MONDAY, JULY 11
Welcome back to One Day at a Time, dears—where we tirelessly bring you the finest gossip featuring the most famous celebs! But sometimes we end up with Chewbacca Mom. Sorry. A long time ago, Candace Payne of Grand Prairie, Texas, became a “celebrity” by putting on a plastic Chewbacca mask, laughing herself silly, filming it, and putting it on Facebook. That was all she did. But “Chewbacca Mom” became instantly famous, appearing on talk shows (?), snagging $420,000 in free gifts (??), and singing the national anthem for the Houston Astros (???). “And so it came to pass,” wrote the New York Times, “that Chewbacca Mom stepped gingerly into the public debate over race, guns, and the police.” Oh no. Oh… no. Following the Dallas shootings, as “protests continued in many cities, Ms. Payne—without her mask—went live on Facebook on Saturday with a solo rendition of Michael Jackson’s ‘Heal the World,’” continued the Times, using the same tone of voice your father used when telling you that your beloved childhood dog had been splattered by a car. “I’ve found myself the last couple days being silent because I’ve been so sad and so hurt by what’s going on,” Chewbacca Mom said in her new video. Yes… and? “I wanted to just share,” Chewbacca Mom continued, “my own arrangement of a song I came across that has really meant something amazing to me.” And then Chewbacca Mom plinked away on her piano and warbled MJ’s worst song (yes, even worse than “The Girl Is Mine”). We will say this: In a dark time when mass shootings, terrorist attacks, police murders, and government coups keep happening, Chewbacca Mom gurgling “Heal the World” really puts things in perspective. Because it is worse than all of those things.
TUESDAY, JULY 12
Okay, so maybe we’ve been a teensy bit obsessed with the burgeoning relationship between Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston—who appear to be deeply in love forevermore. (Goddammit Taylor! You knew being deeply in love forevermore with T. Hidds was our plan! OUR PLAN, YOU DREAM-KILLING MONST—ahem. Sorry.) But ooh—what’s this? “The Hiddleswift conspiracy theory”? It goes something like this: Tay-Tay and Hiddles are too happy together—and thus, clearly, must be faking it! Earlier this month, “Swift was photographed running into the awaiting arms of her British beau on her Rhode Island beach property,” MTV reports, while Hiddles wore “an ‘I T.S. tank top and a temporary heart tattoo (with a ‘T’ in the middle!) on his biceps.” That over-the-top demonstration of “love” raised suspicions that this was all a bit much—and MTV found a vast trove of tweets from “Hiddleswift truthers” (Hiddleswift truthers!) who believe the romance is an elaborate publicity stunt for Taylor’s upcoming album! Hmm. Now, we’re no Veronica Mars, and aligning ourselves with truthers of any sort is deeply unpleasant. And yet… the promise of finding out Tay-Tay and T. Hidds are just kidding, and that T. Hidds might still show up outside our house wearing an “I A.R.” tank top… well, the dream is too beautiful. Too, too beautiful. We know this conspiracy theory is a very thin thread to cling to. This is us, clinging with all our might.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 13
In news that can only be summed up with “LOL,” looks like there’ll be a few empty seats at Donald Trump’s upcoming Republican Convention in Cleveland—because droves of Republicans are making up excuses to skip it! In light of Trump securing the nomination, “More than a dozen senators suddenly have scheduling conflicts for an event that has been on the political calendar for more than a year,” reports the Times, noting Senator Steve Daines will be “fly fishing,” Senator John McCain will be at the Grand Canyon, and Senator Jeff Flake will be busy “mowing [his] lawn.” Senator Lisa Murkowski “will be almost 4,000 miles away in Alaska flying around remote areas of her state on a bush plane,” Senators Lindsey Graham and Dean Heller “say they just want to reconnect with constituents,” and Senator Rob Portman—who represents Ohio, and therefore has to work hard to avoid a convention in Ohio—will be busy with “volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity.” The morally bankrupt GOP rarely displays it, dears, so take a good look: This is what shame looks like.
THURSDAY, JULY 14
Apparently we can’t go a single week without innocent people dying for literally no reason. Today in Nice, France, a Bastille Day fireworks celebration turned tragic when a 31-year-old Tunisian native used a rented refrigerated truck (and of course, guns) to careen through the crowd killing 84 people and injuring 202. The perpetrator (who will remain unnamed here, because FUCK HIM) was eventually stopped and killed during a gunfight with police. According to the New York Times, at least 10 of the dead were teens or children, and this incident marks the “third major terrorist assault in 19 months to strike France” which had ended the lives of 147 people. Don’t forget; it’s just Thursday. Plenty of time to squeeze in a bit more terror before the week ends.
FRIDAY, JULY 15
Well, there’s at least one person who doesn’t believe all those Hiddleswift conspiracy theories—the “Hiddle” in Hiddleswift, Tom Hiddleston! When asked by The Hollywood Reporter if his relationship with Taylor Swift was actually just a ridiculous scam cooked up to promote their careers, Hiddleston shockingly replied, “No.” “The truth is that Taylor Swift and I are together, and we’re very happy,” he told the Reporter. “Thanks for asking.” Waaaaitasecond… was Tom really thankful—or is this yet ANOTHER conniving pack of lies he constructed with Taylor Swift? You can’t hide forever, Tom! We WILL learn the truth—even if we have to kiss you all over your gorgeous face and marry you and have your little British babies to do it!
SATURDAY, JULY 16
And, as predicted, the terror continues: Today a mentally deranged black separatist (who shall remain unnamed, because FUCK HIM) ambushed and killed three police officers after they were lured to a shopping center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. While the attack was probably a response to the recent police shootings of black people across the nation, one of the officers this assassin murdered was black as well—Officer Montrell Jackson. Just nine days before, following the murders of five Dallas police officers, Jackson wrote the following on Facebook: “I swear to God I love this city but I wonder if this city loves me,” he wrote. “In uniform I get nasty hateful looks and out of uniform some consider me a threat.” He then added, “Please don’t let hate infect your heart. This city MUST and WILL get better.” Jackson had much to look forward to—he and his wife had a baby in March.
SUNDAY, JULY 17
Forget Hiddleswift! Kim Kardashian just dropped a 30-megaton SHADE bomb on Taylor Swift. As you may remember, Kim’s hubby Kanye West penned these memorable words about Taylor on his hit song, “Famous”: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/I made that bitch famous.” Kanye claims he got Tay-Tay’s permission for the diss, but Taylor screamed she would never agree to such a misogynistic phrase. Unfortunately for Taylor, Kanye recorded the entire conversation, which was leaked tonight by naughty Kim on her Snapchat account. The recordings not only seemingly prove that Taylor gave her permission for the lyrics (and then lied about it), but also appear to back up the claims of other celebs (such as Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj) that TSwift is actually a conniving schemer pretending to be a “good girl.” In response, the entirety of the internet squealed, “OoooooOOOOoooooh!” and immediately went into meltdown mode. Here’s what happened next: Taylor immediately strikes back on Instagram, claiming she never approved the “bitch” line—which is true, the clips don’t show that—and that Kim’s post verges on “character assassination.” The internet doesn’t care, deciding to hate her even more. SwiftSquad™ member Selena Gomez tries to defend her friend (very poorly) on Twitter and gets buried beneath a hate avalanche for her trouble. Former friend and now rival Katy Perry tweets “Haha” about Kim’s takedown of Taylor—before quickly deleting it. Later on Twitter, actress Chloe Grace Moretz wags her finger at Kim, and gets attacked by sis Khloe Kardashian who responded by posting a NSFW pic of what she thought was Chloe’s butthole—though it turned out to be someone else’s butthole entirely. (WHAT?) And just in case you thought this ridiculous situation couldn’t get any more ridiculous, Justin Bieber pops in with a weird Instagram video in which he wears Harry Potter-style glasses and creepily whispers to the camera, “Less hate, more love.” But it was sultry singer Adele who ended the night with the perfect response to this war of the mega-celebs: “While the pair of bitches fight, I’ll go to eat some delicious tacos.” And with that, the bloodshed came to an abrupt halt, and it was Adele who walked away with the internet. Wonder who’ll win it next week?