A new book released Tuesday dishes on the supposed icy relationship between Melania Trump and her stepdaughter Ivanka, fuel for gossips eager to speculate about first family rivalries.
Author Stephanie Winston Wolkoff says she was once a friend of the president's third wife, also acting as an advisor until 2018 when she fell out of favor after reporting revealed colossal spending on Donald Trump's inauguration, which she played a key role in organizing.
In picture: Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and her husband on the left pictured at a 2008 fundraiser gala with the Donald Trump and Melania Trump/AFP
Anecdotes fill the 351-page book "Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship With the First Lady," purporting to lift the veil off the ex-model of Slovenian origin.
Often portrayed as enigmatic, Melania's pouty pursed lips are dissected on social media and at one point the slogan #FreeMelania painted her as the victim of a difficult husband.
Winston Wolkoff, a former Vogue events organizer, describes a much more aggressive figure, notably detailing how she and Melania choreographed every minute detail of the inauguration, and prevented Ivanka from appearing in key photos of the ceremony.
In picture: Melania Trump with President Trump taking the oath of office on Inauguration Day/AFP
The 50-year-old first lady allegedly nicknamed her 38-year-old daughter-in-law "princess," calling her and her husband Jared Kushner "snakes."
The book also leads readers to believe that Melania, who caused a stir in 2018 after wearing a jacket with the message "I really don't care, do u?" scrawled on the back to visit a child migrant detention center, might influence certain White House decisions.
Cinderella rivalry?
In a television interview on Monday, Winston Wolkoff criticised the first lady for not defending her against the accusations of overspending on the inauguration, adding she's working with federal investigators to scrutinize what happened.
The first lady's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham has dubbed the book "wildly self-aggrandizing" revenge from a woman who joined the ranks of the president's enemies.
But as campaign season heats up, the book appears a likely hit.
Its release comes days after Melania and Ivanka exchanged what appeared to be an icy stare at the Republican Convention where the president formally accepted the nomination to run for a second term.
It's one of many "tell-alls" about the Trump family: the president's niece recently held the spotlight after publishing a book lambasting her uncle's character.
On Tuesday "Melania and Me" was in fourth place in Amazon's top sellers, behind a new investigation by a New York Times journalist into members of the White House who resist Trump, and a book set for publication September 8 by Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and fixer currently serving a prison term.
Americans "want to know about their First lady and, since Melania is someone who is really guarded, they want to hear more," said Katherine Jellison, a historian at Ohio University.
"A strained relationship between stepmother and stepdaughter is very much entrenched in the public's mind... it goes back all the way to Cinderella."
HELL COMES TO YOUR HOUSE: There’s a new split-release coming out this Friday between Athens musician Daniel Shroyer (Mandible Rider, Shadebeast) and his project Ixian and Gulfport, MS one-man master blaster Boiled Tongue. Shroyer is already known for his forays into extreme music, but this is an artistic and intellectual step outside his traditional comfort zone. His tracks are interesting in that their front-facing futurism (heavily programmed electronics, digitally distorted vocals, synthesizers, etc.) is all composed of readily recognizable elements, thus rendering them—even in their most extreme instances—as something oddly comforting. Nostalgia isn’t exactly the right word to use here, but there is a sense that this contemporary glance at the world was well counseled by historic imaginations of what a dystopian onset might sound like. Boiled Tongue contributed a completely unreasonable 38 tracks to this split. If it weren’t for the fact that I know all of this was played by one person, I’d think this was, in actuality, just one long grindcore set broken up into 20-second portions. That still might be the case, but who knows? As is generally the case with this kind of thing, no songs are particularly distinguishable, even if brief seconds of them are enjoyably rockin’. Find this beast digitally and on cassette tape beginning Sept. 4 at ixian.bandcamp.com.
KEEP FEELING FASCINATION: The new five-track EP from Christee Henry (aka Christee Imogen Henry) named Lovergirl was, according to its notes, completed in a mere three days. Longtime music fanatics will recognize decades of influences here even if, perhaps, they are unintentional. Due to the songs’ short durations—with most being under 1:30 and the opus of the bunch coming in at only 2:20—they can come off as sketches rather than fully fleshed ideas. Lyrically, they feel very complete, though, with a focus on loneliness, hope, love, etc. Opening track “Dating Profile” is the most heavily composed of the set, with a great little Saint Etienne-ish rhythm guitar and a pleasantly surprising break beat at 45 seconds in. The lightly processed vocals throughout, as well as the sing-speak vocal style, are quite reminiscent of Laurie Anderson, so there’s that, too. Overall, it’s a nice slice of light homemade New Wave with personality. Check it out over at christeedarling.bandcamp.com.
WIN SOME, LOSE SOME: I’ll be the first to admit I’ve never met Athens musician and songwriter Dylan Mobley, nor had I ever heard of his cool-named project Pet Decibel. That said, I was happy to stumble upon his work last week and noted he’s got both a new single and a new EP out within the last month. The single, a song titled “Sacrifices” but on a release named Parasitic Reciprocal, is a slow and synth-y thing with thin electronic drums and an overall minimal death-rock vibe. The EP is markedly different, though, with its mostly guitar-centered tracks. These aren’t rockers in the traditional sense and tend to skew very much toward the adult contemporary section of the record store. This tendency is most obvious on smooth songs like “Your Armament” (even with its noticeable Axl Rose vocal influence) and “In The Valley, As On The Peak.” There’s a marked 1990s alt-rock guitar rhythm going on in “Estranged,” too. I dunno. I’m kind of on the fence with this stuff because, while there are elements here that should absolutely form a solid release, they never coalesce into anything particularly remarkable. Your mileage may vary, so check it out at petdecibel.bandcamp.com.
TURN UP THE RADIO: New today is the fresh single by Seth Martin & The Dish Boys named “Just Driving Around.” It’s taken from the band’s upcoming album, Sending Out My Love, which is slated for release Oct. 30. The song is a really swell, Neil Youngish-style rocker complete with sweet soaring solos and a tinkling piano somewhere in the background. As you might imagine, it’s a literal tale of driving around by oneself, listening to the radio, switching stations, singing along, etc. Not everything has to be revolutionary to be revelatory and relatable. Sometimes a universal sentiment like this is just what we need. Stream along via sethmartinandthedishboys.bandcamp.com and all the major online services.
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SALT LAKE CITY – Foul language, egregious rumors, sexual content and cyber bullying are being portrayed on dozens of social media pages known as "tearooms," featuring Utah middle and high school students.
It was the last thing Evelina thought she would see when she was scrolling through Instagram.
“I came across a suggestion of friends and different pages to follow,” Evelina said. “I saw South Davis Junior High — it’s the junior high I went to as a child… so I clicked on it.”
She thought she would spend some time reminiscing over photos of her old stomping grounds. What she saw instead disturbed her.
“It threw me off when I came across [the posts]. I was in shock,” she said.
As she scrolled through the page, she found videos of students (who allegedly attend South Davis Junior High) kissing, rumors of sexual activity and even claims that one of the middle school students is pregnant.
“There was some bullying, the majority of it was sexual content,” Evelina continued. “For a junior high, the kids that were in the pictures and in the videos were around, I want to say, 12 or 13 years old.”
“I don’t think you would expect a 12-year-old acting out in such an inappropriate way,” she continued.
Stunned by her discovery, she had hoped this page was the only one. She decided to do a quick search of other schools in the area – typing in the schools name followed by the word ‘tea,’ that’s when the rabbit hole got deeper.
“What I saw on there was very disturbing, and not what I was expecting at all,” Evelina continued.
Evelina had found a lengthy list of so-called ‘tearooms,’ better known as gossip pages.
“I saw Roy High, I saw Woods Cross High, I saw Logan High, I saw Millcreek Junior High, there’s so many of them,” said Evelina.
Some of the profiles are set to ‘private,’ some not, but all of the pages claimed to be in search of ‘tea’ – or in other words, photos, videos, ‘news,’ gossip, or confessions.
Some of the profiles even encouraging students to “expose their peers,” through a link to a variety of third-party sites where users can write anonymous submissions.
“There was a lot of inappropriate and illegal content,” Evelina said referring to a number of sexual and drug based claims that were made by alleged student submissions.
“As soon as I saw the content, because the kids ages were so young, I reported [them] to Instagram,” Evelina said. “Some of those pages were removed, but the majority of them are still up.”
Evelina noticed many of the profiles appeared to be new, further driving her concerns.
“This is something that could spread like wildfire,” she said. “[We need to] stop them from becoming something horrible.”
FOX 13 was able to find pages for middle and high schools from Logan to St. George and Tooele to Park City.
Many school districts have not yet commented on the pages. However, those that responded said they weren’t aware of the pages, and gave assurance that they ‘do not tolerate this.’
The responding districts gave similar answers as to what can be done to get rid of these pages.
The first, once the school district is aware of the profile or post, they can ask the social media platform to remove it for “misappropriation” of copyrighted school logos, which the districts have been successful in doing so in the past.
If the logo is altered slightly, it can still be reported for trademark and copyright infringement.
If a page is operating under a given school’s name but does not feature its logos or likeness, it can still be removed if it features inappropriate content and breaches the social media platforms community guidelines.
Still, both options require that the given school district is made aware of the profile -- leaving concerned parents, like Evelina, hoping others will help clean up the ‘spilled tea.’
“We want to raise our kids to be decent human beings and we just need to protect them from such horrible content,” she said. “I think they’re young and we need to protect their innocence as much as we can, especially in today’s world.”
Parents and students are encouraged to report profiles to their schools or district, so a request can be made to have the page removed.
If the post involves cyber bullying, it can also be reported anonymously on the SafeUT phone app.
"I’ve been trying to gather the thoughts for what to say for the past few months but there’s just too much to say," the 21-year-old content creator and singer captioned a selfie she posted to her Instagram account. "I am so proud of the person I gave have become today. I am strong. My name is Trevi & I am a transgender woman. Happy Pride Month everyone."
She then took to her popular YouTube channel (Trevi has 1.4 million subscribers at the time of reporting) to talk more about her journey in an emotional video.
"I've dealt with this feeling my entire life, and I know that I'm a woman deep down," said Trevi, who first came out as gay in 2015, and in 2017, started to question her gender identity. "It's just a feeling. You know."
She continued:
"I hit a rock in my journey in 2017 when I thought I wasn’t transgender because I thought that people were pushing me to be transgender. No, I just had a lot of demons back then. A lot of eating disorder stuff, self-confidence issues. It wasn’t the time for me to come out back then. But now I'm here, and I'm transgender."
Photo by Mohssen Assanimoghaddam/picture alliance via Getty Images
It's a shame that in this big, wide internet, we don't have a single spot free from celebrities, where we, broke and unrecognizable nobodies, can guzzle down posts in willful ignorance of their existence. In an ideal world, we'd have a version of Raya, the strict dating app for the "elite," except in reverse—your relative irrelevance would be your worth. This is, of course, because celebrities have ruined just about every existing platform.
This has been true on many online platforms, but the consequences of celebrification have been crystallized by Bella Thorne recently blowing up the OnlyFans scene. In less than a week, the former Disney Channel star made $2 million on the subscription-based site for user-created adult content, setting a new record. After an allegedly misleading $200 pay-per-view image of Thorne prompted a wave of refund requests, OnlyFans prevented vendors from charging over $50 for pay-per-view content and set a $100 limit on tips last week, per theLos Angeles Times. As Rolling Stonereported, all of this—and in an already competitive scene—makes life harder for sex workers who rely on OnlyFans to make a living.
It's not just OnlyFans experiencing this phenomenon: Celebrities have come for every platform that once felt like a space for all the nobodies out there to make whatever they wanted. From YouTube to podcasts to TikTok, celebrities glommed on and brought their resources, privilege, and private access. When celebrities join a platform in droves, they crowd out all the not-yet-really-famous creators who made the platform promising in the first place.
Though YouTube was once "a place someone goes to become famous, not a place someone goes once fame has already happened to them," as Sophie Kleeman wrote for VICE last August, the 20 months prior brought YouTube content from A-list stars like "Will Smith, Jack Black, Zac Efron, Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Lopez, Alexa Chung, Jason Momoa," and even Naomi Campbell, who'd all started vlogging. Some of this is glut that people watch for its proximity to fame, but not necessarily for the quality of its content, like Paris Hilton's completely nonsensical cooking videos.
Podcasts—whose early DIY spirit made "everyone has a podcast" a common retort, as the New York Times concluded last summer—are now dominated by celebrities and major production studios. As of this writing, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd and Office Ladies with Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey are among the top 25 most popular podcasts in the United States. The chances of beating that as a random person with a microphone seem unlikely.
At this point, Instagram and Twitter are both lost causes. Celebrities are almost never good at Twitter, save for the tweets that can be meme-ified or dunked on by the superior internet brains of non-celebrities. And Instagram is a hellscape precisely because of ostentatious celebrity culture and all people who want to emulate it; no matter how weird some people might get on Finstas, it will forever be dominated by things like Khloe Kardashian's ever-evolving face.
No platform would ever ban celebrities outright, especially when users like Justin Bieber can pull in over four times more followers on Twitter than the entire population of Australia. It's nice to dream of a space unfettered by the grip of celebrity—where random creators still have a chance of making it, without the impossible-to-beat competition from actual famous people. But this is the internet, and we can't ever have nice things.
Nothing about Steven Harrington’s art makes you think of sports. Not the psychedelic-pop aesthetic with its bright, swirling colors or the cartoonish images of grinning palm trees and dancing dogs.
“It came from out of nowhere,” he said. “I was like, is this real?”
The Southern California artist and designer wasn’t the only one asking that question.
LA28 organizers put out dozens of calls, looking for help in unexpected places. They enlisted singer Billie Eilish and actress Reese Witherspoon, as well as a streetwear designer, a chef and a tattoo artist. They also recruited prominent athletes.
“Everyone is part of the L.A. story,” said Janet Evans, an executive with the organizing committee and a five-time Olympic medalist in swimming. “The best way to capture the energy of Los Angeles and the Games is through a collection of voices.”
Each collaborator was given a standard “LA28” logo and told to craft their own version of the “A.” Instead of choosing one design, organizers will use all 26, with more expected in the future.
It might not seem like a big deal — not when organizers have stadiums, arenas and an estimated $7-billion budget to worry about — but the process generated something stylized and highly individual, which makes it an oddity in an Olympic world that is usually conservative and protective of its brand.
LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman referred to nudging the International Olympic Committee “a little out of its comfort zone.” Olympic officials said they were prepared.
“We knew they were going to come up with something different,” said Nicole Hoevertsz, an IOC executive overseeing the 2028 Summer Games.
(LA28)
Paris was the first host city to create a logo, in 1924. Since then, the history of Olympic logos, or emblems, encompasses a range of styles from traditional to modern, conventional to abstract.
London stuck with a black-and-white line drawing in 1948. Helsinki shifted to a bold, blue image in 1952. Mexico City borrowed from folk art in 1968 and Munich chose spiraling geometry for the 1972 Summer Games.
L.A. organizers started pondering the logo for their Olympics and Paralympics almost two years ago. They needed something to fit a unique circumstance — the dual-award that saw Paris chosen for 2024 and L.A. agree to wait another four years. The iconography would have to emphasize the city’s diversity while also, somehow, staying fresh for eight years.
“We struggled for a while with this tension between traditional emblems in all of sports, which are static, and L.A., which is a dynamic, changing city,” Wassermann said, adding: “When you ask people what Los Angeles represents, you’ll get a lot of answers.”
A basic template that allowed for infinite interpretations seemed to fit the bill, so organizers began soliciting contributors.
The list soon grew to include famous athletes such as sprinter Allyson Felix, snowboarder Chloe Kim and gymnast Gabby Douglas. Paralympians such as long jumper Lex Gillette and sprinter Scout Bassett signed on.
Chloe Kim and teammate Arielle Gold, right, celebrate after placing first and third, respectivley, in the women's snowboard halfpipe finals at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games in 2018. (Mark Reis / Colorado Springs Gazette)
But what made the project unusual were the outsiders, an eclectic group that featured graffiti artist Chaz Bojorquez and chef Jorge “Joy” Alvarez-Tostado, the city’s renowned taquero.
Some of these creative types were just old enough to remember the 1984 Summer Games in L.A., but it wasn’t necessarily the athletic performances that stuck in their minds. They recalled the logo with its bold, red-white-and-blue stars and the ubiquitous street banners colored bright orange and purple.
“I just think the artwork spilled into Los Angeles culture in the years to follow,” Harrington said. “To this day, a lot of those graphics you still see.”
The official mascot in 1984, “Sam the Eagle,” was created by Disney and made an impression on a young Bobby Kim, who recalls: “To have this friendly, cartoon-type of a mascot for the Olympics was very ’80s and also very Hollywood and very American.”
Now known as Bobby Hundreds, the L.A. native has become successful designing graphic T-shirts and hoodies for the Hundreds streetwear brand. For the Olympic logo, he incorporated flowers and interlocking hands of various colors.
(LA28)
“What is the strength of our city?” he asked. “Everybody looks different, thinks differently, eats different food. I really wanted to reflect that.”
The artists weren’t given total freedom; they had to adhere to a set of guidelines related to size, shape and color, among other things. These restrictions weren’t a problem for Dr. Woo.
The L.A. tattoo artist has a celebrity clientele that includes Drake, Zoe Kravitz, Emilia Clarke and Miley Cyrus. Also athletes such as boxer Canelo Alvarez and basketball players Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin.
“When you’re working with people’s skin and the designs they want, obviously there is a pretty defined guideline,” Woo said. “You give me some space and tell me where I can do my thing, and I will.”
Woo created his “A” using the dark, intricate lines that distinguish his tattoos. “It’s a grid, almost like a map and a diagram to figure something out,” he said. Other artists brought their styles to bear.
Eilish went with bright green, like her dyed hair, and Bojorquez employed a typography to honor the tradition of the cholo. Harrington made use of his distinctive palm tree, with its head leaning forward.
“I wanted to represent that moment when a runner breaks through their wall,” he said. “That kind of runner I wanted to metaphorically take on the form of Los Angeles itself.”
The creative process was different for athletes, who paired with professional designers. Swimmer Simone Manuel wanted something that symbolized her life in the water and her desire to be bold and strong as a Black woman. The designer came up with a crashing wave.
Gold medalist Simone Manuel, center, with silver medalist Sarah Sjostrom, left, and bronze medalist Cate Campbell after the women's 50-meter freestyle final at the 2018 world swimming championships. (Lee Jin-man / Associated Press)
“It was really about talking a lot,” said Manual, a four-time Olympic medalist. “It was interesting to see the process unfold creatively.”
Over the next eight years, the 26 versions will be interchanged depending on circumstance and platform. They will be animated for video and digital uses and more will be added to the mix in the future.
If the results are unusual, by Olympic standards, the IOC doesn’t seem to mind.
“When we saw it, we were very impressed with the level of creativity,” Hoevertsz said. “It’s something totally different than any other Games have had before.”
Birthday wishes go out to Lily Tomlin, Gloria Estefan and all the other celebrities with birthdays today. Check out our slideshow below to see photos of famous people turning a year older on September 1st and learn an interesting fact about each of them.
Actress Lily Tomlin addresses the crowd during a Fire Drill Fridays rally protesting neighborhood oil drilling, Friday, March 6, 2020, in the Los Angeles Harbor neighborhood. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Actor Lily Tomlin turns 81
Fun fact: Has one multiple Emmy Awards over the course of her career, most recently in 2013
FILE - In this Sunday, June 25, 2017 file photo, singer Barry Gibb performs at the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, in Somerset, England. A Beatle and a Bee Gee have topped the list of celebrated people designated to receive knighthoods and other awards in the New Year’s Honors List. They are joined by a noted children’s author celebrated for “War Horse,” a politician who fought in vain to keep Britain in the European Union, and many others, including renowned researchers, volunteers and actors. (Photo by Grant Pollard/Invision/AP, File)Grant Pollard/Invision/AP
Singer Barry Gibb turns 74
Fun fact: Wrote the title song for the film version of ‘Grease’
Lili Estefan, from left, Emilio Estefan, Tommy Mottola, Thalia, and Gloria Estefan appear at a ceremony honoring Mottola with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP)Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP
Singer Gloria Estefan turns 63
Fun fact: Once appeared in an episode of ‘Frasier’
Scott Speedman, left, and Keri Russell joke at the Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony on Tuesday, May 30, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP) Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP
Actor Scott Speedman turns 45
Fun fact: Originally from London, England
More celebrities with birthdays today
Actor George Maharis is 92. Conductor Seiji Ozawa is 85. Attorney and law professor Alan Dershowitz is 82. Actor Don Stroud is 77. Conductor Leonard Slatkin is 76. Singer Archie Bell is 76. Rock musician Greg Errico is 72. Talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw is 70. Jazz musician Boney James is 59. Singer-musician Grant Lee Phillips (Grant Lee Buffalo) is 57. Country singer-songwriter Charlie Robison is 56. Rap DJ Spigg Nice (Lost Boyz) is 50. Actor Ricardo Antonio Chavira is 49. Actor Maury Sterling is 49. Rock singer JD Fortune is 47. Country singer Angaleena Presley (Pistol Annies) is 44. Actor Boyd Holbrook is 39. Actor Zoe Lister-Jones is 38. Rock musician Joe Trohman is 36. Actor Aisling Loftus is 30.
Other popular or historical birthdays on September 1st
"celebrities" - Google News
September 01, 2020 at 05:30PM
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Today’s famous birthdays list for September 1, 2020 includes celebrities Lily Tomlin, Gloria Estefan - cleveland.com
"celebrities" - Google News
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