Today (November 10), the 2024 Grammy Awards nominee nomination list was revealed. Although Taylor Swift could be on course to make history at next year’s ceremony, a few other musicians are setting records now. For example, SZA is leading the pack with a total of nine nominations, which is a show of force by R&B. Fellow R&B vocalist Victoria Monét, Phoebe Bridgers, and Serban Ghenea are in a three-way tie for second most nominated with seven each.
But Victoria Monét’s two-year-old daughter, Hazel, has adorably stolen the spotlight. Both are on the list of first-time nominees. Now, Hazel Monét holds the crown after earning a nomination in the Best Traditional R&B Performance category. Hazel’s voice appears on her mother’s song “Hollywood,” featuring Earth, Wind, And Fire. This makes her the youngest Grammy Award nominee in the show’s history.
It was a shock when LeAnn Rimes was nominated and won her first two Grammys at 14. Boy, times have changed. In 2021, Blue Ivy Carter, the talented daughter of music titans Beyonce and Jay-Z, was considered to hold the title of youngest Grammy nominee ever. At eight years old, the budding singer appeared on her mother’s song, “Brown Skin Girl” with Wizkid and Saint Jhn. When she turned nine, she was formally nominated for the track.
During an appearance on AMP Radio in September, Victoria Monét spoke about incorporating her toddler’s voice on the track. Watch the full interview below.
So, how did we get here? Below is a timeline of what happened between Palmer and Jackson.
Keke Palmer And Darius Jackson Meet
May 2021: Palmer vaguely referenced Jackson while visiting the The Terrell Showfor an episode posted to YouTube on June 1. At the 15:48-minute mark, she mentioned that Jackson would ask her to sing Whitney Houston’s “All The Man That I Need” to him, which led into Palmer discussing that she had met Jackson “very casually at a party, which is so rare.”
She continued, “Diddy was doing an Insecure afterparty with Issa Rae, and I had just done the show, and his brother worked on the show.” Per Page Six, Diddy and Issa Rae co-hosted a party during Memorial Day Weekend in 2021.
Palmer And Jackson Go Instagram Official — Sort Of
August 2021: Palmer acknowledged her 28th birthday by posting an Instagram carousel with a photo showing her kissing Jackson.
Palmer Publicly Comments
March 2022:Palmer’s first formally addressed her relationship with Jackson with Bustle. She explained why she decided to make their relationship public, saying, “I just think [this] was a moment in time in my life where I really stepped into this kind of boss behavior [of doing] whatever the hell I want to do. This is the happiest I’ve ever felt with someone. So why would I go out of my way to hide this person? That’s a lot more work than just living in my life and being in my life.”
Palmer’s Pregnancy Announcement
December 2022:Palmer didn’t want to go out of her way to hide Jackson, but she also didn’t go out of her way to share much about their relationship. It was relatively private, given her stature. But while making her hosting debut on Saturday Night Live on December 3, 2022, Palmer revealed she was pregnant with their first child.
Palmer And Jackson Welcome Their Son, Leodis
February 2023: Palmer gave birth to Leodis Andrellton Jackson on February 25, 2023. Palmer shared an Instagram carousel to announce his arrival.
Palmer’s Father’s Day Tribute
June 2023:Palmer gushed over Jackson on Father’s Day, posting a lengthy Instagram tribute.
“Happy Father’s Day to the best dad ever!(don’t tell my dad I said that),” she captioned the video. “Congrats Mr. Man, Leodis and I are so very happy to have such a fun, kind, responsible, dependable and supportive man like you in our lives. It’s so wonderful to see the kind of loving father you are, but I’m not surprised. You wanted to be a dad maybe more than I wanted to be a mother and that’s saying a lot, because I’ve ALWAYS wanted to be a mother. I love this for us, but I really love it for Leo! God bless you darling, thank you for being in our lives. WE LOVE YOU!”
Jackson Publicly Criticizes Palmer’s Outfit For Usher’s Concert
July 2023:And then, Jackson inexcusably body-shamed (and mom-shamed) Palmer when she attended Usher’s Las Vegas residency on July 4. Palmer acknowledged his since-deleted posts a few days afterward, posting a video with her son and writing in the caption about how becoming a mother “empowered” her. The post also announced shirts with “I’M A MOTHA” and “Stevie To The Bullsh*t” printed across them.
Around the same time, People exclusively reported that Jackson had “moved on.” The source relayed that Jackson and Palmer were co-parenting, noting, “You don’t have to be in the same household to be good parents.” However, 10 days later, Palmer celebrated her birthday with Jackson (as relayed by Entertainment Tonight.)
Palmer Files For Full Custody And A Restraining Order
November 2023: On Thursday, November 9, reports surfaced that Palmer was seeking full custody of her and Jackson’s son. On Friday morning, November 10, Peoplereported that Palmer had just “filed a request for a domestic violence restraining order in Los Angeles.”
The publication cited court documents in which Palmer alleged, “Darius trespassed into my home without my knowledge or consent, threatened me, then physically attacked me — lunging for my neck, striking me, throwing me over the couch, and stealing my phone when I told him I was going to call the police.”
That is said to have happened on Sunday, November 5, but the lengthy filing also cites “many instances of physical violence,” including particularly disturbing abuse captured on “home security footage” on February 13, 2022, as well as “Darius destroying my personal property, including diaries and prescription eyeglasses, throwing my belongings into the street, throwing my car keys to prevent me from driving away, hitting me in front of our son, spewing profanities about me to our son, threatening to kill himself with a gun if I left him, harassment, and other physical and emotional abuse.”
So, how did we get here? Below is a timeline of what happened between Palmer and Jackson.
Keke Palmer And Darius Jackson Meet
May 2021: Palmer vaguely referenced Jackson while visiting the The Terrell Showfor an episode posted to YouTube on June 1. At the 15:48-minute mark, she mentioned that Jackson would ask her to sing Whitney Houston’s “All The Man That I Need” to him, which led into Palmer discussing that she had met Jackson “very casually at a party, which is so rare.”
She continued, “Diddy was doing an Insecure afterparty with Issa Rae, and I had just done the show, and his brother worked on the show.” Per Page Six, Diddy and Issa Rae co-hosted a party during Memorial Day Weekend in 2021.
Palmer And Jackson Go Instagram Official — Sort Of
August 2021: Palmer acknowledged her 28th birthday by posting an Instagram carousel with a photo showing her kissing Jackson.
Palmer Publicly Comments
March 2022:Palmer’s first formally addressed her relationship with Jackson with Bustle. She explained why she decided to make their relationship public, saying, “I just think [this] was a moment in time in my life where I really stepped into this kind of boss behavior [of doing] whatever the hell I want to do. This is the happiest I’ve ever felt with someone. So why would I go out of my way to hide this person? That’s a lot more work than just living in my life and being in my life.”
Palmer’s Pregnancy Announcement
December 2022:Palmer didn’t want to go out of her way to hide Jackson, but she also didn’t go out of her way to share much about their relationship. It was relatively private, given her stature. But while making her hosting debut on Saturday Night Live on December 3, 2022, Palmer revealed she was pregnant with their first child.
Palmer And Jackson Welcome Their Son, Leodis
February 2023: Palmer gave birth to Leodis Andrellton Jackson on February 25, 2023. Palmer shared an Instagram carousel to announce his arrival.
Palmer’s Father’s Day Tribute
June 2023:Palmer gushed over Jackson on Father’s Day, posting a lengthy Instagram tribute.
“Happy Father’s Day to the best dad ever!(don’t tell my dad I said that),” she captioned the video. “Congrats Mr. Man, Leodis and I are so very happy to have such a fun, kind, responsible, dependable and supportive man like you in our lives. It’s so wonderful to see the kind of loving father you are, but I’m not surprised. You wanted to be a dad maybe more than I wanted to be a mother and that’s saying a lot, because I’ve ALWAYS wanted to be a mother. I love this for us, but I really love it for Leo! God bless you darling, thank you for being in our lives. WE LOVE YOU!”
Jackson Publicly Criticizes Palmer’s Outfit For Usher’s Concert
July 2023:And then, Jackson inexcusably body-shamed (and mom-shamed) Palmer when she attended Usher’s Las Vegas residency on July 4. Palmer acknowledged his since-deleted posts a few days afterward, posting a video with her son and writing in the caption about how becoming a mother “empowered” her. The post also announced shirts with “I’M A MOTHA” and “Stevie To The Bullsh*t” printed across them.
Around the same time, People exclusively reported that Jackson had “moved on.” The source relayed that Jackson and Palmer were co-parenting, noting, “You don’t have to be in the same household to be good parents.” However, 10 days later, Palmer celebrated her birthday with Jackson (as relayed by Entertainment Tonight.)
Palmer Files For Full Custody And A Restraining Order
November 2023: On Thursday, November 9, reports surfaced that Palmer was seeking full custody of her and Jackson’s son. On Friday morning, November 10, Peoplereported that Palmer had just “filed a request for a domestic violence restraining order in Los Angeles.”
The publication cited court documents in which Palmer alleged, “Darius trespassed into my home without my knowledge or consent, threatened me, then physically attacked me — lunging for my neck, striking me, throwing me over the couch, and stealing my phone when I told him I was going to call the police.”
That is said to have happened on Sunday, November 5, but the lengthy filing also cites “many instances of physical violence,” including particularly disturbing abuse captured on “home security footage” on February 13, 2022, as well as “Darius destroying my personal property, including diaries and prescription eyeglasses, throwing my belongings into the street, throwing my car keys to prevent me from driving away, hitting me in front of our son, spewing profanities about me to our son, threatening to kill himself with a gun if I left him, harassment, and other physical and emotional abuse.”
Today (November 10) was all about the 2024 Grammy Award nominations. However, nothing could stop Noname’s triumphant return to NPR’sTiny Desk concert series. It’s been five years since her striking first appearance. With the Sundial Tour coming to a close soon, her cameo served as a treat to longtime supporters who couldn’t snag tickets to show near their city. Noname’s latest Tiny Desk concert performance was just as radical as it was groovy, featuring guest appearances by Smino and Saba for a brief Ghetto Sage reunion.
With musicians Greg Paul (drummer), Brooke Skye (bassist), Cisco Swank (keyboardist and supporting vocalist), and David Otis (saxophonist), Noname tackled her poignant album’s standout tracks, including “Namesake” and “Hold Me Down.” Background vocalists Kamilah and Claudia Abena provided the much-needed layering to help amplify its track’s messaging.
Ayoni also made a surprise appearance during Noname’s set so that they could perform their track “Boom Boom.” Ghetto Sage reunion revealed an unreleased track titled “Kush And Love Songs.” Before she closed with “Balloons,” in which Jay Electronic is featured, Noname took a trip down memory lane. Noname couldn’t leave out her older records. Room 25′s “Don’t Forget About Me” made the final setlist as the sole older track.
Sundial is out now via Noname. Find more information here.
Today (November 10) was all about the 2024 Grammy Award nominations. However, nothing could stop Noname’s triumphant return to NPR’sTiny Desk concert series. It’s been five years since her striking first appearance. With the Sundial Tour coming to a close soon, her cameo served as a treat to longtime supporters who couldn’t snag tickets to show near their city. Noname’s latest Tiny Desk concert performance was just as radical as it was groovy, featuring guest appearances by Smino and Saba for a brief Ghetto Sage reunion.
With musicians Greg Paul (drummer), Brooke Skye (bassist), Cisco Swank (keyboardist and supporting vocalist), and David Otis (saxophonist), Noname tackled her poignant album’s standout tracks, including “Namesake” and “Hold Me Down.” Background vocalists Kamilah and Claudia Abena provided the much-needed layering to help amplify its track’s messaging.
Ayoni also made a surprise appearance during Noname’s set so that they could perform their track “Boom Boom.” Ghetto Sage reunion revealed an unreleased track titled “Kush And Love Songs.” Before she closed with “Balloons,” in which Jay Electronic is featured, Noname took a trip down memory lane. Noname couldn’t leave out her older records. Room 25′s “Don’t Forget About Me” made the final setlist as the sole older track.
Sundial is out now via Noname. Find more information here.
What makes a comedy special great? Is it something that’s of the moment like Bo Burnham’s Inside or that sparks conversation like Hannah Gadsby’s Nannette? Something confessional and intimate, like Jerrod Carmichael’s Rothaniel, or something that asks big questions while telling us a personal story like Mike Birbiglia does? Maybe it’s the latest dispatch from a legend like Jerry Seinfeld or Chris Rock.
How about replayability? I can’t put a number on how many times I’ve watched Roy Wood Jr.’s Imperfect Messenger, Taylor Tomlinson’s Quarter Life Crisis, and John Mulaney’s Kid Gorgeous At Radio City. Accessible, polished, lightly topical, fun.
Comedian and You Made It Weird podcaster Pete Holmes’ new one, I Am Not For Everyone (now streaming on Netflix), is that kind of special. A blend of dark and light, heavy and silly. Holmes reintroduces us to his goofy heart as he talks about midwestern cashier interactions, battery sex chips, YouTube choking tutorials, sex noises, and atheism. I’ve watched it three times. It is exactly what you want from him and maybe a little something you didn’t expect.
After talking with Holmes recently for a 20-minute session about the special that turned into a 45-minute conversation about religion, donkeys in hard hats, laughing at himself, and work-life balance, I can say we got the same result – exactly what we wanted and maybe a little something we didn’t expect.
I love all my comedy best friends. You are all the best, but I do appreciate a comedy special from a guy in his forties that isn’t about death and dying. I did not have an existential crisis watching this special. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Pete Holmes: (Laughs) I appreciate that. That seems a little early, right? I mean, 44. Come on.
It’s funny, I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine the other day and she was like, “Well, how often do men actually think about death?” I said, “Well, I think about it every day.”
You know, Val and I rewatch When Harry Met Sally in the fall. It helps us in the seasonless California, it’s nice to see New York and the seasons and all that. I love the part where you meet them and Sally doesn’t think about death and Harry says, “I spend days brooding on it.” That movie is a masterpiece, obviously. It’s just the kind of movie script that makes you not ever want to try to write a movie script because it’s just too good. (Editor’s note: it was written by the incomparable Nora Ephron.) But there’s no better way to introduce two characters than to see their attitude about death. I relate more to him that he thinks about death a lot and then she says, “And then you waste your whole life worrying about it,” and that’s how the scene ends and you’re like, “Wow, they’re both right.”
I think it’s deeply important. I mean, Buddhism, they say, is summarized by just remembering that everything’s impermanent. I think that’s super funny too, that we’re like ice sculptures walking around acting like we’re not ice sculptures is very funny. It’s deeply funny that we act permanent. If something eternal was watching us, they would think that’s funny. That helps me and informs my approach to comedy certainly, but then my wife is more like Sally, that she’s like, there’s a Rumi poem where it’s like, “You’re in the vineyard, stop thinking about where it came from or where it’s going and just eat some fruit, eat some fruit and relax.” So you’ve got to have both energies.
You have a lot of fun with the God bit in the special, I would say. The pushback on atheism and Ricky Gervais, which is a great impression.
(Laughs) I appreciate it. I actually really love Ricky. I mean, I think that’s clear that I’m not attacking him as much as I’m just kind of continuing the conversation.
Yeah.
I think comedy, one of the shortcomings of it, is that so many people, not just comedians, but people have been sort of burned, or hurt, or maybe betrayed by their religious past that it does come out. We love deconstruction. I actually think deconstruction is far less interesting than reconstruction, but worse than deconstruction is never deconstructing.
I actually think what Ricky does and going, “Do you really believe a talking snake gave a naked lady an apple,” is great, it’s just not the full picture. It’s like, “Yeah, let’s tear it down, but let’s also build something in its place.” There’s a Jewish teaching. It’s not in the Torah or anything, but they say, “Any old donkey can tear down a barn, but it takes a special donkey to build a barn,” which I like because I picture a hoofed animal holding a hammer. You know what I’m saying?
Yeah, I’m trying to figure out the opposable thumbs thing. Maybe it’s like a nail gun or something. Yeah, I’m just thinking of a donkey with a hard hat.
(Laughs) Yes! No, it is funny. It’s supposed to be funny. The whole thing is funny. The Jewish faith is so good at that. Don’t get me started. I think the Old Testament is being funny in ways that people just don’t appreciate, but that little maxim is a good example. It’s supposed to be funny. It’s absurd. A donkey building a barn is just as absurd as a human being building the meaning of the universe in words.
But I do think there’s an experience that is available to anybody. I am not hinting at psychedelics. I just mean the phenomenon that’s looking at your eyes right now. it couldn’t be closer. When we get involved and interested in that, it’s not just a good worldview, it’s actually like a path, I hate to say a path, but you know, a path to peace. It’s a way to experience joy and peace now.
It doesn’t matter if you even tell anybody that you’re doing it, but if you get curious about your own nature not to belong in a club, or to go to the same building every week, but because even as we’re talking now, you can remember that you are… I say this all the time, but Harry Potter and stories like that. How many fairytales does a lowly person discover that they’re of royal blood? Everybody’s journey is to recognize that you are the child, you could say, of something mysterious and infinite. We ruin it when we turn it into an old man in the sky, although that’s fine, I call that a gateway God, that’s a nice intermediary.
But when you realize that that mystery is much closer, it couldn’t be closer to you and that you can draw upon it. That’s why I think those stories are valuable, including a story that I don’t believe to be literally true about naked people in a garden, eating an apple and being naughty. I think there’s value there, and it’s way more interesting and funny and engaging. But there’s more to unpack in “What is the value of this?” Not to defend it, but to find it for yourself. (More) than there is to just go like, “Well, that’s Santa Claus.” Oh, fuck off. I hear a lot of pain in that and a lot of loneliness and a lot of angst, and that’s valid. But I do think there are pearls hiding in a lot of things that we’ve maybe even rightfully turned our back on.
I choose the idea that I don’t have any fucking clue and that I probably won’t ever know.
Yeah.
But what you’re saying makes a ton of sense. In the special, there’s a moment after when you’re talking about all of this stuff where you, I don’t want to say bail out, but you throw a joke out there of, “Let us pray.” It gets the biggest laugh for me. Was that you kind of booping yourself to change course? How did you discover that you needed that at the end?
I love that you asked that. Okay, so you have this little Ted Talk in the middle of a standup special, and you don’t want it to be sweaty and pun intended, you don’t want it to be preachy. You really don’t.
It doesn’t get to that point, but I get where you would need to wrap it right where you did.
Yes. It’s dangerous.
It is, but it shows the craft there.
That’s why I love the question because I feel like I could talk about it a lot, meaning I’ve had those ideas and then you’re like, “But I’m a comedian.” (Dave) Chappelle does this really well too. He’s an inspiration to me, obviously. That he can talk about something, but he never leaves it too long without something, a laugh, but like a surprise too… When I was doing that joke, the reason I was like, “Okay, I think it’s ready,” is when, and as silly as it sounds, I don’t think, “But that’s too many words for the back of a quarter,” is hilarious, but it’s enough grease to get it through the doorway, you know what I mean? You need a moment where we can remember it’s comedy and laugh so it’s not just this silent little one-man show and I turn and there’s a different color spotlight on me, and then everyone’s like, “What was that?”
The let’s pray moment, I’m sure the first time I did it was improvised, because I’m doing this thing and I’m going and I’m like, “What am I doing?” And then you just go, “Let’s pray,” and everyone laughs. You’re like, “Yeah, that’s also my job to introduce tension, and then it’s also my job to relieve that tension.” That felt so funny, but it also leads to my favorite line of the joke, that got snuck in the prayer, which is, “Heavenly Father, you are in fact no thing.” (Laughs) And that becomes the bow. It’s like God is nothing. God is no thing.
When you consider the Hebrew Bible doesn’t have punctuation, so if you wrote, “God is nothing,” you could either read it, God is no thing, or God is nothing. It would be the same words, it would be the same letters. That’s back to your perspective. It’s like we’re doing our best, we’re dogs trying to understand the internet, but we can get these little pointers, these little things that draw us into the experience of it, because you can’t know it, but you can be it briefly. You can be it.
You mentioned it a little bit in the special, expectations about you talking about religion, but also being a nice guy. Does that limit you because of people’s idea of who you are and how do you kind of push back on that? Again, the special is fun and you come off as a good guy, but it’s also not…
It’s not clean. (Laughs)
There are still surprises. It wasn’t what I expected going in.
Oh, I’m so happy to hear that. It’s funny, if there’s one thing, and I don’t seek out reviews or comments or anything, but the thing that I get the most, and sometimes people say it to my face too, they’re like, either they like that I laugh at my own jokes, or they’re like, “Will this idiot stop laughing at his own jokes?” It’s interesting to me. I could talk about that forever, by the way. But that likability or relatability that we’re talking about, which is something that is important to me as the medium, the way that I’m presenting it, is so crucial.
It’s not just, “Oh, I’m so funny. I couldn’t help it.” Of course, of fucking course, I could deliver these jokes dead-faced. Like Neil Brennan, one of my favorites. Neil Brennan watched my special and he gave me notes. He wanted me to cut all the moments where I stepped the joke out or I explained that I just offended myself. He was like, “You don’t have to do that. That’s like a comedy misdemeanor. Why are you doing that?” I’m like, because that’s what I do. That’s what I figured out works for me. Meaning, I don’t think a special is a collection of jokes. I think it’s a space. You go into a space like a room and you hang out there, and the jokes are an excuse to hang out in a certain space and a certain attitude.
There are jokes that make fun of “unhoused” language and it makes fun of tutorials for choking children– this is dark, dark stuff. The difference between that being palatable or not palatable is a little twinkle in your eye at the least, or a smile. Now we’re warming up, or allowing myself to remember what made me think it was funny in the first place and not restraining that and laughing.
If I were to talk to somebody that was like, “Stop laughing at your own jokes, you schmuck,” I would be like, “Go watch Dave Chappelle, the greatest comic, and tell him to stop laughing.” What are we doing?! It’s just an ingredient that some chefs choose to use. When I was starting out, Chappelle would come by the club all the time, and I was like, “This guy is fucking loving it. He’s loving himself!” And it’s a powerful thing as a theatrical device to remember that I’m not trying to make you laugh. I’m inviting you to laugh at what I like to laugh at and how better to do that in the quickest and most efficient way than to just let myself laugh?
That’s what Dave does as well. But I get grief. I don’t know. I look like a golden retriever or something. And I get it, and I don’t even fault it, but I’m also like, “Don’t [you get] that everything I’m doing up there is to delight you?” And if I thought it would delight you more to not, I would. But I’m trying to make everybody release steam that would otherwise lead to bad days and bad relationships and horrible traffic road rage. (Laughs) Let’s release it and anything I can do to make that happen, I’ll do it.
Netflix
10, 15 years on the road doing this. Obviously, your life has gone through some changes in that time — you’re married and have a younger kid now. How has life on the road evolved for you to be able to have the work/life balance?
You’re asking all my favorite questions. You really are. These are the things that I’m like, oh, I could talk for nine hours about that for my people, my tribe, comedians, but also everybody. It’s this question, which is, good life, when? Right? Good life, when? Or you could just say, “Life, when?” When are you going to do it?
How do you define it?
Yeah, just get curious about what does a good life mean to you. I know it’s dumb, but any life-coach-type person is going to tell you, the first thing you have to do is ask yourself, well, what do you want? And in my life, I’ve been very happy to find that going out once a month is… Not everybody can do that. Not everybody has a luxury of like, okay, I’m only going to go out on the road once a month. A lot of comics I know would be like, “That’s nice.” And yeah, I spent the better part of 20 years not being able to just do it once a month. You had to earn a living. Now I do it once a month, but I could also say on the other side of the issue, I know a lot of comics who don’t have to go out every weekend, and they do.
And I’ve had these debates. I love these people. I’m not thumbing my nose at them, but I’m like, at a certain point, Chappelle’s another example. When do you walk away from the thing? When do you go like, this costs too much? I always think of the Bourne movies, where Jason Bourne and the other Bourne kind of guy, they’re on the roof, and they have their guns on each other. And Jason Bourne gets the guy to not shoot him by saying, “Look at what they make us give.” I think about that all the time. Look at what they make us give. I know that’s kind of dramatic.
No, it’s an interesting question. I’d love the chance to have enough money to be able to prove my theory, which is that I would just hang out on a yacht or go anywhere that I’d want to be (if I were rich). Like with Elon Musk. I wouldn’t be injecting myself into things that make people feel bad on a social media site. It’s just weird to me.
The problem is the kind of consciousness, and I just mean human consciousness, I’m not talking about existential stuff, the consciousness that leads to success. That’s often this coyote with a knife in its teeth, restless, thin, lean, fast. That consciousness that helps you push the boulder up the hill, when you’re at the top of the hill, that level of consciousness is not changed and it cannot relax. It can’t sit on the beach. It can’t go on a yacht. It only knows blood. It only knows to kill. It only knows to conquer. It only knows to claim. So the level of where you are can’t relax when you finally get to the place where you can relax. So that’s why I think balance is something that we should all be talking about, every profession.
And when it comes to being a husband and a father, the greatest compliment that my wife gives me, and it’s not directly, is people say, “What’s it like being married to a comedian?” And she says, “Honestly, most of the time I can’t tell.” And you’d think that means I’m not funny. That’s not what she means. Val and I like each other’s senses of humor and we laugh a lot, but it’s taken a lot of deliberate choices and action to go, “Let’s get the work-life balance correct.” My daughter is five, so she now knows that I am leaving. And this was the first time. I was just in Bloomington and I FaceTimed with her, and she got sad that I wasn’t there. So she’s just getting old enough to kind of put it together, I like when dad’s here, Dad’s not here.
To that, I would say one day, I hope my daughter remembers that example and lets it inform that what she is excited about is worth sacrifice. Right? That’s a good thing. But also, we need to get those levels right when we can. And for me, living a very pretty quiet, simple, small-town life, when I get a little bit itchy, without even looking I know, “oh, I bet I have a date coming up.” I just know. I start getting a little bit like, oh, I’d like a little Indiana Jones. And then I get to go on the road, and I go with Matt McCarthy. We go to a new city, and we do shows, and I come back, and I’m good.
It’s like weaning off of a drug. I look at my comedy like a cactus. How little can I water this? (Laughs) Not, can I plant this and clone it and have a field of cactuses? And then what? You’re a guy surrounded by cactuses, and you can’t leave your house. There are cactuses fucking everywhere. And now you’re the coyote that can’t enjoy the quiet. And I think cactus, I picked that subconsciously before, but that’s the right plant. It’s beautiful. It’s nice, but it’s also prickly. So keep an eye on it. Don’t let it get too big. Don’t let your ambition get too big. Don’t let your fame and all that stuff get too big.
You saw the special. If I did that not enough, it wouldn’t be good. And believe me, a lot of specials that I see that I don’t like, I’m always like, they needed to do that bit 150 more times at least. So I can talk from that side of my mouth, but I’m also like, if I do this too much, all the fun drains out of it, and now I’m just a traveling salesman. I’m like Willie Loman opening my briefcase and screaming, “I want to buy a dildo!” It’s not fun anymore. So even that has its own microclimate of balance. And then my own life has its own climate of balance, and I’m very interested in that, clearly. (Laughs)
I’m not going to offer any context for the dildo comment. I’m just going to let that stand, let people find that out themselves. Before we close, I should say that “battery sex chips” is maybe my favorite new phrase.
Oh, buddy. You’ve dialed in exactly on the difference between doing a joke 50 times and doing it 100 times. When I watch Dirty Clean… it’s a great special, I love it, but I did it a little under the gun. It was faster than other specials I had done. And when I watch it, there are just moments where for myself, I’m like, “Oh, if I had done that joke 300 times, I know I would’ve beaten that line.”
And this one, because the pandemic broke the flow and everything, there was a silver lining there that I ended up doing these jokes so many more times. Obviously, that’s a joke about the pandemic, but then I had all this time to run, run, run, run. And those are the things that they almost do themselves, meaning I couldn’t force it. It just comes out of a moment of boredom. You’ve done it too many times, and then you just catch yourself saying it, and then you’re like, oh, that’s what the joke wanted to be the whole time. Only repetition will get you there. Again, we’re back to the balance. Not doing it enough, doing it too much, but you want to be right in the middle.
Everything else I have is crap, so it’s a really good time to stop right here.
I always get, “How tall are you?” So you did well, just for not saying, “How tall are you?”
No, I wouldn’t. I’m a tall guy too, so I know… but do you get bothered by other tall people?
Sometimes. I’m like, who do you think you are? I always say the same thing. If they’re taller than me, I go, “That’s off-putting.” (Laughs)
‘Pete Holmes: I Am Not For Everyone’ is available to stream on Netflix.
What makes a comedy special great? Is it something that’s of the moment like Bo Burnham’s Inside or that sparks conversation like Hannah Gadsby’s Nannette? Something confessional and intimate, like Jerrod Carmichael’s Rothaniel, or something that asks big questions while telling us a personal story like Mike Birbiglia does? Maybe it’s the latest dispatch from a legend like Jerry Seinfeld or Chris Rock.
How about replayability? I can’t put a number on how many times I’ve watched Roy Wood Jr.’s Imperfect Messenger, Taylor Tomlinson’s Quarter Life Crisis, and John Mulaney’s Kid Gorgeous At Radio City. Accessible, polished, lightly topical, fun.
Comedian and You Made It Weird podcaster Pete Holmes’ new one, I Am Not For Everyone (now streaming on Netflix), is that kind of special. A blend of dark and light, heavy and silly. Holmes reintroduces us to his goofy heart as he talks about midwestern cashier interactions, battery sex chips, YouTube choking tutorials, sex noises, and atheism. I’ve watched it three times. It is exactly what you want from him and maybe a little something you didn’t expect.
After talking with Holmes recently for a 20-minute session about the special that turned into a 45-minute conversation about religion, donkeys in hard hats, laughing at himself, and work-life balance, I can say we got the same result – exactly what we wanted and maybe a little something we didn’t expect.
I love all my comedy best friends. You are all the best, but I do appreciate a comedy special from a guy in his forties that isn’t about death and dying. I did not have an existential crisis watching this special. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Pete Holmes: (Laughs) I appreciate that. That seems a little early, right? I mean, 44. Come on.
It’s funny, I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine the other day and she was like, “Well, how often do men actually think about death?” I said, “Well, I think about it every day.”
You know, Val and I rewatch When Harry Met Sally in the fall. It helps us in the seasonless California, it’s nice to see New York and the seasons and all that. I love the part where you meet them and Sally doesn’t think about death and Harry says, “I spend days brooding on it.” That movie is a masterpiece, obviously. It’s just the kind of movie script that makes you not ever want to try to write a movie script because it’s just too good. (Editor’s note: it was written by the incomparable Nora Ephron.) But there’s no better way to introduce two characters than to see their attitude about death. I relate more to him that he thinks about death a lot and then she says, “And then you waste your whole life worrying about it,” and that’s how the scene ends and you’re like, “Wow, they’re both right.”
I think it’s deeply important. I mean, Buddhism, they say, is summarized by just remembering that everything’s impermanent. I think that’s super funny too, that we’re like ice sculptures walking around acting like we’re not ice sculptures is very funny. It’s deeply funny that we act permanent. If something eternal was watching us, they would think that’s funny. That helps me and informs my approach to comedy certainly, but then my wife is more like Sally, that she’s like, there’s a Rumi poem where it’s like, “You’re in the vineyard, stop thinking about where it came from or where it’s going and just eat some fruit, eat some fruit and relax.” So you’ve got to have both energies.
You have a lot of fun with the God bit in the special, I would say. The pushback on atheism and Ricky Gervais, which is a great impression.
(Laughs) I appreciate it. I actually really love Ricky. I mean, I think that’s clear that I’m not attacking him as much as I’m just kind of continuing the conversation.
Yeah.
I think comedy, one of the shortcomings of it, is that so many people, not just comedians, but people have been sort of burned, or hurt, or maybe betrayed by their religious past that it does come out. We love deconstruction. I actually think deconstruction is far less interesting than reconstruction, but worse than deconstruction is never deconstructing.
I actually think what Ricky does and going, “Do you really believe a talking snake gave a naked lady an apple,” is great, it’s just not the full picture. It’s like, “Yeah, let’s tear it down, but let’s also build something in its place.” There’s a Jewish teaching. It’s not in the Torah or anything, but they say, “Any old donkey can tear down a barn, but it takes a special donkey to build a barn,” which I like because I picture a hoofed animal holding a hammer. You know what I’m saying?
Yeah, I’m trying to figure out the opposable thumbs thing. Maybe it’s like a nail gun or something. Yeah, I’m just thinking of a donkey with a hard hat.
(Laughs) Yes! No, it is funny. It’s supposed to be funny. The whole thing is funny. The Jewish faith is so good at that. Don’t get me started. I think the Old Testament is being funny in ways that people just don’t appreciate, but that little maxim is a good example. It’s supposed to be funny. It’s absurd. A donkey building a barn is just as absurd as a human being building the meaning of the universe in words.
But I do think there’s an experience that is available to anybody. I am not hinting at psychedelics. I just mean the phenomenon that’s looking at your eyes right now. it couldn’t be closer. When we get involved and interested in that, it’s not just a good worldview, it’s actually like a path, I hate to say a path, but you know, a path to peace. It’s a way to experience joy and peace now.
It doesn’t matter if you even tell anybody that you’re doing it, but if you get curious about your own nature not to belong in a club, or to go to the same building every week, but because even as we’re talking now, you can remember that you are… I say this all the time, but Harry Potter and stories like that. How many fairytales does a lowly person discover that they’re of royal blood? Everybody’s journey is to recognize that you are the child, you could say, of something mysterious and infinite. We ruin it when we turn it into an old man in the sky, although that’s fine, I call that a gateway God, that’s a nice intermediary.
But when you realize that that mystery is much closer, it couldn’t be closer to you and that you can draw upon it. That’s why I think those stories are valuable, including a story that I don’t believe to be literally true about naked people in a garden, eating an apple and being naughty. I think there’s value there, and it’s way more interesting and funny and engaging. But there’s more to unpack in “What is the value of this?” Not to defend it, but to find it for yourself. (More) than there is to just go like, “Well, that’s Santa Claus.” Oh, fuck off. I hear a lot of pain in that and a lot of loneliness and a lot of angst, and that’s valid. But I do think there are pearls hiding in a lot of things that we’ve maybe even rightfully turned our back on.
I choose the idea that I don’t have any fucking clue and that I probably won’t ever know.
Yeah.
But what you’re saying makes a ton of sense. In the special, there’s a moment after when you’re talking about all of this stuff where you, I don’t want to say bail out, but you throw a joke out there of, “Let us pray.” It gets the biggest laugh for me. Was that you kind of booping yourself to change course? How did you discover that you needed that at the end?
I love that you asked that. Okay, so you have this little Ted Talk in the middle of a standup special, and you don’t want it to be sweaty and pun intended, you don’t want it to be preachy. You really don’t.
It doesn’t get to that point, but I get where you would need to wrap it right where you did.
Yes. It’s dangerous.
It is, but it shows the craft there.
That’s why I love the question because I feel like I could talk about it a lot, meaning I’ve had those ideas and then you’re like, “But I’m a comedian.” (Dave) Chappelle does this really well too. He’s an inspiration to me, obviously. That he can talk about something, but he never leaves it too long without something, a laugh, but like a surprise too… When I was doing that joke, the reason I was like, “Okay, I think it’s ready,” is when, and as silly as it sounds, I don’t think, “But that’s too many words for the back of a quarter,” is hilarious, but it’s enough grease to get it through the doorway, you know what I mean? You need a moment where we can remember it’s comedy and laugh so it’s not just this silent little one-man show and I turn and there’s a different color spotlight on me, and then everyone’s like, “What was that?”
The let’s pray moment, I’m sure the first time I did it was improvised, because I’m doing this thing and I’m going and I’m like, “What am I doing?” And then you just go, “Let’s pray,” and everyone laughs. You’re like, “Yeah, that’s also my job to introduce tension, and then it’s also my job to relieve that tension.” That felt so funny, but it also leads to my favorite line of the joke, that got snuck in the prayer, which is, “Heavenly Father, you are in fact no thing.” (Laughs) And that becomes the bow. It’s like God is nothing. God is no thing.
When you consider the Hebrew Bible doesn’t have punctuation, so if you wrote, “God is nothing,” you could either read it, God is no thing, or God is nothing. It would be the same words, it would be the same letters. That’s back to your perspective. It’s like we’re doing our best, we’re dogs trying to understand the internet, but we can get these little pointers, these little things that draw us into the experience of it, because you can’t know it, but you can be it briefly. You can be it.
You mentioned it a little bit in the special, expectations about you talking about religion, but also being a nice guy. Does that limit you because of people’s idea of who you are and how do you kind of push back on that? Again, the special is fun and you come off as a good guy, but it’s also not…
It’s not clean. (Laughs)
There are still surprises. It wasn’t what I expected going in.
Oh, I’m so happy to hear that. It’s funny, if there’s one thing, and I don’t seek out reviews or comments or anything, but the thing that I get the most, and sometimes people say it to my face too, they’re like, either they like that I laugh at my own jokes, or they’re like, “Will this idiot stop laughing at his own jokes?” It’s interesting to me. I could talk about that forever, by the way. But that likability or relatability that we’re talking about, which is something that is important to me as the medium, the way that I’m presenting it, is so crucial.
It’s not just, “Oh, I’m so funny. I couldn’t help it.” Of course, of fucking course, I could deliver these jokes dead-faced. Like Neil Brennan, one of my favorites. Neil Brennan watched my special and he gave me notes. He wanted me to cut all the moments where I stepped the joke out or I explained that I just offended myself. He was like, “You don’t have to do that. That’s like a comedy misdemeanor. Why are you doing that?” I’m like, because that’s what I do. That’s what I figured out works for me. Meaning, I don’t think a special is a collection of jokes. I think it’s a space. You go into a space like a room and you hang out there, and the jokes are an excuse to hang out in a certain space and a certain attitude.
There are jokes that make fun of “unhoused” language and it makes fun of tutorials for choking children– this is dark, dark stuff. The difference between that being palatable or not palatable is a little twinkle in your eye at the least, or a smile. Now we’re warming up, or allowing myself to remember what made me think it was funny in the first place and not restraining that and laughing.
If I were to talk to somebody that was like, “Stop laughing at your own jokes, you schmuck,” I would be like, “Go watch Dave Chappelle, the greatest comic, and tell him to stop laughing.” What are we doing?! It’s just an ingredient that some chefs choose to use. When I was starting out, Chappelle would come by the club all the time, and I was like, “This guy is fucking loving it. He’s loving himself!” And it’s a powerful thing as a theatrical device to remember that I’m not trying to make you laugh. I’m inviting you to laugh at what I like to laugh at and how better to do that in the quickest and most efficient way than to just let myself laugh?
That’s what Dave does as well. But I get grief. I don’t know. I look like a golden retriever or something. And I get it, and I don’t even fault it, but I’m also like, “Don’t [you get] that everything I’m doing up there is to delight you?” And if I thought it would delight you more to not, I would. But I’m trying to make everybody release steam that would otherwise lead to bad days and bad relationships and horrible traffic road rage. (Laughs) Let’s release it and anything I can do to make that happen, I’ll do it.
Netflix
10, 15 years on the road doing this. Obviously, your life has gone through some changes in that time — you’re married and have a younger kid now. How has life on the road evolved for you to be able to have the work/life balance?
You’re asking all my favorite questions. You really are. These are the things that I’m like, oh, I could talk for nine hours about that for my people, my tribe, comedians, but also everybody. It’s this question, which is, good life, when? Right? Good life, when? Or you could just say, “Life, when?” When are you going to do it?
How do you define it?
Yeah, just get curious about what does a good life mean to you. I know it’s dumb, but any life-coach-type person is going to tell you, the first thing you have to do is ask yourself, well, what do you want? And in my life, I’ve been very happy to find that going out once a month is… Not everybody can do that. Not everybody has a luxury of like, okay, I’m only going to go out on the road once a month. A lot of comics I know would be like, “That’s nice.” And yeah, I spent the better part of 20 years not being able to just do it once a month. You had to earn a living. Now I do it once a month, but I could also say on the other side of the issue, I know a lot of comics who don’t have to go out every weekend, and they do.
And I’ve had these debates. I love these people. I’m not thumbing my nose at them, but I’m like, at a certain point, Chappelle’s another example. When do you walk away from the thing? When do you go like, this costs too much? I always think of the Bourne movies, where Jason Bourne and the other Bourne kind of guy, they’re on the roof, and they have their guns on each other. And Jason Bourne gets the guy to not shoot him by saying, “Look at what they make us give.” I think about that all the time. Look at what they make us give. I know that’s kind of dramatic.
No, it’s an interesting question. I’d love the chance to have enough money to be able to prove my theory, which is that I would just hang out on a yacht or go anywhere that I’d want to be (if I were rich). Like with Elon Musk. I wouldn’t be injecting myself into things that make people feel bad on a social media site. It’s just weird to me.
The problem is the kind of consciousness, and I just mean human consciousness, I’m not talking about existential stuff, the consciousness that leads to success. That’s often this coyote with a knife in its teeth, restless, thin, lean, fast. That consciousness that helps you push the boulder up the hill, when you’re at the top of the hill, that level of consciousness is not changed and it cannot relax. It can’t sit on the beach. It can’t go on a yacht. It only knows blood. It only knows to kill. It only knows to conquer. It only knows to claim. So the level of where you are can’t relax when you finally get to the place where you can relax. So that’s why I think balance is something that we should all be talking about, every profession.
And when it comes to being a husband and a father, the greatest compliment that my wife gives me, and it’s not directly, is people say, “What’s it like being married to a comedian?” And she says, “Honestly, most of the time I can’t tell.” And you’d think that means I’m not funny. That’s not what she means. Val and I like each other’s senses of humor and we laugh a lot, but it’s taken a lot of deliberate choices and action to go, “Let’s get the work-life balance correct.” My daughter is five, so she now knows that I am leaving. And this was the first time. I was just in Bloomington and I FaceTimed with her, and she got sad that I wasn’t there. So she’s just getting old enough to kind of put it together, I like when dad’s here, Dad’s not here.
To that, I would say one day, I hope my daughter remembers that example and lets it inform that what she is excited about is worth sacrifice. Right? That’s a good thing. But also, we need to get those levels right when we can. And for me, living a very pretty quiet, simple, small-town life, when I get a little bit itchy, without even looking I know, “oh, I bet I have a date coming up.” I just know. I start getting a little bit like, oh, I’d like a little Indiana Jones. And then I get to go on the road, and I go with Matt McCarthy. We go to a new city, and we do shows, and I come back, and I’m good.
It’s like weaning off of a drug. I look at my comedy like a cactus. How little can I water this? (Laughs) Not, can I plant this and clone it and have a field of cactuses? And then what? You’re a guy surrounded by cactuses, and you can’t leave your house. There are cactuses fucking everywhere. And now you’re the coyote that can’t enjoy the quiet. And I think cactus, I picked that subconsciously before, but that’s the right plant. It’s beautiful. It’s nice, but it’s also prickly. So keep an eye on it. Don’t let it get too big. Don’t let your ambition get too big. Don’t let your fame and all that stuff get too big.
You saw the special. If I did that not enough, it wouldn’t be good. And believe me, a lot of specials that I see that I don’t like, I’m always like, they needed to do that bit 150 more times at least. So I can talk from that side of my mouth, but I’m also like, if I do this too much, all the fun drains out of it, and now I’m just a traveling salesman. I’m like Willie Loman opening my briefcase and screaming, “I want to buy a dildo!” It’s not fun anymore. So even that has its own microclimate of balance. And then my own life has its own climate of balance, and I’m very interested in that, clearly. (Laughs)
I’m not going to offer any context for the dildo comment. I’m just going to let that stand, let people find that out themselves. Before we close, I should say that “battery sex chips” is maybe my favorite new phrase.
Oh, buddy. You’ve dialed in exactly on the difference between doing a joke 50 times and doing it 100 times. When I watch Dirty Clean… it’s a great special, I love it, but I did it a little under the gun. It was faster than other specials I had done. And when I watch it, there are just moments where for myself, I’m like, “Oh, if I had done that joke 300 times, I know I would’ve beaten that line.”
And this one, because the pandemic broke the flow and everything, there was a silver lining there that I ended up doing these jokes so many more times. Obviously, that’s a joke about the pandemic, but then I had all this time to run, run, run, run. And those are the things that they almost do themselves, meaning I couldn’t force it. It just comes out of a moment of boredom. You’ve done it too many times, and then you just catch yourself saying it, and then you’re like, oh, that’s what the joke wanted to be the whole time. Only repetition will get you there. Again, we’re back to the balance. Not doing it enough, doing it too much, but you want to be right in the middle.
Everything else I have is crap, so it’s a really good time to stop right here.
I always get, “How tall are you?” So you did well, just for not saying, “How tall are you?”
No, I wouldn’t. I’m a tall guy too, so I know… but do you get bothered by other tall people?
Sometimes. I’m like, who do you think you are? I always say the same thing. If they’re taller than me, I go, “That’s off-putting.” (Laughs)
‘Pete Holmes: I Am Not For Everyone’ is available to stream on Netflix.
With her recognizable beehive hair and dark eye makeup, the early photos of Priscilla Presley are inescapable when it comes to American history. Over the past few years, the Presley inspiration has seen a resurgence in pop culture, whether it’s Lana Del Rey emulating some of Pris’ well-known looks, Riley Keough honoring her grandfather in Daisy Jones & The Six, or a chaotic biopic about The King himself.
So, when Sofia Coppola received Priscilla’s approval to adapt her memoir, Elvis And Me, she wanted to take a gentle but real approach to her life story, as it painted a darker portrait of their time together — beyond the picture-perfect one that the general public has seen. This started by assembling an impeccable cast and crew that allowed actors Cailee Spaeny (The Craft: Legacy) and Jacob Elordi (Euphoria) to transform into Priscilla and Elvis completely.
“I thought Priscilla’s story encapsulated something we all go through, but in such a heightened, glamorous way,” Coppola previously told Vogue. “I really wanted to capture how overwhelming that first brush with love is and how confusing it can be trying to understand a man who’s so hot and cold.”
Coppola also enlisted the help of her longtime collaborator, costume designer Stacey Battat, to craft the style as a symbol of Priscilla’s changes — from adolescence and beyond. According to W Mag, Battat, who had previously become friends with the director while working at Marc Jacobs, first started working with her on the costuming for 2010’s Somewhere. Since then, the two have collaborated on Coppola’s films, including The Bling Ring and The Beguiled, which was Battat’s first period-era work.
In total, Priscilla marks their sixth project together. A challenging one, to be sure. After all, transforming two historical icons on the screen is no small feat. According our conversation with Battat, there were six weeks of prep time ahead of the six-week shoot with Coppola providing a mood board for the entire film and the script.
As the film recently released in theaters, we sat down with Battat to speak to some of the key looks — and how they add to the grander portrayal of Priscilla and Elvis.
Priscilla’s First Encounters With Elvis
During Priscilla’s first encounter at Graceland, she witnesses the stripped-down version of Elvis. Instead of portraying him at first as the on-stage icon, he is just a man, softened by the option to put him in knitwear. “I really wanted to make sure that he felt regular, like an intimate, not in lace shirts,” she says of the choice. “And he wasn’t performing that, that he looked non-performative. He looked vulnerable.”
However, this created a challenge for Battat during the prep time. Valentino made many of Elvis’ sweaters for the film, which took about a month through hand-knitting — as “there’s not companies that just manufacture one sweater.” Despite the time crunch, she feels it elevates Jacob Elordi’s take as Elvis the most.
Priscilla Was Stylized To Stand Out From The Party
As for Priscilla, who was still a teenager at the time, the fashion also makes note of just how out of place she is to those surrounding her.
At Elvis’ party, the other attendees are all older. The women sit around, gossiping, as they wear watches and high-quality jewelry. Priscilla is, as they put it in the film, looking like a child. And this was exactly what Battat was aiming to achieve.
“The thing is, 1959, we’re actually closer to the ’60s, so we’re getting into a slimmer silhouette,” Battat shares. “We’re getting away from that kind of puffy petty coat that you see in the ’50s… I wanted to make sure that in the late ’50s when we first meet Priscilla and we first meet Elvis, that she does have a silhouette that reads as younger, younger than the other girls, also younger than she reads later on in the film.”
Elvis’ Controlling Influence On Priscilla’s Style
Throughout the film, fashion continues to serve as a throughline — whether it’s explicitly stated or implicitly delivered in subtle moments, both of which add up to the clothes being a means of control. During one moment, Elvis asks Priscilla if she’d like to go shopping, which she gleefully accepts.
The scene then shifts to Priscilla parading various dresses in a room filled with Elvis and his older male friends. She expresses her discomfort with one feeling too low-cut and grown-up. “I think these clothes are too sophisticated for me,” Spaeny-as-Priscilla says, as the guys encourage her to buy them. “Now, what is that dress?” Elvis asks in another part, when he wakes up to Priscilla wearing a printed dress she picked that he feels is distracting.
In turn, Priscilla becomes a doll of Elvis’ design — being stripped of her identity in the process. She is modeled after the beauty ideals he holds for himself rather than, it seems, what he actually is attracted to in women. Their relationship is dotted with accusations of infidelity: with his co-stars (Nancy Sinatra and Ann-Margret), with a flirty new woman in California, and more. The ones we do see Elvis’ attraction to are all blonde, while he wanted Priscilla’s hair to be jet black.
By the time the film depicts Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding, the two are nearly identical. Valentino once again played an “immeasurable” role in the costumes, using an “elegant black fabric” to model the rock star’s tuxedo, rather than his paisley original. For Priscilla’s dress, Battat looked at laces with Chanel’s creative director, Virginie Viard, from an earlier collection, using it for a recreation “within the same vibe,” with the silhouette modeled for Spaeny specifically.
How The Real Life Priscilla Informed The Costume Design
With how spot-on the costume design is in the film, it left questions on whether the real Priscilla had any input on the fashion. After divorcing Elvis, she owned a Los Angeles boutique called Bis & Beau, stemming from her love of style. She also serves as an executive producer on Coppola’s film. Although Battat didn’t have direct conversations with her, she was able to pass on questions through Coppola and Spaeny — whether it was about her fashion evolution or how to style Elordi’s Elvis.
“She helped us kind of to understand when she stopped wearing stockings, and what Elvis would wear between shows when he went to his dressing room,” Battat recalls. “So, all of that kind of came from her. And also, just that Elvis never left his bedroom without being fully dressed. And obviously, the stuff that’s in the script comes from her, that he didn’t like her in prints.”
Priscilla Finds Her Own Sense Of Style And Self
Upon watching Priscilla, viewers are struck by the final transformation that Spaeny goes through. Gone are the eyelashes and eyeliner, and her hair noticeably shifts into a ’70s-inspired straightened look. She washes out the black dye for a gentler, natural-looking honey color, seemingly mirroring the inspiration that Los Angeles had on her. And, she starts incorporating prints and jeans into her wardrobe. In real life, Priscilla divorced Elvis around the age of 27, six years after he married her at 21 and met her at 14. We’re then left with the same question she likely would’ve had at the time: Who are you when you’re alone?
It’s around this period, too, when the film starts to depict pieces of the staged Elvis as he tries on various jumpsuits in the living room of the Graceland house or is seen performing on stage in the well-known white ensemble. These were made between the film’s in-house tailor, and a company called B&K Enterprises Costume Company, which is known for making “a lot of that iconic Elvis stuff.”
“They work with the original patterns, and they were able to make the jumpsuit for us and the blue suit that he wears in the photo shoot,” she adds about B&K, revealing that these were some of the first items she tried on Elordi. “It’s a small company. It takes about six months to make one of those jumpsuits.”
By using these extravagant jumpsuits to contrast Priscilla’s new laidback style, it becomes visually clear just how disconnected the two have become. During the first half of Priscilla, Spaeny and Elordi feel coordinated in their style, typically through similar color palettes, like Priscilla’s polka-dot two-piece matching Elvis’ B&W suit when leaving their Las Vegas bender. Priscilla’s adolescence is also marked by bows being present on most of her outfits, being “indicative of the time” and Battat tied it to the Southern phrase, “The bigger the bow, the closer to God.”
However, much like Priscilla’s beehive look, the bows also “tapered out as she got older,” much like her willingness to remain in the marriage.
Battat reflects on an image from a photoshoot she encountered of Elvis and Priscilla, taken shortly before they got divorced — which is recreated in the film. “I think that photo really informed how far they’d come apart, in a visual way,” she points out. In one still from it, Elvis takes a power stance of sorts, as he wears an all-blue suit, and is the one sitting in the chair with a cigar and a staff. Priscilla is in a lavender outfit, posing beside him from the carpet.
“I remember looking at that photo early on with Sofia and us noticing that she was really uncomfortable,” she says. “There’s one photo where he’s kind of gripping her arm, and the real Priscilla looks very uncomfortable.”
“I think there was also more to that photo that felt disconnected, which is, he’s so embellished,” Battat adds. “He’s got a staff and a giant collar and jewelry and eye makeup, and she is pared down, she’s lost the eye makeup, she’s wearing a simple outfit.”
Battat’s costume design work captures not only this disconnect, but also the way that fashion is used as a form of control on Priscilla. Early on in the film, Priscilla wants to work part-time at a clothing store while Elvis is away — a notion he swiftly shuts down. She is meant to be there for him.
In turn, we see her rewarded with extravagance, whether it’s the dresses, a watch, a ring, or any other gift Elvis provides to keep her complacent. Reflecting back to Coppola’s earlier quote, Priscilla does a tremendous job of capturing the relatability, before driving home the eventual message through a collaboration of Battat’s costuming, Coppola’s directorial vision, and the acting work of Spaeny and Elordi: it’s okay to leave Graceland when you find yourself.
A quick-thinking 10-year-old boy escaped a woman trying to lure him by pretending that a local store clerk was his mother. ABC 6 reports that Sammy Green was walking home from school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, on Friday, November 11, when a strange woman started following him.
The woman “started walking with him and asking him where his family was, asking where his dad was,” Sam Green, the boy’s father, told ABC6. The boy didn’t know the woman but she insisted that she knew his family.
She tried to lure him into going with her by promising she’d buy him “anything he wanted” at Wawa, a local convenience store that sells shakes, sandwiches and other treats.
“She was like, ‘I’m going to Wawa, are you going there? What are you getting from Wawa? Where’s your family at?'” Sammy told CBS.
“She said she probably knew me and was going to Wawa and that he was supposed to go with her and he could get anything he wanted,” Sam Green said.
In an attempt to flee the suspicious woman, Sammy walked into Dani Bee Funky, an unconventional gift shop, where he went straight to 17-year-old Hannah who was working the register. “He was like, ‘Pretend like you’re my mom,'” Hannah told CBS, “and I was just like, ‘all right go to the back.’ He didn’t want to leave my side.”
Security footage shows that Hannah then calmly walked up to the store’s front door and locked it, preventing the woman from coming inside. After she was locked out, the woman walked away. “I was still shaking when I was in here,” Sammy said.
The security camera footage is hard for Sammy’s dad to watch. “When we were watching that video, I cried every time I saw it,” said Green.
u201cthat are so scary i glad he was able to get help nnA 10-year-old boy in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, escaped a woman who was following him.nnThe boy asked a cashier to pretend to be his mother nhttps://t.co/2WYLX9nQvNu201d
The shop’s owner has nothing but praise for Hannah’s calm way of handling the dangerous situation. “I am very proud of her. Hannah is a 17-year-old young lady. She did everything correctly,” Small said.
This story is a great reminder for parents to talk to their kids about what to do if they are approached by a suspicious person. The first thing they should know is that it’s OK to say “No!” as loudly as possible to a suspicious person. They should then scream, “Help! This is not my mom or my dad!” to alert the adults around them and then run. If they are grabbed by the person they should bite, punch and kick as hard as they can until they can get free.
Sammy’s dad is proud that his son remembered what he told him to do when confronted by a suspicious stranger. “Think of every scenario and make sure that children know and also practice it,” he reminded parents. “Practice your situations and scenarios just like fire drills.”
For the time being, Sammy is going to have a family friend walk him to and from school. The Pottstown Police have spoken with the woman and she is now getting help for mental health issues.
Joy Behar threw down a direct challenge to Donald Trump on Friday morning’s episode of The View. The former president recently gave an interview where he seemingly threatened to bring the full-power of the government down on his opponents.
“If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them,” Trump told Univision during a rambling answer about the Biden administration allegedly doing the same to him. The rant did not sit well with The View panel.
“Don’t his supporters see that he turns on people who are in his corner? If you dare to go against him, even this much, he goes bananas on you,” Behar said via Entertainment Weekly before co-host Ana Navarro called it “weaponizing governments against his opponents.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, who actually worked for the Trump White House, took things even further.
“Donald Trump is running for president for two reasons, to get out of jail and to get revenge on his enemies, and when he speaks, we should listen,” Griffin said. “Frankly, it’s scary.”
That’s when Behar noted that The View has routinely criticized Trump, prompting her to flat-out dare Trump to come after the show.
“Us. What about us?” Behar said. “Try it! Go ahead, try it. We have this show every day, okay, Donald?”
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