Intro for August 7, 2025

Dear Gossips,   

It’s not unusual for celebrities to spend part of the summer, sometimes all summer, on a yacht in the Mediterranean. This year, however, it was noteworthy how many celebrities were on one particular yacht: the Luminara. That was when all the gossip about Sofia Vergara and Tom Brady started, remember? They were on the same trip as Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson, Dakota Johnson, Naomi Campbell, Janelle Monae, and so many more, all of them invited by a billionaire with a manbun to experience and promote The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection to the “merely rich” who want to live like the “super-rich”. 

In addition to all those A-list stars, Vanity Fair was given the exclusive opportunity to send a writer to luxuriate on the Luminara alongside the celebrities… and write about it. The piece by Joe Hagan was published yesterday. “Ocean of Influence: Inside the Celebrity Boat Trip That Was All Over Your Feeds” is hilarious, infuriating, and tragic. Tragic because extreme wealth is humanity’s cancer. Infuriating because it seems increasingly incurable. Hilarious because this article is almost old-fashioned, a throwback to the golden era of celebrity magazine reporting, with delicious morsels of gossip lightly sprinkled in every paragraph that, once flicked away, reveal the insatiable and ugly thirst of the rich and famous. 

Because it’s never enough for them. No matter how many Super Bowls and Oscars won, no matter how much money they have on their own, they are powerless to the siren call of someone who has more of it. 

Of course, glamour and luxury are intoxicating, even for those who already live glamourous and luxurious lives. Especially when the manbunned billionaire is paying for it. Paying for the ultimate in service, the best food, the best wine, the best drugs, a private drone light show, a private acoustic guitar show courtesy of Sting, and, obviously, bragging rights – the privilege of saying, “oh you saw that on Instagram? I was there. #ritzcarltonyachtcollection” This piece exposes the fact that, spiritually, there’s not that much distance between the A-list and the D-list. Ultimately they’re all just trying to get more followers. Some are just more honest about it than others. Like… Martha Stewart, incredible. 

She was on the yacht too, and willing to go on the record about why, at 84 years old, with more name recognition than almost everyone there, she’s still sharing deck space with the Nader sisters who are trying to become the new Kardashians. At one point, in conversation with Vanity Fair’s reporter, she checks her mentions and notices that people in her comments are pissy about how she and other celebrities have been flaunting their time on the boat. And then… per Joe Hagan, “Her agent leans over and whispers to me, “There’s not a better Instagram follow than @marthastewart48.”

I screamed. 

But after the coke fumes wore off, apparently we weren’t supposed to know all this. Because at the end of the piece, Joe writes: 

“A text arrives from the cruise organizer: Please don’t mention [redacted] or [redacted] in the story. I smile, imagining panicked publicists in Los Angeles. Soon, I’ll be told there’s a “wrench in the plans” and I’m “not allowed to proceed” on the story.”

Vanity Fair proceeded anyway, to give us a sniff at what might be the only moment of equality to be found in this situation. Everyone on that boat is reading along with us, anxious to see how they came across, whether that gross thing they did or said made it into the article. And also just to screenshot their names in bold among all the other desperados. 

 

Yours in gossip,

Lainey