Last season, Lucy falsely claims she was a victim of sexual assault in order to protect what actually happened to her best friend Pippa. What was important to you in advancing that controversial storyline for the third season?
The main thing that I wanted to be very careful about was Lucy’s intention behind it all, and continuing to remind the audience that she did not do this for attention. She didn’t do it for any malicious reason. She didn’t even do it just to get Chris in trouble. She did it to protect her friend. And it was a dumb thing to do, but it came from a good place. I really wanted to be careful that we weren’t making any kind of statement that girls lie [about sexual assault] because I don’t think that girls really do usually lie about this, but this is such a unique and specific situation. And making sure that Lucy continued to reject any public sympathy or public attention, so that it never got misconstrued with her liking it or seeking it.
Lucy’s decision regarding Pippa’s assault last season upset fans and divided the writers’ room. How much of her season two journey was informed by those intense reactions?
It continued to be a divisive storyline in the room. I love our audience so much, but I do feel a bit hurt on Lucy’s behalf at how hard they are on her. They have asked for a lot of punishment for her, which I don’t think she deserves. Audiences are just harder on female characters. That has become very obvious to me while writing the show. So I was posing a question to them with this season: are you happy now? It was about getting her to a place where she was a caged animal. There can’t be too much time to think of other escape routes for her. It has to be right then and there. He’s going to call Bree right then. Otherwise, it falls apart.
The audience might think they know what they want, but it’s not always what’s best for the storytelling. But people send me all the memes, all the reaction videos, and I fucking love those. There are moments when you’re in the trenches, so stressed, and then you get the funniest TikTok video ever about a reaction. It gives you a bit of bounce in your step.
The Bree and Evan romance is beloved among Tell Me Lies fans, but this season you introduce a budding flirtation between Bree and Wrigley. When did you decide to explore their dynamic?
It was always on the table. It just became very clear by season three that these are the two purest people on the show. And I thought that those two really deserved that pure thing. Once we decided for sure that that was where the season was going to fully go, it happened so organically and their chemistry is just amazing. Also, last season, my God, we put Bree through the ringer. And we’ve always put Wrigley through the ringer, so they both needed some joy.
Timothy Busfield‘s upcoming episode of Law & Order: SVU is no longer airing on NBC after an arrest warrant was issued on charges of child sex abuse.
Multiple outlets confirmed that NBC has shelved the episode, which featured Busfield, 68, in a guest star role as a judge. It was scheduled to air Thursday, January 15, but is now going to be replaced with the SVU episode planned for January 22. Busfield previously guest starred on the hit show in 2011 and directed two episodes in 2019.
An arrest warrant was issued on Friday, January 9, and charged Busfield on two counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and child abuse. According to legal documents obtained by Us Weekly, a child actor accused Busfield of inappropriate behavior on the set of Fox’s The Cleaning Lady, which concluded last year.
Busfield directed several episodes of the show when he crossed paths with the child, who was 7 years old at the time. The boy alleged that Busfield touched him again several times one year later.
Actor and director Timothy Busfield is facing charges of sexual abuse involving a minor after he was accused of misconduct with a child actor on the set of The Cleaning Lady. Busfield — who executive-produced 14 episodes of the Fox series and directed six, as well as a one-episode appearance as an immigration officer — […]
The child stated he was “very afraid of Tim and was relieved when he was off set.” The boy had a twin brother, who also starred on the show, and he was “afraid to tell anyone because Tim was the director, and he feared Tim would get mad at him,” according to the affidavit.
Amid their investigation, the Albuquerque Police Department spoke with Busfield over the phone in November 2025. When asked whether he had any “physical contact” with the boys, Busfield allegedly replied that it “was highly likely that he would have.”
“Timothy said it was a playful environment,” the document stated about how Busfield told authorities that physical contact would have been “in front of the parents” and “there would never be a weird moment about it.”
He added: “I don’t really remember picking those boys up. … I don’t remember those boys. No, I don‘t, I don’t actually, I don’t remember it, if it happened, I don’t remember overtly tickling the boys ever, but it wouldn’t be uncommon for me.”
Busfield and his wife, actress Melissa Gilbert, confirmed to the police that they “did have a relationship” with the child actors and their family “outside of work.”
Warner Bros. Television, which coproduced The Cleaning Lady, released a statement to Variety after news broke about Busfield’s arrest warrant.
The Cleaning Lady made headlines for minor behind-the-scenes shakeups before the Fox series was the subject of a sexual abuse scandal in 2026 — one year after the show was off the air. Based on the 2017 Argentinian TV show La Chica Que Limpia, The Cleaning Lady premiered in 2022 and followed a former surgeon […]
“The health and safety of our cast and crew is always our top priority, especially the safety of minors on our productions,” they stated. “We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and have systems in place to promptly and thoroughly investigate, and when needed, take appropriate action. We are aware of the current charges against Mr. Busfield and have been and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement.”
The search for Busfield is ongoing, with the Albuquerque Police Department reportedly telling People and TMZ on Monday, January 12, that the U.S. Marshals Service is assisting the APD in its efforts to locate Busfield. An APD spokesperson confirmed the actor hasn’t yet been taken into custody and they are receiving federal help to locate him.
If you or someone you know is experiencing child abuse, call or text Child Help Hotline at 1-800-422-4453.
Matt Damon remembered being put in his place by one of Hollywood’s finest as he reminisced on his decades-long career.
During an appearance on the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast, the Oscar-winner revealed that Clint Eastwood had a few choice words for the actor while they worked together on the 2009 docudrama “Invictus.”
While running down the list of directors Damon worked with, O’Brien admitted he couldn’t get a sense of Eastwood’s style.
Clint Eastwood directed Matt Damon in the 2009 flick “Invictus.”(Dave Hogan)
“I worked with him twice, and the first time was ‘Invictus,’” Damon recalled. “So I was playing a South African rugby player, and that’s a really tough accent to do.”
Damon spent six months working with a dialect coach to master the accent, with little interest from his director.
“It was a long … it was a lot of work,” Damon said. “And I showed up and, and I’m, I’m ready. It’s like my chance to work with, you know, one of my heroes.”
Damon continued, “The very first take, I did it. And meanwhile, I’ve done this so many thousands of times. I have a number of different ways that I’m thinking of maybe doing the scene. So he goes, ‘Cut, print, move on.’
“I go, I go, ‘Hang on, hang on, hang on, boss. I want to, you know, I want to do another one. I mean, I wasn’t even in costume.’ You know, that was like, that was the first one.
Damon remembered that Eastwood quickly responded, “He goes, ‘Why you wanna waste everybody’s time?’”
“I went, ‘No, I guess we’re moving on.”
Matt Damon worked with Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman in ‘Invictus.’(Dave Hogan)
While Eastwood’s words may have seemed off-putting, the “Bourne Identity” actor insisted there was a “kindness” to his message.
“He is a lovely guy. What was really interesting is the second movie I did with him, there was this … it builds to a head with this, a scene with me and this 9-year-old kid,” Damon said. “The 9-year-old kid was a non-actor, and we had done one take for everybody, all through ‘Invictus.’
“We must have done 40 takes with this little boy … we were trying to get this; it was this kind of huge moment in the film, and we were trying to get this stuff out of him. Clint was right next to me … like, we were right next to the camera together just working with this boy.”
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck earned an Academy Award for “Good Will Hunting” in 1998.(Getty Images)
He added, “His whole mentality was … your crew will go to the ends of the earth for you if as long as you’re not taxing them on every shot. When we need to get in there, we get in there. But for the most part we can … professional actors are gonna show up with something good. We keep the momentum.”
Tracy Wright is an entertainment reporter for Fox News Digital. Send story tips to Tracy.Wright@fox.com.
“Duck Dynasty” stars Al and Jase Robertson blamed “woke” leadership for making American cities like Seattle and San Francisco to become “unlivable.”
During the Jan. 8 episode of their podcast “Unashamed with the Robertson Family,” Al and Jase discussed the contrast between the Christian ideological concepts of “idolatry,” in which human ideologies and worldly values are elevated above God, and “dominion,” in which people take moral responsibility and steward society under God’s authority.
Al said he viewed Seattle as the “perfect illustration” of how abandoning dominion for idolatry leads to “chaos.”
“You and I were talking earlier, and you’d sent me a note about this new Seattle mayor who’s one of these woke socialist types who’s taken over the city and, basically she’s just said ‘Do drugs in the street,’” he said. ‘We’ve unshackled any idea of trying to have some order in this chaos.”
“Duck Dynasty” stars Al and Jase Robertson blamed “woke” leadership for the decline of American cities. (Malcolm Hope/Icon SMI/Corbis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images/Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Dove Awards)
Seattle’s new mayor, Katie Wilson, recently faced backlash over claims that her administration had issued a directive that offenders would no longer be arrested for open drug use or possession but would instead be diverted for treatment. During an appearance on KIRO Newsradio’s “The John Curley Show,” Wilson said that the policy regarding arresting drug offenders remains unchanged.
“We have an ordinance in Seattle around drug use and possession. And currently, officers basically use their discretion around when it’s appropriate to do an arrest,” Wilson said. “You know, we have award-winning diversion programs and those can be invoked before an arrest, before a booking, before a trial… The bottom line comes down to we’re looking for an approach which is using the right strategy in the right circumstances and that is making sure that we are getting people the help that they need. And… there’s a lot of different situations out there and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. So, that’s what we’re trying to get to. But we have not made any change in policy.”
Al went on to lament what he described as the city’s decline during his visits in recent years.
“I went to Seattle for the first time to go on a cruise out of Alaska,” he said. “I happened to go every year for the next several years, doing cruises, most of them for work.”
Al said he and his wife, Lisa, were “afraid to walk the streets of Seattle.”(Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Dove Awards)
The reality star recalled that he and his wife, Lisa, enjoyed a walk through the city during their first trip.
“It’s a beautiful city,” he said. “I was right on the water with great restaurants, and we’re like, ‘Man, what a beautiful city these people have created here.’ They created this little jewel, right up in our Northwest, in Seattle.”
“The next year we went, it had lost a little luster,” Al continued. “There were a few more things going on in the streets that weren’t great. By the end of the fifth year, we were afraid to walk the streets of Seattle. Down where all the tourists are. And like, we just wouldn’t even get out of our hotel.”
New Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has said that the policy regarding arresting drug offenders remains unchanged. (Katie Wilson for Seattle)
Al said that Seattle is an example of what happens when people stop stewarding creation under God and instead surrender to it.
“You continue to watch this progression and see that there is no order,” he said. “We’ve turned it over to creation itself, and it’s just becoming untenable, unlivable and unvisitable.”
“When you watch that, you can see it in real time over a couple of decades in a U.S. city,” Al continued. “Imagine the whole idea of humanity in this framework — what happens when something other than God is in charge, when you take away His order, when you take away His light, and all the other metaphors we’ve been talking about.”
Jase said he also noticed a decline in other cities, including San Francisco. (Denise Truscello/WireImage)
Jase told Al that he had noticed similar declines in other major urban centers.
“You see that in every city and area that tries this,” Jase said. “When you worship and serve the creation rather than seeing creation as something we cultivate, something we steward, something we exercise dominion over, and you flip that script, the end result is always a death word.”
“It’s always a city like Seattle… or San Francisco,” he continued. “There are so many cities across America that have embraced this ideology, and you see the decline.”
“You see the filth,” Jase added. “You see the opposite of a beautiful garden that is expanding. Instead, what it is, it becomes a trash dump that is shrinking. Which sounds a whole lot like hell, right?”
Ashley Hume is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to ashley.hume@fox.com and on Twitter: @ashleyhume
Netflix released the two-hour specialOne Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 on Monday, January 12, where creators Matt and Ross Duffer documented the experience of filming the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. Cameras followed Ross and Matt, both 41, behind the scenes in the writers’ room, on set and in the days leading up to production coming to an end.
While the crew and the cast were interviewed about their time on the show, there were some stars who were absent from One Last Adventure. Harbour, 50, and Ryder, 54, were seen in footage from the table read but there were no one-on-one confessionals with them despite their costars sitting down to reflect on their individual journeys.
“There aren’t interviews with people beyond the show itself. It’s the Duffers, it’s the cast, it’s the department heads,” director Martina Radwan told Variety on Friday, January 9. “There’s so much information about Stranger Things out in the world that I wanted to keep it in the bubble. Anything that you need to know outside of the show, you can get — it’s out there.”
Radwan confirmed that Ryder and Harbour didn’t film any content, adding, “No, they’re not [in it]. We just didn’t get the time. They were busy with other projects, and so we didn’t have the time to sit down.”
The outlet, however, noted that most of the cast was available — with Millie Bobby Brown being interviewed in costume.
“That was Millie’s idea! She was like, ‘This is my last day, I’m in character,’” Radwan maintained. “Unfortunately, with David and Winona, we couldn’t find the time. We tried.”
Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
Stranger Things focused on a fictional town where a series of supernatural events took place and caused mystery and mayhem. The hit Netflix series became a pop-culture phenomenon — but it was also known for long gaps between filming and lengthy episode runtimes. Season 5 concluded nearly a decade after Stranger Things originally premiered.
Off screen, the show made headlines in November 2025 when reports surfaced that Brown, 21, allegedly “filed a harassment and bullying claim” against Harbour “before they started shooting the last season.” According to the Daily Mail, Brown claimed she was bullied and harassed by Harbour on set, but the complaint did not include allegations of sexual misconduct.
Brown and Harbour put on a united front at the Stranger Things season 5 premiere later that month.
“Of course I felt safe, I mean, we’ve worked together for 10 years,” Brown told Deadline at the time. “I feel safe with everyone on that set.”
Stranger Things puts a lot of work into making viewers feel like they have been transported to a fictional town in Indiana during the ’80s — which includes transforming their actors into completely different people. The Netflix series, which debuted in 2016, centers around supernatural events that take place in Hawkins after a door is […]
She continued: “You naturally just… you know, you’ve been doing it for so long. We also play father and daughter so naturally, we have a closer bond than the rest because we have had some really intense scenes together, especially in season 2. David and I have a great relationship, we work really closely together in the scenes and preparing for the scenes and I really am excited to see … for everyone to see the labor of love and hard work we’ve put into the closure of our relationship and what that looks like.”
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Harbour, for his part, hadn’t addressed the reports. The actor, who has been going through a messy high-profile split from Lily Allen, reportedly had multiple instances where he exhibited concerning behavior in public. He subsequently skipped several planned appearances and dropped out of a starring role in new movie Behemoth!
“I’m protective of the people and the reality of my life. There’s no use in that form of engaging [with rumors] because it’s all based on hysterical hyperbole,” Harbour previously told GQ Hype in April 2025 about hosting personal life, adding that he did not want to encourage a “salacious s***show of humiliation.”
Stranger Things is currently streaming on Netflix.
If you don’t remember seeing Göransson’s acceptance speech on TV, don’t worry; your memory is still intact. Mere days before this year’s Golden Globes Awards, CBS and Paramount+ opted to cut the Best Original Score category from their broadcast for time, despite the previously announced addition of new categories like Best Podcast Award and Cinematic and Box Office Achievement.
When asked on the red carpet for his thoughts about the category being removed from the televised, Hans Zimmer told Deadline that it “feels a little bit ignorant.” He continued, “The composer has such an important role in making films; by the time we come to the music, the director has been through war. Our first job is to remind him why he did this film in the first place.”
Earlier in the evening, the Golden Globe award for Best Original Song went to the songwriters and lyricists behind Kpop Demon Hunters’ global hit “Golden”: Ejae, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo, Park Hong Jun, and Mark Sonnenblick. Their fellow nominees in that category were Miley Cyrus, Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt, and Simon Franglen (Avatar: Fire and Ash’s “Dream as One”); Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Göransson (Sinners’ “I Lied to You”); Stephen Schwartz (Wicked: For Good’s “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble”); and Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner (Train Dreams’ “Train Dreams”). Several other musicians appeared onstage throughout the Golden Globes tonight as official awards presenters, too, including Charli XCX, Miley Cyrus, Blackpink’s Lisa, and Snoop Dogg.
The 2025 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score went to Nine Inch Nails musicians Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for their work on Challengers. That same year, Camille and Clément Ducol won Best Original Song for “El Mal” in Emilia Pérez.
The songwriters and lyricists behind Kpop Demon Hunters’ global smash hit “Golden”—Ejae, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo, Park Hong Jun, and Mark Sonnenblick—have won Best Original Song at the 2026 Golden Globe Awards. They beat out Miley Cyrus, Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt, and Simon Franglen (Avatar: Fire and Ash’s “Dream as One”); Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Göransson (Sinners’ “I Lied to You”); Stephen Schwartz (Wicked: For Good’s “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble”); and Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner (Train Dreams’ “Train Dreams”). This is their first-ever Golden Globes nomination and win.
“Golden” singer Ejae and her cowriters accepted the award from presenters Charli XCX and Joe Keery. “Thank you so much to Golden Globes for this incredible honor. I’m just so honored to be alongside the other nominees,” Ejae said while fighting back tears and hyperventilating. “When I was a little girl, I worked tirelessly for ten years to fill one dream: to become a K-pop idol. I was rejected and disappointed that my voice wasn’t good enough. So I wrote songs and music to get through it. So now I’m here as a singer and a songwriter and it’s a dream come true to be part of a song that is helping other girls, other boys, and everyone from all ages to get through their hardships and accept themselves. So thank you, Golden Globes, for accepting my voice and our voice.” She took to the mic again at the very end to add one final note: “I can confidently say rejection is redirection.”
Earlier in the evening, Ludwig Göransson won Best Original Score for Sinners. He took the trophy home over fellow nominees Alexandre Desplat (Frankenstein), Jonny Greenwood (One Battle After Another), Kangding Ray (Sirāt), Max Richter (Hamnet), and Hans Zimmer (F1). Several other musicians appeared onstage throughout tonight’s Golden Globes as official awards presenters, too, including Miley Cyrus, Blackpink’s Lisa, and Snoop Dogg.
The 2025 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score went to Nine Inch Nails musicians Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for their work on Challengers. That same year, Camille and Clément Ducol won Best Original Song for “El Mal” in Emilia Pérez.
Netflix’s His & Hers told a murder mystery full of twists and turns — but who was the real murderer and how much changed from Alice Feeney‘s book?
The series, which premiered on Thursday, January 8, followed estranged married couple — journalist Anna Andrews (Tessa Thompson) and detective Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal), who return back to their hometown in Georgia to investigate a series of murders of women from their high school.
At the center of the show is the question of who was responsible for the deaths in town. Anna and Jack thought TV anchor Lexy Jones (Rebecca Rittenhouse) a.k.a Catherine Kelly — who was the unpopular girl in their high school — was to blame. Anna was saved before Lexy seemingly made her the next victim.
But a time jump one year into the future revealed a letter from Anna’s mother, Alice (Crystal Fox), who revealed she was responsible all along. Alice said she killed each of Anna’s former high school friends starting with Rachel (Jamie Tisdale) for sleeping with Jack. Then came Helen (Poppy Liu) and Zoe (Marin Ireland), before Lexy was framed by Alice.
“Once the other murders happen … I thought it was possible that Anna could have been the killer,” Bernthal told Tudum about the ending before Thompson added, “I never suspected Alice. There’s so much happening all at once.”
Thompson continued: “I was struck by how well [Oldroyd] constructed it. I felt like, ‘Oh, this is such a wild ride for an audience.’”
“Because I had not seen that twist coming. And I feel I’m pretty good at being able to tell what the twists and turns will be,” he shared. “To encounter a twist like that and then for it to be totally believable and merited and moving? I thought that was worth exploring as a TV series.”
Little Fires Everywhere, Big Little Lies and You are among the best-selling books that made their way to the small screen in the form of TV adaptations. Reese Witherspoon is at the center of many of the most successful TV shows based on books, thanks to her passion for bringing fresh stories to a new […]
Oldroyd called His & Hers a “love letter” to the support he received from his mom. “I feel like not only were Alice’s motives and actions justified, but that this idea of a mother’s love — everyone will understand and hopefully everyone will support her,” he added.
In the final moments of His & Hers, Anna and Alice share a look. Anna ultimately could understand the place her mother was coming from.
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“It’s triumphant in some crazy, messed-up way. It’s also harrowing and twisted,” Thompson added. “It’s grounded in this mother’s profound love for her daughter. What women are capable of [doing] to protect their children is tremendous.”
Thompson concluded: “Obviously, this is an expanded version of that phenomenon, but I do love that the story is grounded in this mother’s searing love that makes her capable of violence.”
Ultimate Michael B. Jordan Film & TV Quiz For True Fans
Michael B. Jordan is a 2026 awards season frontrunner thanks to his not one but TWO extraordinary roles in Sinners (three if we’re being super technical).
From young Wallace in The Wire to the notorious Killmonger of the MCU, his characters always leave a stamp on pop culture. But how good is your memory? Can you guess the names of these MBJ projects from one screenshot?
Do you know enough about Michael B. Jordan to basically be cousins? Tell us how you did in the comments!
“Slow Horses” Season 6 could feel very different from its predecessors.
That’s because, for the first time in the show’s history, it will be without its head writer. That man is Will Smith, who departed after Season 5.
“I don’t want to leave,” Smith tells /Film, “but it was also like, I couldn’t get the scripts ready, they couldn’t meet the schedule, so it was with great sadness on both sides.”
Smith was a key writer on Apple TV’s award-winning spy drama across all five seasons, which first aired April 1st, 2022. Now, he’s making “a practical decision” to move on after citing “the looming need for scripts for series 6.”
Smith continues, “I was doing so much work on series 5 that there was no way I was going to be able to do that.”
In Smith’s defense, “Slow Horses” has an intensive shooting schedule. Apple TV films two seasons back-to-back in order to release one season per year. That means creatives must shoot and edit one season while working on the next.
While the reason for Smith’s reluctant exit boils down to a workload clash, the writer says he’s leaving at a good time.
“In terms of my contribution, I feel it does conclude certain arcs that were started in series one. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but it feels like a nice place to exit. The show is in a good position, I hope, creatively.”
‘Slow Horses’ Season 5 Ending
In the finale of “Slow Horses” Season 5, Taverner takes up a position at First Desk after Jackson Lamb forces Claude Wheelen’s resignation. Meanwhile, River Cartwright saves Taverner from a terrorist plot.
Lastly, it’s confirmed via a bombshell twist that Lamb was previously captured and tortured while on a spy mission, largely explaining his prickly demeanor.
Will There Be a Season 7 of ‘Slow Horses’?
Yes, there will be a Season 7 of “Slow Horses.” In fact, Apple TV’s flagship drama doesn’t stop there, with many more seasons expected.
According to former head writer Will Smith, “The show is going to go on to even bigger and better things, and Mick [Herron] has just released the ninth book, and I’m sure there’ll be a 10th, 11th, 12th.”
Ramón Rodríguez revealed if ABC’s Will Trent plans to introduce Sara Linton from Karin Slaughter’s book series.
“I know how popular she is in Karin Slaughter’s books and those theories,” Rodríguez exclusively told Us Weekly. “It’s something we talk about often with our show.”
Rodríguez didn’t rule out Will Trent finding a way to bring the fictional character to life, adding, “If and when do we bring such a big character into our world? Our world is pretty full already — we’ve got a lot of characters already and there’s a lot going on.”
He continued: “But we also know this is something that fans love and want — especially the ones that really were obsessed with the books. … Rachel McAdams would be really fun [in the role].”
Based on Slaughter’s book franchise, Will Trent follows a special agent at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation who was abandoned at birth and grew up in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system. Will now relies on his unique perspective while pursuing justice, which leads to the highest clearance rate in the GBI.
Disney/Nino Muñoz
Will has been in an on and off relationship with Angie (Erika Christensen) since season 1 but they have since called it quits for good. He briefly explored a romance with Marion (Gina Rodriguez) but it was too soon for Will.
In the book version, Will ends up with Sara, who is a pediatrician and medical examiner. She became his main love interest after his split from Angie. The fictional couple got married in Slaughter’s This Is Why We Lied.
Season 4, which premiered earlier this month, offered Us a new glimpse at Will who is exploring his rage.
Fan-favorite TV couples like 9-1-1’s Buck and Eddie, The Bear’s Sydney and Carmy and Tracker’s Colter and Reenie — or Billie — deserve to finally get together on screen in 2026. Based on Jeffery Deaver‘s novel The Never Game, Tracker has viewers tuning in each week to see their favorite fictional survivalist — a.k.a Colter […]
“It’s something we really haven’t seen too much of from him. For someone who has such a loaded past in history, for the first time he is really getting into therapy. Then a lot of stuff starts coming up for him. So we were really interested and intrigued by the idea of someone unraveling and peeling back the hood on themselves to see what’s in there,” he told Us. “The process of therapy, I’ve gone through it and it is interesting what comes up. It can be good or it can be complicated. It can trigger things.”
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Rodríguez promised viewers would see a new side of Will, adding, “For someone like Will who hasn’t really taken much time to do that — considering how much he’s been through — he just always moves forward and focuses on his job. He keeps himself busy that those have been some of his coping mechanisms and now to finally meet a therapist who is a bit unconventional where her tactics might be a little strange. But I think that’s what someone like Will needs.”
He concluded: “I love that we took what we’ve seen a million times before in movies and shows — which is therapy — and we said, ‘How can we make this really different and give it the Will Trent spin that we try to do?’ I loved it.”
Will Trent airs on ABC Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Hulu.
Welcome back, girl groups! Oh, how I missed you. Except maybe not this version of girl groups, filled with dated references that most of the girls don’t fully understand. Okay, let me back up a little.
Last season on RuPaul’s Drag Race, the show eschewed girl groups entirely, and it was a mistake. I thought it was weird. Suzie Toot told me it was weird when I interviewed her. And fans thought it was weird. We all like girl groups! Watching the girls struggle to put together a number reflects what they actually do at home, and the ones who are good at performing can use that to their advantage on tour and online. It’s the single challenge that most accurately reflects these girls’ ability to work as a drag queen in 2026. In the U.K., it’s become an incredibly standard challenge, spurred on by that country’s love of girl groups like Spice Girls, Little Mix, Girls Aloud, and others.
But for some reason, American Drag Race refuses to let the girls just do modern girl-group drag. In season 14, they had to do doo-wop songs based on girl groups that the girls clearly did not know the differences between. In season 15, they literally had to become old ladies for some reason. The high-water mark for girl-group challenges in recent years is season 16, which got out of the girls’ way and just let them slay. (Remember how Nymphia ate that? Oh, those were the days.) Maybe this difference is because we have a messier history with girl groups in America, especially during the show’s heyday in the 2010s, when the only American girl group of note was Fifth Harmony, who were a mess.
But in 2026, girl groups are huge again — specifically K-pop groups like Le Sserafim, Blackpink, and the globally based Katseye, which even includes some American members. So I was excited when I heard they were going to do “Q-pop” groups. Until, that is, RuPaul revealed the songs’ genres were all just ’60s–’80s pastiche. Look, I believe drag queens need a Rolodex of pop culture that extends beyond their years. The problem is that the show refuses to update its Rolodex. You’re telling me that Leland couldn’t work up a serviceable “Gnarly” parody that the girls could do something with? Instead, we have to sit through critiques about how Mandy Mango could not accurately evoke Sylvester. These girl groups need to get with the times.
Still, it’s a pretty solid episode. There’s drama and hurt feelings, with some queens managing to stand out as performers and other queens managing to stand out as characters. Chief among that latter camp is Athena Dion, who, it turns out, is not a “Sasha Colby.” No, no … She’s a “Shannel.” Specifically, she’s a season-one Shannel: a classic drag queen who is utterly sour when things don’t go her way. In other words, she’s a perfect shit-stirrer for reality TV.
The episode starts with Ru announcing the challenge: Form a “Q-pop” group and perform a song in one of three genres — doo-wop pop (à la Wham), disco (à la Sylvester), or punk (à la the Runaways). Then, Ru lets Nini Coco and Vita VonTesse Starr, as the top two from last week, pick the teams, with the four unchosen queens forming the final group of “leftovers.” They end up as such:
Team Nini: Nini, Mia Starr, Ciara Myst, Myki Meeks, and Kenya Pleaser
Team Vita: Vita, Briar Blush, Juicy Love Dion, Discord Addams, and Jane Don’t
Team Leftovers: Athena Dion, Darlene Mitchell, Mandy Mango, and DD Fuego
Athena is obviously pissed not to be chosen and promptly becomes a sourpuss for the entire episode because of it (immediately proving Nini and Vita right for not choosing her).
When it comes time to pick the song, every single team wants disco and nobody wants punk, which is obviously a mistake. Punk requires the least dancing, so it’s helpful if you have any only-okay or even bad dancers, which every group has. Plus, it’s easily parody-able and visually interesting. And why on earth do these queens want disco? It’s Ru’s favorite genre, and she’s obviously going to be pedantic about their interpretations of it. Anyone who doesn’t have a backlog of references about disco should avoid it at all costs. The pop song is totally fine, but ultimately, it’s hard to break through on a restrained, chipper track. Athena and Vita go at it until the ungainly Discord, who literally performs in a rock band, manages to convince her team that punk is the way to go (she’s right). And Athena, who keeps referring to disco as “her era,” gets the genre she wants.
During choreography, Nini’s pop team is filled with at-least-competent movers along with Mia Starr, who is a professional dancer, so it goes swimmingly. The punk team has to deal with Discord, who cannot move, as proven on last week’s runway, but otherwise seems fine with Juicy taking the lead. And the disco team has no clear leadership except a pissed-off Athena, and they are also saddled with Darlene, who is awful at choreo.
The vocal recordings with Michelle go well enough for everyone except Nini, who has lost her voice. It’s definitely sad to see her struggle, but for all her freak-outs, I was confident that the judges wouldn’t hold it against her. That’s one level of unfair too far for even RuPaul.
When the performances begin, Team Disco goes first. They are … not good. Athena starts the number off and performs exactly the kind of Drag Race verse that people like to make fun of. She has the most basic of rhythms, and sings lines like, “Pay no mind to what they say / This is your journey, lead the way.” It’s tough to watch. And the choreo, which she spearheaded, is the most basic drag choreo imaginable. Athena is a classic drag queen, but her lack of innovation is immediately hurting her. Darlene can’t dance, but she creates a fully realized ditzy character and includes a Sylvester-y high-note bit that Ru loves. She knows how to play the game. Mandy is overenergetic and performs by-the-book drag choreo, with an uncharismatic vocal performance on her verse. DD isn’t bad so much as she is boring.
The doo-wop team is definitely better than the disco team, but I wouldn’t say they kill it. Mostly, that’s because the song sucks. Mia Starr fares the best, largely because she turns it into a Meghan Trainor track. She performs it very well, has a good voice, and has innate musicality. I hate her costume, though. Kenya does pretty well, with a cute verse. She does lose her face a little bit when she kicks her leg in the air. On TV and on Drag Race, you need to be “on” all the time. Ciara Myst really leans into the “inspirational” idea in her lyrics, which I’ll cop to finding a bit grating. Her verse isn’t bad, but it plays like Ms. Rachel for tenderqueers. Also, her costume is too busy. Nini is in the unfortunate situation of not being able to perform to her vocal recording. There’s definitely a mismatch between her big performance and her meek voice on the track, but it’s unavoidable. She definitely deserves her safe placement. Myki sounds good and looks a lot like guest judge Dove Cameron. I was impressed that this comedy queen could hold a tune and dance pretty well. Excited to see what she does next week in RDR Live! when she’s finally in her element.
Finally, it’s the punk group. One huge advantage they have is that their song’s chorus is the only one without faux-inspirational lyrics for them to write to. Instead, they all get to be hot, badass sluts. It makes for much better drag. Discord is first. She is very lucky to be on the punk team, because I think she’d go home on either of the other teams. She mostly just stands still and performs her verse with fear in her eyes. I don’t think she’s long for this world. Vita has a little bit of the Athena problem, where her musicality is very basic, but she makes up for it with a balls-to-the-wall performance. Briar surprises me! I think she is one of the clear standouts in her group, and her look is sexy and fun. Jane goes next, and she’s great. She has a clear idea, playing a woman possessed by the devil who is vacillating between a demonic voice and her normal, more meek one. It’s very funny, very well executed, and totally inventive. Clear winner. Juicy is great throughout the number, but I wouldn’t say punk is her natural habitat. The judges end up choosing just two tops. I think if there were a third, it would be her, but I get why her pirouettes didn’t inspire much love in the rocker-chick song.
The runway is “favorite body part” — always a great one and vague enough that it gives the queens a lot of space to have fun interpreting it. Athena goes first, showcasing her back with a … backless dress! She looks good in her ever-classic drag. Next is Darlene, doing “skin” with a trashy sunburnt look. It’s great. Her boobs are hamburgers! There are roaches in her hair! Darlene is one to watch. Mandy showcases her face by going as her grandmother’s side table with a photo of her on it. The wood-table base does not read. DD immediately made me laugh when she came out as a cloud with legs to show off her legs, but then she stood up and was wearing an ill-fitting pink leotard. Not great!
Mia Starr wore a full-body dress that just showed off her neck, her back, her pussy, and her crack, with the reveals of each built in. It’s clever, but not pretty, and the zipper on the back isn’t pretty. Kenya shows off her “everything” in a stoned bodysuit. I get it, but also … do the damn challenge. Ciara turns my favorite look of hers so far, featuring her eyes, with eyes on her head and her boobs. It looks cute! She looks like Carol Burnett. Nini stuns on the runway, wearing a 3-D-printed brain hat and a gorgeous pink look. This is the first Nini look that has blown me away, but it’s looking like she really is the runway queen of the season. This rocks. Myki wears a leotard with a billboard advertising her legs over the top of it. Totally fine for a week where you’re guaranteed safe.
Discord also wears a backless dress. It’s an ugly mishmash of black and gold. She continues to walk like Tina Belcher, and her lace is a completely different color from her face. She is very, very lucky that the disco team was bad this week. Vita shows off her butt. It’s a black leather leotard with belts that looks great and does, in fact, show off her butt. But I would prefer to see a little more wit. Briar wears an all-covering black-widow outfit, with just one finger poking out. It’s funny! Very Testament of Ann Lee (go see that movie). Jane shows off her mouth with a “Wendy Williams on Masked Singer”–esque outfit featuring a giant red mouth. It’s very visually striking. She knows how to deliver impact. Finally, Juicy shows off her “left leg” with a dress that features just one leg poking out. It’s cute but not jaw-dropping.
The disco team is put in the bottom as a group, while Ru declares Jane and Mia tops. That makes sense to me, and it gives the judges a chance to express how much they like Darlene and Athena’s general drag, even as they tsk-tsk them for their challenge performances. Ultimately, Jane wins the challenge, and Mandy and DD are made the bottom two. I think that’s mostly right if you’re taking future performance into account, but I do think Athena did the most “wrong” this week. The lip-sync song is Dove Cameron’s “Too Much,” which is exactly the kind of anonymous pop track that you’d find playing at drag shows across America on any Tuesday night. In other words: It’s a clean slate and a completely fair fight. Mandy throws the table off of her and then performs an unremarkable but totally energetic version of the track, with lots of stunts but not a ton of musicality. DD just kind of walks. And so DD Fuego becomes our first out! I’m definitely disappointed to see New York out of the competition so early this year, but I can’t really argue with the results.
• Nobody gets into a huge fight, and the girls seem mostly happy with the tops and the bottoms this week. Juicy worries about Athena. All in all, a totally fine 22 minutes of time.
• An edit I loved this week: Pre–lip sync, the two comedy queens of the season, Myki and Jane, double-teaming a description of the queens facing off. Very funny!
• A joke I loved this week: When the girls ask how much Athena paid DD to claim she’s a team player, DD says, “A trip to Mykonos!”
• Last week, I claimed that Malaysia was the first queen from Florida. That was obviously wrong, and she instead was the first queen from Miami, and I got confused. Either way, the show’s recent overindexing on FL stands.
• Trauma Makeup Corner: DD gets to talk about growing up in Monterrey, Mexico, but she doesn’t cry about it. Discord talks about being in a punk band and standing up for queer rights. Later on the runway, Darlene cries about missing performing as a queer person while being a bedroom queen after getting sober. Jane and Darlene have both cried on the runway recently. I think both were completely natural, and, at the same time, I do think enterprising queens would be smart to save their tears for when they’re in front of RuPaul, who loves vulnerability.
• Gay thoughts from gay people: This week, Michelle Visage sent me her new perfume, Wednesday. It smells a little minty and a little like leather. It’s honestly very nice. Thank you, Michelle!
• Predicted top four: Jane, Vita, Nini, and a wild card. Darlene?
On a chilly December evening, the sounds of Lucy Liu’s filmography echoed through an upper Manhattan cineplex. Liu had arrived for a post-screening Q&A in support of her new movie, Rosemead, only to hear dialogue from Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (a special project that combines parts one and two of Quentin Tarantino’s revenge thriller) emanating from a nearby theater. “I couldn’t believe it. I just happened to walk by, and I heard what sounded like my voice,” Liu tells Vanity Fair. “I walked over and it was that scene.”
You know the one. Liu and Uma Thurman play rival sword-wielding assassins who battle to the former’s death in a snow-covered, blood-soaked blowout. It is one of many impressive moments from Liu’s lengthy career, which has seen her turn a successful late-’90s run on Ally McBeal into a diverse oeuvre of action (two Charlie’s Angels movies, two Kill Bill films), intrigue (seven seasons of the network whodunnit Elementary), and romance (Netflix’s Glen Powell springboard, Set It Up). In 2000 she became the first Asian woman to ever host Saturday Night Live, and nearly two decades later, Liu became only the second Asian American actress to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, following in the footsteps of Chinese American actress Anna May Wong, one of the few Asian performers to break through in Hollywood’s golden age.
Liu is one of the most recognizable Asian women in film history, but grows weary when reminded of it. “I would love to get rid of the hyphenates. I would really love to just be an artist. I find it really strange that I have to have a title before my craft. I think it’s very limiting,” she says. “I don’t know that anyone’s saying, ‘This is an Australian actress’ or ‘This is an English-slash-Spanish [actor].’ It’s kind of like if you’ve been attached to somebody, and then you have to carry their last name because you were married to them.”
As Liu, now age 57, explains: “I find it to be very imprisoning. Not for me, but for them. Because I don’t walk around looking at myself and saying it out loud. I’m proud of who I am, but I don’t need to always label myself as something.”
Liu’s recent double feature seems to have paid off: Rosemead generated more than $50,000 in ticket sales from a single venue during that aforementioned weekend, netting one of the biggest per-theater openings of last year. Based on a 2017 Los Angeles Times column by Frank Shyong, the film dramatizes the tragic true story of a single Taiwanese American mother named Irene, who secretly undergoes cancer treatment while navigating her teenage son Joe’s (Lawrence Shou) recent schizophrenia diagnosis. Rosemead, which she also produced, marks a rare dramatic leading role for Liu, who adopted a Mandarin accent and shrunken physical posture to play a terminally ill Irene.
Jesus House is led by Irukwu, who told The Times in 2015 that his goal was to “reChristianise” Britain. It is part of the Redeemed Christian Church of God denomination, a holiness Pentecostal network headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, which spread across the world in the second half of the 20th century, following the country’s diaspora. In 2022, one Nigerian Pentecostal bishop estimated that RCCG churches exist in 200 countries, and there are numerous outposts in the New York City area as well.
Though left-leaning UK citizens have criticized Jesus House—as leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer issued an apology after he visited and praised the church in April 2021—it is still considered part of the country’s religious mainstream. King Charles visited the church twice as the Prince of Wales, once in 2007 and again in 2021. Irukwu was invited to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth as a faith representative in September 2022. In May 2023, he was again on the officiating list for the king’s coronation.
According to the Jesus House Instagram account, Ifeachor’s Q&A session with the pastor’s wife, Sola Irukwu, covered topics such as “standing firm in faith” and how to “navigate being a Christian in the marketplace.” In a reel filmed at the conference, Ifeachor added that she doesn’t like to “compartmentalize” her public persona from her faith. “You are a whole person—that you’re not a Christian here but not-a-Christian there,” she said. “You might not feel like you are the right person to share the gospel or whatever it is. But sometimes your life is a whole prayer; it is a testimony.”
Ifeachor’s exit from The Pitt was confirmed on July 10 of 2025. By July 11, her representative was emphasizing to The Mirror US that the actor is not homophobic: “Any rumors about Tracy participating in any discrimination through her religion are completely incorrect, defamatory, and hurtful,” he said. “This gossip could not be further from the truth. She is a woman who leads with love, kindness, and compassion, and as her very gay publicist, I can say that I see this daily, firsthand.”
If there were any behind-the-scenes issues on the set of The Pitt, it wouldn’t be the first time a medical drama fostered a contentious work environment. A year after Grey’s Anatomy premiered in 2005 and became a massive hit for ABC, reports emerged that Isaiah Washington used a homophobic slur during an on-set argument; in the following months, his costar T.R. Knight came out as gay in a statement to People. Washington apologized for the incident publicly, then revoked his apology in a backstage interview at the 2007 Golden Globes. Following the Globes, Washington apologized for using the slur, but when alluding to the incident in 2020, claimed that he had a right to exercise “free speech.” Eventually, his character, Dr. Preston Burke, was written off the show. (Burke leaves his fiancée, Dr. Cristina Yang, at the altar during the show’s second season finale; Washington did return to the show for a guest appearance in 2014.)
Grey’s Anatomy is now in its 22nd season, and Ellen Pompeo continues to play its title character, Meredith Grey. “The first 10 years we had serious culture issues, very bad behavior, really toxic work environment,” Pompeo said in a 2019 interview with Variety. She added that she only continued in the role afterward because there were “some big shifts in front of the camera, behind the camera” as time went on.
Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby in HBO’s The PittCredit: courtesy HBO Max
Premieres Wednesday:
Beast Games — His recent video that attempted to pit male competitors against female ones was rocked by allegations of malfeasance, including Russian bots posing as legitimate players. So of course Mr. Beast is upping the ante for the second season of his wildly successful streaming show, promising $5 million to the winner of a contest that’s being advertised as “smart versus strong.” I wonder which one he identifies with. (Prime Video)
Marcello Hernández: American Boy — The SNL breakout star takes to the stage in his native Miami for his first stand-up special, which sees him recounting his experiences as a first-generation Cuban American. I don’t want to wish the curse of Pete Davidson on anybody, but I give it two more specials until he’s part of a couple you can actually believe are together. (Netflix)
Unlocked: A Jail Experiment — The docuseries that takes us into an Arizona prison where leniency and trust are the guiding principles returns for an eye-opening second season. If you want to know how it’s going, all of the cast members from Season 1 are back, but now we’re looking in on them at their hideout shack outside a Nevada silver mine. (Netflix)
Premieres Thursday:
Girl Taken — Hollie Overton’s novel Baby Doll is the source material for a six-part miniseries in which a British girl is kidnapped by a highly respected local teacher. This just in: He’s now moved up to eighth in the line of royal succession. (Paramount+)
His & Hers — Tessa Thompson plays a news anchor who tries to solve a murder in her hometown, with Jon Bernthal as a detective who doubts her motives. Well, of course he’s suspicious: Since when did broadcast news people develop an interest in justice all of a sudden? (Netflix)
The Pitt — The hit medical drama is back for a sophomore season that reportedly takes place over the course of an intense 24-hour shift during Fourth of July weekend. “Our job is not to outdo ourselves. Our job is to do ourselves,” series creator R. Scott Gemmill told Deadline. So how long until they move over to Onlyfans? (HBO Max)
The Traitors — Season 4 of the Alan Cumming–hosted competition augments its cast of reality veterans with a diverse group of celebrities from other walks of life, including comic Ron Funches, Olympian Tara Lipinski and NFL mom Donna Kelce. Oh, and also Michael Rapaport, because he thought they were looking for actual traitors. (Peacock)
Premieres Friday:
Coldwater — Andrew Lincoln plays a Londoner who moves to a small town in Scotland for his family’s safety, only to discover the place has perils all its own. For one thing, their lakes are crawling with big eels. (Paramount+)
People We Meet on Vacation — This adaptation of the novel by Emily Henry casts Tom Blyth and Emily Bader as polar opposites who begin to wonder if they might be the perfect mates. Which is the way it always goes in fiction, but if you want to know what happens in real life when opposites find each other, there are always Alex Murdaugh documentaries. (Netflix)
A Thousand Blows Season 2 — One year later, our cast of 1880s East Enders have to pick themselves up out of alcoholism and despair to regain their mastery of the London underworld. As opposed to the London Underground, which you can master just by remembering to get off before Cockfosters. (Netflix)
Premieres Sunday:
The Night Manager — Season 2 finds Tom Hiddleston’s Jonathan Pine on a new mission: to take down a Colombian arms dealer. But if he finds out they’re trafficking weed too, he’ll have to cede authority to the United States Defense Department. (Prime Video)
Premieres Tuesday:
Tell Me Lies — As Season 3 begins, coeds Lucy and Stephen have reignited their tumultuous relationship, but the missteps of the past may prove impossible to overcome. Seriously, how much of a past can you have when you’re only in college? At that point, the biggest mistake you’ve made is majoring in English literature instead of marketing. (Hulu)
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Plus a Kate Winslet Christmas tearjerker and a new Ricky Gervais stand-up special
Plus Season 5 of ‘Emily in Paris,’ ‘Breakdown: 1975’ and everything else debuting on streaming
Everything debuting this week for your winter binge-watch
Rose McGowan claims that Charmed producers monitored her weight while she starred on the show.
“They would, like, circle around me to check my weight when I came back” at the start of each season, McGowan, 52, said on the Tuesday, January 6 episode of Paul C. Brunson’s “We Need to Talk” podcast.
She added that she thinks they were “inspecting their product.”
McGowan recalled that such behavior, back then, was treated as “completely fine.”
The power of three will set us free … from everything but drama. Charmed, which premiered on The WB in 1998, made headlines from the start as Aaron Spelling hired Shannen Doherty to play one of the three Halliwell sisters, four years after she was infamously let go from Spelling Television’s Beverly Hills, 90210. “[Aaron] […]
She played Paige Matthews for five seasons of Charmed, the WB fantasy series about San Francisco sisters who have secret supernatural powers. It was produced by Aaron Spelling and Brad Kern, among others.
Charmed ran from 1998 to 2006 and originally starred Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano as a trio of do-gooding witches. Doherty, who played Prue Halliwell, left the show after three seasons. McGowan was introduced as half-sister Paige in season four. She had previously made her mark in edgier fare, having starred in the films Scream (1996), Devil in the Flesh (1998) and Jawbreaker (1999).
During her interview with Brunson, 50, McGowan recalled the pressure to tone down her style and appear “so mainstream” amid her Charmed run.
“I knew the knives would be out,” she said, referencing the aftermath of Doherty’s departure. “That the fans would want … the person, the other character, that they loved.”
Rose McGowan is getting candid about grieving the death of fellow Charmed star Shannen Doherty at the age of 53. “I can’t stop crying,” McGowan, 50, wrote via Instagram comment on Sunday, July 14. “A world without Shannen Doherty is inconceivable.” McGowan had replied to Jawbreaker costar Julie Benz, who called Doherty’s death “heartbreaking” in […]
To endear herself to those viewers, McGowan “decided to base my character kind of on I Love Lucy. Lucille Ball. What if she was young and in this situation, just kind of lovable, like kind of goofy and soft? I’d pitch my voice higher and be non-threatening. Because I was ‘scary’ to people.”
Prior to Charmed, “I would dress myself if I ever had to go to an event,” McGowan said. “Or do my own makeup, things like that. And then, during that whole period when I was on that show, it all changed. All of a sudden, you had to have a stylist. You had to pay $6,000 a month to a stylist.”
McGowan said stylists would reject clothes she wanted to wear, telling her “‘That’s too editorial’ — meaning that’s too edgy and fashion.” She said they selected outfits that were more “red carpet. And then they’d put globs of makeup [on her] and giant helmet hair.”
After the show ended, McGowan and Doherty formed a friendship. In August 2024, a month after Doherty died of cancer at age 53, McGowan guest-hosted her podcast, “Let’s Be Clear.”
Shannen Doherty has no regrets about the Charmed finale. The actress, who played Prue Halliwell for three seasons before her character was killed off, was asked whether she regrets not appearing in the show’s final episode during a Q&A on the Monday, May 20, episode of her “Let’s Be Clear” podcast. The answer? “No.” “I […]
“If I have any regrets, I wish I could have gotten to know her sooner,” she said at the time, adding, “We were really pitted against each other. I was just told she was fired and nobody talked about her.”
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McGowan refused to speak badly of Doherty when she joined Charmed in her place.
“They wanted me to start a war with her, and I was like, ‘Absolutely not. I will not start a war with her,’” she said. “And to her credit, she absolutely did not do that either.”
McGowan said the “biggest misconception about [Doherty] was that she was hard. But at the same time, it was the truth, but it’s not who she was natively. And I would say that was the biggest misconception about me as well. We both just like to laugh. Soft, underneath it all.”
The cherry on top is a sarcastic call to action on his fake article: “Read my new interview with @thecut.” It doesn’t exactly scream “this essay isn’t about my wife and her custom ‘mother’ sweatpants.”
Tisdale French explained in her essay that she began feeling left out and uncool, echoes of her high school (not the musical kind, the learning kind) insecurities coming back to haunt her. “But I’m not in high school anymore,” she wrote. “I’m a mom.” She rationalized that she was setting an example for her kids by standing up for herself and letting her not-friends know that there would be no more mommy-n-me hangs for her, thank you very much. “Surely, it would have been easier to disappear without explanation—and that would have allowed all of us to convince ourselves that we simply ‘drifted apart’,” she wrote.
Easier, yes, and arguably better.
If you can afford to shell out for a $10.99 monthly HBO Max basic plan subscription—maybe even less if you take the time to track down a promo code, and even more affordable if you share a login—the indelible lessons of Big Little Lies are priceless. Not all friend groups share what Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, and Laura Dern do (murder secrets, very nice views of Monterey Bay). Every friendship looks different, and has a unique ingredient list for its glue. People come and go. In her original post, Tisdale French called the group “exactly what I needed at the time.” Now, not so much. And that’s fine. Seasons pass, needs change.
Psych studies have found that having friends helps us live—friendships literally decrease risk of death—and live better, happier lives. Young women in particular tend to rely on their friends for intimacy and support, more than men of the same age, according to one survey. Friends are important, there’s no doubt about that, but so is self-awareness.
High school sucks. Mean girl stuff sucks. Unfortunately, neither high school stuff nor mean girl stuff is exclusive to the adolescent stage of life. But here’s the beautiful lesson that comes with age and experience: You can’t control what anyone else does, but you can control how you react to it. This is something that’s as true for Disney Channel alumnus Hollywood moms as it is for us regular degular ones: Not all friendships last forever, no matter how fire the group chat once was.
Duff, so far, appears to be holding true to the ol’ “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” rule, not commenting publicly as of publication.
Tisdale French doesn’t seem to be in possession of that particular throw pillow either. “It didn’t exactly go over well,” she shared of the chat’s reaction to her departure announcement to the group via text: “This is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore.” Shocking. No wonder we haven’t seen any of the alleged subjects sharing celebratory retweets of her essay, dredging up old drama.
If it was childish behavior Tisdale French was hoping to cut out of her life, we have some bad news: This is all high school, and there isn’t even a musical to hum along to this time.
Representatives for Ashley Tisdale French and Hilary Duff did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.
So began a decades-long friendship that entered a new phase when they were both cast in Palm Royale, which premiered in March 2024. Set in 1969 Palm Beach, the Apple TV series follows Kristen Wiig’s Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons, a spry social climber eager to infiltrate high society. Dern, an executive producer on the series, who also plays feminist activist Linda Shaw, had one person in mind for the role of Norma Dellacorte, the flask-toting matriarch who rules the area’s social scene. “I had a mission to get as close to Carol as possible,” Dern says, “and if I had to produce a show to make it happen, I was going to do it.”
The first season earned Burnett an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actress—and a group of new female industry friends, including her costars Allison Janney and Leslie Bibb. “What’s wonderful is, at my age now, I’ve got new young girlfriends,” Burnett laughs. “But with Laura, it’s really a deep love. I do feel that it’s kind of like a mother-daughter thing. Not even kind of like. It is a mother-daughter thing, and I’m grateful for it.”
Carol Burnett and Laura Dern pose at Burnett’s hand and footprint ceremony at TCL Chinese Theatre on June 20, 2024.Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images
It was fitting, then, that the penultimate episode of Palm Royale season two reveals that Burnett’s character is actually the birth mother of Dern’s character, and her real name is Agnes. Years ago, the real Norma Dellacorte died and Agnes, her boarding school roommate, assumed her identity for a better life. Upon realizing that she was pregnant with a married man’s baby, Agnes allowed her daughter—born Penelope, then renamed Linda—to be adopted by birth father Skeet (played in season one by Dern’s real-life Oscar-nominated dad, Bruce) and his wife, Evelyn (Janney).
“Being here in this room where I first became someone else, I can be myself again,” Norma tells Linda, explaining that she sacrificed her daughter so that her life wouldn’t be marred by the scandal of being born out of wedlock. “Losing you was the greatest pain of my entire life. I love you,” Norma tells Linda, who is happy to be found.
The show’s season two finale, premiering January 14, extends the long-awaited mother-daughter reunion. “The last moment of Carol at the end of our season is just one of the most breathtaking things, as an actor, I’ve ever witnessed,” Dern says, “looking in those eyes and seeing her love of her daughter in that seemingly simple but profound look. You realize this is a woman who did everything for her daughter.”
Carrie Hamilton and Carol Burnett in 1983.Images Press/Getty Images
Diane Ladd and Laura Dern in 1994.Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images
I ask Burnett where that moment may have originated. “Well, in a way, just from my memory about my relationship with Carrie, and how much I loved her and what she meant to me,” she says of her late daughter Carrie Hamilton, who died in 2002 at age 38 from pneumonia as a complication of lung and brain cancer. “Deep down, I might’ve been thinking about that. It finally came full circle, and I could love her and she could love me. It was easy to play.”
A third season of Palm Royale, which would presumably delve deeper into 1970s Palm Beach, has not been renewed as of press time. But what are the actors’ thoughts on the modern-day community, now the setting of a new Netflix reality series and the gated locale where Donald Trump rang in the New Year? “Let’s leave it to Shakespeare,” says Dern: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If we follow the money train, where there is wealth and influence, there are sometimes remarkable people doing extraordinary things, but most of the time when we’re following power and influence, there’s a lot of corruption throughout the world.”
If it feels like everyone’s talking about Geese these past few months, then get ready for even more chatter – this time from your parents. NBC has announced the rock band will be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live on January 24, with Teyana Taylor hosting. Finn Wolfhard and A$AP Rocky will steer SNL’s first episode of the new year on January 17, with Alexander Skarsgård and Cardi B closing out the month on January 31.
The news of Geese playing SNL isn’t a complete surprise; during the final episode of 2025, cast member James Austin Johnson impersonated frontman Cameron Winter in the “Random Duet Christmas Spectacular” sketch, while others spoofed Kate Bush, Yoko Ono, and Björk. That episode featured Ariana Grade in her second stint as host and Cher as the holiday special’s musical guest.
Geese released their fourth album, Getting Killed, back in September. After steady buzz from their live concerts, the band landed a handful of special opportunities: performing “Taxes” on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, recording a special live set for Nigel Godrich’s revered From the Basement series, covering New Radicals’ classic “You Get What You Give” on BBC Radio 1, and Winter seemingly singing a Bruce Springsteen cover for an Xbox ad but refusing to confirm it’s really him. See what all the hype is about by catching Geese at Governors Ball Music Festival this summer.
