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Sarah Jessica Parker is once again hot on the trail of a missing item.

After finding somebody’s $4,700 check on the street in the West Village in October and then finding somebody else’s pay stub on the street in the West Village last month, SJP’s confidence in her ability to find missing items on the street in the West Village is at an all-time high. She posted a photo of a new missing item she now hopes to find—an earring—on Instagram yesterday.

“I’m sure you all know the feeling when you lose something,” she wrote in the caption. “If anyone should see this little gem on or near 6th ave and 9th st in nyc let @sachacharninmorrsion know. She would be mighty appreciative. X sj.”

Sacha Charnin Morrison is the fashion director at Us Weekly, a fact that is neither here nor there. It’s not clear whether Morrison prayed directly to SJP for help—Sarah Jessica, Sarah Jessica, please come ‘round; something’s lost that can’t be found—or SJP simply saw Morrison’s post and decided she should lend her powers free of charge. One thing that is clear: In Hell, Sarah Jessica Parker will suffer damnation for a thousand lifetimes, as punishment for the hubris of styling herself a modern-day St. Anthony. Sometimes you just can’t win!

SJP posted another photo of the earring to give her fans—who are surely combing the corner of 6th and 9th right now—a closer look.

She wrote in the caption, “A more complete image of the lost and favorite earring belonging to @sachacharninmorrison. Lost sometime today at 6th ave and 9th st in nyc. Anyone? Anyone? X sj.”

Anyone?

Anyone?

Photo via Getty. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

The Simpsons star Harry Shearer, the versatile voice actor behind Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, and C. Montgomery Burns, is leaving the show after 26 seasons, he announced on Twitter Wednesday night. Eventually, it’ll just be A Simpson.

The Simpsons has survived for nearly three decades and, despite declining ratings, it seems like absolutely nothing can kill it. The show, recently renewed through 2017, was nearly ended after a tense contract negotiation in 2011, but its main voice actors agreed to take a pay cut to keep it alive.

It seems that arrangement is no longer working for Shearer, who tweeted this message, ostensibly from the attorney for producer James L. Brooks:

from James L. Brooks' lawyer: "show will go on, Harry will not be part of it, wish him the best.". (1/2)

May 14, 2015

Variety reports that, “the rest of the Simpsons voice cast recently signed two-year extensions, logging on for seasons 27 and 28, with Shearer being the only one holding out.” Season 27 has already begun production without him.

Shearer said on Twitter that he left because he “wanted what we’ve always had: the freedom to do other work.”

His other work has included playing Richard Nixon in “Nixon’s the One,” and various reunion appearances as Derek Smalls in Spinal Tap—most recently for the 25th anniversary of the film in 2009.

The last major voice actors the show lost were Phil Hartman, whose characters were retired after he was killed by his wife in 1998, and Marcia Wallace, who played Edna Krabappel and passed away in 2013. Hartman’s final season, season 10, is considered by some to be the end of the Simpsons’ golden age and the beginning of a long decline that’s still being dragged out nearly 20 years later.

It’s not yet clear whether Shearer’s characters will be written out of the show entirely, or whether they’ll be recast.

[Photo: Getty Images]

Last week, arts organization BRIC announced a June 26 screening of the seminal 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning as part of its Celebrate Brooklyn! program. Invited to help present the screening was the movie’s director, Jennie Livingston, musician/artist JD Samson, who was to perform a DJ set, and exactly zero queer people of color or members of the ballroom community. That community of mostly black and Latin gay men who compete in pageant-like balls while voguing and wearing all kinds of drag provided the basis of Livingston’s doc and thrives today. It would have been extremely easy to reach out—I attended a PIB screening in November at a very tiny film festival (we watched it in a church!) and Milton Ninja (of the Legendary House of Ninja) spoke after the movie. These people are around and they’re still eager to share their experiences.

BRIC’s omission sparked an intense debate on the event’s Facebook page. There were those who felt the omission of queer people of color from the panel only added insult to injury for screening a movie made by a white woman who had no business documenting a community to which she didn’t belong. A particularly vocal contributor, Imani Henry, started a change.org petition titled Cancel Celebrate Brooklyn/BRIC’s screening of Paris is Burning & End the Exploitation of the Ballroom Community and TQPOC! #ParisIsBurnt #‎SHUTITDOWN‬. As of the writing of this post, it is just a few signatures away from reaching its target of 1,000.

From the time of its debut, Paris Is Burning has inspired debates about exploitation, appropriation, and who gets to tell what stories. That these debates rage on 25 years later is a sign of this movie’s vitality. You may love it (as I do), you may loathe it, but you cannot deny its power. That movie inspires passion unlike most others. It continues to reverberate through culture via things like RuPaul’s Drag Race and discussions of shade-throwing (here’s one in the New York Times Magazine that went up today). Paris Is Burning is as relevant as ever. Few documentaries have had such a cultural pull.

Still, it’s healthy to question authority and often helpful to tear down establishments. Just because Paris Is Burning is regarded as a classic doesn’t mean that people should love it mindlessly. But it also shouldn’t be dismissed offhand simply because a white woman was at its helm. This is unfair, and besides, as Livingston pointed out to the New York Times in 1993, in a story about the film’s aftermath, “I’m white, yes, but I’m an openly queer, female director, and I can’t think of anything more out of the mainstream. I’m sorry, but I do not think I have the same relationship to the ruling class as a straight man.”

The portions of Henry’s change.org petition that address Livingston read:

While Jennie Livingston and Mirimax [sic] profited immensely off of this anthropological foray into the lives of low-income TQPOC ballroom members, through years of lies and dishonesty, Livingston was able to use people for the sake of her own fame and has been living off of their stories ever since. In the meantime, most of the original cast has been murdered or has died in poverty. This is exploitation of a vulnerable population who trusted Jennie to do right by them.

...Jennie Livingston, YOU NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS AND BE ACCOUNTABLE TO THE COMMUNITIES YOU’VE HARMED WITH THIS DOCUMENTARY. You need to:

- Apologize to the affected parties listed

- Use the platform that you’ve gained through our stories to speak out against the atrocities that are killing us daily. Violence against trans women of color specifically, like the still unsolved murder of Venus Xtravaganza, is still rampant. Share your limelight with people and organizations doing work that benefits the communities in the film.

- Pay retribution to the survivors and communities of the people you exploited in Paris is Burning with all future proceeds.

To me, a lot of this reads as pessimistic. Yes, Livingston was an “outsider looking in,” as bell hooks put it in her scathing review “Is Paris Burning?”* But isn’t using your privilege to amplify disenfranchised voices a good, responsible thing to do for the world? Isn’t the system set up so that to enact actual change, you have to actually get under the hood and do some tinkering with your own hands? It is not sufficient to merely acknowledge your privilege; you actually have to do something about it. Regarding her subjects, Livingston told the Times, “If they wanted to make a film about themselves, they would not be able. I wish that weren’t so, but that’s the way society is structured.”

I’d argue, in fact, that Paris Is Burning benefitted from the outsider’s guiding hand. The film is structured around drag ball vocabulary, which appears in onscreen title cards, is defined by its subjects, and then exemplified by the action. It’s an ingeniously simple approach that makes the depicted world accessible and the movie compulsively watchable.

Also, Paris Is Burning benefitted from Jennie Livingston making it simply because no one else did. “Nobody in the actual community was making shit about our drag balls,” said subject Dorian Corey in an Outweek article that was excerpted in Lucas Hilderbrand’s Paris Is Burning: A Queer Film Classic. “Thank God, somebody [like Jennie Livingston] came and did it … Now that small success is happening I’m waiting to see how Jennie will give people their due.”

Whether or not her subjects received “their due,” depends on whom you ask. Livingston has maintained that the $4 million-grossing Paris didn’t make her rich (newsflash: documentaries generally are not lucrative investments), and friends have corroborated that assertion (one told Brooklyn Based, “She’s been toiling ever since, always struggling to put something together”). Regardless, Livingston was sued by several of her subjects and ended up distributing about $55,000 amongst 13 of them. Though paying documentary subjects is unorthodox, Livingston explained to the Times, “The journalistic ethic says you should not pay them. On the other hand, these people are giving us their lives! How do you put a price on that?”

What constitutes exploitation is debatable, but again and again, you see people going into low- or non-paying entertainment jobs in exchange for the possible exposure those jobs will afford. Unfair as it may be, that’s a transaction between willing parties. Perhaps no one illustrated this practice and its ensuing discontents more openly than Paris’s Pepper LaBeija, who told the Times that she “loved” the movie and didn’t feel exploited but did feel “betrayed”:

When Jennie first came, we were at a ball, in our fantasy, and she threw papers at us. We didn’t read them, because we wanted the attention. We loved being filmed. Later, when she did the interviews, she gave us a couple hundred dollars. But she told us that when the film came out we would be all right. There would be more coming. And that made me think I would have enough money for a car and a nice apartment and for my kids’ education.

More came, but it wasn’t a lot:

The $5,000 I got was hush money. We didn’t have no choice but to take it. And $1,500 went to my lawyer for doing nothing...But at least it brought me international fame. I do love that. Walking down the street, people stop me all the time. Which was one of my dreams doing the drags in the first place.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people wish Livingston never bothered, but then we wouldn’t have this lively document of this specific time and place. You can look at that as a vehicle Livingston used for fame, or you can look at Paris Is Burning as something Livingston used her time to give to the world. Given the way the film’s profile dwarfs Livingston’s own, culture has already spoken on this question.

Samson learned of the angered response to the Celebrate Brooklyn! event and pulled out. After days of raging debate BRIC issued a statement that reads in part:

We have now done what we should have done when we initially planned the event: reached out to QTPOC organizations and individuals, and members of the ballroom community, to gain their insights and hear their ideas for the program. We apologize for not having done so earlier.

After this consultation, the revised line-up, which we hope to finalize in the next few days, will include artists and programming from the QTPOC and ballroom communities.

Livingston also weighed in yesterday. Part of her statement says:

I’m grateful the conversations here encouraged me to deeply consider my relationships, both to surviving members of the Paris is Burning cast and to the TQPOC community at large. As we move forward towards the 25th anniversary of the film, I need to keep talking with the cast members themselves about how they feel about the film and its continued distribution. And if they’re interested, about how can the cast and I work together to benefit the community?

Last year Junior Labeija and I did a screening to raise money for the Ali Forney Center (which serves homeless queer youth). So many of the people in the film are gone: what are we empowered to do to continue their legacy and honor their memories, to benefit ballgoers, and to fight violence against trans and queer people of color?

She ends by sharing something Junior LaBeija sent her via text a few days before, as the controversy flared:

Good Morning

The truth shall always prevail!

Pars is Burning is a documentary film about the Gay Ballroom community within Harlem. The subculture underneath and underground of theGay culture! It documents, explains and simplifies the freedom of expression and the right to be through the voices of participants, viewers and onlookers. The film allows diversity to be exposed and explored! What I love about my segment of the film is that I enlightened the world to understand sexual orientation is whom you go to bed with whereas gender is whom you go to bed As! Secondly, in closing I never was shady just always FIERCE!

In closing Paris Is Burning is still causing Controversy Wow! That means it is still relevant!!!

Classic!!!!!

I am still looking forward to celebrate Brooklyn!

What am I going to wear?

[Image via Miramax]

Black culture and the role racism plays in black American history are discussed at length in the national dialogue around race relations. We regularly debate use of the “n-word,” for example, and the impact of historical racism on outcomes for black Americans. In fact, black culture comes up in conversations about everything from mental health and homophobia to how parents discipline their kids. On the other hand, the role that white culture plays in our society often goes without remark.

Robin DiAngelo is a professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University and the author of What Does it Mean to be White? For over two decades, she has consulted and conducted trainings on issues of racial and social justice. DiAngelo writes of her own experience as a white woman:

“I grew up poor and white. While my class oppression has been relatively visible to me, my race privilege has not. In my efforts to uncover how race has shaped my life, I have gained deeper insight by placing race in the center of my analysis and asking how each of my other group locations have socialized me to collude with racism. In so doing, I have been able to address in greater depth my multiple locations and how they function together to hold racism in place.”

Gawker spoke with DiAngelo recently to discuss what it means to be white in 21st Century America and the role whiteness plays in the current national debate over policing.

What is whiteness and how is it constructed?

Racism has two primary functions: the oppression of people of color, which most people recognize, but also the simultaneous elevation of white people. You can’t hold one group down without lifting the other up. So, when I think about whiteness, I think about those aspects of racism that specifically elevate whites. Now, they’re all connected. So, anything that oppresses people of color is likely elevating white people. That’s how I think about whiteness. Whiteness is the default. It is the water we all swim in. It’s the centrality of white people.

As white people in this society, we are socialized from the time that we’re born to see ourselves as superior, to see white people and things associated white people as superior. At the same time, I’m encouraged to never admit to that. I’m taught that racism is very bad and immoral. So, we have this push-pull of being relentlessly, 24/7 being reinforced in our centrality and superiority. At the same time being told that if that were happening it would be bad and immoral. It makes us very sensitive. It creates what I call “white fragility,” where we’re arrogant and entitled but also scared and guilty. All of that functions to hold racism in place.

How do whiteness and white cultural norms impact how we engage—or don’t engage—race and racism?

First of all, there’s white solidarity. There’s a tacit agreement that white people will keep each other comfortable around our racism, that we won’t challenge each other’s racism. Ultimately, it means we will protect each other’s racism. So, that’s at play. You also have these taboos around talking directly and authentically about racism. I mean, we talk all the time in very problematic ways behind closed doors, but to really authentically and openly talk about racism is taboo. So, when a white person breaks those taboos, there’s a lot of upset and guilt. And there are social penalties for white people who break the solidarity. So, the average well-meaning white person is going to fear conflict.

It’s the classic, “Uncle Bob said this at the dinner table.” Well, why didn’t you say anything? Five people could be uncomfortable with what Uncle Bob said, but nobody speaks up and that’s because they don’t want to cause conflict and ruin the dinner. And that right there, that it would ruin the dinner and five people would rather be uncomfortable in the face of racism and essentially protect Uncle Bob, is classically white. It’s how it functions to hold the system in place.

You also have two really problematic ideologies of white people, we’re conditioned into these ideologies but nonetheless we have them. The first is the idea that to be a good person and to participate in racism are mutually exclusive. So, it’s just not possible to have anything to do with racism if you’re open-minded and well intentioned. If you suggest someone is colluding with racism, they get deeply upset and feel as though you’ve challenged their morality. The second piece is the misunderstanding of how bias works. You probably have the experience of white people giving you evidence that they’re not racist. The evidence is generally how many people of color they know or how they’ve travelled in different countries or whatever. You can see that type of evidence is rooted in the idea that they have to consciously dislike people of color to be racist. They don’t understand that it can be deeply unconscious and internalized.

When you put all those things together, it’s so hard to talk to us.

What have been your thoughts on the national conversation happening around police brutality and the role that whiteness plays into it?

We have to change the water officers swim in. We can bring in different tools, even officers of color, but if we don’t change the water that they swim in, that we all swim in. The water is the unexamined whiteness, the everyday whiteness. Unexamined whiteness is right now probably the most hostile for people of color. There are the extreme incidents of violent and explicit racism that we take note of, but the everyday racism is also so toxic.

I think our everyday coded language around “good neighborhoods” and “bad neighborhoods” is what allows for tremendous violence to happen in some neighborhoods. When you label a neighborhood “bad” and avoid it, then you don’t know and don’t see what goes on there. And there’s no human face to interrupt that narrative. So, we see outrage around figures like Michael Brown because suddenly there’s a face. But, for the most part, we don’t know and we don’t care as long as police keep “them” from “us,” so our schools can be better and we can feel safe at the top of the hierarchy. I think we use the police to maintain those boundaries.

I wrote a piece recently about white silence in regards to police brutality. In it, I cited some of your writing. The article received a lot of comments from readers. What are your thoughts on the relative silence of white Americans when it comes to issues of race and racism?

I’m really happy you asked me about that. My work on white fragility is becoming really popular right now and the paper I wrote, “Nothing To Add,” is an example of what I try to do in making everyday whiteness visible in terms of how it functions. So, you mentioned the kind of comments people write. I try not to read comments because I find them upsetting, but those types of out-there rebuttals are one kind of resistance, but white silence is easy to overlook but is just as powerful.

We live really segregated lives. People often don’t understand what I mean when I say white people are socialized to see ourselves as superior. I don’t know how they can’t know what I mean, but in the beginning they don’t always understand what I mean. The most profound message of our superiority is that we can live, love, work, study, play in segregation and no one who mentors or guides us will convey that something has been lost. The message of that is that there’s no inherent value in the perspectives and experiences of people of color.

That plays into the silence, indifference, and apathy. If it gets really, really loud and explicit, like with the recent killings, then we’ll feel bad for a moment or remark on it, but overall there’s apathy towards what’s happening every single day. There’s also fear of saying the wrong thing, but it all functions so powerfully to hold racism in place. Sometimes I think about how white people’s reactions to being associated with racism are irrational and yet at the same they’re brilliantly rational in how effective they are to bully people of color and white people who break with solidarity into silence. They’re irrational but they work, so I’m not sure how irrational they really are.

Well, what about those reactions? There seems to be a few that are more common than others. In reaction to the white silence piece, readers commented about not knowing what to say or fear taking over conversation from people of color. Are those just irrational or false reactions?

I do workshops on silence and I’ll ask white participants to help me list all of the reasons somebody might be silent in a dialogue about race. They give me all these reasons that sound so legitimate. For me, the question is not are they true or not true. That’s not as relevant as how they’re functioning. So, how is your silence functioning? We need to be thinking intentionally and strategically about what would be the best interruption of the status quo. Anything that maintains white comfort in conversation around race is suspect, because the status quo is racism.

So, how do we incentivize the discomfort?

Well, on the other side is understanding. I’ve found nothing to be as profoundly stimulating, as growth-inducing, as engaging the discomfort. It puts me right up to my learning edge and has helped me to build relationship I’d never had.

One of the most important misunderstandings for white people to get over to move forward is this idea that racism is a good-bad proposition—that if we’re good we can’t be part of it, that being uncomfortable means you’re a terrible person. We have to let go of that and understand it as a system we all live in. Just let that go. We’re all invested and saturated in racism. Stop trying to look like you’re no part of it. All that’s doing is making you look clueless Just tackle it. Once you get past that, it’s profoundly fulfilling and you can go to bed at night and sleep well knowing that you did your best to disrupt racial injustice rather than blindly colluding with it.

When I’m leading a group and people want to show me that they’re cool, the person who makes an impression on me is the person who is willing to be vulnerable, honest, and authentic, not the person who is trying to convince me that nothing is going and they get it all.

And I do want to add that it’s not a situation where white people are completely oblivious. There is also some investment in the system that needs to be acknowledged. A part of it is about feeling entitled and that you are deserving of everything, [that yours is] a position above others. That’s the effect of constant messaging that you’re superior. On the one hand, we really are oblivious. I really was taught not to see or acknowledge the system. On the other hand, we know. We do know, but we can’t admit it.

So, what insights on this topic do you want to leave readers with?

I’m certainly aware that I’ve been socialized into racism and white superiority, that I have investments in it that I may not be aware of, but I do not feel guilty. Guilt is not useful and that’s not what I’m asking for from white people. It’s not what I’m trying to invoke. I’m trying to invoke responsibility. The default is racism. So, if you’re just living your life and not actively challenging the status quo, you are colluding with racism.

Donovan X. Ramsey is a multimedia journalist whose work puts an emphasis on race and class. Donovan has written for The Atlantic, The New Republic, MSNBC, and Ebony, among others. He’s currently a Demos Emerging Voices Fellow.

[Illustration by Tara Jacoby]

Baltimore corrections officers Tamika Cobb and Kendra Richard were charged this week with looting a downtown 7-Eleven during riots over the death of Freddie Gray. The video above purportedly shows Richard carrying Slim Jims out of the store while Cobb stands by the door holding a bag of Tostitos.

Both women worked in facilities in downtown Baltimore, according to the Baltimore Sun. Police reportedly arrested the pair based on a tip, which may have stemmed from the YouTube clip. The video was recorded April 25—the day that violence outside Camden Yards, a short walk from the 7-Eleven at Baltimore and Howard Streets, brought new national attention to the protests—and published on April 26.

Both women were charged with theft and burglary and are being held on $35,000 bail.

Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Finally, a whole four days after he first said that yes, he would have gone into Iraq, then said he misheard the question, and then said the question is mean to our troops, Jeb Bush has finally given us a definitive(-ish?) answer: Knowing what we know today, Jeb Bush would not have authorized an invasion in Iraq. Probably.

He gave the long-awaited answer at an event in Tempe, Arizona earlier today, saying, “If we’re all supposed to ask hypothetical questions: ‘Knowing what we know now, what would you have done?’—I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq.”

Of course, the push away from his brother’s past mistakes feels a little thin in light of the media frenzy his previous response had caused—the one that came after he “misheard” Megyn Kelly’s question. Still, the fact that he’s willing to define himself as even remotely different from George W. Bush, who’s confirmed that he in fact has no regrets over invading Iraq, is somewhat promising.

There is, however, still the issue that Jeb apparently would have been comfortable going into Iraq given the information at the time, which was highly suspect even then. After all, even Carl Levin—who was chairman of the Armed Services Committee and very likely confronted with the same intelligence—voted against the war.

But hey, at least it’s something—you know, assuming Jeb doesn’t change his mind again tomorrow.

[h/t Mediaite]

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com. Image via AP.

A Southwest Airlines passenger says she found out her husband was planning to commit suicide just moments before her flight took off, but flight attendants prevented her from calling him, citing FAA regulations. By the time she got home, he had been found dead.

As she waited to fly from New Orleans to Wisconsin, Karen Momsen-Evers received this nightmare text message from her husband: “Karen, please forgive me for what I am about to do, I am going to kill myself…”

“No, no,” she texted back.

“Yes, because I have to.”

Momsen-Evers tried to call police and send them to help her husband, but she says a flight attendant coming through the cabin “slapped the phone down.” Even after she showed him the texts, she says, he told her to put the phone in airplane mode.

She says she tried explaining the situation to another member of the flight crew, once the flight was in the air, but still wasn’t allowed to use her phone.

“I begged her, I said I’m sure someone can make an emergency phone call,” Momsen-Evers told local NBC affiliate WTMJ-4, but she was told there was nothing the flight crew could do.

She cried through the entire flight to Milwaukee. When the plane landed, she was finally able to make the emergency call. Police officers met her at home and informed her that her husband, Andy, was dead.

“They got on their knees, put their hats over their heart and gave me the I regret to inform you that your husband has died,” she told WTMJ-4.

“Our hearts go out to the family during this difficult time. Flight attendants are trained to notify the Captain if there is an emergency that poses a hazard to the aircraft or to the passengers on-board. In this situation, the pilots were not notified,” Southwest Airlines (slogan: “Without a heart, it’s just a machine”) said in a statement.

[h/t Consumerist, Photo: TMJ4]

If you’re looking for a professional challenge, Amtrak just posted a job opening for a “communications lead” in Washington, DC. Don’t live in DC? Like the listing says, “Your success is a train ride away.”

It’s unclear whether this is a recently vacated job (understandable), or whether the transit monopoly is putting together a small army of PR experts after this week’s horrible crash (also understandable). Amtrak promises the position provides “competitive pay,” but unless that pay is exactly one trillion dollars per year then this job is probably not worth the trouble it would require right now.

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7

InTouch has deleted an article from their website alleging that Patrick Dempsey (RIP McDreamy) was fired from Grey’s Anatomy because he cheated on his wife with a 20-something show intern.

As BuzzFeed reporter Rachel Zarrell points out, the article in question was removed sometime between its publication Wednesday afternoon and this morning, though it’s still cached online. It originally appeared in this week’s print issue of the magazine, and the gossip has also been picked up by sites like Radar Online and The Inquisitr.

The piece alleges that both Ellen Pompeo and Shonda Rhimes were angry about Dempsey’s affair, and that the situation escalated to the point where they killed his character off even though he had a year left on his contract.

“[His co-star] Ellen Pompeo found out and was angry because she’s close friends with Jillian, so of course, she told her,” the insider explains, adding that the situation even led to McDreamy’s death on the show in April after the actress spilled what she knew to the show’s creator and executive producer, Shonda Rhimes.

“Shonda has no patience for that kind of behavior.”

The Radar piece—which went up early Thursday morning—goes even further, alleging that Dempsey’s started sleeping with this unnamed young woman since August and that even after she was fired, it affected his work performance. (Dempsey denied all the claims to Radar through his rep.)

“It was obvious to everyone Patrick was [sleeping with] her,” the insider told Radar. “It got very messy and emotional on set and became a huge liability.”

“Patrick would remain in his trailer after hooking up with her on set and refuse to come out,” the source claimed. “He had also been complaining about the storyline of his character, and felt he wasn’t getting enough screen time.”

Amid the drama, Dempsey was “suspended” for a while, according to the source, and the female staffer was allegedly moved off set to Rhimes’ production offices.

In an interview with EW conducted before the episode showing Derek’s death aired, Dempsey was... vague about how the plot twist had come about, though he did claim that he was on good terms with both Rhimes and Pompeo:

You signed a two-year deal last year that would keep you on the show through season 12. So…?

Yes. You’re right. (Pause) It just sort of evolved. It just kind of happened. [Being written off] was something that was kind of surprising and uh, just naturally came to be. I like the way it has all played out.

And more:

When did you find out that your character would be written off?

Things happened very quickly, where we were like, Oh this is where it’s going to go. It just sort of unfolded in a very organic way. I don’t remember the date. It was not in the fall. February or March. It happened very quickly.

Rumors involving the demise of Dempsey’s marriage have been circulating for some time now, before this latest gossip (Update: which was anonymously confirmed by someone apparently in the know in the comments of this post). His wife, Jillian Fink, filed for divorce in January, hiring famed Hollywood divorce attorney Laura Wasser. Now, with this article being pulled, it looks like Dempsey’s throwing his legal weight around as well. Update II: InTouch’s editor, David Perel, told Jezebel that the piece “was never supposed to be posted and went up by mistake,” clarifying that they haven’t been threatened with legal action from Dempsey, but that it’s merely their editorial strategy to hold some magazine stories from online publication.

Images via InTouch Weekly

Contact the author at dries@jezebel.com.

Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands—both territories of the United States—are bracing for a punch from a strengthening typhoon in the western Pacific. The National Weather Service issued a sobering statement that “devastating damage is likely” as the typhoon passes very close to the islands on Friday.

Typhoon Dolphin isn’t a classically beautiful typhoon on satellite imagery, but what it lacks in appearances it more than makes up for in fury. The latest advisory from the National Weather Service in Guam shows that Dolphin has sustained winds of 110 MPH, and it should strengthen to category three status before it begins impacting the islands.

The forecast above shows Dolphin’s predicted path and wind field over the next couple of days as it moves through the region. The red shading indicates typhoon-strength winds (74+ MPH), with the worst winds and surge expected in the right-front quadrant of the eyewall, which would be just north of Rota if this forecast verifies.

Any leftward wobble in Dolphin’s forward motion from its forecast track would produce much more dire conditions in both Guam and Rota, which are home to a little more than 150,000 and 2,000 people, respectively. Forecasters at NWS Guam released a strongly-worded statement ahead of the typhoon, which is eerily reminiscent of the “Katrina Bulletin” issued by NWS New Orleans in the hours leading up to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall.

In addition to destructive winds and the potential for flash flooding, a three- to five-foot storm surge is possible in Guam during high tide. Most schools on Guam are closed in advance of the typhoon, and the government will open storm shelters for people to ride out the storm in a safe location.

The weather in Guam and Rota, like most tropical locations around the world, is remarkably stable, with constant temperatures and humidity levels throughout the year. Temperatures dipping five degrees below normal is a big deal—the average low in Guam’s capital of Hagåtña, is about 76°F, and the lowest temperature ever recorded in the city is 65°F. The only real variations in weather they have to worry about are tropical cyclones like Dolphin.

Tropical storms and typhoons can threaten Guam all year, but because of its small size, it rarely ever takes a direct hit from the eye of a storm. The last storm to make a direct landfall on Guam was Typhoon Pongsona in December 2002, which produced sustained winds of 145 MPH with higher gusts. The damage left behind in the hardest-hit areas was like what one would find in an EF-3 tornado.

Dolphin will continue to strengthen once it passes through the U.S. territories, and the National Weather Service expects it to grow into a powerful category four with winds approaching 140 MPH as it recurves to the north and then northeast, mostly out into open waters.

[Images: NOAA, NWS Guam]

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As if the indignity of riding discount transportation to Boston wasn’t enough on its own, passengers of a Bolt Bus were forced to evacuate Monday evening as their chariot burst into flames. When one passenger emailed to complain about the incident, a representative asked her to join the company’s loyalty program so that she could receive “a couple of round trips” in exchange for her troubles.

Before we go any further, here’s video of a blast that dismantled several of the bus’s windows as it sat pulled over on the Mass. Pike in Newton. No injuries were reported.

Bolt bus explodes on the Mass Pike eastbound in the West Newton section of Newton #wcvb pic.twitter.com/oRXWcRjgZG

May 11, 2015

According to police, the fire began in the engine. A passenger named Ariel Shapiro told Gothamist that the bus had already made one unscheduled stop in Connecticut before the fire began, and that when she asked the driver why, the driver answered that “her hand had been on the emergency brake the whole time” she was driving. It’s unclear whether the driver meant that the brake had actually been engaged.

In any case, the driver pulled over again and began the evacuation at around 5 p.m., just as passengers were beginning to notice that their bus was on fire.

Shapiro emailed Bolt Bus asking for answers and provided Gothamist with operations director Bill Revere’s response. It reads in part:

I checked to see if you are a loyalty member and I did not see your name on the list. If you like, you can join our reward program and I would like to offer you a couple of round trips.

Please let me know if you join and again I’m very sorry you had to experience that incident yesterday and glad you are safe.

We’re sorry your Bolt Bus exploded. As an apology, take a few free rides on the Bolt Bus. But first, there’s some paperwork we’d like you to fill out.

Screengrab via @russnelligan. Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Sometime after becoming pregnant with her third child, Kristin Cavallari posed for a photo shoot. The resulting images were posted to the Instagram account of “DISfunksion magazine” this week, which is, to the best of our knowledge, some kind of publication.

According to its website, DISfunksion is “a dynamic movement designed to exhort every woman under the sun to experience the highest standard of living, ultimately leading to the exploration and re-discovery of unceasing gratitude, love for the self and others, peace, truth, patience, service, sisterhood, and the evolution of character.”

The photos are some kind of something.

Kristin posted this additional image to her own Instagram account:

She wrote in the caption, “Just wrapped an awesome shoot for @disfunksionmag.” Kristin’s debut book—the book that was promised to us—is due out in 391 days.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

Deadspin Something Happened With Floyd Mayweather’s Crew At The Warriors Game | Gizmodo The Most Extreme Body Hacks That Actually Change Your Physical Abilities | io9 Rick And Morty Kill The Simpsons In This Hilariously Gruesome Couch Gag | Jezebel Show Us Your Grimmest Sexts |

Today I turned 27. I was wished a happy birthday by my parents, my boyfriend, my co-workers, several dozen Facebook friends, and approximately four people on Twitter. I was also wished a happy birthday by Nelnet, a student loan firm contracted by the federal government, to which I currently owe $19,008.13.

Here is the very cheerful note I received in my inbox today from Nelnet, which, CEO Jeff Noordhoek told shareholders at a meeting today, is sitting on a “huge cash position that is growing”:

The year ahead will be a very wonderful one for Nelnet because they will extract thousands of dollars from me. If I were to have the worst year ever—a tragic perishing—Nelnet would still have a wonderful year because my family would be on the hook for the money I owe them. Wishing me a wonderful year ahead is easy for Nelnet, because there is no scenario in which our personal relationship does not result in a wonderful year for them.

But, personally, my year will be worse because I have to pay Nelnet thousands of dollars. This is not Nelnet’s fault, of course, and in the grand scheme of student loans my fate is far better than many others. But does Nelnet need to throw themselves in my face on my birthday to remind me that I owe them thousands upon thousands of dollars? They don’t! My birthday would have been slightly better had I not had to think about Nelnet or my student loans at all.

I have no desire to cultivate a relationship with my student loan creditors. The student loan creditors surely know this, and yet. The student loan creditors will surely not stop sending shitty, cloying emails such as this one, so perhaps a law should be enacted against them.

Very little has been done by the federal government to alleviate the financial pressure of student loans, so at least let us have peace of mind on our birthdays.

A Kennesaw State University student posted a video Thursday of an attempt to meet with his academic advisor about his major and graduation requirements. He never got the meeting, because the school’s director of advising called security on him for “harassing” her by “sitting here until someone is available.”

Kevin Bruce, an exercise science major, has apparently been trying since at least last year to get answers from the woman in the video, Abby Dawson, about which classes he should take—as evidenced by the email exchanges he posted on Twitter—and his efforts to meet with her in person this week weren’t any more successful.

Since Bruce’s video started spreading, turning #ItsBiggerThanKSU into a trending topic and making the local news, other students have come forward with stories about their advisor’s failure to actually advise.

Bruce, who is black, has made it clear that he doesn’t feel there’s a racial issue at play here, just an across-the-board failure to meet students’ needs:

Guys It's not a racial issue . Every Race has this problem .

May 14, 2015

Vocativ points out that only 15 percent of students at Kennesaw State graduate in four years, citing U.S. News & World Report. It’s probably an oversimplification to pin that statistic on poor academic advising, but students are less likely to graduate on time when they can’t get answers about which classes count toward your major.

Kennesaw State responded on Twitter, acknowledging they’d seen the video and received Bruce’s formal complaint:

We are aware of the video and situation. Thanks for sharing your concern with us. A formal complaint process has begun.

May 14, 2015

[h/t Complex]

Sometimes your worst self...is your best self. We get the world the deserve. This girl’s gone missing, and nobody cares. Eat my knife, wood. This is True Detective Season 2, and clues are piling up, the tension is mounting, and the detectives are getting truer. Are you ready? Are you? Ready?

Who can forget the tightly coiled erotic thrill we all felt as creator Nic Pizzolato teased us with each of True Detective Season 1’s episodes? Would Matthew McConaughey be the true detective? Or Woody Harrelson? Shea Whigham? Upon the release of the first trailer for the laid-back Cali-style new installment of HBO’s noirish hit, we asked: Who will be the true detective this time around? Today saw the release of a new trailer, and while nothing is certain, it may provide a few hints about the identity of true detective, Season 2.

Rachel McAdams

After a relatively weak showing last time around, McAdams comes out looking surprisingly true in trailer two. In the clip’s most memorable scene, she wields a hunting knife, giving a few precise jabs into the air before lodging her blade violently into a mysterious block of wood. Human versus plant. Control versus chaos. Rachel McAdams’ higher brain versus the deeper, more animalistic portions of Rachel McAdams’ brain. These are the dualities at the heart of True Detective, and Rachel McAdams is looking fitter than ever to explore them.

Odds of becoming the true detective: 11:10

Colin Farrell

This bolo tie-wearing motherfucker was an easy early favorite for a number of reasons, not least of which was the bolo tie. His stock still looks good: witness the bloody knuckles he’s sporting and the sub-Rust Cohle philosophizing that makes up his only dialogue. But while Farrell wears the residue of violence on his hands, he never engages in any honest-to-god shitkicking. Violence is virility, and virility is the truest essence of detective. If Colin Farrell is truly true, he’d do well to start throwing some punches.

Odds of becoming the true detective: 6:5

Vince Vaughn

Vince, buddy. Come on. Vinny. Vinnaaaay! That skeptical eyebrow-raised look you’re serving up to the tough guy across the table from you—that’s the exact look I have on my face right now as I sit here, thinking about you becoming the true detective. A pinstriped shirt? Come on, Vince. Are you wearing a watch? Vince. Vaughn, baby. Vincey Vaughn. Vincey Vincey Vaughn boy. Come on, Vince. It’s over.

Odds of becoming the true detective: 10:1

Who is Taylor Kitsch? After two trailers, I’m still not sure. Maybe Taylor Kitsch is a small wooden statue, standing in front of a small wooden box. If so, he’s got more true detective potential than we initially gave him credit for. Does the statue, slightly battered, signify childlike innocence lost? Or are the vague occult vibes it’s giving off a stand-in for the dark and terrifying power of the primitive—of nature itself? Is man destined to spend his time on this earth in perpetual, humiliating conflict with forces he will never begin to understand? Tune in June 21 to find out.

Odds of becoming the true detective: 3:1

Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Cops say a man can’t stop trying to kill his wives—and they can’t stop marrying him!

Lonnie L. Kocontes, 57, was already reportedly behind bars for ordering the death of one ex-wife when he tried to order a hit on a second, cops say. Via the NYDN:

Investigators believe Kocontes strangled his on-again, off-again wife fatally and then tossed her overboard from the MS Island Escape the night after they toured Messina on the Sicilian coast. Her body appeared two days later, floating in the waters near Paola, prosecutors say.

Kocontes attempted to hire the inmates to convince his ex-wife to say she told the truth in front of a 2006 federal grand jury but switched her story after county prosecutors pressured her to lie in 2013, according to the D.A. He allegedly promised them a bigger payday if they killed her after she signed the document.

But one of the inmates’ attorneys later alerted law enforcement officials to the plan, the officials say.

He’s facing an additional 11 years for his failed attempt at his failed annulment, prosecutors say. Ladies stop marrying this man!!!!

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

Sexting is embarrassing and regrettable and bad, and none of us can stop doing it. That’s the conclusion, anyway, that we can draw from the news of a married Missouri Republican sending emoji-filled sexts to an intern. Or married Democrat Anthony Weiner doing the same thing. Or Ben Stein. Or an anesthesiologist who was in surgery at the time. Everyone, basically. God, everyone is so damn dumb.

So with the stipulation that the entire world is sexting, and all of it is at least mildly embarrassing — in hindsight, when the heat of passion has cooled, or sometimes immediately after you hit send — we want to see your worst. Show us your grimmest sexts: the strangled metaphors, the failed attempts at dirty talk, the humiliating time you went there and the other person... did not go for it. The grimness could originate from you, from your sexting partner, or both; we want to see them all. One Jezebel staffer, for example, is very bad at sexting, and so she tends to opt for what she calls the Socratic method: “What would you like to do?” “Could you explain more?” “Where would you like me to be?” “Ah, and then what?” Hot.

A few conditions: you can email these to us or leave them in the comments, but you gotta crop out everyone’s name. (If you’re technologically challenged, just type out the text and send that, instead of a screenshot.) Also, don’t send us photos of someone else’s genitals. Or your own genitals. No genitals, guys. We’re not out to embarrass anybody; we just want to share in a collective cringe. We’ll publish the results in a follow-up post, but we won’t use your name, your commenter name, or any other identifying information.

Happy grim sexting, and may God help us all.

Image via NBC

Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com.
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PGP fingerprint: 67B5 5767 9D6F 652E 8EFD 76F5 3CF0 DAF2 79E5 1FB6

At least three adults and one child were killed Thursday in what police are calling a suspicious blaze that erupted just blocks from Joe Biden’s home.

According to Fox DC, the fire broke out around 1:30 p.m. and quickly consumed the second floor and attic of the home. A blue Porsche was reportedly seen fleeing the scene. Via the Daily Mail:

Fire fighters were called to the blaze at 3pm to find smoke and fire billowing into the sky. Within minutes, homicide detectives and secret service officers were called to the scene and taped off the street.

A friend of the cleaners, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told NBC News she was certain one of the housekeepers was inside at the time of the fire. Local Fox News is also reporting that a maid was killed in the fire.

And a neighbor, who was known the family for years, said she saw the ‘lady of the house’ and ‘the cleaner’ being placed in ambulances.

According to reports, the home was owned by Savvas Savopoulos, the president and CEO of American Iron Works.

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.