I Didn't Say It

W. Kamau Bell, actor, comedian and producer of Showtime’s ‘We Need To Talk About [Bill] Cosby’ on whose side he’s on:

“I know some Black people say, ‘Don’t tear down this Black man,' but a third of the survivors are Black women. Why are we prioritizing one man over all these Black women? I don’t know how you don’t reckon with the fact that over 60 women have come forward. ,” he says, noting that women who do go public with sexual assault accusations do not have an easy time. [Cosby] had a very big influence on my life—as he did for a lot of people, specifically for Black people of that generation, and then you find out about all the accusations of sexual assault and rape and eventually I realized I believed all those women to be telling the truth. How do I then as a comedian answer the question, ‘Who are your favorite comedians growing up?’ How do I say, ‘Bill Cosby’? But if I don’t say ‘Bill Cosby,’ it feels like I’m lying, so it just felt like, if you’re gonna have this conversation, you have to have the whole conversation and you can’t split it off into parts. Ultimately, you have to figure out, what can I learn from this or what can we all learn from this?”

Bell says he hopes his documentary—which is wonderful, by the way—leads “to a further conversation” about sexual assault where women feel more comfortable coming forward because “that’s not the case right now and how do we create a system that limits harm?”

I, too, believe the women.

photo

Madison Cawthorn, North Carolina’s GOP Congressperson, threatening state officials that they could face “dangerous” consequences if he is removed from the ballot for his role in inciting the insurrection:

“This is only going to lead to one place if you want to try and take the right of the people away to be able to vote for their elected official. This is going down a very dangerous path.”

Um, Mads? You’re a traitor and traitors shouldn’t be on the ballot; they should be in jail.

photo

Adam Kinzinger, Illinois GOP Congressperson, on every Republican speaking to “legitimate political discourse”:

“This is a moment where every Republican, I don’t care if you’re running for City Council all the way up to Congress, Senate, etc., every Republican has to be clear and forceful on the record. Do they think January 6 was legitimate political discourse? Don’t let them avoid it, don’t let them hem haw, don’t let them transition to some other subject they’d rather talk about. This is an answer every one of them have to give, and then we can move on once they’re clear and on the record.”

Make them answer and if they don’t answer, vote them from office because they clearly think attacking the Capitol was the right move.

photo

Bianca Garcia, Texas House candidate and former president of Latinos For [Thing 45] saying God will punish you if you don’t vote for her:

“I just finished an interview with some pastors. And I told them, I said straight up, I’m only going to win if the church shows up. That’s it. If you do not show up, then you will be held accountable because I have been appointed and assigned for this position and God is testing you all. I don’t have anything else to say to you other than that. So, you’re going to either have to show up and show out, or you’re going to have to deal with it with the Lord. That’s where we’re at. We’ve drawn the line. We’re past the party lines. We are now fighting a very evil, evil, demonic. When I’m elected, I’ll be a little mini–Marjorie Taylor Greene. They’re gonna call me BRG.”

I think they’ll call you “defeated” you wingnut.

And if the choice is voting for you or being punished, there is no choice.

photo

Harry Hamlin, actor, on how he thinks that playing gay in 1982’s Making Love ended, or at least hindered, his career:

“I was told by a lot of people, you can’t do that movie. I think it had been offered to pretty much everybody in town and everyone had turned it down because they thought it might be damaging to their careers … I didn’t see it that way … I was looking for something serious and something meaningful, rather than doing a movie about vampire bats invading a small town in the Midwest, which is the type of fare I was being offered at the time. It was way ahead of its time … Even though I was told by my friends not to do it, my agent said I should. He said I was somewhat Teflon because I was out in the press having had a son with Ursula Andress. And he said, ‘Everyone knows you’re straight so you’re going to be okay,’ But I didn’t really pay much attention to any of that noise. I thought it was interesting and bold. I was attracted to that. [But since then]  I’ve done independent films but never [another] studio film. I had been doing nothing but studio films and basically going out on all the castings for all the movies. That stopped completely. [But] regardless of the effect it had on my film career, I went on to have a great career–and I still do. I’m very proud of having done that movie.”

Making Love is about a writer named Bart [Harry Hamlin] who falls in love with a young doctor named Zack [Michael Ontkean … yum] but is married to a female TV executive [Kate Jackson]. The movie was the first of its kind for a major studio to make and Harry Hamlin believes the film “never really got the attention that I think it probably deserves.”

Without Making Love you couldn’t have had Longtime Companion, or Torch Song Trilogy or Angels In America or Brokeback Mountain or Call Me By Your Name or Moonlight,  or any other gay-themed film.

photo

I Ain't One To Gossip But ...

Yeah, I watch the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, sue me. But it’s good reality—if there is such a thing—about people with money acting the fool, and some senseless drama and hypocrisy.

Case in point: Lisa Rinna is a “housewife” and her daughter, nineteen-year-old Amelia Hamlin—whose father is Harry Hamlin—is dating Kardastrophe Kastoff Scott Disick, who is eighteen years older than Amelia, and Harry doesn’t like it. Trouble is, Harry Hamlin, at age twenty-two, began a romance with actress Ursula Andress, who was fourteen years his senior, and they had a son, Dimitri, who is now forty-one.

History repeats Harry, and, um, well, since you have some years on me, maybe you could be my Zaddy? I mean, I still remember that steamy kiss you shared with Michael Ontkean  in Making Love.

Just sayin’. Call me.

photo1  photo 2

Keeping the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills theme going for a minute, Rinna’s fellow “housewife,” Erika Jayne, is now discussing the ALLEGATIONS that her split from super-lawyer Tom Girardi was faked to save some coins. In fact, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the Girardi’s in December 2020 claiming their divorce was “simply a sham attempt to fraudulently protect [their] money from those that seek to collect on debts owed by Tom and his law firm.”

More recently, court documents accuse Erika Jayne of refusing to turn over her bank records to the bankruptcy trustee investigating Girardi’s assets, who say Jayne used her “glam” lifestyle to conceal assets.

Look, as a watcher of the show here’s what I know: the entire time Jayne has been on the show, she’s sung the praises of Tom Girardi, even saying their age difference meant nothing in their marriage and that they were happy and in love and blah blah blah lies. But then, from Erika’s own mouth we learned that on election day 2020, she drove Tom to work, kissed him, said she loved him, then went back to the manse, where the moving truck she’d hired was being filled with her “stuff” which was taken to a small home she’d already rented in Beverly Hills. And then she called the press to announce her filing for divorce … hours after telling her husband she loved him.

Sure sounds like she had planned the getaway for a while, you know, just in case someone decided to sue her husband and come for her coins.

Shady Jayne.

photo

Pop icon Tiffany, age forty-nine, was an 80s pop icon, who toured shopping malls to perform her hits ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ before she disappeared.

Well, y’all, Tiffany’s back, though thankfully not with new music. Nope, Tiff has written her memoirs and has let it be known that she wants Julia Roberts to play her in the movie of her life because she’s a “fabulous red head” too.

After her music career fizzled, Tiffany posed in Playboy and did the reality show rounds, like ‘Celebrity Fit Club’ and the Australian version of ‘I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!’, as well as starring in several films such as ‘Necrosis’ and ‘Mega Python vs. Gatoroid’.

Yeah, this is totally a Julia Roberts role, but I don’t think she’s answering her phone.

photo 1  photo 2

Speaking of delusional people … Jennifer Lopez is loving her life right now and wants everyone to know about it … including A-Rod, the love of her life … for four years. JLo says:

“I’m super happy. I know people are always wondering, ‘How are you? What’s going on? Are you okay?’ This is it. I’ve never been better. I want my people who care about me … to know that I’ve really gotten to a place in my life where I’m great on my own.”

On her own? Um, Jen? Honey? You literally jumped from A-Rod‘s sheets to Ben Affleck’s house in a matter of weeks, so is the “alone’ you speak of in hours or minutes? And do you realize that the message you are sending to your daughter is that jumping from man-to-man is the thing to do, and the message you are sending to your son is that women will dump you and hook up almost immediately with someone else?

If you want us to believe that life is better on your own, try being on your own.

photo

Meanwhile, back to Erika Jayne, who wants y’all to know that since she left Tom Girardi, she’s had to cut back on her spending. She was forced to rent a $7,500 a month Beverly Hills home with just 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and a pool; she was forced to sell a bunch of her designer clothes and shoes because she had no space in her new tinier home; and she was forced to give up her Lamborghini for a brand-new Range Rover.

Dear goddess, I need to get a GoFundMe working. But the good news is that Erika Jayne, who swears up and down to anyone who’ll listen that she knew nothing about Girardi’s ALLEGED crimes, is getting a judicial smackdown. A judge in one of Girardi’s lawsuits has ruled that ex-clients, and victims of Girardi’s embezzlement victims can sue Erika to collect their stolen $11 million.

More bad news for Erika: she’s been dropped as a model for Rihanna’s lingerie line Savage x Fenty because, ALLEGEDLY, RiRi didn’t like the headlines about one of her models stealing from orphans and burn victims. Sorry, not sorry; Erika has been flaunting her wealth and her spending habits for years on RHoBH and now is playing the innocent, ignorant victim?

Sayonara Beverly Hills house and Range Rover. Hello Escondido and Hyundai!!

photo

I Didn't Say It ...

Brian Brown, of NOM, still crying because people can’t Hate The Gays:

"Not only has the Christian baker been ordered to 'cease and desist' from 'discrimination' against gay couples, but he and his staff have been ordered to undergo two years of 'training' to assure that no further 'discrimination' occurs. The baker must report quarterly to the state Civil Right Commission about how it is changing its policies, its "training" progress and the names of any clients it has refused to serve. The movement to redefine marriage was once said to be about 'tolerance and acceptance.' Today it is about tyranny. Anyone who continues to think that redefining marriage won't affect you or your children is just not paying attention. It already affects every American, and this will only continue to get worse. Oh, sure, you'll always be free to hold a belief about marriage, but if that belief ever impacts your actions as a citizen, you can expect the full force of government to come down to crush you."

Here’s what you don’t get, Brian, you and the baker can hate the gays, and hate “redefining” marriage all the live long day, but you cannot use hate, masked as religion, which the height of irony, to discriminate.

M’kay?

Phil Wilson, president of the Black AIDS Institute, on the ongoing fight: 

"The fight is today. It’s a fight that we need to have and it’s certainly tied to access to care, it’s tied to access to information, but it’s also tied to making sure that we understand that everybody matters. Now the new folks that don’t matter in this context are young, black, gay and bisexual men and all of us need to be part of that fight because as we found out in the early days of HIV, HIV spread like it spread because we didn’t care about the first folks that we perceived to be at risk. And as long as anyone is at risk ... to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., we’re all at risk."

HIV/AIDS knows no color, no age, no gender, no orientation, and it isn’t over, especially in the black communities.

Used to be that Silence = Death, now, though, maybe we should say Ignorance = Death.

Harry Hamlin, who appeared in the 1980s film Making Love, in which he played a gay man having an affair with a married man, saying that film ended his film career:

"It was way before its time...It was something that I would repeat. I would do it again today, even though there was a ruffle in my career after that, for sure....What it did is it created a transition for me between feature film to television...(I didn't work in feature films) ever again. That was the last feature I did..."

I’m glad he said he’d do it again because, while it was ahead of its time, it paved the way for gay-themed mainstream films.

But, Harry, after doing Making Love you appeared in Blue Skies Again in 1983, appeared on a very successful TV show LA L:aw for several years, and have made another eleven or so feature films, not including many TV films, since Making Love.

Methinks you doth protest too much, especially given that it’s been thirty years.

Charlize Theron, saying Googling herself and reading what people say about her, feels like rape:

“I don’t do that, so that’s my saving grace. When you start living in that world, and doing that, you start I guess feeling raped.” 

What is with these celebrities comparing their lives to those of rape victims or soldiers at war? I mean, I loves me some Charlize, but if it’s so violating, so close to rape, to read what folks say about her, maybe she should find another line of work.

Failing that, she should rally think before she speaks.

Lady Bunny, on the use of the word "tranny":

“Tranny is an abbreviation for transvestite and transsexual, so I'm free to use it since I fall with that category. Much as blacks can use the N-word. I know tranny from London, where they abbreviate everything -- breakfast is brekkie, biscuit is biccie. Tranny is used affectionately on the club scene. Even transsexual advocates like Jayne County and Kate Bornstein have come out and said that these words aren't necessarily slurs. … And I'm sick of people thinking they can ban words because they make them feel bad. Boo hoo for you! Any time we choose a different path in life, we're going to get shit for it -- whether you choose to be openly gay, trans or even a straight guy with tattoos all over his face. If you don't have the balls to take s--t, then choose an easy path. And for huge gay organizations like GLAAD to join in to censor Ru or anyone else confuses me. "Gender bender" is on GLAAD's list of banned words. That's what Frank-n-Furter, David Bowie and Sylvester were--that's not a slur except to the most precious, uptight goody two-shoes.”

I agree with Lady Bunny, she and others who fall into that category may use that word, but perhaps those folks that aren’t transvestite or transgender should stay away from it.

Just like I don’t like to hear anyone use the N-word, I am slightly less bothered by it when it comes from a Black person; just like I don’t like straight people using the word faggot or queer, but don’t have a problem with The Gays doing so.

Again, it all comes down to thinking before you speak.

Melissa McCarthy, on if she ever dated a gay man: 

“Just one? There were so many. In my early 20s I was like the last stop before a guy said, ‘Yep, it’s official: I’m gay.’ I’d be like, ‘Really?!’ I’d think, But he’s so funny, so charming, and such a good dresser. I never saw it coming.”

Sometimes I think she’s a gay man trapped in Melissa’s body.

Love.Her.

Akie Abe, the First Lady of Japan, speaking at a gay pride event in Tokyo:

"There is no difference to importance of love from sexual orientation. There should not be any discrimination because who you love. I am going to raise my voice. If my raised voice could contribute to the pride of LGBT people, there is no greater joy."

I imagine a lot of LGBT folks in Japan felt that same sigh of relief we felt here when Obama spoke so eloquently about equality.