Belmont Cameli is in France for Paris Fashion Week. It’s become a familiar path for breakout stars – starring in a hit movie or, more likely these days, a hit series, and even more likely these days a hit romance series, and then getting invited to sit front row at a show.

Belmont is just about four months into his ascent, after the success of Off Campus which came after the mega mega success of Heated Rivalry. But there are even more similarities and unfortunately some of them aren’t so positive.

Last week, Hudson Williams’s girlfriend, Katelyn Larson, posted a message on IG stories, asking people to stop coming to her tattoo shop so that they can try to get more information about Hudson and their relationship.

She said it “crosses a huge boundary” and she’s right. What also crosses a boundary, which she didn’t address in that IG story, is when the most toxic segment of the fandom actively expresses that they are rooting for them to break up, or whatever nonsense these nonsense people are saying and doing.

Like Hudson and Katelyn, Belmont and Raina Morris are getting it from Off Campus fans. Raina is a comedy writer, she’s worked on Schmigadoon and Emily in Paris and the upcoming series Barbershop, premiering in February. First look assets for Barbershop were just shared yesterday and it is confirmed that Belmont will have a guest role on the show. Belmont and Raina have been together for at least a year and a half, well before anyone had ever heard of him. And a couple of months ago, she too posted a message on Instagram asking fans of Off Campus to stop DMing her family.

This behaviour is gross and embarrassing. And it happens all the time, across cultures. I posted a couple of weeks ago about supermodel Liu Wen and Jing Boran and the harassment that’s been happening after the popularity of Boran’s series The Early Spring. Examples from a few years ago include FKA twigs when she was dating Robert Pattinson, and anyone who dates Harry Styles.

I honestly don’t know what the solution is here. How does pop culture encourage fan engagement while also managing fan entitlement?


What else happened today…

People are criticising Nigella Lawson for taking too big of a bite when she’s trying food? I ate on television almost every day for ten years and the whole point is that you get to be at work and it’s amazing that part of your job involves eating, why the F-CK are we shaming a woman for this? Oh right, because the world hates women. That said, where I will fight Nigella is the salt. I think everything is too salty and apparently she’s the opposite. (Pajiba)

Olivia Colman’s hair is longer now – in my mind I previously only pictured her with short hair – and the length and the texture and the colour look great on her. (Go Fug Yourself)

A couple of months ago I linked to a piece at The Atlantic by Rose Horowitch about “The End of Reading”. And now one of the most well-known American influencers has just casually revealed that she’s never read a book so, yeah, the end of reading is truly near. Unless somehow we can find a way un-endanger reading the way we did with pandas. (Celebitchy)

On that note… the pleasure of reading about sex! (The Cut)

Brian Phillips on how the “iced coffee to a job interview” debate was society’s ultimate litmus test. Do the people who bring iced coffee to a job interview at a Fortune 500 company read books? (The Ringer)

Photo credits: @Nacer_photo_ /Iammeysam/Melanie Miller/BACKGRID

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