I can’t say for sure that I know what song lyrics Selena Gomez had in her head while she was getting ready for the Emmy Awards, but if I had to guess, I’d bet it all on one line: 

“You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation…” 

 

The Great 2024 Lipreading Scandal was a lot of fun this past week, wasn’t it? I think the reason it’s fallen into the “fun” category (as Lainey wrote about here) is that Selena and Emily Blunt were making fun of the whole thing instead of anyone getting self-righteous about celebrity privacy or something and  that Selena was so clearly unapologetically gossiping about someone. As Lainey said that night, everyone knows what a nod like this indicates – there is sh-t talking afoot. 

 

What makes this so great is that this is what these kinds of events are made for, and Selena knows it very, very well. Which is why this is the perfect, perfect look for her to show up in: 

Selena Gomez arrives for the 75th Emmy Awards
Selena Gomez arrives for the 75th Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theatre at L.A. Live in Los Angeles on January 15, 2024

Look at the expression on her face. That slightly teasing, inquisitive … “So? Is it what you were expecting? Are we gonna talk about it?”

 

It’s a flawless fit, this Oscar De La Renta, of course, but that’s barely the point. The styling – her dark lipstick and the deep wave over her eye – it’s got nothing to do with last week’s high-school party dress look;  this is a look that says, “Yeah, you know what? Maybe I am the villain, and… I like it like that.” 

Am I wrong? Like, I will now put my contractually obligatory statement that there is, of course, no villainy here. But I love that she’s embracing a narrative, for a couple of reasons. 

 

First of all, it’s actually completely on-brand for her show. Only Murders In The Building is literally a show about nosy gossips gossiping and making assumptions about people they kind of know. On the show itself, her character, Mabel Mora, started off as the nominally ‘normal’, less meddlesome straight character, but after three seasons opposite Steve Martin and Martin Short, she’s very much in the family business of being slightly flamboyant and attention-getting, specifically for the purposes of finding out more information. If Lainey lived at the Arconia (and didn’t end up dead), she’d be incredibly proud. 

Also, earlier I wrote about how I don’t care if people watch Poker Face, and my feelings on Only Murders In The Building are similar. I do care if people watch this one, because it’s so much fun and there are a million references I need to drop into receptive company. (I still don’t know Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?)

 

…But I definitely don’t care if OMITB wins any awards. In fact, I kind of hope it doesn’t. Because winning awards means you’re conferred prestige and elevation, and I worry that anything like that might get in the way of these three being this particular brand of goobers, you know? 

Martin Short, Selena Gomez and Steve Martin attend the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards
Martin Short, Selena Gomez and Steve Martin attend the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on January 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California

Anyway, you know what we’re not talking about while we talk about Selena being encrusted in a reported 450,000 crystals? (Sidebar: why do we count? Is there a record we’re trying to beat? I never quite get the breathless tally of precisely how many sparkles make the sparkly happen.)

 

The fact that she arrived at the awards with her new boyfriend, Benny Blanco. They didn’t pose anywhere together, and that could be because his Columbo aesthetic doesn’t work well with her Joan Carrington Colby vibe, or because they wanted to be low-key. Either way, she’s on top of the conversation… 

… but I do kind of wonder what her ‘old guy’ co-stars were thinking right here: 

Like I said, the premise of the show turns on gossip, and they’re all very believable – do Martin & Martin text each other on the DL like, “What is he wearing?” “Do you think she tried to get him a tux?!” 

I can dream, right? The point is, she knows we’re going to, and she’s all about it.