Tag: HollywoodReporter

You may know the story — Matthew McConaughey‘s mother once told him that she knew Woody Harrelson‘s father right around the time McConaughey was conceived, creating a possible scenario where the two may be half-brothers.

The rumor is now being taken to the next level with Brothers, an Apple TV comedy where McConaughey and Harrelson play versions of themselves who uncover a family secret that they may be related. There is, of course, an actual way that the two could find out the truth, as The Hollywood Reporter asked at the show’s L.A. premiere on Thursday if they would ever take a DNA test.

“I’ve been wanting to but he refuses,” Harrelson explained, as McConaughey replied, “I’ll probably come around to it” but added, “If it’s true, I got a lot to unpack. If it’s not true, he’s not gonna be near as fun to hang out with.”

Harrelson admitted, “I’m going to be really sad for a while if it’s not true,” which seems to be McConaughey’s main deterrent to the test, as the Interstellar star joked, “Let’s just keep floating this idea, because I don’t want him being all upset.” Harrelson was quick to reply, “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem because I think we’re brothers;” McConaughey confirmed, “He’s fully convinced, I’m not. There we go.”

The two stars — who previously shared the screen on season one of True Detective — also mused on playing themselves on camera for the first time. McConaughey said it was “More of an adjustment than I expected” and Harrelson explained it was “much harder than you would think, really. I was doing some weird, giggly, stupid performance and then I saw it and I was like ‘Oh my god, I hope we do reshoots.’ We did, so that was good,” teasing he told the director, “I don’t like that me, can we do it again?”

Lee Eisenberg, who was behind Jury Duty and Lessons in Chemistry, serves as showrunner for the series, which sees Holland Taylor playing McConaughey’s mother and the pair’s wives and children also recast.

“Their families would be there on the set, just hanging out at Video Village, watching versions of themselves. The whole thing was very surreal,” Eisenberg recalled, while also emphasizing that “I never wanted this to feel like a documentary” and the actors took some liberties to play up their personas. As for if he believes the two are actually brothers after working on the show, Eisenberg admitted, “I go back and forth. When you see the pictures of the two of them [from growing up] side-by-side, it feels a little uncanny.”

Brothers starts streaming Sept. 23 on Apple TV.

In the final hour of Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, the titular murderess, having finally made her peace with the act of violence that has defined her life, turns to the loyal companion who’s been by her side through it all. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s make it mean something.”

Lizzie (Ella Beatty) is talking about her wealth and notoriety, which she wishes to channel into a force for good. In the moment, though, all I could hear was showrunner Ian Brennan muttering that sentiment to himself. The latest addition to his and Ryan Murphy’s murder-verse tries desperately to draw something, anything meaningful out of Borden’s saga, with all the finesse of a college freshman trying to crank out a 15-page term paper in the two hours before deadline — and with all the same power of persuasion.

As the subtitle indicates, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is first and foremost a retelling of the real events you probably first heard of as a playground chant (one whose melody becomes a recurring motif), or perhaps saw depicted in more detail by Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart in 2018’s Lizzie. While the real-life Borden has always denied responsibility for the August 1892 deaths of her father and stepmother, the series wastes no time playing coy; it takes as settled fact that it was indeed Lizzie who wielded the axe.

As for why, there, too, the series has a clear-cut answer: because they’re emotional sadists whose sole pleasures in life are tormenting the help and insulting their daughter. Playing Abby and Andrew, Rebecca Hall and Charlie Hunnam gorge on the scenery like they’re trying to make themselves sick; one dinner sequence even ends with them spewing geysers of vomit. There’s zero nuance to their performances, and also nothing unique about them to make them memorable. But as a way to get you to sympathize with the devilish Ms. Borden, I can’t say their cartoonish villainy is ineffective.

The only real question left is the how, and that too is more or less established in the Max Winkler-directed premiere. Vicky Krieps plays Maggie, a new housemaid who makes an immediate impression on the family with her skill, her work ethic and her anachronistic style (punk shags in Manic Panic shades, literally a century before they’ll be cool). Lizzie falls in love practically at first sight, and Maggie seems charmed right back. Under Maggie’s guidance, the sweet, shy, sheltered girl who’d never so much as heard of la petite mort blossoms into one confident enough to start rattling the gilded cage her parents have trapped her in. At Maggie’s suggestion, she begins to wonder if killing them might not be her only way out.

Then, having put together so many puzzle pieces so quickly, The Lizzie Borden Story finds itself with the problem of having eight hours’ worth of content to fill. I wish I could say that the series has an easy solution for that, too. Instead, it flails about for a number of stalling tactics, none of them particularly satisfying.

One is simply to slow down the pace of the storytelling. Bits of exposition are repeated in rapid succession (“It’s the culmination of my life’s ambitions, really,” says a character of a completed project, and then, a few minutes later, “It’s everything I ever dreamed of, really,” just in case you weren’t paying attention the first time). Lizzie and Maggie indulge in dreamy nature idylls that clumsily evoke historical lesbian dramas like Portrait of a Lady on Fire or Ammonite, only, for some reason, with way less sex. Intriguing tangents are brought up to go nowhere — no sooner has the show finally started to explain why Abby sucks so much than it’s done her off, thus nipping in the bud any interest we might have taken in her.

The other method, more successful at padding that run time but even more annoying in its spirit, is to insist that The Lizzie Borden Story is actually about something much, much bigger than itself. That Borden is in fact part of a whole historical lineage of female killers, all of whose tales are linked together by some lazily nebulous concept of What It Means to Be a Woman in Society, and that there’s therefore something pretty Female Empowering about the fact that Lizzie has decided to axe-murder her parents, if you really think about it.

The show attempts to do all this by braiding Lizzie’s story with those of arguably the only other female killers as famous as she is. In the late 19th century, Lizzie and Maggie spend long hours reading each other the story of Elizabetta Báthory, the 16th-century countess accused of bathing in the blood of virgins. Krieps plays Elizabetta in flashbacks, which adds nothing significant to our understanding of either Elizabetta or Maggie but does provide the actor an opportunity to don another anachronistic hairstyle (this time, it’s severe bangs and tomato-red streaks).

Meanwhile, in the 20th century, Lizzie has in turn captivated Aileen Wuornos (played by Sarah Paulson in a broad performance more suited for Saturday Night Live). The series lavishes much more attention on Aileen than it did Elizabetta — like, to the point where one wonders if what Murphy and Brennan truly wanted was to do Monster: The Aileen Wuornos Story, and were only stopped by the existence of 2003’s Monster, the Aileen Wuornos story. In this Monster’s telling, Aileen worships Lizzie to the point of booking an overnight stay at her old home and hallucinating interactions with her. To this sex worker turned killer of johns, Lizzie is a role model, a spiritual sister, someone who just gets how the pressures of womanhood can drive a gal to violence.

Never mind that none of these three killers have anything in common — not their backgrounds, not their motives, not their methods, not their outcomes. Never mind that The Lizzie Borden Story’s further attempt to reframe Lizzie as not just a self-actualized independent lady but an outright icon of the women’s suffrage movement comes out of nowhere. Or that for a show supposedly so in tune with the struggles of womanhood, it has no sympathy to extend an embittered wife and mother like Abby (who, for all her abuses, was not a literal murderer), and no curiosity to offer a rebel like Maggie (whose goals or desires or even personality traits always seem to be changing at the whims of the plot).

All of these people, you see, are female. For Monster, that’s reason enough to lump them together — even if, in the end, it has nothing more substantial to say than, “Women be choppin’.”

The Macklemore controversy rumbles on, with new reporting alleging that assurances were given to a group of NFL stadium owners that the rapper would not repeat any comments on the issue of Palestine during Macklemore’s second, and ultimately final, stint as the opening act on Ed Sheeran‘s tour.

In a story published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, the newspaper revealed more details of alleged communication between Sheeran, the promoters of Sheeran’s Loop Tour and NFL stadium owners, including New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft, after concerns were raised over Macklemore declaring “Free Palestine” on stage before performing “Hind’s Hall”, his pro-Palestinian song at the MetLife Stadium concert on Sept. 4.

After the incident, the WSJ reports that representatives of Kraft and other NFL stadium owners — including Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank and Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie — reached out to Loop Tour promoters Messina Touring Group about Macklemore’s overtly political comments. The owners were alleged to have been told that Macklemore, who was initially set to feature on 10 dates for Sheeran, would not bring up the issue of Palestine again during his performances.

At the Sept. 5 concert at the MetLife Stadium, however, the Grammy-winning artist said: “One of the reasons why I wanted to come on this tour was because I wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine! I want to say this to all of my Jewish brothers and sisters. Criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.”

Macklemore’s comments on the second of the two Metlife Stadium concerts were picked up by news outlets after the Israeli-American Council petitioned for Sheeran to remove the rapper from his tour. Other pressure groups such as StopAntisemitism and Combat Antisemitism Movement as well as the singer Pink also called for the rapper’s removal.

The WSJ reports that behind the scenes, Kraft and Sheeran had a 40-minute phone call about the Macklemore controversy. Kraft is claimed to have told Sheeran that while he had sympathy for the Palestinian people, Macklemore’s comments in his estimation constituted hate speech, and was not a free speech issue.

After days of media scrutiny and with concerns about the future viability of the Loop Tour without access to NFL stadiums, Messina released a statement on Sept. 14 that Macklemore was dropped from the remaining eight U.S. tour dates. In a statement to Rolling Stone, Messina said: “As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans. After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

After being dropped, Macklemore released a lengthy statement about the controversy. “Before I get into it, I want to say something that should be obvious. In this moment I think it matters. I am not a victim,” Macklemore wrote on Instagram. “Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink is not a victim. We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families. The victims are the Palestinian people.”

Sheeran also released a lengthy statement after Macklemore’s removal. “After Macklemore’s performances at my New Jersey shows, venues on my upcoming tour dates communicated that they would pull the shows if he was still supporting. I was informed that this stance was based on how Macklemore conveyed part of his message during his performance, rather than on everything that was said. I spoke with the venues at length all week to try and build a bridge. One of those people was Robert Kraft. I was also involved in direct talks with promoters along with activists on both sides to try and find a mutual resolution for all, but the venue’s and promoter’s decision was final.“

Sheeran then reiterated, “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine. Macklemore’s contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me.”

Macklemore’s removal set off a fire storm, with Sheeran’s other support acts Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and his backing band Beoga all pulling out of the remaining tour dates in solidarity with the “Thrift Store” rapper.

On Sept. 16, Macklemore announced that he would donate his earnings from the Loop Tour, approximately $1 million, to six organizations supporting Palestinians and called on Kraft to match his donation. Kraft responded by donating $2 million.

Zach Cregger‘s Resident Evil has arrived — and the critics are embracing the latest reimaginging on the long-running video game franchise.

Based on the popular Capcom video games, Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams as Bryan, an outmatched medical courier who becomes trapped in a monster outbreak in Raccoon City during a single night of chaos and has to try to survive.

The Sony Pictures‘ film reunites Abrams with his Weapons director Cregger, who also co-wrote the script. The cast also features Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser.

While Cregger’s take on Resident Evil is the eighth installment in the live-action franchise, it’s also a reboot and serves as a fresh start.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this week, Cregger defended his decision to scrap the games’ legacy characters. Responding to online pushback, he said, “I know that when you dive into an IP you’re going to get flack, a certain degree, from the fandom. It would be weird if I were shocked that that was happening. But I think that when the people who love these games the way I do see the movie, my hope is that they feel seen and they feel like this movie is paying homage to the games, because it is, it’s obvious.”

As of publication, it has an 96 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 91 percent audience score. As the movie enters theaters, THR has rounded up what critics are saying, below.

THR’s Frank Scheck, wrote in his review, “Abrams’ shaggy appeal as the everyman hero who somehow manages to overcome every obstacle thrown in his way, including the most monstrous creatures Cregger and his talented creative team could devise, is a key factor in the film’s success. Filled with baroque gore and wildly imaginative set pieces delivered at a feverish pace, Resident Evil transcends its simplistic premise with the sort of cinematic wit and flair for which the filmmaker has been justly acclaimed.”

IGN’s Tom Jorgensen wrote, “Whatever your idea of what a good Resident Evil movie should be, I have to recommend to the skeptical to put that to one side and lock in for what Zach Cregger delivers with this new adaptation of the Capcom games. With a clear appreciation for odds stacked against the protagonist and all manner of freaky foes to stand against them, Cregger ably adapts the spirit, if not the letter, of the Resident Evil games into a jet-fueled horror experience that has room for lots of tension, some great laughs, and a strong central performance from Austin Abrams.”

He added, “With a tendency towards celebrating the feel of the games and not the specifics of the plot, Resident Evil succeeds in amplifying classic gameplay moments into horror movie beats in a way that goes far beyond simple fan service.”

The New York Times’ Brandon Yu praised the tone, writing, “It’s a thriller that’s as funny as it is jumpy, with a remarkable number of jokes rooted simply in Abrams either shrieking in fear or muttering with incredulity. Cregger weaponizes comedy not only as an irrepressible reflex, but as a tool: If horror is about tension and release, he sees the relief of a laugh the same way he might a scream. But it only works because of Abrams. The movie is essentially a one-man show.”

Meanwhile, YouTube critic Jeremy Jahns said the humor “they could have pulled it back a little bit to make the last act a little smoother.” Overall, however, he added, “I actually really enjoyed it. The nods were there without feeling like nostalgia bait. The vibe, the fish out of water scenario that grows bigger and bigger as the film goes on does decidedly feel like Resident Evil. Also, it is decidedly and works well as a Zach Cregger horror film. I guess these two concepts just work well together. And I thought Austin Abrams did a great job carrying us through it. This movie being a Resident Evil dark horror comedy was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.”

Inverse’s Chrishaun Baker explained that the movie, “playfully engages with the first, is totally uninterested in the second, and cashes all in on the third. For a movie and a filmmaker to have spent months at ground zero of a battle over what form video game adaptations should take, it’s ironic that Resident Evil would end up being one of the best video game films ever made. By bucking the cloying attempts at “pleasing fans” that have sunk so many other movies of this kind, Zach Cregger has made the platonic ideal of what a video game movie should be: a cinematic experience that approximates the medium-specific idiosyncrasies of the game, while offering something new and satisfying for fans and newcomers.”

The Guardians’s Jesse Hassenger compared it to Cregger’s prior film, writing, “Weapons had a creepy, evocative aversion to simple metaphorical reads that ultimately increased its effectiveness; the same isn’t quite true here. Resident Evil foregrounds one obvious bit of character change for Bryan, but after doing a great job making us care about him for more than 90 minutes, Cregger seems to abandon him a few steps shy of completing any real journey. Is he awaiting a level up that never arrives? Hard to say. But maybe bringing a video game sensibility to the big screen while keeping any gamer cheesiness on the margins is journey enough.”

Peter Max, whose colorful, psychedelic pop art expressed the optimism of the “flower power” movement of the 1960s and graced everything from postage stamps to a cruise ship, has died, his son said in a written statement Wednesday. He was 88.

Max died on Monday, the statement said. No cause was given, but he had been suffering from advanced dementia.

Max began his career in graphic design in the 1960s, and his swirly, colorful, instantly recognizable designs epitomized the era’s “flower power” art. But thanks to his prolific output and fun, accessible style, Max’s work remained popular well into the 21st century.

Max was the official artist for the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the Indianapolis 500, the World Cup, the World Series and many other events. His art appeared on a Boeing 777 airplane and a Norwegian Cruise Line ship. His portrait subjects ranged from U.S. presidents to Taylor Swift.

But in his first flush of success in the late 1960s and early 1970s, his murallike tableaus of flowers, the cosmos and cartoonish figures — all in vivid colors like turquoise, orange and neon green — seemed to be everywhere. Dorm room walls were plastered with his posters. Household furnishings like clocks and bedspreads sported his designs.

He even created covers for the Manhattan Yellow Pages, a business phone directory distributed to millions of people. Max himself was featured on the cover of Life magazine in 1969, his trademark dark, bushy mustache framing a hearty grin.

“We will remember his extraordinary creativity, his warmth, his curiosity, and the way he saw beauty and possibility everywhere,” his son Adam Max said in the statement announcing the death. “His art became part of American culture, but the man behind that art — the father we knew and loved — is the person we will miss most.”

Family Fled Nazi Germany

Max was born Peter Max Finkelstein in 1937 to a Jewish family in Berlin. They fled Nazi Germany for Shanghai when he was a baby and later spent time in Tibet, Israel and Paris before settling in New York City when Max was 16. By then, he said in an interview, he was already “a huge fan of American culture”: comics, movies and “all the jazz music.”

Max studied in New York at the Art Students League, the School of Visual Arts and Pratt Institute. In 1961, he opened a graphic design studio with friends. His bold, unique style was an immediate hit with ad agencies, publications, the corporate world and in pop culture.

That led to a booming commercial business. “My work was really, I would say, almost exploited,” he said. “It was on mugs, it was on bedsheets, it was on dresses, it was on silks and scarves and ties — 70 product lines.”

But what “bothered” him about all that success, he said, was that he “wasn’t painting anymore.” So he shut the business down for a time in the early 1970s to reconnect with his art. One of his biggest projects after returning to public life was a series of portraits of the Statue of Liberty, painted at the White House at the invitation of First Lady Nancy Reagan in 1981.

Max weathered various controversies in his personal and professional life. He pleaded guilty to tax fraud in 1997 after the IRS alleged he concealed more than $1 million in income from his art. He was originally sentenced to two months in prison but ultimately was allowed instead to serve the time in a work-release program, pay the back taxes and a $30,000 fine, and perform 800 hours of community service teaching art in Harlem schools.

In 2015, his family life became tabloid fodder in a back-and-forth between his second wife, Mary Max, and Adam, his son from a previous marriage. The son and a guardian alleged that Mary Max had depleted his finances and browbeat him. She in turn claimed that they had kept him from her against his will and stolen paintings that belonged to her. Accounts of court appearances described him as frail.

In 2019, Mary Max died by suicide two weeks after The New York Times published a story detailing legal battles over his work.

His Art Had a Bright, Happy Vibe

Those dark allegations contrasted with the relentlessly bright, happy vibe that infused his work. “The colors are strong, sometimes loud, sometimes raw and sometimes harmonious, but always powerful, and the images are always on the side of the peaceful nature,” he said. “I don’t discuss in my paintings negative things, I don’t dwell on it in my mind and don’t dwell on it in my canvasses.”

In another interview, he summed it up like this: “I see everything through rainbow eyes.”

Although accounts of Max’s career sometimes lament that he was not taken seriously by the art establishment, in fact his work has been featured in dozens of museum exhibitions around the world. New York’s Museum of Modern Art owns seven of his works.

The art for the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” is sometimes mistakenly attributed to Max, but the design for the album cover and “Yellow Submarine” movie are officially credited to the late Heinz Edelmann. Max claimed in a 2012 interview he did the original “Yellow Submarine” design before handing it off to Edelmann. But the website for New York’s Park West gallery, a longtime dealer of Max’s art, described Max’s involvement in “Yellow Submarine” as “early consulting work.”

Max was, however, friends with the Beatles and many other celebrities. He also had a deep interest in Eastern spirituality. He brought “Swami” Satchidananda Saraswati to the U.S., and helped him popularize yoga here.

Max’s first marriage to Elizabeth Nance ended in divorce. In addition to his son, he is survived by a daughter, Libra Astro.

South Park, one of the longest-running comedy series on television, returned to Comedy Central for its 29th season after making the unexpected move of changing the show’s name to “South America” — a gag that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone announced as a possible marketing gimmick but is certainly also a jab at President Donald Trump. Wednesday night’s season premiere provided little explanation as to when and why the name change happened for the fictional Colorado town, but it does offer a vague metaphor for current U.S. politics around immigration.

Seasons 27 and 28 of South Park had shifted from the show’s traditional stand-alone episodes to a season-long arc centered on fictionalized happenings within the White House, including President Trump’s clandestine affair with Satan. With the premiere, the show appears to be returning to its traditional format — stand-alone episodes that may still carry overarching themes. It’s not entirely clear whether we’ve seen the last of South Park‘s satirical Trump character and the supporting cast of cabinet officials, hangers-on and vice-president-turned-lover J.D. Vance, but they’re absent from this one-off episode, which stays within the confines of the titular town.

“Inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of ‘South Park’ to ‘SOUTH AMERICA,’” Parker and Stone said in a Sept. 8 statement announcing the name change. One might have expected the season premiere to show Trump signing an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” before eventually getting to South Park. Instead, the season begins after the name change has already been accepted — essentially baking the joke into the show, as characters refer to their town as “South America” without question. Only once does a character allude to the name change itself, and it’s clear the moment was divisive for the town.

What the episode offers is a straightforward plot that, as usual, hides a metaphor for a social issue beneath dialogue soaked in double entendres. It begins with Eric Cartman faking being bullied at school to trick his mother into buying him an e-bike — a vehicle clearly designed for adults that has become the one thing every kid in town must have. Ever the earnest pushover, Liane Cartman complies, and soon the boy is terrorizing the town on his new, dangerous ride. Eventually, more of the town’s children are wreaking havoc around South America, crashing through diner windows and scaring pedestrians — a clear metaphor for groups of immigrants moving into American towns.

Early in the episode, Kyle tries his own version of Cartman’s ploy on his mother, but he has to go through his father, Randy, who arrives home in flashy spandex and sneakers, now a 10-speed cyclist commuting in the bike lane that’s being overtaken by kids on e-bikes. Randy soon forms a gang of 10-speed riders that begins roughing up anyone in their way. They’re not especially fast, though — one motorist bemoans the “old farts” blocking the road. Still, the gang feels like a stand-in for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they comb the town trying to eradicate the e-bike kids.

As the kids’ South American youth biker gang is hunted by Randy’s gang of adults, the episode piles on satire aimed at the companies and public figures who have fallen in line as Trump took a marker to traditional maps. Google is repeatedly used to search things like “how to get the laws changed in South America?” (the answer: bribing government officials) and “how can police respond to gang violence in South America?” (the answer: extreme violence).

The episode also spoofs the massive cultural anticipation ahead of the release of Grand Theft Auto VI, the video game sequel slated to arrive in stores in November — making it a natural stand-in for the upcoming midterm elections, which “the libs” of Trump’s America are looking to for drastic change. “Hopefully, things will get better in November. That’s when Grand Theft Auto Six comes out,” one character says. Someone has to do something — we need to get these kids off the streets and back inside on their phones.

Parker and Stone have packed these metaphors into the premiere, a style that marks a clear departure from last season’s grotesque White House storylines. The question now is whether they plan to run this metaphor across the season and carry on with the e-bikes plot or if they will bring a new issue into the foreground and subject it to their now more subtle satire.

King Charles has, as the British press put it, been dragged into a “war of words” this week with Charles Spencer, the younger brother of the late Princess Diana.

Ahead of the release of Earl Spencer’s bombshell memoir about his sibling next week, titled Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, one particular claim from the book has seemingly thrown the Palace for a loop.

Spencer writes that in the wake of Diana’s 1997 death in a Paris car crash, he recalls the then-Prince of Wales saying: “We’ll forget her soon enough.” The uproar among the British public and press has been fierce, and Charles has been criticized for allegedly making such a cruel comment about his ex-wife, who remains a beloved icon in the U.K. — no matter how unpopular other royals are.

Such is the backlash that the Palace has made a rare public statement over the matter, where the firm appears to cast doubt on Spencer’s recollection of the event: “While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss,” it said, per BBC News.

The language, reporters have pointed out, is strikingly similar to Queen Elizabeth’s response to allegations of racism from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2021, when she stated “recollections may vary,” in what was a surprisingly firm response from the monarch.

The latest (and very public) quarrel between King Charles and his former brother-in-law has threatened to loom over a big day for the royal family, with Charles, Prince William and Kate Middleton attending events, as well as Prince Harry’s first major appearance since returning to Britain with Markle.

Spencer’s book has once again unearthed a public sentiment that the royal family are unwilling to show empathy in moments of hardship, especially surrounding Diana’s death. In the released excerpt from the memoir, Spencer claims that Charles unleashed “a stream of anger” over Spencer’s insistence that Diana would not have wanted 15-year-old Prince William and 12-year-old Prince Harry to walk in her funeral procession.

Spencer writes: “[Charles] unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death. ‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough’.”

According to the BBC, the Palace refute the claim. They see it as being “entirely out of character for a man with a deeply compassionate nature, who at the time was dealing with his own grief and that of their two sons.”

Shortly after Macklemore revealed that he’s donating $1 million to support Palestinian people, in addition to inviting billionaire Robert Kraft to match his donation, the Gillette Stadium owner has replied.

Kraft wrote in a statement on X Wednesday afternoon that he plans “to commit $2 million to match his donation to aid in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis.”

“I have dedicated much of my life to building bridges between all people. I believe deeply that all lives are worth protecting,” the New England Patriots owner said. “Earlier today, before Macklemore challenged me to match his donation, Ed called me and asked me to commit $2 million to match his donation to aid in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis. Ed has plans to reach out to other venue owners and our goal is to continue to work together to build bridges.”

This came after The Hollywood Reporter learned earlier this week that Macklemore was dropped as an opener for Ed Sheeran‘s Loop Tour after making headlines for his pro-Palestine speeches during his performances. The tour promoter stated that upcoming venues hosting shows threatened to pull out if Macklemore remained on the lineup.

In response to being dropped from the tour, Macklemore alleged that Kraft “rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.” Sheeran’s tour was slated to play at Kraft’s Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts at the end of September.

Kraft defended his decision, writing in his own statement at the time, “Gillette Stadium has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech. Based on Macklemore’s recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line.”

Amid the fallout, Finneas, Danish pop band Lukas Graham and Irish singer Aaron Rowe, who were all expected to open for Sheeran on tour, have since dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore.

Sheeran also reiterated in his own statement, “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine. Macklemore’s contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Macklemore announced that he was donating $1 million of his net earnings from Sheeran’s Loop Tour to organizations working to help Palestinian people.

“With everything that has happened over the last 48 hours, I want to bring the conversation back to where it belongs: to the Palestinian people who are still being killed, still living under military occupation, and still fighting for their freedom,” the rapper wrote in a lengthy statement on Instagram. “I will be donating the entire $1 million of my net earnings from Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour to six organizations working directly to support the Palestinian people. And I invite Robert Kraft to match my donation. Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting. A Palestinian life is no less valuable than another life on this earth.”

“That is what this has always been about. Not me. Not a tour. Not the headlines or the controversy,” Macklemore added. “It is about Palestinians rights to freedom, dignity and safety in their own homeland.”