The Second Serve // Illizit Behaviour

It’s December, which means we’ve started gradually pulling together our end of year edition and annual RIPbitch memorial issue. As we were doing so, we realised enough time has probably passed to reveal some identities to a few Big Questions we’ve posed this year.

There’s usually a good reason why we don’t publish names to hundreds of thousands of readers in the Thursday issue. But here, in the exclusive confines of Club Popbitch, we can probably be a little more loose-lipped. Just between us.

In PB1143 we asked:
“Which Hollywood star is spending the summer holidaying across Europe doing such big bags of toot with his entourage that the US showbiz correspondents following him are now just trying to outdo each other in getting the most obvious drug references into their copy?”

This was Jared Leto. He spent the summer dragging his weird, wild-eyed entourage to various fashion parties across Europe – where he became weirder and wilder-eyed as the parties drew on.

As we’ve mentioned before, it’s difficult to write anything about drug use in tabloids without risking a defamation suit – which is why US hacks were so glad to see him trying to climb the outside of his hotel in Berlin. That’s because they could describe this bizarre behaviour as him “getting super high” and speculate as to where he might have got the energy to scale a building.

In PB1140 we asked:
“Which former minister once caused havoc in a high-level meeting when they tried to surreptitiously flash the SpAd they’d been shagging on the sly, and accidentally gave one of the most highly decorated members of the Navy an inadvertent eyeful?”

We threw a slight red herring in the phrasing with this one, as the former minister is probably better known as being a former prime minister… Liz Truss.

We felt justified in describing her the way we did though as the story in question comes from her time in cabinet (as Foreign Secretary on a trip to Australia, if those details matter to you).

In PB1147 we asked:
“Which TV personality, actor and occasional suspect of international crime has taken on a new life in Australia, using the name Gavin Maxfield?”

2023 has been a big year for uncovering strange media aliases. And although Dan Wootton takes the crown for both his Martin Branning and Maria Joseph identities, this was someone else. Gavin Maxwell is the new name adopted down under by former Egghead – and one time Dutch murder suspect – CJ De Mooi.

CJ seems to have gone into hiding after a few projects of his in the UK ended badly, not least the pantomime he did in Milton Keynes with Mr Blobby. He was such a shithead backstage there, he caused a cast-wide mutiny where the entire ensemble banded together to get him booted out. Yet they kept Blobby.

In PB1146 we asked:
“Which megastar was recently discovered zonked out of their brain at Soho Farmhouse, crawling around in a horse stall on all fours, yelling that they’d always wanted to be a pony?”

This was, god love her, Rita Ora. She was back at Soho Farmhouse last week, but sadly seems to have had a slightly more mellow time of it.

Also, if she’s interested to know what her equine equivalent is, we can introduce her. There’s already a pedigree horse on the books with the name Rita Ora. An eight year old female Westphalian.

In PB1125 we asked:
“Which tabloid hack has a novel way of getting exclusive scoops at big awards ceremonies? He gets absolutely fucked on free drink, staggers around the venue visibly pissed, then prints hazy, half-cut recollections of what he thinks happened – accounts which sit at odds with everyone else’s and are starting to generate some heavy-hitting complaints.”

This was the Sun’s executive showbiz editor Simon Boyle. Though this particular Big Question came about from his somewhat interpretative coverage of the Brits, you might also remember he was the one seen staggering around Glastonbury this summer in wee-soaked shorts.

You’re likely going to hear a little more about Simon before the year is out too as he’s just been made the subject of an internal investigation into his workplace conduct.

Last week, we had music quizzes on the themes of Nile Rodgers, Younger Siblings, Biblical Beats and Sesame Street Covers. This week, we’ve got another five lined up to test the outer reaches of your weird pop knowledge.

Ordinarily with these quizzes, you get a point for every artist you correctly identify and a point for every song title. Today’s quiz doesn’t quite work the same way, as it is made up exclusively of cover versions of Wham!’s Last Christmas.

So you can either give yourself those ten points as a treat, or you cast them aside and only grant yourself the points you damn well earn. (Or just score yourself however you want. Up to you.)

Monday’s Theme: Last Christmas

[Play it here]

Headline Of The Weekend: “Loose Women’s Denise Welch Once Pooed Herself In Public While Watching Son’s Gig”
[Thanks, Daily Star!]

Nick Cage on memes, AI and his legacy
[Read on Wired]

A long read on our old pals, libel lawyers Carter-Ruck
[Read on TBIJ]

8 hours of festive department store muzak
[Listen on YouTube]