I was scrolling through the socials today and came across Jennifer Garner talking to Emma Grede about what happened after her marriage ended.

And I was honestly shocked by what she said.

She was talking about how when she became a mom she took on less acting roles so she could prioritize being a mom. What’s crazy is she was married to Ben Affleck and she was one of the biggest actresses in Hollywood (still is). She said she loved traveling for work, but once she became a mom, she only took jobs in LA. In my opinion, a very grounded move, not a fame seeking one. And also she was very secure in her marriage to Ben Affleck who could obviously pick up the weight while she prioritized parenting

Basically, she did what so many of us do when we become mothers.

The kids became the priority.

And then she got divorced.

Jennifer said:

“I panicked when I was first out of my marriage and realized I had taken such a step back in my work.”

And I’m listening to this thinking: Oh my God. Jennifer Garner feels this way too?

Because I kid you not, this is one of the main conversations happening between me and my friends right now.

I have friends who want to get divorced but are terrified they can’t afford to. Friends who are already getting divorced and are panicked about how they’re going to support their kids. Friends who are already divorced and are looking for extra income to support their kid. And even the ones who can support themselves still feel this enormous pressure of: Okay, now it’s all on me. How am I going to do this?

And obviously Jennifer Garner has more money than almost every woman having this conversation.

That’s the point.

She’s Jennifer Garner!

And somehow the fear she described sounded exactly like the fear I’ve heard from women in completely different financial situations.

That really got me.

Because she was one of the biggest actresses in Hollywood. She had this massive career. Then her marriage ends and she’s basically looking around going: Oh crap. How am I going to make this work?

And what she did next is also what so many mothers end up doing: she figured out another way to make money that worked with the kind of mother she wanted to be.

She talked about Once Upon a Farm, the children’s food company she helped build, and how entrepreneurship became another way for her to make money without having to disappear for months to make a movie.

Obviously her version became wildly successful.

But I couldn’t believe how familiar the whole thought process sounded.

Jennifer Garner talked about aging out of Hollywood and how she didn’t have guaranteed income - A problem more women face than men too.

And I can’t stop thinking about it because I’ve actually worked with Jennifer Garner.

A few times.

I knew her during a completely different period of her life — when she was divorcing Scott Foley, before she had children, when she was at the absolute top of her game.

So I’m over here racking my brain about working with Jennifer and what I remember about who she was during that time. And it says a lot about who she is now.

The Jennifer Garner I Worked With

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Okay, have you guys been following what’s happening with Kim Zolciak’s son?

Because I have been talking about this with my girlfriends all week.

Her teenage son KJ was arrested and is facing really serious sexual assault charges involving another teenager. Kim has come out very strongly defending him and saying he’s innocent.

And I have so many feelings about this.

First of all, just as a woman looking at this from the outside, I tend to believe the girl.

That’s where my gut goes.

Obviously, I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know either of these kids. And we’re going to find out a lot more as this plays out.

But then I put myself in Kim’s position.

Because I have a son.

And I’m like, If somebody accused my son of doing something this horrible, would I immediately be saying, Absolutely not. My son did not do this?

Probably.

I understand that mother instinct to protect your kid because I have it too.

But then I have a daughter.

And if someone ever did something like this to my daughter?

I’d go for blood.

So I keep going back and forth between these two mothers in my head. The mother of a son accused of something horrific and the mother of a girl saying something horrific happened to her.

I understand both instincts.

And then there’s this other layer for me that I haven’t really talked about yet.

I actually worked with Kim and Kroy.

I spent a day at their house with their family years ago.

And with everything happening now, I keep thinking about that day.

Not because I saw something bad.

I didn’t. At all.

But I caught a vibe.

And now I can’t decide what the hell that vibe actually meant.

So Here’s What I Remember

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I know Hailey Bieber through her dad.

Which is a sentence I don’t think I’ve ever actually explained here.

I’ve known and worked with her dad for years, and there’s a reason I’m finally telling you the story now.

I’ve been quietly working on something new behind the scenes. I’m launching a podcast with iHeartRadio, and at the same time, The Ash Report is about to start morphing into something a little different, too.

The idea came from something I’ve become increasingly fascinated by after spending most of my career working in television and around celebrities:

Celebrities are constantly telling us what they do to become successful, beautiful, happy, rich, healthy, confident — whatever.

But does any of it actually work?

So I’m going to find out.

I’m taking the advice, routines, philosophies and occasionally slightly insane things celebrities say they do…

…and actually doing them myself.

Think Bridget Jones meets celebrity experiment.

And the celebrity at the center of my very first experiment?

Hailey Bieber.

Which is particularly funny considering I’ve had this completely separate connection to her family for years.

And yes, before anyone asks, I have photographic evidence. 😂

Obviously, I brought receipts.

But those — along with the actual story of how I know her family, what I’ve learned from being around her dad, and why it’s affected the way I see Hailey — are staying among friends.

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A source says Martha got the story wrong. I think people are misunderstanding something much bigger about Martha.

Okay, so apparently Martha Stewart and Meghan Markle are now in a feud.

Except I don’t think Martha knows she’s in one.

A few days ago, I made a TikTok about comments Martha made about Meghan that everyone was calling a dig.

Martha was asked about Meghan moving into the lifestyle space, and she said:

“If you’re an actress, it’s hard to then transition to a princess and then from a princess into a homemaking guru on a television show.”

And then, in perhaps the most Martha ending imaginable:

“It doesn’t sort of follow. So go from there.”

Immediately, the headlines were basically: MARTHA STEWART SHADES MEGHAN MARKLE.

I didn’t read it that way at all.

I worked directly with Martha for years as a producer, and when I heard it, my first thought was: That’s just Martha.

But now the story has gotten even more interesting.

Martha also revealed that she’d recently been at a dinner party with Meghan in California. She said Meghan had just returned from the U.K. and that although the two of them barely spoke, Martha knew Meghan had been talking about the trip.

Now a source who says they hosted the dinner is pushing back, telling People that Martha’s account is “simply untrue.” According to the source, Meghan didn’t discuss the European trip beyond saying that her family had a great time.

So naturally, this has turned into: Why is Martha coming for Meghan?

And having actually worked with Martha, I think people are fundamentally misunderstanding what’s happening here.

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Okay so I’ve been going down a Hailey Bieber rabbit hole and I need to share it with you.

First of all, she is the most underrated manifestation master alive right now. Like we’re all so busy clocking her skin and her marriage that we completely missed what she actually did.

She spoke a man into existence. Then she built a billion-dollar company. In that order.

And if you’re not into manifestation and. money then you can just stop reading here. Because I’m going to share her method which is genuinely practical and backed by science, and I think you can actually copy it. So here it is — broken down into exactly what she does.

— Paid subscribers, keep reading — this is the part you can actually screenshot and use. —

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Scott Eastwood doesn’t usually make headlines.

But this week, he went on The Joe Rogan Experience and described one of the ugliest experiences he’s had in Hollywood.

He wouldn’t name the actor (bummer), but said a co-star walked away from a film after production had already spent a ton of money — because they no longer wanted to work with someone else on the project.

Apparently Eastwood told the actor there was only one right thing to do:

“If you’re not going to make the movie, you should give the money back.”

The actor refused.

Eastwood didn’t hold back about how he felt, calling the person a “piece of sh*t” and saying Hollywood too often tolerates stuff that wouldn’t fly anywhere else.

And side note...

Maybe they tolerate it because these people aren’t getting called out publicly.

SCOTT (just name him)!

Okay, but here’s the thing.

Reading that interview immediately took me back to the one time I actually worked with Scott Eastwood.

Because if you’d asked me what I thought of him back then, I would’ve had a completely different answer than I do today.

And I’m genuinely not sure which version of me to trust.

— If you’re a paid subscriber, keep reading — because this is the part where I admit I might’ve been kind of an a-hole about it. —

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Ok so Jerry O’Connell went on Kelly Ripa’s Let’s Talk Off Camera last week and gave this very chill, casual account of his relationship with Giuliana Rancic. Very “oh yeah we dated, it was fine, whatever.”

Giuliana was not having it.

She just dropped a full episode on her Bill and Giuliana podcast responding, and her version is completely different. She says they were together 24/7 for a year and a half, said “I love you” all day long, and she thought everything was perfect — right up until photos dropped of Jerry holding hands with Geri Halliwell in London, where he’d gone to shoot a movie with her. Giuliana says she saw the pictures, walked into a voiceover booth, and collapsed on the floor crying.

She called him. He said: “Yeah, sorry. I screwed up. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Cold as ice.

Then Geri was done with him, and he came back crying, calling Giuliana the love of his life, followed her into an elevator, begged her to take him back. She did. A few months later he went ghost — and eventually dumped her from his second-floor balcony while she stood outside.

The scariest part isn’t even that he cheated. It’s that according to her, he wasn’t giving mixed signals. He was completely in it — until suddenly he wasn’t. No warning. No red flags she could have caught. Just the carpet getting pulled out from a relationship she had every reason to believe was solid.

I think that’s the thing we’re actually all afraid of. Not missing the signs. There not being any.

Both happily married to other people now. But I have a feeling part two of her Bill and Giuliana episode is going to be very interesting.

A new Celebrity File — my paid deep-dive series — is dropping this week and I genuinely cannot say much about it in public. But there are receipts, there’s a detail that made my jaw drop, and there’s a part of the story I’m only sharing with paid subscribers. Subscribe now so you don’t miss it when it drops.

Reader favorites include:

✨ Claire Danes Has Been On My Rude Celebrity List For Years

✨ Kristin Cavallari Keeps Telling The Same Story About Jay Cutler

I’ve linked both of them if you want to keep reading.

All I could think was: if it’s good enough for Harry and Meghan, it’s good enough for me.

Welcome back to Celebrity Life Tested, where we don’t just read the celebrity story — we decode it, we test it, and we decide whether you should take a slice of that life for yourself.

This week: Portugal. Obviously.

THE DECODE

Meghan Markle just posted her summer vacation — a 12-photo “Summer Holiday” carousel that is, frankly, dreamy. Harry laughing at a stone-wall dinner table. The kids running into the waves. Lavender by the armful. A cliff path over water so blue it doesn’t look real.

And it’s Portugal.

Here’s the decode, because the photos don’t come with a pin. The location is Melides — a tiny coastal village on the Alentejo coast, about 90 minutes south of Lisbon. One of Meghan’s photos was identified as being taken at O Melidense, a local restaurant, which effectively confirmed where they were.

Now the layer underneath: Melides is also where Harry and Meghan are rumored to have bought a vacation home near the CostaTerra Golf & Ocean Club — the ultra-quiet, ultra-exclusive resort where Princess Eugenie’s husband, Jack Brooksbank, works. Those reports have been circulating since 2024. The couple has never officially confirmed the house. So to keep it clean: the photos are confirmed. The house is a rumor with very good posture.

When I first heard about that house a year ago, I kind of didn’t believe it. Because I’m like — why Portugal?

Portugal was never on my radar. I’ve lived in Europe. I have friends from Portugal. And honestly? I never pictured it as a place you’d dream about. I pictured sleepy. Humble. Off the map.

And here’s the thing about me: I like a level of luxury. Not luxury like materialistic things — luxury like Lake Como. Luxury like beauty. And I wasn’t sure Portugal had it.

Meghan clearly thought otherwise. Which meant one of us was wrong.

THE TEST

So I ran the test myself. If Meghan picked Portugal for her summer, it was good enough for a month of mine. I packed up my kids and went.

One thing I want to be upfront about: I didn’t follow her to Melides. She’s on the quiet, gated Alentejo coast. I based myself in the Eastern Algarve and roamed — around the Algarve, up to Lisbon, over into Spain. She tested her corner of Portugal. I tested the whole question: is Portugal the dream, or just her exclusive slice of it?

What I expected: remote. Quiet. Sleepy fishing villages, retirees, not a lot going on. I braced myself for boring.

Here’s what actually happened.

First, a caveat. Twenty-four hours of traveling with my kids taught me one thing: you cannot evaluate a country the day you land. So I gave it time.

Then, the flowers. What completely surprised me was the flowers — everywhere, growing like weeds. The landscape looked like a painting, and I kept trying to place it the whole time. Van Gogh. The Starry Night guy. That’s who paints a landscape like this. It’s all green, and there are untouched castle ruins just… everywhere, like the country forgot to charge admission.

Then, the cliffs. The first time I walked the cliffs at Carvoeiro, it took my breath away. The water wasn’t regular deep blue. It was a deep, shimmering turquoise that sparkled like diamonds. I’m not kidding. It was unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my life — invigorating, like a shot through my body.

Walking those cliffs and riding my bike through the countryside was pure fucking bliss. Even driving — just driving — the landscapes kept doing that thing where you forget what you were thinking about.

Then, the roaming. I biked dirt paths and grassy paths past castle ruins. I wandered twisty little alleyways from town to town — Tavira, Cabanas, Olhão, Vila Real de Santo António — and then I cruised across the river into Spain for the day, to Ayamonte, because when the border is a ferry ride, you take it. I fell for the explorer history, too — this is a country famous for setting out into the ocean — and the working waterfronts still full of fishermen.

Then, the tastings — because I test everything. I did a cork tour to see how they actually make cork, since that’s what Portugal is famous for. I did an olive oil tasting. I drank port, obviously. And I ran my own little sub-test the entire month: an Aperol spritz in every single town I went to. For science.

Then, Lisbon. My friends told me Lisbon was dirty. I’m gonna tell you: I loved it. It’s youthful. It’s hip. (Practical note for the group chat: everyone speaks English in the Algarve. Nobody spoke English to me in Lisbon. Plan accordingly.)

So the skeptic was losing the argument. But I haven’t told you the honest part yet.

Because here’s the honest part: it’s calm. SO calm. And…

🔒 This is where I stop being polite. Behind the wall: the verdict — is Meghan’s Portugal actually worth copying — the one condition that comes with it, the exact towns and cliffs I’d send you to, and the honest thing about Portugal I’m only saying to paid subscribers.

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There’s an ugly rumor that Tia Mowry hates her sister Tamera. I covered it in today’s TikTok.

I’ve always been a superfan of them both. I grew up in the Sister Sister era, watched their Style Network reality show religiously, binged The Game for Tia, and tuned into The Real for Tamera. I’ve also worked with them twice.

So this rumor felt personal.

Not just because I love them. Because I don’t think either of them is the villain here. And I felt like someone needed to say that.

First of all, the rumor isn’t true. It grew out of a clip Tia herself has already clarified — she was talking about physical distance, not a falling out. They’re just two different people who’ve designed two totally different lives. But when I went down the rabbit hole for today’s social video, I couldn’t stop thinking about something bigger than the rumor.

Same face. Same parents. Same childhood. Same first job.

Completely different lives.

One life appears rooted.

The other still appears to revolve around the next opportunity.

And I’ve been around this business long enough to know — that doesn’t happen by accident.

Most people will explain their different lives by pointing to the men they married. I think that’s only part of the story.

I think it started much earlier.

I think it started with what each woman chose to build her life around.

I think I finally understand why. And it’s not what most people say.

That’s what paid subscribers read below.

Have you ever looked at someone else’s life and realized it was the one you actually wanted? Subscribe to keep reading — and drop it in the comments when you’re done.

— Paid subscribers continue reading below —

What I Noticed When I Met Them.

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This story is one I’ve never talked about publicly.

Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it in years.

I’d buried it the way you bury things that make you feel embarrassed.

Then something happened this week that brought it all back.

For a brief moment...

I was MrBeast.

Without the billions.

And now I can’t stop asking myself one question.

Was MrBeast right?

Have you ever spent years being totally wrong about someone — and not even known it? Subscribe to keep reading — and drop it in the comments when you’re done.

What Happened With MrBeast.

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Adam Levine posted a rare family photo this week.

It’s him, Behati, and their three kids walking down the beach.

At first glance, it looks like the perfect family photo.

But after 20 years working with celebrities, I’ve learned something.

Celebrity stories aren’t really about celebrities.

They’re about the relationship dynamics, power struggles, and human behavior hiding underneath the headlines.

That’s the part I’m obsessed with.

And there was one tiny detail in this photo that immediately caught my attention.

But first...

Let’s go back to 2022.

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What Actually Happened in 2022

Back in 2022, while Behati was pregnant with their third baby, Instagram model Sumner Stroh came out on TikTok and said:

“I was having an affair with a man who’s married to a Victoria’s Secret model.”

She said she was young, naïve, felt exploited, and was easily manipulated.

She later explained that she believed Adam had told her his marriage was ending, and she came forward because a friend had allegedly tried to sell the story to a tabloid.

And honestly...

I’m still not totally sure how I feel about her going public on TikTok.

But the messages she posted were disgusting.

Adam allegedly wrote:

“It is truly unreal how fucking hot you are, like it blows my mind.”

Then:

“You are 50 times hotter in person... and so am I.”

And then, after they had stopped talking for a couple of months, he allegedly came back with this:

“Ok serious question. I’m having another baby and if it’s a boy I really wanna name it Sumner. You ok with that? DEAD serious?”

I’m sorry.

You’re asking the girl you’ve been carrying on with if you can name the baby your pregnant wife is carrying after her?

I think we can all agree...

That is beyond gross.

Adam’s Response

Then Adam responded publicly.

He said he had:

“Used poor judgment.”

And then:

“To be this naive and stupid enough to risk the only thing that truly matters to me was the greatest mistake I could ever make. I will never make it again.”

Naïve?

Like what!? Did we fall for this apology back then?

He wasn’t naïve about whether he was married.

He wasn’t naïve about whether his wife was pregnant.

And he definitely wasn’t naïve when he asked another woman if he could name his unborn baby after her.

Behati forgave him and they’ve spent almost four years cruising along like everything is fine.

They’re still married.

They have three kids.

Which brings me back to the photo.

The Red Flag

The red flag wasn’t the beach.

It wasn’t Behati.

It wasn’t even the fact that they look like the perfect family.

It was this:

Adam limits his comments.

At first glance, you might think...

What’s wrong with that?

But let me just say this.

When people are having conversations online, limiting comments also keeps someone from publicly showing up underneath your photo and calling you out.

Personally...

I have a really hard time believing he isn’t up to the same old, same old.

That’s my opinion.

I don’t think very many people change when they’re carrying on like this.

But maybe I’m wrong.

So here’s my question...

Can someone really change inside the same relationship after betraying their partner like this?

Or...

Do we just want to believe they can?

And one more thing...

Do you think Adam and Behati’s son’s name—the little boy born months after the Sumner Stroh messages surfaced—actually ended up being Sumner?

They’ve never publicly confirmed his name...

...but I’ve honestly always wondered.

P.S.

If you like the stories behind the headlines, check out Celebrity Files—my series where I tell the behind-the-scenes stories I only know from spending 20 years working with celebrities.

Reader favorites include:

✨ Claire Danes Has Been On My Rude Celebrity List For Years

✨ Kristin Cavallari Keeps Telling The Same Story About Jay Cutler

I’ve linked both of them if you want to keep reading.

She revealed that she recently visited her daughter Chelsea in prison. And Rosie said, it was the first real conversation they’d had in more than ten years.

Chelsea is 28 years old, the mother of four, and has struggled with addiction for much of her life. Rosie shared that Chelsea was born addicted, has been in and out of jail over the years and is now nearly two years sober.

Then Rosie said something that completely stopped me.

“When I was adopting, I thought, ‘Well, love can cure everything.’ But I don’t know that that’s true.”

I sat with that sentence for a while.

As an adoptive mom myself, I’ve spent the last two years learning as much as I can about adoption. Reading Rosie’s words, I couldn’t stop thinking about everything I’ve learned since my daughter was born.

Rosie has never been afraid to say what she thinks.

Now she’s doing it again.

This time…

Adoption.

After working with her years ago, I have insight.

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Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet just reunited with King Charles for the first time in four years.

Here’s what happened:

• Buckingham Palace confirmed King Charles and Queen Camilla hosted Harry, Meghan, Archie and Lilibet at Highgrove House on Friday.

• It was the first time Charles had seen Archie and Lilibet in four years.

• No official photos were released. Palace officials said it was a private family meeting.

• Harry had already been in the U.K. for Invictus events. Meghan and the kids reportedly flew over afterward.

• Security concerns had reportedly kept Meghan and the children from earlier plans to appear publicly in the U.K., but this private visit still happened.

• Charles reportedly spent time with both children and sources described the reunion as emotional.

• The visit happened after years of public fallout between Harry and the Royal Family.

Here’s what I’m wondering though…

I am weirdly… ridiculously… happy about this.

Obviously, I don’t think everything’s fixed now. In fact, I fully expect an article about something Meg did wrong to come out tomorrow.

I’m excited the whole family is there and Harry and Meghan are in their rightful Prince and Princess era.

Can you imagine how stressful this must have been for Meghan?

I mean, it’s the in-law situation from hell, right?

Except now you’re bringing your children.

Honestly, the kids were probably the best distraction.

The thing I’m most curious about isn’t Charles.

It’s the cousins.

Will Archie and Lili ever meet George, Charlotte and Louis?

Or do William and Kate hate Megs and Harry too much?

And then there’s the bigger question…

Is this just a family visit?

Or is this the first tiny step toward Harry and Meghan coming back to the royal fold?

I don’t think they’re trying to become working royals again.

But I can see them being like the royal dispatch from Montecito.

All in all, I’m happy the family is together.

That’s the part that makes me smile.

P.S. If you like the human behavior hiding underneath celebrity headlines, you’ll probably love Celebrity Files, where I share the behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories from my 20 years working with celebrities—and what they taught me about power, relationships, fame, and the patterns we all fall into.

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And if you’re a creator, check out my second publication, Watch Me Work, where I share exactly how I’m building this media business in public—the wins, the mistakes, and everything I’m learning along the way.

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I’ve worked with Kristin Cavallari, so when I heard her latest comments about Jay Cutler, I immediately had an opinion.

And honestly it opened up something I keep coming back to — can one interaction tell you who someone really is? I think it can.

Jay’s Response Said a Lot. Just Not What He Intended.

Kristin was on Bunny XO’s podcast, Dumb Blonde, this week and dropped a pretty big bombshell. She said she didn’t get a dime from Jay Cutler when they divorced. In fact, she says she had to pay him half the value of Uncommon James.

Jay wasted no time responding. He said that’s simply not true, told everyone to read the divorce decree, reminded people that he made a lot of money during his NFL career and pointed out that Uncommon James was a marital asset because it was built during their marriage.

What I found interesting wasn’t that he defended himself.

It was how he defended himself.

Kristin made a very specific claim about having to pay him half the value of her business.

Jay’s response wasn’t, “I never took half of Uncommon James.”

It was, “Read the divorce decree. I made a lot of money.”

Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

I tried to pull the divorce decree — it’s not public, but if I get it, I’ll report back.

The other reason I tend to believe Kristin is because this isn’t a new story. TMZ reported back in 2021 that Uncommon James was one of the biggest sticking points in their divorce. She’s been telling some version of this story for years.

Now here’s why I immediately leaned her way.

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Someone literally just commented on my video today,

“Aren’t you a little old to be gossiping about celebrities?”

And like... I get why it looks like gossip. I do.

After spending more than 20 years working with celebrities, one thing has always been true: I don’t actually care about celebrities. I care about power. I care about money. I care about the relationship dynamics we keep repeating over and over and never talk about. Celebrity relationships are just the biggest, most public case studies we have.

Which is why I can’t stop thinking about Jack Antonoff right now.

So yesterday I made a video saying I thought Margaret Qualley missed Taylor Swift’s wedding because she was filming. And then I went down the rabbit hole and honestly... I don’t think that’s the story anymore.

People on Reddit noticed Margaret reportedly deleted photos of Jack from her Instagram. Jack showed up to Taylor’s wedding alone and brought his sister instead. And then people noticed Margaret had been spending time with her costar Drew Starkey while filming.

Before everyone jumps to affair — they’re coworkers. That by itself means nothing.

But here’s what actually caught my attention.

Someone in LA claimed Jack has a reputation for being jealous, petty, getting into public screaming matches with Margaret, and not being particularly supportive of her career.

One anonymous person on the internet. I know.

But then people started pointing to a pattern that goes back further. There were rumors about Jack and Lorde getting too close while they were making Melodrama. Both of them denied it. But the speculation got so loud that Lena Dunham — who was engaged to Jack at the time — ended up publicly defending both of them. And then she and Jack eventually split anyway.

And now people are looking at Margaret.

And at some point I just... stop looking at the women.

And start wondering if maybe the same man is the pattern.

I’ll be honest with you. When Margaret and Jack got married I wanted to believe he’d changed. I think a lot of us do that. We meet someone who’s charming, funny, talented, creative — and we just convince ourselves this time it’ll be different. This relationship will be the exception.

Sometimes it is. People can absolutely grow.

But sometimes the pattern just gets a new face.

That’s why I pay attention to stories like this. Not because I care who’s dating who. Because somewhere there’s a woman in her twenties or thirties convincing herself she’s the exception.

I’ve done it. A lot of us have.

That’s why I talk about celebrity “gossip.”

It’s rarely about the gossip. It’s about recognizing a pattern of human behavior before it becomes your own story.

If you like this kind of relationship deep dive, The Celebrity Files is where I tell the behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories I couldn’t tell while I was working in television. Every week I unpack a celebrity I worked with—and the bigger lesson I took away from it. That’s where the real tea lives. ✨

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And if you’re a creator... I also write a second publication called Watch Me Work, where I build my creator business in public. I share exactly how I turn celebrity news into content, grow an audience, and turn views into a full-time income. No coaching. No guru energy. Just my actual process as I do it.

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People assume celebrity bookers get hit on all the time. Or they're secretly having affairs with the talent. We've all seen The Morning Show, right?

I remember standing in the hallway at NBC one day when one of our executive producers looked at me and my boss and said, “I bet Ashley gets hit on by celebrities constantly.”

I laughed.

“No.”

He looked genuinely confused.

“What? How is that possible?”

Before I could even explain, my boss jumped in.

“No, she really doesn’t.”

And honestly... she was right.

I just didn’t give off that vibe. I wasn’t the booker who became instant friends with celebrities. Some of my coworkers were incredible at that. They’d joke around backstage, make everyone feel comfortable, and by the end of the day they’d be making plans to hang out.

That wasn’t me.

I was friendly, but as much as I wished, I didn’t have the the skill to get close to people like that. Looking back, it probably held me back. I think I kept a little too much professional distance. Maybe I should have done shots in the green room with the celebs like the other bookers did.

Then Peter Facinelli came on the show.

The funny part is, I wasn’t even a Peter Facinelli fan. I knew who he was, but I wasn’t particularly excited to meet him.

Then he walked in.

Black leather jacket. Those ridiculous blue eyes.

And I remember thinking, Oh... now I understand.

Honestly, no wonder Jennie Garth took that divorce so hard.

He was stunning.

I happened to be wearing this enormous pink crystal around my neck. It was probably three inches long and so big that every time I walked down the halls of NBC it bounced against my chest like a weapon. It was impossible not to notice.

When I was in the green room with Peter, he reached over, picked it up in his hand and asked, “What’s this?”

“It’s a rose quartz,” I told him.

He looked down at it and asked, “What’s it for?”

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We’re all still trying to figure out whether Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are actually getting married at Madison Square Garden this Friday.

At first, the rumor sounded so bizarre that a lot of us assumed it couldn’t possibly be true.

But today’s details make the whole thing feel...slightly less insane.

According to new reports, workers are constructing a massive castle inside Madison Square Garden. Trees have reportedly been delivered, fabric is being draped from the ceiling, and what appears to be a full indoor garden is being built around the castle. Boxes labeled “Garden Party” have also been spotted arriving at the venue.

The castle theme actually fits Taylor’s history pretty well. She’s leaned into castles during both the Fearless and Speak Now eras, and Travis reportedly proposed in an elaborate flower garden, so recreating an enchanted garden inside the arena would tie everything together.

I have a feeling this is the detail that’s going to make everyone suddenly go, “Ohhh...okay. That’s actually kind of romantic.”

But I can’t get past one thing.

If you’re Taylor Swift...

Why not just get married in an actual castle?

Europe has approximately 9,000 of them. Scotland has them. Ireland has them. France has them. Heck, she’s Taylor Swift. She could probably rent one that’s been closed to the public for 400 years.

Instead, we’re apparently building one inside an arena where the Knicks play.

It’s still weird.

What do you think, is this wedding actually happening inside MSG in a freakin castle?

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By the way I’ve gotten my first brand deal, which feels pretty exciting after making videos for years. (Actually it’s the first one I’ve accepted because it aligns perfectly with my audience and content. Usually I turn them down.)

But this one, it’s with Yomo, and they asked me to partner on a Taylor wedding prediction contest. Told you, it makes sense, right? If you click my link, download the app, and make your predictions, you can win:

• A signed Showgirls CD

• An opalite ring from Taylor’s shop

• A Visa gift card

You can also check out my video with all the details. And thank you for supporting me with this—it genuinely makes a difference.

Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday was earlier this June, and ever since I did that JFK Jr. series, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her — about the connection she had to that whole family. I have this nagging feeling her story’s been told all wrong. The JFK Jr. series gave us Caroline’s point of view, finally — but I don’t think we’ve ever actually heard Marilyn’s story told from hers. So I went digging. And what I found was not what I expected.

I’m going to give you the whole thing, in parts, over the next few weeks. Here’s what I’m asking, though — read this like she’s your friend. A real person, not a headline. And at the end, you decide what you actually think happened to her.

So let’s start with her husband. Arthur Miller, because I am still mad about this one.

Okay so Marilyn in 1951, she is at the absolute height of it — gorgeous, magnetic, the kind of beautiful that stops a room, already turning into the biggest thing Hollywood’s ever seen. She could have had anyone. She was already a pin-up model with a contract at Fox.

And she meets this guy. Arthur Miller. He’s a playwright. A successful one. Pulitzer Prize. Hugely respected. One of those serious literary guys everyone wanted at their dinner party. But get this, married, and not happily — by his own friend’s account he was bored out of his mind in that marriage, restless, looking for some kind of escape. And let’s be real: not the catch. Older. — not even good looking. Look at a picture. If I were her friend at the time I’d have told her to STAY AWAY. He was obviously having some crisis in his marriage. And then in walks the most wanted woman on the planet, and she’s interested in HIM.

She is somehow attracted to him and he’s the lucky one in this situation. He gets swept up. He starts writing her these letters that are so over the top it’s almost embarrassing but so convincing— “I believe I should really die if I ever lost you.” Tells her she’s finally let him be soft, that he’ll watch over her, the whole thing. That man knew exactly what he was doing. Love bombing? She was young though, a good ten years younger and in her early 20’s. You don’t know what you don’t know.

I’d tell her to just run.

But they start a romance and in that time she goes and studies with Lee Strasberg and becomes a serious actor. Meanwhile before they get married Arthur goes and tells reporters: that she’ll only work occasionally, maybe one film every year and a half, and the rest of the time? “She will be my wife. That’s a full-time job.”

TYPICAL F-ING MAN.

So he wants the most magnetic, ambitious, hardworking woman in the entire world… to become smaller. To become his. And the insane part — the part that makes me want to scream — is that she DOES it. She scales herself down for him. She’s in the kitchen cooking him meals because she doesn’t think it’s right for him to cook his own dinner. She is trying, for real, to be the wife he asked for.

But she does film The Prince and the Showgirl in England within weeks of the Wedding. Because she worked so hard to get that job and she was trying to prove that she could be a serious actor while giving the douchy Arthur what he wanted.

Career wise she was exploding. She had become the iconic Marilyn Monroe. But she also had baby on the brain and this is around the time she suffers her first miscarriage. Around this exact time she also finds Arthur’s notebook left open.

And what does it say? That he’s disappointed in her. That he’s embarrassed by her in front of his friends. That whatever his FIRST wife failed to give him, she — Marilyn — had failed worse.

Imagine reading that after just having a miscarriage. Knife to the chest.

And can you imagine this Arthur dork wrote that about the woman who gave up her own ambition because he asked her to, found out, in his own handwriting, that the smaller version of herself she became for him still wasn’t enough. He didn’t even have the decency to tell her to her face. She found out from a notebook he left open in their own house.

She told her acting coach, crying, that Miller thought she was “some kind of angel” — and now he “guessed he was wrong.”

And get this, Arthur said “I’d say out of five we had two good years. But her addiction to pills and drugs defeated me. If there was a key to her despair I never found it”.

But here’s the thing. After two months when they got married he called her a disappointment in the notebook. So what exactly was disappointing then? That her career exploded and she wasn’t wifing good enough?

You know what happened next? Marilyn got pregnant again, this time a life threatening, ectopic pregnancy. Miscarried again. And then hospitalized for an overdose right around the same time. This sounds like a woman who was desperately trying to please her husband with a pregnancy. And what did she get for it?

No support because that defeated him. He went into that marriage wanting to be taken care of - he was not prepared or willing to take care of her.

yuck.

She wrestled with balancing her career at a time when women didn’t have rights, being a wife, and having babies. She told poet Norman Rosten, after her second pregnancy loss: “Should I do my next picture or stay at home and try to have a baby again? That’s what I want most of all: the baby, I guess. But maybe God is trying to tell me something I mean with all the pregnancy problems”.

Ugh. I hate that I can relate to that.

That winter, while she was contemplating all of this in her CT home she wrote in her own diary, she wrote: “I think I hate it here because there is no love here anymore.” That’s not dramatic. That’s not unstable. That is exactly what it feels like when the person you reorganized your whole life around decides you’re a letdown for wanting him.

Here’s what gets me the most, though. And I cannot get over the fact that none of this gets told as Arthur Miller’s failure. It gets told as hers. The way the story goes is that he’s “the great love of her life,” the serious intellectual who tragically couldn’t fix her. She’s the addict. The fragile one. The one who “defeated” him — that’s literally the word he used decades later, like she was an opponent.

But the truth is, he pursued a star, asked the star to dim her light. When she couldn’t give him everything—career, babies, domestic life, emotional stability—he later described her as the one who defeated him.

That’s not a flaw in her. That’s what happens to women when you pick the wrong man.

I’ll be honest with you — when I started reading about all this, I expected to find a tragic, chaotic woman. I did not expect to come away from it feeling like history got her story wrong. Because her story has been written by men.

Next time, I’m going to tell you what happened right after this divorce — because four weeks later, almost to the day, she ended up somewhere I don’t think most people know about, and it is going to make you as angry as it made me.

And then I’m going to walk you through her last 48 hours.

What do you think? Was Arthur a douche or what?