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The Kate Middleton conspiracy theories had already been in overdrive thanks to a dubious statement from Kensington Palace followed by a suspicious photo of the Princess of Wales published by TMZ. But just when the situation seemed to be quieting, the Royal Family reignited a media frenzy thanks to a truly bizarre Mother’s Day photo.

On Sunday, Kensington Palace issued a photo that showed a smiling, seemingly healthy, and most notably, alive Kate Middleton with all three of her children. However, within hours, the Associated Press, AFP, Getty, and Reuters all issued kill notices to pull the image.

Upon close inspection, the photo was littered with evidence of digital manipulation particularly with Princess Charlotte’s left hand as well as other telltale signs of editing:

When AP determined the photo appeared to have been manipulated, it issued what is known as a “photo kill,” an industry term that retracted the image and instructed clients to remove the photo from their systems.

“At closer inspection it appears that the source has manipulated the image,” the AP said in its advisory. “No replacement photo will be sent.”

Naturally, Kensington Palace releasing an obviously Photoshopped image of Kate Middleton only dumped fuel on the conspiracy theory fires. People’s suspicions were through the roof on social media, which finally prompted a statement from the royal couple that, like everything in this situation, will only make things worse.

According to the official Twitter account for the Wales, Princess Catherine edited the photo. Yup.

“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” she wrote. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C”

(Via AP, The Prince and Princess of Wales on Twitter)

Oppenheimer led the pack with seven wins at the 2024 Oscars on Sunday night, March 10, but it wouldn’t be an award show unless Billie Eilish also made some sort of history. Eilish, 22, became the youngest-ever person with two Oscars after claiming Best Original Song (“What Was I Made For?“) alongside her brother and producer, Finneas.

Eilish, now a two-time Oscar winner and nine-time Grammy winner, celebrated her latest feat as if it was the first time she’d ever won anything at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party — with an assist from Flavor Flav, who took a break from his full-time Swiftie duties to bestow Eilish with a custom-made Barbie-themed clock necklace.

Someone in attendance captured the unveiling on camera. Eilish, Jon Batiste, and Cynthia Erivo huddled around Flav as he slowly unwrapped a towel. As soon as Eilish saw the clock necklace, she let out a feral scream of pure joy. She got out her phone to take a photo of the gift, and then she posed with it and Flav before hugging him.

Before the 2024 Oscars, ROCK’N STONES, Flav’s go-to jeweler for custom clocks, had taken to their Instagram Story to tease Flav’s Barbie-themed clock necklace alongside a blurred-out, pink bejeweled clock. They wrote, “Who is going to be twinning with @FLAVORFLAVOFFICIAL TONIGHT?!?”

See the posts below.

Ariana Grande had the big album release of the week a few days ago with Eternal Sunshine, which was a long-awaited drop. Now she has already sweetened the deal: Today (March 11), Grande released the “Slightly Deluxe” edition of the album.

The new version comes with four new tracks. There’s “Imperfect For You (Acoustic),” “True Story (Acapella),” and the Mariah Carey-featuring version of “Yes, And?.” The headliner here, though, is a new version of “Supernatural,” which features Troye Sivan.

This follows a big weekend for Grande. She was on hand for the 2024 Oscars last night, where she seemed especially moved by Billie Eilish and Finneas’ performance of “What Was I Made For?.” On top of that, she also took over Saturday Night Live, both with her regular duties as musical guest and by appearing in some sketches.

Listen to the new version of “Supernatural” above

Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine (Slightly Deluxe) Tracklist

1. “Intro (End Of The World)”
2. “Bye”
3. “Don’t Wanna Break Up Again”
4. “Saturn Returns Interlude”
5. “Eternal Sunshine”
6. “Supernatural”
7. “True Story”
8. “The Boy Is Mine”
9. “Yes, And?”
10. “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)”
11. “I Wish I Hated You”
12. “Imperfect For You”
13. “Ordinary Things” Feat. Nonna
14. “Supernatural” Feat. Troye Sivan
15. “Imperfect For You (Acoustic)”
16. “True Story (Acapella)”
17. “Yes, And?” Feat. Mariah Carey

Looking purely at the charts, “What Was I Made For?” isn’t the biggest hit of Billie Eilish’s career. It managed a peak at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which is great, but not as good her as the chart-topping “Bad Guy” or the No. 2 hit “Therefore I Am.” It’s certainly one of the best-received songs Eilish has released so far, though, and the response to her and Finneas’ performance of the Barbie favorite at the 2024 Academy Awards was proof of that.

Compositionally, the song is relatively simple, which played in its favor on stage at the Oscars: Its three core elements — Eilish’s voice, Finneas’ piano, and the orchestra that accompanied them — were able to gorgeously play off each other with no distractions.

When the song was over, Eilish gave an audible “whoa” in response to the audience’s reaction. She got a standing ovation, and crowd shots showed that a bunch of people were either teary-eyed, close to it, or were otherwise wowed, including much of the Barbie cast. In particular, Ariana Grande looked floored, and Kate McKinnon appeared to be holding something in after giving a triumphant scream.

It was a huge night for Eilish outside of the performance, as “What Was I Made For?” also won Best Original Song. That makes 22-year-old Eilish the youngest two-time Oscar winner ever.

Find the full list of this year’s Oscar winners here.

NFL free agency will officially open on Monday, but plenty of deals are already being discussed and figure to be announced as soon as the noon “legal tampering window” opens.

One such deal will be Russell Wilson joining the Pittsburgh Steelers, as the former Super Bowl winner was released earlier this month by the Denver Broncos as they seem ready to reset their roster almost entirely. Wilson’s time in Denver was fairly disastrous, even if he rebounded some from a horrendous 2022 season with an up-and-down 2023 campaign, and the team’s decision to give him a long-term deal immediately after trading for him backfired spectacularly as they now have $85 million in dead cap on their sheet.

Wilson announced the news on his social media page with a video set to “Renegade.”

That money owed to Wilson allows him to sign a much cheaper contract than he’d otherwise be seeking, and that has allowed him to reach an agreement on a 1-year deal in Pittsburgh that will be “team-friendly” according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

While Wilson wasn’t spectacular in 2023, he also showed he might still have some left in the tank as he completed 66.3 percent of his passes for 3,070 yards, 26 TDs, and eight interceptions. That might not be what you want from a guy making $40+ million per year, but it’s a massive upgrade over what the Steelers have had at the quarterback position in recent years, as Kenny Pickett has not panned out and they had Mason Rudolph starting to end this last season. That they still managed to make the playoffs in spite of getting almost nothing out of the QB position is a minor miracle, and we’ll see just how much competence at that position (provided Wilson can simply duplicate last year) can do for the Steelers in 2024.

The 2024 Oscars were dominated by Oppenheimer, as Christopher Nolan’s latest epic ran up the statue count in most every major category of the evening, from Best Director to Best Actor to Best Picture and many more.

However, while it was a night to celebrate for Oppenheimer, other bits stole the show for the awards ceremony itself. There was Ryan Gosling’s incredible performance of “I’m Just Ken”, Al Pacino no-selling the Best Picture presentation, and John Mulaney’s hysterical presentation for Best Sound.

Mulaney took to the stage and began talking about the importance of sound editing to films, offering up maybe the first and last ever mention of Madame Web on the Oscars stage.

From there, Mulaney continued on before going off on a minute-long tangent in which he just detailed the entire plot of Field of Dreams as only he can, poking fun at the lack of any financial planning on Costner’s part to mowing down his field to build a baseball stadium and the bizarre rules of ghost baseball.

At the end, he concluded they should just give the 2024 Oscar for Best Picture to Field of Dreams, which I have to disagree with, as the correct answer of course is that this year they should’ve given the Best Picture award to Ocean’s Eleven.

The actual winners of the award Mulaney was presenting were Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn for The Zone of Interest.

Heading into the 2024 Academy Awards, all bets were on Lily Gladstone. The Killers of the Flower Moon star was the odds-on favorite to nab the Best Actress Oscar for her turn as Mollie Burkhart, part of the Osage community targeted by white murderers one hundred years ago., Surely it wouldn’t go to Emma Stone, not because her work in Poor Things wasn’t phenomenal — it was — but because she already has one, for La La Land. Well, guess what happened?

When co-presenter Michelle Yeoh called out Stone’s name, her reaction wasn’t to freak out and cry. She looked shell-shocked, overwhelmed, genuinely not expecting her name to be called.

What’s more, she suffered a wardrobe malfunction. The back of her white dress came slightly undone, making her walk to the stage all the more of a trip. She leaned into the mistake, the way Jennifer Lawrence, another of the presenters, used to do. She joked, “I think it happened during ‘I’m Just Ken,’” alluding to the arguable peak of the night.

Stone proceeded to honor the other women in the category: Sandra Hüller, Annette Bening, Carey Mulligan. She singled out Gladstone, saying, “I share this with you.”

She then admitted that the other night was “panicking” about how “something like this might happen.” But Yorgos Lanthimos, her director, told her, “Please take yourself out of it.” She concluded. “Because it’s not about me. It’s about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. And that is the best part about making movies, is all of us together.” She then shared the award with everyone who worked on Poor Things.

Stone also thanked her daughter, who’s about to turn three, and who means so much to her that she slipped in a Taylor Swift line, saying she’s “bigger than the whole sky” — a reference, of course, to “Bigger Than the Whole Sky.”

Poor Things wound up winning four awards that night. Killers of the Flower Moon was shut out entirely.

Sure, it might feel like Jimmy Kimmel hosts the Oscars every year, but this ceremony had a high point that set it apart from all others: Ryan Gosling’s Kenergy. Also, Messi the Dog stole the show, and John Cena showed almost everything while the customary envelope opening commenced.

Additionally, a certain ex-president was apparently watching at home. That would be Donald Trump, who decided to tell the world that Kimmel is the “WORSE HOST” in Academy Award history. Via Truth Social:

“Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars. His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be. Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up, but cheap, ABC ‘talent,’ George Slopanopoulos. He would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous. Also a really bad politically correct show tonight, and for years – Disjointed, boring, and very unfair. Why don’t they just give the Oscars to those that deserve them. Maybe that way their audience and TV ratings will come back from the depths. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Kimmel was ready for the frequently-indicted politician, too. Here’s his live response, which included a reading of the gibberish and an “Isn’t it past your jail time?”

According to the Twitter responses, this was a highlight for sure.

You can read the rest of our 2024 Oscars coverage here.

Can you feel the Kenergy? You can if you watch Ryan Gosling perform “I’m Just Ken” in a pink suit. The yearning power ballad, written by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, was a show-stopping number in Barbie, the highest-grossing movie of 2023 — and a highlight of the 2024 Oscars with cameos from Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, Emma Stone, and even Slash.

Check out the video below.

The thing is, “I’m Just Ken” almost didn’t make it into Barbie. “At that first screening the song wasn’t working. I panicked. The humor wasn’t translating and Greta had to fight,” Ronson told the Times. “The studio asked her how much she really needed it and she said, ‘With every inch of my body.’ And then there was a big swing.”

The song has even become an unlikely inspirational anthem. “I know I’ll sound like David Brent, but the song helped young boys,” Ronson said. “My friend’s eight-year-old got broken up with and he said, ‘It’s OK, because Ken got broken up with by Barbie.’ The song tells boys that it’s OK to be runner-up. The internet’s caused a level of isolation in boys and this idea of male camaraderie and sharing your feelings is a nice and unexpected thing to come out of it.”

You can find the updated list of Oscar winners here.

In Oppenheimer Robert Downey Jr. gave arguably his most intense performance. As Lewis Strauss, the government bureaucrat who destroys the career of J. Robert Oppenheimer (and maybe the future), he’s arrogance and entitlement personified, and the last hour is basically a prolonged panic attack. But when Downey won the Best Supporting Oscar, as predicted, at this year’s Academy Awards, he was back to his charming and self-deprecating self.

Downey’s speech kicked off in high gear. “I’d like to thank my terrible childhood, and the Academy. In that order,” he said.

He then thanked his “veterinarian, I mean wife,” namely Susan Downey. Why did he call her a veterinarian? There’s a reason. “She found me, a snarling rescue pet, and loved me back to life. That’s why I’m here.”

Downey then acknowledged something big about Oppenheimer. “Here’s my little secret: I needed this job more than it needed me. Chris [Nolan, director] knew it.”

He also made sure to include another big person in his life: “I’m going to thank my stylist, in case no one else does.”

And Downey thanked one of the most loyal people in his life: Tom Hansen, his entertainment lawyer of 40 years — “half of which he spent trying to get me insured and bailing me out of the hoosegow. Thanks, bro!”

It was a simultaneously charming and humbled speech, not afraid to reference the dark days of his career. He’d already delivered an awards speech where he read bad reviews, but this one was even more entertaining and, quietly, moving.