Welcome back to Midweek Madness, in which in which we venture through the hellish landscape contained within the pages of Star, Us Weekly, OK!, Life & Style and InTouch, like the last remaining survivors of a cataclysmic event. This week: Amal Alamuddin AND George Clooney are pregnant; North West's diaper cream costs $2,000 a jar; and InTouch ran an article about Robin Williams entitled "He Could Have Been SAVED." Let's pick through the rubble.
OK!
10 LBS IN 10 DAYS!
Jennifer Aniston lost 10 pounds in 10 days, in preparation for her wedding, probably. What follows are some of the most depressing sentences I've ever read: "It's easy to see why she associates slenderness with success"; "Jen is a bit more fun when she's willing to loosen the reins and indulge in a late-night slice of pizza"; "She has a lot of goals that she wants to achieve, and the biggeset [sic] one is getting slim." HELP US ALL. In other weight loss news ( :( ), Jessica Simpson, whom tabloids just finished criticizing for being Not Thin Enough, is now "taking her workouts too far." Says a source, "She has such broad shoulders, with a tiny waist and enormous legs. Her body is starting to look unfeminine." OH, NO. CORPOREAL BLASPHEMY. So, as a "joke," her husband told that she looks like "a running back." "The comment didn't go over well, but everyone is hoping that he was able to get his point across," says the mag. Yes, every person has their hands clasped together in prayer, hoping that Jessica Simpson's husband's criticism of her body will successfully encourage her to attain the specific body type that OK! has arbitrarily deemed appropriate for her. Moving on: Prince Harry is dating a "Kate Middleton lookalike," which in this case means "a rich white woman with brown hair who once wore a baseball cap similar to a baseball cap Kate has worn." K. Aaaand, finally, Katy Perry is talking to a psychic a lot because she's stressed about turning 30. The psychic came recommended from Taylor Swift. This story is the only part of this week's OK! that didn't make me feel like retreating into the cold embrace of the sewer and forsaking human life.
GRADE: F (all life is swallowed by the sea; our orca overlords do not take kindly to us after watching Blackfish)
InTouch
HE COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED
InTouch has followed last week's despicable Robin Williams cover story with more of the same fare: in an article entitled "HE COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED," they interview a psychiatrist who has never treated Williams about depression treatments that "could have made the difference," as though his family could have done more to prevent his tragic death from happening. Horrible. Elsewhere in the magazine, the editors chose to run a photo of Jessica Alba's skirt blowing up in the wind, revealing her underwear; they essentially used Kim Kardashian Hollywood as a source while claiming that Kim is firing Kris Jenner ("Kris is nowhere to be seen in Kim's megahit app"), which is not so much gross, like everything else contained in these pages, as it is really lazy; and they printed an article called "Tom & Rita's Marriage Shocker: SECRET SPLIT," about how Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson are still married and not breaking up. But Tom and Rita did spend time apart while he was filming a movie. Uhhh. Okay. And, capping off this week's atrocious content, there's a two-page spread of "celebrity boob blunders" in which both Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian were shamed for "sagging sideboob" and Rihanna's famous see-through dress was ERRONEOUSLY treated as a fashion mishap. Uuuuuugggggh.
GRADE: F—- (after the Rapture, the last remaining humans are forced to live in Lucifer's rectum)
Life & Style
GEORGE & AMAL PREGNANT!
George and Amal are pregnant! Both of them! Congrats to George and Amal! We know they are pregnant because one time Amal wore a maxi dress with an empire waist, the sort of loose garment optical for annotating with arrows that say "She's showing a bump!" Also, one time at dinner, George "gently caressed her stomach more than once — sweetly protective of their potential future together." In hell, every book is just filled with that sentence over and over. In other news, Jennifer Aniston suspects that Justin Theroux is cheating on her with Liv Tyler, his co-star in The Leftovers. Most of this story is based off of the time Liv Tyler went on a talk show and talked about Justin Theroux's penis. Some of it is based off her Instagram. 'Kay. Moving on: Cameron Diaz met Benji Madden's family. Reports Life & Style, "They were eating lots of crabs together. Everyone seemed so happy!" A veritable domestic paradise. And, finally, here's some stuff about Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey's rumored divorce: they didn't trust each other! They disagreed about how to raise their kids! She resents his professional success as the host of America's Got Talent! The end.
GRADE: D- (The Hunger Games meets The Bachelor)
Star
BILLION DOLLAR BABIES
North West and Prince George are extremely rich and glamorous babies. However, North West is more glamorous. Whereas George wears "a lot of overalls well-suited to a rowdy toddler," North has $1 million worth of designer clothing and $1 million in jewels, as every baby should. George, baby-owner of two castles, has better real estate, though. But North gets nicer cream rubbed onto her butt, which is the criterion that matters most in the Luxurious Baby Contest: a source says that Kim uses Crème de La Mer, which costs $2,000 a jar, in place of diaper cream. In other news, Star is claiming that Taylor Swift fastidiously kept a little black book containing top-secret information about her ex-boyfriends. It is almost certainly made up, but Star alleges that Jake Gyllenhaal is "shy in bed" and has sweaty palms, whereas John Mayer gets a 10 out of 10 at intercourse. Which is how we know it's a lie. Moving on: we're treated to the illustrious history of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Martin as a couple: they met while he was writing a song for the Hunger Games, and then he invited her to an afterparty in London, and then they started flirting, and now they are consciously coupled. As part of their newfound steamy romance, they spend time in a "superprivate love nest in L.A.," eating pizza together and then also going to the love nest's private gym ("Chris wants to be in the best shape of his life for Jennifer"). When they exit the love nest, they either do so in disguise or "hiding under blankets in the back of SUVs." Sounds fun.
GRADE: D (The Beliebers finally succeed in taking over)
Us Weekly
MELTDOWNS IN PARADISE
There is a reality TV program currently on air called "Bachelor in Paradise" in which several melodramatic humans are forced to make out in a lukewarm hot tub for a cash prize; this week, Us Weekly has published a four-page summary of an upcoming episode. There will be drama — a "catfight in paradise" is described in shockingly boring detail. Be sure to catch it on August 25!!!! Elsewhere in the mag, Daniel Radcliffe did a "25 Things You Didn't Know About Me." Some highlights: "I will probably see Fifty Shades of Grey. It looks pretty sexy." and "I'm able to do weird things with my tongue." Very good facts. Moving on: there's an article about Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Martin that contains nothing of interest, really, except for the horrible fact that their couple hashtag is #MartinLawrence. Very sad news. Also, a diagram of the ways in which Gwyneth Paltrow (kale) and Jennifer Lawrence (pizza) are UNALIKE (Fig. 1). Nothing else is even slightly interesting in all these pages: there's an article about the latest Duggar to get engaged (yawn) and some photographs of celebrities doing the ALS ice bucket challenge, for anyone who is incapable of accessing the Internet, I guess.
GRADE: F (after the singularity occurs, we all absorb the minds and opinions of MRA Twitter trolls into the universal consciousness and thus burn all civilization to the ground)
Addendum
Fig. 1, Us Weekly.