Today The Hollywood Reporter published “When Time’s Up Didn’t Step Up”. It’s centered around the HBO Max documentary, On The Record, which details the sexual harassment and abuse claims involving Russell Simmons. Oprah was attached to the film as a producer but pulled out before it premiered at Sundance, effectively pulling her support of the film (and in a symbolic way, the allegations). The reporting here gets into details on what happens when allegations bump up against the powerful Time’s Up backers and the larger purpose of the group, with the current donors’ sentiment “ranging from cautious support to growing skepticism to downright hostility.” It’s a very interesting read.

 

The bar is pretty low right now. Subterranean really.

Writer Kelsey Weekman has done all of us a service and found Ben Affleck’s finsta (she writes about how she did it here). Can I tell you how jealous I am of this investigation? The only celebrity finsta I’ve ever found is Diplo’s and no one even wants that.

I’m not sure if this is still active but the website is still listed on his Instagram: Chris Rock is looking for stories from people with the subject “my first black…” for a project. In 2014, Chris wrote an essay on the race problem behind the camera and in the C suites of Hollywood. At the time he asked, “If Kevin Hart is playing 40,000 seats a night, and Jon Stewart is playing 3,000 ... why does Kevin Hart have to cross over?" And it’s still a valid question. Did anyone asked if John Mulaney can cross over?

 

Apparently The Help is popping up on everyone’s Netflix recommended feed – here’s a story on how Viola felt about the film and Abilene Cooper, the real-life woman Viola’s character was based upon. There’s also a clip of her talking about a specific line that Octavia Spencer came up with that was cut because the powers-that-be “didn’t want to go there” with race. In a movie about black maids serving white families in 1960s Mississippi. They didn’t want to “go there.”

This has nothing to do with anything important, but a friend sent me this earlier this week and I’ve watched it at least ten times and every time, I scream. The accuracy! Someone send this to Paulina Gretzky, the patron sent of the Hermes belt.