,” he said. “You grow up and you dream about being a performer or being an actor or being a director, and those dreams seem so far away from who you are as a young boy, and then you win the lottery and it happens.”
More than 800,000 fans have signed a petition for HBO to remake the eighth season of Game of Thrones. One person who’s not on board with this, though, is Lili Reinhart. The Riverdale star took to Instagram on Thursday (May 16) to shut down those in favor of this lofty request, which knocks GoT showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as “woefully incompetent writers.”
“This is not how television works,” Reinhart wrote in a comment under Variety‘s post about the petition. “TV shows are not fan service. It’s ridiculous of people to think they can demand creative change from artists.”
Reinhart’s comment has sparked a bit of a debate about whether or not television actually is “fan service.” “The customer is the fan and if the customer doesn’t like the product, actors, [or] shows, then the money stops coming in. Without the fans, there isn’t a show because there is no money,” one person wrote.
“I agree that demanding a change of directing is unrealistic; however, it comes to show that people find it hard to bid farewell,” wrote another.
To call season eight of Game of Thrones divisive would be an understatement. The show’s depiction of its female characters has been a point of particular criticism and concern—so much so that stars like Jessica Chastain have chimed in. After Sansa’s sexual assault backstory was put in an “empowering” light, the Molly’s Game actor tweeted, “Rape is not a tool to make a character stronger. A woman doesn’t need to be victimized in order to become a butterfly. The #littlebird was always a Phoenix. Her prevailing strength is solely because of her. And her alone. #GameOfThrones.”
Game of Thrones ends once and for all this Sunday starting at 9:00 P.M. ET on HBO. Fingers crossed that the showrunners deliver a finale that satisfies fans.
Game of Thrones star Lena Headey wrote a beautiful, supportive message to her costar Emilia Clarke, who revealed in a New Yorker essay on Thursday (March 21) she had suffered two brain aneurysms while filming the hit HBO show.
“It took me a while to know this woman (there are 64000 of us after all),” Headey posted on Instagram alongside a photo of Clarke. “Not until she spoke to me about her experience did I fully realize the warrior she truly is (MOD for real x209840000) she does really great things for causes that deserve it. She’s kind and determined and funny and aware. #Thursday’s MVP … Here’s to @emilia_clarke ?????⭐️⭐️⭐️?.”
MOD, for uninitiated into Game of Thrones, means Mother of Dragons, the nickname of Clarke’s character on the show.
Lena Headey plays Cersei Lannister on GoT, and Emilia Clarke plays Daenerys. Their characters hardly interact onscreen—they’ve shared only one scene—which is why Headey’s message is particularly exciting.
In her essay, Clarke outlines her emotional journey with the two brain aneurysms, which happened at such busy times in her life and career.
“I lost all hope,” Clarke writes. “I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. There was terrible anxiety, panic attacks. I was raised never to say, ‘It’s not fair’; I was taught to remember that there is always someone who is worse off than you. But, going through this experience for the second time, all hope receded. I felt like a shell of myself. So much so that I now have a hard time remembering those dark days in much detail. My mind has blocked them out. But I do remember being convinced that I wasn’t going to live.”
Read Clarke’s piece in its entirety here. Game of Thrones season eight premieres Sunday, April 14, at 8:00 P.M. ET on HBO.
What the film does well is highlight both the experiences that girls all over the world have in common and the terrible, particular difficulties and threats that a girl like Nasro faces. How much of girlhood is a shared experience?
Being a girl is always difficult. It’s a strange rite of passage, and being a woman in this world is difficult. But there’s a massive difference between what it feels like to be a woman in [America or England] and where Nasaro is. And a girl’s [experience] will be different, too, based on her race, her socioeconomic background, how much education she has. Does she have people in her life to support her? What part of the world is she in? What resources does she have access to? That will decide what her life will be like.
In the New Yorker, Alexis Okeowo wrote that your work “evokes longing for home,” which I think is true. When you feel that ache for home, what do you do?
I feel that every day of my life. For me, home is Somalia. I’m living in L.A. now, but London was home for a really long time, and now I’m living in America under Trump. So it’s double. I miss London, but I miss home home, which is Africa. It’s really important for me to listen to old Somali music and to speak in my mother tongue. It gives me a lot of pride. I like looking at old photographs of Somalia. I love to eat Somali food. I love to put on Somali incense. It’s all the time reminding myself a little bit of where I’m from, and the richness of it. Because it’s very easy to not do that and then you forget—how to cook, how to speak the same language, the comedy, the music.
I don’t want to grow older in different parts of the world and forget all the things that bring me a lot of joy, so I spend a lot of time on YouTube looking for Somali videos. And whenever I want to connect with London, I hope for rain. It’s rainy today in L.A., and it always makes me feel comforted. I just have to stay connected so I don’t forget where I’m from.
It can feel like time travel a bit, to surround yourself with those memories of home.
Yes, definitely. That’s a big help for writing as well. If I want to write about my teenage years, I’ll go back and listen to all the music I listened to and look at photographs of myself back in the day, and I’ll even ask my mom to send me old clothes from London. It’s like a time machine.
International Women’s Day can feel a little two-dimensional, I think. Because so much of it takes “place” online. I’m sure people will see the film and read articles about it. But then what? Do you have advice for people who want to do something with the pain or emotion that they feel?
I’m interested in the ways in which human beings are able to practice empathy, so my recommendation would be to read books written by different women from different backgrounds you don’t know anything about, watch films made by women all over the world, not just by women who look like you.
And try to practice empathy. Think about how massive the world is and how small your life is in comparison to that. Think about what it means to be a woman. Think about how you want to bring awareness to the suffering of other people. Think about women from different parts of the world, trans women, poor women, black women, women in prisons, women in shelters, women all over the world, women and girls in refugee camps. The world is so massive, but we forget that all the time.
Miley Cyrus kicked off her first Valentine’s Day married to Liam Hemsworth in the most Miley Cyrus way: by posting a hilarious meme.
The “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” singer took to Instagram Stories Wednesday night (February 13) and posted a throwback photo of herself from the Bangerz Tour with the caption, “When it’s Valentine’s Day and bae says hi.” She also tagged Hemsworth and wrote “Love u.” When you see the photo, you’ll instantly understand why it’s funny.
Here’s the original photo, which was taken in Dublin back in May 2014. Ahhh, simpler times—when Cyrus’ stage prop of choice was a foam finger and she slid down a giant tongue at the top of her show. Take me back.
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This isn’t the only racy message Miley Cyrus has sent Liam Hemsworth this week. On Monday, she attended the premiere of Hemsworth’s new movie Isn’t It Romantic by herself because he was sick, and she posted to Instagram, “Getting sick blows. But so do I. Get well soon babe. I love you.” Listen, everyone jumps out in February! It’s scientific fact.
Cyrus and Hemsworth tied the knot back in December, and they’ve made a few appearances together since then. Last month, they attended the G’Day USA Gala, where Hemsworth praised Cyrus while accepting the Excellence in Film Award. “Thank you to my beautiful wife,” he said. “You are a sweet, sweet angel.”
And just a few days before this, Cyrus wrote the sweetest note to Hemsworth for his birthday. “I love those little lines around your eyes when you laugh or look into the sun…. I love the way we speak in our own language. Sometimes with just a look,” she wrote on Instagram. “I love laying on the couch eating Chinese when we’re hung over from the night before. I love going to a random party and remembering basically everyone is fake AF out here and how lucky I am to share a life with someone so REAL. I love the way you always listen & the way that you care… (Even when it’s about RuPaul’s Drag Race.) I love having a teeth brushin’ partner & when I’m lazy how you’ll comb my hair.”
