The $200,000 Toilet

It’s shaping up to be an annus horribilus for Jennifer Lopez.

First, a flop album. Then a tour cancelled off the back of poor ticket sales. Then a bizarro Bennifer themed documentary – “Greatest Love Story Never Told” – bombed and put the nail in the coffin of her marriage, with Affleck letting it be known he’d bought a new bachelor pad on the very day of her 55th birthday this week.

But perhaps the most embarrassing slight yet?

Dozens of news outlets reported that among the Bridgerton-themed birthday party guests was Sarah Jessica Parker.

A fact that caused SJP’s flack to spend all yesterday evening ringing and mailing journalists to demand a correction as Parker wasn’t at the party and definitely didn’t want anyone to think she was.

Let it not be said that the Daily Mail doesn’t attack without fear or favour.

This week the sports desk turned over a member of Team GB women’s rugby team as an alleged racist.

But only after the presses were rolling did anyone realise that she was no ordinary alleged racist. She’s the daughter of a Daily Mail feature writer.

Which boybander once delayed a big arena gig as he refused to go on stage before getting a chicken burger from the nearest KFC brought to him?

Which boybander spent $200,000 on strippers, booze and bets in one night after his band’s first ever show at the MGM Grand Las Vegas?

Which boybander described himself as a “power bottom” while hooking up with a PB reader after his band’s gig in New York? (Sadly giving a fake cellphone number afterwards so we got no more gossip).

Grace Jones is still touring aged 76, so we can’t help think the Paris Olympics Committee missed a trick by not hiring her to enliven that interminable opening ceremony.

Grace started out in her modelling days living in Paris, even sharing an apartment with Jerry Hall for a while. She and her supermodel pals loved legendary Paris nightclub The Bains Douches.

A Popbitch reader who accompanied her on one particular night there in the 80s remembers, as they left, that Grace grabbed a bouncer, shoved her hands between his legs and had a good rummage. Obviously displeased with what she found, she repeated the process with another couple of the doormen until she found one to her liking.

Then, with a “you’ll do”, she dragged him into a waiting cab. Her pals spent the rest of the night hiding in the bathroom of the flat they were all crashing in, while Grace shagged her conquest’s brains out on the sofa.

Huw Edwards used to have a somewhat different reputation at the BBC than the one he has today.

Back in his early years he was known as “the dating fairy”, because of his penchant for setting up single BBC staff members on dates together.

(Colleagues also reported that he had the firmest grip in Broadcasting House…)

Batten down the hatches. Chaos and mutiny seized San Diego Comic-Con, when organisers were unable to control the demand for their special Deadpool & Wolverine panel. It started when ticket-holders had to enter a lottery to get into the hall for the viewing. KO was 6.30pm sharp, and anyone who left the room wasn’t allowed back in.

Marvel brought in their own team to oversee proceedings, sweeping people clear of the area two-and a-half-hours in advance and pushing everyone out on the boardwalk to bake in the sun in their polyester finery. By the time doors open the queue of sweaty geeks was nearly a mile long and was blocking the entrance for the IMDB yacht. Stars of the Walking Dead were stuck on the boat until they could secure a way to block the crowd – they ended up using thick yellow ropes.

The Marvel team quickly gave up on checking tickets and let people in en-masse, telling those left outside “This line means nothing! You are wasting your time staying in this line”.

It turned into such a mess that Reynolds, Jackman and Corrin walked into a partially empty hall. The poor, braying mob of angry fans in fedoras and capes were still boiling and fuming outside.

Italy have been moaning all over the media that they lost the fencing gold medal unfairly to Hong Kong.

This slight is not something that Hong Kongers were prepared to take lying down.

So first up, Pizza Hut Hong Kong started offering free pineapple on all their pizzas this week to infuriate the Italians back.

Then fencing fans began posting pictures of themselves eating pasta with soy sauce.

Poor Roberto Linguanotto, who died this week, must already be turning in his grave in trepidation as to how his legacy is bound to be trashed. Roberto was better known as the “Father of tiramisu”.

Robert Jenrick is the current bookies favourite in the upcoming Tory leadership race. But he shouldn’t get too cocky about his chances. Not if he still remembers what happened at university.

Back when he was at St John’s, Robert ran for a minor role on his college’s student committee. Given that he was running unopposed for his chosen position as JCR Academic Officer — pretty much the lowest rung of student politics at Cambridge — you’d think it would have been plain sailing. Unfortunately, Robert had already made quite the impression on his fellow students. “He was a sneering and pompous little man”, says one ex-classmate.

So sneering and pompous in fact that the college staged a coup, running a campaign to re-open nominations (R.O.N) just to stop Jenrick getting the job. The R.O.N campaign taunted Jenrick with posters of Ronald McDonald and singing Da Do Ron Ron by the Crystals whenever he was earshot.

Worse still, they defeated him. Elections were forced to reopen and poor Robert was swiftly beaten by another candidate and never held office at St John’s again.

Lacanian theorist Slavoj Žižek in an interview with New Statesman this week somehow managed to convey a Popbitch-like theory of what celebrity and fame means today simply by way of articulating his wet dreams:

“There is a lady I want to have sex with. She’s emitting the proper noises, but then all of a sudden I notice that she’s a doll, all plastic, and then I don’t even have an erection. All is fake. This is my typical sex dream.”

i.e the ersatz nature of modern popular culture has an important use in society. It’s better to be in this dreamworld even if you realise it’s fake. Otherwise you’d be faced with reality.

Or as Žižek goes on to say,

“I don’t want to know too much about myself because I will discover that I am full of shit”

FYI: Full interview

Wow! Kyle Walker spent more than £600,000 in legal fees two years before this new saga – which is detailed at length in this court ruling
[Kyle Walker v Lauren Goodman]

Rioter gets concussion and more
[Takes a heart of stone not to laugh]

A swimmer from Norway is single-handedly eating every chocolate muffin in the Olympic Village
[Justice for Henrik Christiansen]

For sale: A haunted island in Plymouth
[A bargain at 25 mill!]

Man drinks 50,000 beers
[Legend]

Jack Grealish gets insulted by the cast of Shrek
[Haaland loving it]

A trip through the belly of London noir
[Read on The Fence]

BDSM outfit for your French Bulldog?
[Shop at Frenchie]

Want to join the the Popbitch Fantasy Football league?
[Code is c8i1le]