#ThoyNaysh, before I get to it, let’s be clear about two things:

1. I’m the bitch in the title and also that bitch in real life and no, I will not be explaining the difference, so turn to the congregant to the left or right of you (lol, the audacity of me pretending y’all are reading this in CHURCH. Very that bitch behavior) to get an education on what I mean.

2. “Can a Bitch Feel All the Feels Without Heauxes Saying Shit” was Ta-Nehisi Coates’s original title of his best seller before he changed it to Between the World and Me.

With that outta the way, we can move onto the matter at hand, which is how thirty minutes post the empowering and fun as hell Doechii concert on Monday night, I ended up crying and saying, “I am so sad” while Jordan, my friend/brother from another mother is giving me a ride home. Well, to be honest, I said, “I know my life is great, but I am so sad,” which I’m currently trying to not kick myself for having to qualify my pain or present it with a caveat, so we don’t have to live in the stickiness of the pain for too long. I’m aware this instinct has been engrained in me by society, which has taught us that women are to be pleasant at all times, especially around men. We are to be the peace. The light. The buoyancy. The one who is interested not interesting. The one who keeps the conversation going so a guy will say how fun hanging out was, not realizing he only had fun because the conversation was about his interests, his life, without him bothering to be curious in the other person. This is not to say a damsel in distress isn’t allowed. That’s okay if the outcome results in him winning the girl. Her sadness is permitted if he gets something out of it in the end. But if he doesn’t? If we take away the transactional nature and we’re left with a woman’s raw emotions? Naw, we’re (the “we” being society) are not feeling that.

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And what I wasn’t feeling on Monday was the confluence of emotions bubbling inside me after Jordan and I talked about my dating life while Doechii’s opening acts performed. The litany of duds I’ve either gone dates or failed to go one dates with over the years. The sense that I did stay too long in my previous relationship and wasted time. That perhaps I didn’t prioritize dating as much as I could have when I was younger and now so many people are paired off while I’m still searching for my person. That my buddy Jordan, who is always rooting for me and my romantic dreams, was telling me how disastrous divorced men are (not only that, he said they are way worse than married men and that, in general, he doesn’t like men these days), while an innocent yet factual comment, it morphed into a feeling of doom and that there is no real silver lining, which is tough for an optimist like me. The frustration that my career and profession is, point blank, a turn off to many men I encounter. The disappointment that sometimes, even when encountering someone who is good on paper for me, it just doesn’t work IRL. The fact that the dream of having an incredible partnership like my parents (they’ve been married for FORTY-FIVE YEARS and together for forty-seven and deeply love each other) is still unrealized and as much as I don’t want it to bother me, it does. The reality that so much of dating and finding your person, if that is a goal of yours, comes down to luck.

That’s a lot to process and it all felt sad and I just needed to let the tears out. It’s easy to catastrophize because the thing you want and are ready for continues to be out of reach and is not something you can will into existence. But it’s also easy to catastrophize when any honest emotion has to be chased with “live laugh love!” It can feel as though not being joyful and happy means that “the end” is nigh because it has become so commonplace to shut down any and everything that isn’t a positive feeling. That one must express their gratitude to the Universe, so that it’s clear we’re not negative; otherwise, being negative or sad or down only begets more of the same because that’s what you’re attracting is inauthentic and exhausting. It is so damn exhausting to live in a world that is increasingly becoming devoid of critical thinking and nuance that being a single and childfree woman of a certain age is understood as something can only fall into one of two camps:

1. 24/7 orgasmic levels of bliss without a partner because “fRIENdships and cUMMunity is all the lOve tHat I nEEd, so I dON’T cARE nOR tHINk aBOUt nOR aCKNowLEDgE aNY vALuE IN roMaNTIC rElATIonSHiPs.” OR

2. Eternal sadness that emanates off you, which results in people feeling pity/diagnosing why you have not found your person and spinsterhood must be the result of something you’ve done wrong and this is a prison you cannot escape on your own, but can only be freed from once you find someone who loves and chooses you.

Um, those are our only options? Being single is either an endless loop of twerking celebratory like a sassy fucking chicken and going, “Bwak, bwak, men ain’t shit, I got a vibrator powerful enough to send me to the afterlife, bwak!” OR depressed as hell and doing a Viola Davis ugly cry on the regs? For fuck’s sake, there has to be more than this. But there’s not, if the world is to be believed. Because it’s not JUST that these are the only societally acceptable options; it’s the willingness to be so staunchly in one camp or the other that any time one side says anything, the other side, is working overtime to refute anything that is not in alignment with their prescribed worldview. How…limiting. How…damaging. How…pointless.

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Within hours of Jordon dropping me off, I had calmed myself down. Releasing the sadness I felt over how my life wasn’t exactly what I wanted right now while recognizing the sadness does not define me or my life was cathartic. Then I came across this video on Instagram:

Cut to me like:

RAYE SAID, “WHERE IS HER HUSBAND?” SHE IS NOT SPEAKING FOR YOU.

YOU CAN HAVE INDEPENDENCE IN A MARRIAGE.

YOU CAN HAVE FREEDOM IN A MARRIAGE.

YOU CAN HEAL AND WORK ON YOURSELF WHILE IN A MARRIAGE.

YOU CAN HAVE INCREDIBLE FRIENDSHIPS WHILE IN A MARRIAGE.

THESE THINGS ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.

AND LIVING IN A BINARY, SO THAT YOU CAN DUNK ON THE OTHER SIDE OR DISSMIS SOMEONE’S DESIRE IS NOT INTERESTING NOR CUTTING EDGE. IT IS TIRESOME.

FURTHERMORE, THE NARRATIVE THAT ONE HAS TO COMPLETELY IMPROVE THEMSELF BEFORE ENTERING A RELATIONSHIP IS LUDICROUS.

PRECISELY THE THINGS PEOPLE HAVE TO WORK ON ABOUT THEMSELVES TEND TO FLARE UP IN REAL TIME SITUATIONS AND LIFE WILL SEE HOW YOU DO.

THE MISNOMER THAT A PERSON MUST BE “FINISHED” BEFORE MARRIAGE DOES NOTHING BUT KEEP ONE IN A SELF-INDULGENT LOOP OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT IN WHICH THEY ARE NOT LIVING.

YOU CANNOT WIN THE SUPER BOWL IF YOU NEVER PRACTICE OR PLAY FOOTBALL.

SIMILARLY, YOU CANNOT HAVE A HEALTHY AND JOYFUL MARRIAGE UNLESS YOU ARE OUT THERE DATING WHILE YOU ARE WORKING ON YOURSELF.

ARE YOU FUCKING DENSE?!

AND IN CONCLUSION, IF YOU WANT TO WRITE A SONG ABOUT THE POWER OF FEMALE FRIENDSHIP, DO NOT TAKE A SONG WRITTEN BY A BLACK WOMAN THAT IS HAVING A FUCKING MOMENT IN THE POP CULTURE ZEITGEIST, THAT IS JOYFUL AND PLAYFUL, IS AN EXPRESSION OF WANTING TO BE LOVED ON IN A SOCIETY THAT DOES NOT VIEW BLACK WOMEN AS DESIRABLE ROMANTIC OPTIONS AND TURN IT INTO AN OPPORTUNITY TO BE LIKE, “BUT ACTUALLY,” PLEASE GO TO HELL. AND WHILE YOU’RE THERE, JUST WRITE A FUCKING ORIGINAL SONG ABOUT FEMALE FRIENDSHIP!

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Sorry, y’all, for the lengthy all caps (lol), but when I wrote my immediate reaction to this video down in my Notes app on my phone, the caps lock was on and I was too lazy to turn it off. Anyway. Yes, I understand that this is a parody, but I find it quite bizarre that when someone expresses an earnest desire it must be met with commentary that contradicts that person’s wants. I know me live in a “me, me, me” society, so some level of self-absorption, but I think the need to be contrarian is about something deeper. Sometimes, one’s worldview is fragile and in danger of collapsing if confronted with another person’s life, emotions, thoughts, pain, and joy. As a result, severe myopia helps one get through life and feel confident about the choices one has made. And sometimes, when you are a person who is single and is known for their singleness, it can feel as though there are expectations on you’re supposed to feel about yourself and your life but also be a representative of other single women. It’s too much. I know it is for me sometimes.

The reality is this: I’m forty-one years old. A lot of people who follow me online have been along the ride of me ending a five year relationship in 2022 that I had assumed would result in marriage. Post breakup, they’ve seen me happier. I have glowed up since moving on from a relationship that no longer served me. I’m a better friend, so much more tuned in with my family (my parents and I routinely have two to three hour phone calls), have hobbies, am healthier, treat myself kinder, am mentally tougher. I love myself more than I ever have in my entire life and that in itself is an incredible achievement because some people are never able to do that. I take solo vacations, go to the movies and concerts alone and have a wonderful time. I deeply enjoy my own company. And yet…I want what my parents have. I want a phenomenal husband. My soulmate. That decades old bond of friendship, love, and true partnership. They are a true team, which is a rare find these days. And when we’re living in a world where being alone is an increasingly enticing option because dating is truly hell, it can sometimes feel that being a person who enjoys living a single life out loud, but also desires companionship, will be seen as a betrayal.

Sometimes, people cannot reconcile that a person who enjoys a lot of their life can also mourn the parts that don’t lineup the way they thought they would. This inability on both sides (#TeamCouple and #TeamSingle) to not understand that both truths can exist does everyone a disservice. You cannot shove life and emotions into a neat and today box. People are complex and so are their wants and needs, so reducing single = happy all the time or sad all the time really misses the point. Most days, I’m happy and content being single while other days, it makes me sad and I feel lonely. That’s just part of the deal. A lot of life exists in the in between and I think reticence to acknowledge another person’s murky bits is also a reticence to acknowledge one’s own. So instead, there is a performance in which everything is neat and tidy and nothing more needs to be discussed because everything is perfect.

Like I have this one friend, who almost every time I expressed that I’m looking for my soulmate and want a relationship like my parents, she had to chime in with how she has no interest in that and would like to just spend her life having lovers. Cut to me like:

LIKE GOOD FOR YOU! CONGRATULATIONS THAT YOU HAVE PRECISELY WHAT YOU WANT IN THE WAY YOU WANT IT. I DO NOT. Also? Bitch, what you’re doing right here? IS NOT A PERSONALITY. If your whole thing is how you’re anti-relationships, you’re just as insufferable as the people who queef out Pinterest boards about wedding dresses and themes all the time. Be fucking comfortable listening to other people’s desires without fearing that doing so is going to erase your identity.

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And if it’s not fear of a worldview being shattered or wanting everyone to be happy all the time because dealing with yucky feelings is a bummer, it’s being outright dismissed or being diagnosed. So often when people express wanting to be in a relationship, they’re met with, “You need to practice self-love. You need to lean on and nurture your friendships.” That’d be like I’m thirsty and in need of water and someone says, “You know, you just need to try this blooming onion from Outback Steakhouse and the water will come.” WILL IT, BITCH?! First of all, if being married was contingent on self-love then a huge majority of people would not be married, so let’s be fucking for real. Second, the assumption that self-love for marriage and romantic love is a one to one exchange feels obtuse at best and at worst, disingenuous. Having someone’s eyes light up when you walk through the door at the end of a long day cannot be replicated by liking yourself a whole lot. Wanting to build a life with a partner who is there for you in good times and bad cannot resolved by being your own best friend. And you can enjoy your life with friends and family while acknowledging that having that kind of community is abso-fucking-lutely not the same as a traditional gahtdamn marriage. Resisting reality on behalf of a single person does not help. It makes them feel unseen. Telling a person that self-love is all they need when companionship is what they want…is ass. Not eloquent, but it’s true! Trying to convince a single person to just lean into singleness (i.e. do more things solo!) when they have expressed that they are in a season where doing everything alone sucks can feel like you’re just trying to get the person to swing the pendulum in the other direction of hyper independence, which is unhelpful!

So hear me when I say: I want my best friend for life. I want to be taken out on romantic dates. I want to have stupid inside jokes with someone. I want to discover new things with a person. I want to have the best sex of my life with my soulmate. I want to feel like I’m part of them and supporting him as much as he’s supporting me. I want to clean this gahtdamn apartment with me or do it while I go run errands.” To which, my friend, ya know the one who said the things about not wanting relationships and only wanting lovers? She goes: “Yeah, but you don’t need a boyfriend. You can just hire a housekeeper to clean for you.”

BITCH, I WANT SOMEONE WHO FUCKING WANTS TO DO THESE THINGS BECAUSE THEY WILL MAKE MY LIFE EASIER, NOT BECAUSE I HAVE THEIR CHECKING AND ROUTING NUMBERS AND AM WIRING THEM MONEY TO RECYCLE MY LA CROIX CANS. Anyway, I wanna have someone by my side for my biggest accomplishments and the worst days of my life. I want to have someone who will dote on me and vice versa. I want to have a go-to person whose shoulder I can cry on and they’re not trying to fix anything. And while Jordan is very married and we have a brother-sister relationship, he let me metaphorically cry on his shoulder on Monday night. I hit him up yesterday:

While I cannot guarantee it, one day I do believe I will get sad about not having a partner yet. While I cannot guarantee it, I do believe that my good days of loving being alone will continue to outweigh the bad. While I cannot guarantee it, one day I do believe that I will find my person. We will do all the things I’ve dreamt about doing with a soulmate without me giving up the things I’m currently doing. I will still find time to be alone with my thoughts. Take solo trips. Go to the movies. Run marathons. Because while he won’t make my life (my life has been happening for so long without him), he will add to it.

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As always, if you like what you read, check out my stand-up special I DON’T WANNA WORK ANYMORE on YouTube. Enjoy, below!:

#ThotNaysh, I’m living on the gahtdamn edge right now, typing “Uncle Tom” in bold while on a flight next to this white business dude who’s knuckles deep in Microsoft Outlook. Now, I’ve never done coke before, but I imagine rage writing about a raggedy motherfucker out in the wild sans a privacy screen is a similar kind of high because I’m laser-focused and dialed the fuck in. Now, has White Business Dude been glancing over at me as I’m intensely click clacking on my keyboard? YES. And I get it! It’s Indigenous Peoples Day and I’m writing about Uncle Toms and Scott is probably thinking, Erm, guess I’m having my herb roasted chicken with a side of this Black woman next to me cussing someone out. Thank God it’s not me. Oh, there’s still time, Scott. There’s still time. Like are you going to take off your socks and shoes so your funky feet is everybody’s problem all cuz you wanna be comfy while watching season two of Severance? Will you immediately stand as soon as we land because apparently, you are the only person who needs to deplane after a five hour flight? And finally, are you gonna hop on Zoom and talk loudly about “circling back” and “deliverables” while we’re taxi’ing to take off? Plot twist: it’s the Asian guy across the aisle who does this. #AsiansInWhiteMaleFields #BeTheChangeYouWannaSeeInTheWorld. #TheyreTakingAllTheJobs. ANYWAY, I type all of this to type that I’m on one today and I’ve got time, babes, which is a good thing because I have to write a scathing, profanity-filled screed about Stephen A. Smith, a radio personality, podcaster, and sports analyst of his wildly popular ESPN morning talk show First Take. He had the unmitigated gall to breathe his hot ass breath onto a microphone in order to admonish and tell the political legend-in-the-making/Democratic Representative for Texas’ 30th congressional district Jasmine Crockett how to do her job. This, of course, basically consisted of Smith telling her to kowtow to the racist, rapist, fascist who is occupying the White House and leading this country into the crispy depths of Hell until America becomes nothing but the lifeless burnt ends of smoked brisket. Whew! A’ight, I know this has been a rollercoaster of an opening paragraph, so let’s stop and take a proverbial knee.

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OK. Now, that we’re here, can I be real a sec? For just a millisec, let down my guard and tell the people (aka you) how I feel a sec? Despite what red pill Black dudes think, I truly did not want it to be a Black dude whose ass I was chopping up and wrapping in Zabar’s signature parchment paper. I NEVER WANT IT TO BE THE BLACK GUY! Seriously, whenever some tomfoolery pops off in the world, I’m always praying to image architect Law Roach’s 40 inch buss down that the chaos is cuz of some Bryson, Dave, or Tyler. Point is, I’m 1000% a cheerleader for Black men! I always want them to win, which is why it equal parts pains me that I have to take Stephen A. Smith to task, yet I know it’s my life duty to check a stupid ass trick when they need to be checked. So, here we go…

For the uninitiated with Smith, his biggest claim to fame is his work on First Take, a show he’s been the lead sports analyst on since 2012. Over the past 13 years, he’s been building his brand, brick by brick, with a combination of media savvy, bombastic energy, sense of humor, delight in courting controversy, and unabashed ambition to much success. There’s no denying that in today’s world, a steadfast conviction in worshipping at the alter of a self-created persona designed to illicit a reaction, any reaction, in the hopes that outrageousness will grab and keep the public’s attention is a sure fire way to stack coins and gain cultural cache. It’s not really a glaring problem until the inflated ego convinces that person to swim far outside the depths of their abilities, leading to behavior that will have unfortunate consequences. And in the case of Smith v. Crockett, the consequences being perpetuating misogynoir, dismissing the work of Black women, and injecting oneself into the political arena, lack of qualifications be damned. But it didn’t start out this way with Smith. It rarely does.

As a sports junkie (I watch football, basketball, WNBA, tennis, playoff baseball, track and field and more), I’ve gone through short stints of tuning into First Take to get my morning fix on the sports news of the day while exercising. Smith is typically loud and obnoxious in part because he talks over everyone, most egregiously the women who guest on the show as well as former long-time host Molly Qerim because of course he does

He’s also funny. If you haven’t had the displeasure of Smith’s grating voice ripping open your earholes the way a room temp speculum does a vajeen at 10:37 on a Wednesday morning, then have you (and your snatch) truly lived? People are like, “You haven’t lived unless you’ve had children” or “Or gone through a severe financial hardship” and I’m like, “Okay, but have you had to suffer the fresh hell of listening to an unqualified man splooge uncooked ideas all over the damn place and thot to yourself, I get why Peter Thiel is unsure humanity is worth saving and is pushing us towards our series finale at rapid speed because what’s the freaking point anymore? Woof. Siding with billionaire Peter Thiel, even for five minutes, is a VERY ALIVE thing to do. Okay, so, for the unfamiliar, here’s a clip of Smith:

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As a comedian, I deeply appreciate the timing, the emphasis, and the raw truth behind the phase “WHO WAS ON CRACK!” LOL. Indeed, it is ridiculous to give someone who is addicted to crack a multimillion dollar contract when they should be going to rehab! In a topsy-turvy world, funny and mindless entertainment like this has its place and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Lots of people have as his star has risen to the point that he’s often mentioned in the same breath as GOATs LeBron James and Tom Brady. And once you are on the hamster wheel of taking umbrage in comedic ways to keep attention, you’re going to be more outlandish and overstep because you have convinced yourself, and more importantly, your audience that you are an authority figure who should not only be listened to, but should drive culture, politics, and beyond, which in Smith’s case is understandable.

Per The New York Times September 2025 article “Inside Stephen A. Smith’s Near-$40M-a-Year Bonanza as He Launches Into Political Prime Time,” this is how things have recently shaken out for him:

His ESPN deal totals five years and $105 million, while his new SiriusXM contract is for three years and $36 million...The $33 million per year base from his two main employers, combined with the revenue from his YouTube channel and podcast, will result in him approaching $40 million a year.

In a capitalistic society, amassing wealth and occupying copious amounts of attention is often conflated with level of importance. So based, on his status, he’s automatically “important.” Peep the stats: First Take airs on ESPN Monday through Friday from 8-10amEST. The Stephen A. Smith Show airs weekdays from 1-3pmEST on Sirius XM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio and his weekly series entitled Straight Shooter with Stephen A. airs on Sirius XM’s bipartisan P.O.T.U.S. channel on Wednesdays from 6-8pmEST and has featured guests such as Bill O’Reilly (hot garbage), Bill Maher (gross garbage), and conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro (insert whatever garbage you’re thinking about right now).

Serious question: HOW MUCH can men talk in a day? More importantly, how much should they be ALLOWED to talk in a day? I’m not being flippant nor is this query a sign of misandry or because I disagree with Smith as I will discuss shortly. I’m asking this because the older I get, it feels as though I’m being I’m being DP’d by men (and not the good kind, HALP!) and their 24/7 endless stream of thots, opinions, and insecurities disguised as THE truth as opposed to A truth with no lube for my poor earholes. It cannot just be me. Right? And I’m not being melodramatic (ok, maybe I am a lil)! Thanks to podcasting, social media, and everything at work being a video chat, there is a severely disproportionate amount of male talking, talking, talking that even if that was coming from someone I’m in alignment with ideologically, say civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. or New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, after about one hour and 17 mins of them blabbering, I’d ask them to get the fuck out my face and do something productive like watch Real Housewives of Potomac on their own volition as opposed to waiting until I turn it in on and then hover in the bedroom doorway for the entirety of an episode, feigning as though they’re not interested when clearly they understand the drama more than I do and are enjoying Gizelle Bryant’s delightful foolishness. AND YES, IF SPACE & TIME DIDN’T MATTER AND I WERE MARRIED TO MLK JR. WHILE REALITY TV WAS A THING, MY ASS WOULD BE IGNORANT ENOUGH TO WATCH RHOP WHILE HE’S FIGHTING FOR MY RIGHTS. We can’t all be heroes.

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Jokes aside, Smith is pontificating for FOUR hours a day Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and SIX hours on Wednesdays. That means, in a given week, he is opining TWENTY-TWO HOURS a week. Yes, some of is sports-related, but still! That’s too much! In a month, we are led to believe that he has nearly 100 hours of substance, which warrants him becoming a thought leader? Like c’mon! This wouldn’t be so egregious if not for what’s written farther down in that September 17th NYT article wasn't so troubling:

Tonight, Smith will launch his new two-hour weekly SiriusXM political talk show called “Straight Shooter with Stephen A.” on the platform’s bipartisan POTUS (“Politics Of The United States”) channel…In politics, Smith has no known real expertise, which does not make him unique in the genre. What he does have, after more than two decades on ESPN, is the ability to deliver words in a way that resonates.

The slow, strategic transition from entertainer to (empty) thought leader jockeying for position in the political landscape, though a fairly recent yet unoriginal phenomenon, is also a dangerous one that ought to be scrutinized and for the most part, wholly rejected. The leap from show business to politics is rarely anything more than a power hungry desire for accumulating as much wealth as possible in this lifetime and positioning oneself as worthy of immorality in pop culture history and beyond. After all, on more than one occasion, Smith has mentioned the idea of running for president despite have no interest in being a politician. Okay…I’d be open to the idea of being Beyoncé even though I have no interest in singing, dancing, producing music, nor touring for a living. Liiiiiike, if I don’t do those things, I’m not Beyoncé; I’m just a Black girl with good skin who likes to wear blonde wigs from time to time. But it gets worse with Smith because he claims his pastor told him to remain open to future possibilities in politics, “as he doesn’t know what God has planned for him.” L.M.A.O. Cut to God like:

LEAVE GOD OUT OF IT! PLEASE! God has nothing to do with you being a fame and power hungry clown who worships at the altar of money! Nor does God have anything to do with what down on last week’s episode of Straight Shooter with Stephen A., in which Smith had this to say about Rep. Jasmine Crockett:

Ummmm, it’s called “checks & balances,” you dumb fuck. LOL. That was a little aggressive, but I’m a Libra, baby, and one thing about us, is we match energy and if he’s going to go hard, I can go hard back. The purpose of Crockett’s job is, in fact, not to go along to get along. Also? There is no going along to get along with a fascist! Hello! And reducing her work to that of merely being an “impediment” to Trump and saying “incendiary” comments is intentionally obtuse, reductive, and categorically misrepresents everything she stands for. Furthermore, it paints her as someone who is not working nor has any interest in representing her constituents powerfully and honestly and that he, Stephen A. Smith, needs to step in to course correct and mansplain what she’s doing wrong. Her m.o. is not obstinance for the sake of it. It’s defiance because when you realize you’re at a dangerous inflection point in history, your only options are rolling overly to the hands of a dictator, which is untenable or participating in daily acts of resistance and allowing your steadfast convictions to speak for the voiceless.

In this clip alone, there’s so much to unpack here. The obvious coonery and buffoonery. The complete unoriginal move to not have Black women’s back when they are completely in the right. The desperate desire to kowtow to President Trump as if that will work out in anyone’s favor. The utter DELUSION that the world is in need of Smith soft launching himself into the political arena when he’s woefully unqualified. The audacity to not comprehend that when he’s getting paid this much, he has a duty and responsibility to be mindful of the shit he’s saying. Reminder *checks paper* Stephen A. Smith is making $40 million dollars a year.

$40 MILLION DOLLARS?! A YEAR?! $40 MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR TO BE A TAP DANCING COON?! *pauses then looks around* Chile, lemme grab my Fenty Beauty real quick to put a thicc black smokey eye on my face, and find some tap shoes and cane in order to step, ball change over Shirley Chisholm’s grave in exchange for a fat check.

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Jokes aside, how dare he come at Jasmine Crockett like this?! In what world does he have the right? #NotInTracyChapman'sAmerica. I understand that on a certain level, this is a game. Eyeballs and ears = money in the pocket, but where is the line? Where is the pride that shuckin’ and jivin’ to put down a Black woman who is actually working is considered unforgivable? Where is the actual love and like of Black women for all the do for others and more importantly, all that they do for themselves? Where is the understanding of and concern over the fact that as Malcolm X so eloquently put it, “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman,” and so as a Black man, chastising a Black woman unfairly is nothing more than dogpiling in the name of sexism, anti-Black womanism, & capitalism?

As a Black woman, it is exhausting fighting for and showing up for everyone else (Lord knows society cannot get enough of a Black woman doling out “You is kind, you is smart, you is important” support to folks) when those very same people have ZERO intention of ever showing up for us. As a Black woman, it’s a fool’s errand to wait for a reciprocity and respect that never comes. As a Black woman it’s heartbreaking to be talked down to, as if we are uneducated. As a Black woman, it is frustrating to witness the glee in being “put in our place” by Black dudes under the guise of “discipline because we apparently don’t know how to act right,” when more often than not, it’s because some Black men feel soooooo comfortable attacking us is because they KNOW that, historically, people do not line up to come to the defense of Black women. Now folks such as political commentator Roland Martin did come to Crockett’s defense, which yay! But it doesn’t negate the fact that when you don’t think anyone cares enough to protect Black women, it’s easy to get loose with the lips.

This is bullshit. Not just that society has conditioned folks to not have empathy for Black women, but that Black women and men ought to be on the same side! While our experiences are not the same, there is a commonality we share in being oppressed as well as in fighting for our dreams. But when the carrot is dangled by the powers that be - you can uplift yourself by separating yourself and then punching down - belittling Black women becomes easier and more palatable to do, especially when doing this is profitable, and what’s even sadder, a lot of times, this is done to appeal to and get in the room with people who will never like you.

Stephen, you are three years shy of 60 and you’re falling for this?! You’re being propped up to stifle, to create dissension, to subdue and prevent Black women from having autonomy as if this then won’t be done to you later on because you’re somehow special and savvy enough to avoid the same fate. You aren’t. You’re doing all this and they - we know who “they” is - will NEVER like you. I know, I know. You’re invited to events, getting fat contracts, tons of press attention, newfound access to power, but listen to me clearly: You will never, ever truly be a part of their circle. If you don’t think they’re hitting the N word with the hard “r” theemotherfuckingnanosecond you leave the room, you’re kidding yourself! You will never officially be in the club. You will never be taken seriously, in part because you are unqualified, which is part of the reason you’re being propped up. Like you think you’re being put on all these platforms because are challenging the status quo? Or because you’re so gahtdamn smart? You’re put there because they know you never will. You know who is qualified and unafraid to really challenge? Crockett because she:

• Received a Bachelor of Arts in business administration from Rhodes College.

• Earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Houston Law Center.

• Operated her own law firm, Crockett Law PLLC, from 2010 to 2022. She focused on civil rights, criminal defense, and personal injury law and also took on pro bono cases.

• Served as an Assistant Public Defender for Bowie County, Texas, from 2007 to 2010.

• Was a member of the Texas House of Representatives and represented Texas’s District 100 from 2021 to 2023.

• And is currently in the US House of Representatives and serves on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

So when she calls out lies, holds fellow politicians’ feet to the fire, and backs up her speeches and arguments with facts, data, a whip smart attitude, don’t take umbrage or be upset at her. Smith ought to be mad that he doesn’t have to the courage to do what she does, but that requires a level of self-reflection and intelligence, which he does not possess as evidenced by what he says in the episode of Straight Shooter with Stephen A. that Black people are more emotional than rooted in facts:

“What it’s really about is us not strategizing, playing checkers instead of chess, letting our emotions instead of facts lead the way and letting that guide us to express ourselves in ways that serve to alienate the very people who can help us,”

BITCH, if there was ever a dog whistle, it’s certainly this! Oh, Black people are too emotional? We don’t care about facts? We alienate people because we’re not trying to make ourselves palatable to others all the time? There is no appeasing those intent on misunderstanding and “otherizing.” As we’ve seen time and time again, respectability politics is mostly just silencing oneself in the hopes of being heard by people who have motherfucking earmuffs on. Pretending the solution to Black people’s woes is grinning and bearing it in a world not designed for them is absolutely ridiculous. Like, sir, go to Hell! Crockett is out here doing back breaking work to save us from living in the depths of Satan’s taint while you’re jerking off to the sound of your own voice!

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And what I really find to be reprehensible (wait, there’s more? Yes, y’all, there’s more!)? I’m just keeping it real. I’m all about radical honesty. I’m a straight shooter. I. Am. Alpha. Male. Smith is hootin’ and hollerin’, spittle flying off his lips, & devoid of any emotional regulation, but is “the voice of reason.” His tirades are “passionate,” his rage “fact-based,” and his harmful POV is the universal truth that will “set listeners free,” but women, allegedly, are oozing abscesses of hysterical emotion. Sure, Jan. The reality is folks like Smith are supremely not in control of their emotions, not logical, not overwhelmingly concerned with facts. What they are saying is nothing but poisonous handcuffs of ideology designed to convince laypeople to allow the powers that be to get away with dominating them.

And all the blubber and bluster and unhinged messaging, to men like Smith, is nothing but their manifest destiny. They are righteous, bold, measured, and calm. Not emotional like women such as Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Women like Crockett are just so caught up in their feelings that they aren’t thinking before speaking. Aren’t worried about the concerns of the American people. Rather, it’s all guttural feelings and reactionary clapbacks that get falsely labeled by Smith as “cussing” people out. Again, yet another way to misrepresent a Black woman’s behavior as aggressive or ghetto. Fuck that. Not allowing yourself to be railroaded isn’t hysterical; it’s vital to one’s survival. Not survival to live in order to do the emotional labor society expects Black women to do. Not survival to be in a submissive to Black men who are talking loud yet saying nothing, but survival so that one’s inner light does not die out because they’re supposed to play a game that’s rigged for them to lose.

Now, I don’t know Smith personally, so I don’t know if he believes everything he’s saying, but at this point, it’s immaterial because the consequences are the copious amounts of erroneous and mind numbingly anti-intellectual ignorance being pumped through his show. It’s dangerous. To me, these kinds of podcasts are weapons. Don’t be fooled. Just because what’s being said is packaged in jokes and entertaining histrionics, does not mean they do not cause violence and harm. It does not mean they aren’t propaganda dressed up in, “Rawr, beat my chest, I’m a man who’s just tells it like it is with snarky quotables.” No.

Repetition of vitriolic statements over time can move past defenses and critical thinking and lull one into false sense of security. It feels nice, comfortable even. “I’m just laughing because this guy’s funny” morphs into “I’m laughing cuz I agree with this point here and there,” and indoctrination becomes routine, natural, and ultimately, the truth. Sigh. To be honest, this all just feels so…textbook predictable. Become a celebrity. Court in controversy. Make a shit ton of money. Convince oneself of their importance. I’m just waiting for the part where Black women, you know, the ones he’s admonishing become the very group of people he turn to in order to rehabilitate his image when he loses his way. Call me a cynic, but I feel this situation maybe not be a matter of “if,” but “when.”

So, to close, Black dudes like Smith, I urge you to hear the following: capitalism and misogynoir, while convenient for you, do not have to be your religion. Disrespecting Black women does not have to be your pastime. It is so damn simple to respect them, listen to them, and actually support their work instead of only treating Black women as though their value solely lies in what they can do for you. And finally, punching above your weight - publicly lashing out at a smart Black woman and trying to be a political commentator with no real understanding of how government works - doesn’t have to be your story. We’ve seen how that movie ends. It’s a lose-lose, not just for you, but for the audience you’ve built, who really, with all good intentions, want to listen to and follow someone and something real so they can live the lives they’ve dreamed up. Well, I’m going to say thanks, no thanks, on being invited to your (Uncle) TOM Talk, Stephen A. Smith, I’m not interested.

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If you like what you read, check out my brand new stand-up special I DON’T WANNA WORK ANYMORE on YouTube. Labor of love where I get real and real ignorant about being a girl boss, why I want a sugar daddy, and why thongs are a fresh hell. Enjoy, below!:

#ThotNaysh, the title of this Substack post should honestly be the beginning, middle, and end. Like I should click “publish” and move onto watching more videos of white women crashing out because they don’t like Taylor Swift’s new album. But nooooooooooo, I’m posted up at my desktop with a zit patch on my face, trying to figure out out why I’m working so hard to have clear skin if this is this skullduggery that I’m going to have to deal with in these raggedy ass dating streets. Y’all, I’m mad. Mad at society that we all allowed dating to become so dire. Mad that the Universe didn’t hook me up with my soulmate already so I wouldn’t have to deal with this nonsense. Hell, I got a bone to pick with Sarah Jessica Parker because with all fifty-eleven episodes of Sex and the City, the Sex and the City movies, and And Just Like That, which my mom thot was called So This is It, which honestly, was apt, because AJLT was ass and at the end of every episode, I would text my friend Wanyi and be like, “…so that was it?” and then bitch about what I had just watched. Lol. Anyway, the point I’m pissed at the SJP and the SATC multiverse because never once was there a storyline about trifling ass men and 50/50 dating. Like we got Miranda jerking off to a man in a sandwich mascot costume - #NoJudgment - and Carrie eating Natasha’s leftover Udon noodles in Natasha & Big’s condo after Carrie freshly fucked Big’s married behind - #AllTheJudgment - only to get chased outta the apartment by Natasha, who ends up falling down the stairs and has to get Steve Harvey veneers to replace the two teeth that got fucked up in the fall. Which, okay fine, that storyline was fire. But also? NEVER ONCE DID SEX AND THE CITY OR AND JUST LIKE THAT go, “Listen y’all, dating is truly ghetto and these men are gonna be out here doing long division, so they can split an inexpensive dinner tab cleanly down the middle. But on the bright Side, Charlotte has A Black friend now.” Lol.

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Schlong story short: with no forewarning about how horrendous dating was going to be in my 40s, I’m out here trying to find love in a hopeless place like Rihanna sang. And straight up: I am sick of looking good (#BodyByPeloton), helping to sustain a conversation for four hours, having a full life, so I can have stories to share and find some commonality with a man, laughing at some jokes that were BARELY FUNNY, and being financially independent, so I can hopefully, build a life with someone all for some dumb fuck to expect me to go 50/50 on a kale salad, Brussel sprouts, a side of cauliflower, a mocktail (mine), a cider (his), and a slice of Key lime pie (ours). Are you serious? Lemme back up.

Okay, so my dear fascia specialist Jessa is a queen and she went out with this dude we’ll call James. It was not a love match on either side, but she thought maybe he and I would hit it off. James works in film, lives in Brooklyn, in his mid-40s. All quality stats, so I told myself to remain open and gave her the go ahead to tell him to look me up and then connect us if he is down. He was, OBVIOUSLY (lol, I’m so ignorant) and he asked me out for a drink. Since I was training for the Berlin Marathon, I let him know I would only be having a mocktail. And he was chill with that and chose a cute restaurant near me, so I wouldn’t have to travel far.

And honestly, even though I wasn’t particularly attracted to him when we met IRL (he has a slighter build than me, and typically, I date guys with more meat on their bones), the date was actually pretty decent. I arrived after him and he took the chair, so I could have the booth seat, which, yaaaas, I’m not doing Bulgarian split squats, so I can I put my apple bottoms on a banged up Pier 1 imports chair. #NotInMaryMcleodBethunesAmerica. Mindful of my marathon training, he wanted to get a few healthy things we could share. Okay, we stan a man who recognizes my lifestyle choices. And conversation flowed pretty well. We talked about film and my stand-up, travel, favorite bands, and TV shows, ya know, all the typical first date ish. And because to me, a first date is merely a vibe check to make sure I’m not going to end up in a true crime documentary, I was open to a second date. Matter of fact, I was low key trying to figure out if I should attempt to MacGyver a potential relationship out of his okay personality, receding hairline, and good taste in movies because, say it with me: I’M TRYING TO FIND LOVE IN A HOPELESS PLACE! And we all know that modern dating is like the $5 DVD bin at Wal-Mart and if you see a copy of Miss Congeniality 2, you scoop that shit up because they can’t all be Sinners. ANYWAY! Things were going well until…we started talking about our apartments (I was teasing him about living in Williamsburg) and he dropped the bomb that he doesn’t have a lease for the apartment he’s renting.

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HUH? And he’s teeing up his explanation about how he’s basically gaming the system and I had to sit there and pretend like this isn’t about to be the stupidest fucking shit I’ve heard in a while. You see, he’s been living in his apartment for years (okay, commitment!), James got a great deal with his landlord and since the apartment had some…quirks (lol, love a Zillow word choice cuz we know “quirks” mean the “shit is a little busted”), the landlord decided to not raise the rent on him. Oh. Hmm. That’s nice, I guess. Never heard of a landlord doing that, but go on. Turn out, it was just a verbal agreement (I mean…to use Delish.com, so I can access their tuna salad recipe, I gotta enter a contract and pay $2.99 a month, but sure, by all means, ONLY HAVE A VERBAL AGREEMENT FOR YOUR HOME), so the lease was never officially renewed. Then the landlord died (now I have to think about a dead man while munching on shaved walnuts from this kale salad?). And HE WAS DEAD FOR A FULL FUCKING YEAR BEFORE James found out about the death (at this point, I’m calculating the amount of Fenty Beauty I used on this date so I could give Zara Kerry Washington and realizing it was a waste). So James finds out the landlord’s sons have taken over running the building (never did find out how they are holding up emotionally because…) James says his plan is to just be chill as hell, so he can keep paying the same rent without a pesky lease getting in the way.

ME INTERNALLY: Bitch, you don’t have a lease? We’re into the third hour of this date. We are in the Jenna Bush Hager hour of this goddamn date and this when you let slip that you don’t have a fucking lease? And you’re 45 years old?

MY SOUL: Left my body, skipped down to the nearest USPS, filled out a change of address form to “The Motherfuckin’ Afterlife,” so my issues of Vanity Fair magazine can meet me there.

ME EXTERNALLY: “Oh wow. I really hope that keeps working out for you.”

Y’all. I truly thot I was being punked. Like not in James Earl Jones’s America is a mid-40s man trying to BRAG to me about the fact that he doesn’t have a lease and I’m supposed to, what, be turned on and gobble on his cock as a source of protein because this bitch had us out here eating rabbit food exclusively!!! But that was his plan. He told me he lays low and doesn’t bring any attention to himself by requesting things in his apartment get repaired. If I could have shot tumbleweeds out my pussy at his face to make him stop talking, I would have. My vagina was PARCHED. In desperate need of a Ricola. This shit makes no sense! Why keep paying rent in a place in which you have no legal standing?! If the landlord’s sons are sick of your ass, they can just kick you out and there’s nothing you can do about it. I carried on with the date - LOL, I’m a clown - and was like, “Let’s get dessert.”

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BITCH (ME, I’M THE BITCH THIS TIME), THIS TRIFLING HEAUX JUST TOLD YOU HE INTENTIONALLY DOESN’T HAVE A LEASE AND YOU’RE LIKE, “COOL, LET’S EXTEND THE DATE AND SPIKE OUR BLOOD PRESSURE WITH SOME SUGAR THAT HE CANNOT FIGHT OFF WITH BETA BLOCKERS BECAUSE HE PROBABLY CANNOT AFFORD THEM”. In my defense, I had worked out prior to the date and was hungry because James had me eating lettuces and carrot strips for dinner like my name was Peter Rabbit.

So, the date ended, the server dropped the check and James kept looking at me, then the check that back to me as we’re talking. I made no motion to my purse because he asked me out and chose this restaurant and opted for us to get food when we were just supposed to meet up for a drank. This went on for about twenty minutes before the server returned to swipe his card as I still had not reached in my purse. Loooooool. I mean, it’s a first date. I don’t pay on first dates. Never have. Never will. I repeat: I WILL NEVER DO 50/50 ON A FIRST DATE. This is my religion, my personality, and my skincare routine.

Look, I understand 50/50 dates are the new normal now, but I call bullshit. 50/50 dates are a trap. They are a delusion. They are disingenuous because the whole notion is men trying to deter gold diggers, so these guys aren’t being used for their money. Hey James, you wanna know how I’m not a gold digger? I’m on a date with you! Open and shut case, babe. Do you think gold diggers are content eating a kale salad on a random ass Wednesday at 7:15pm? They are in the Maldives, guzzling Dom Perignon on a yacht with some rich dude who is taking her to Bottega Veneta to shop in the morning. Like Go. To. Hell, Dude! Do you think that you possess any gold that I would want? YOU DON’T HAVE A LEASE!

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ALSO! The men who routinely date gold diggers, or as I like to call them, “financial investors,” are literally fine with it. Their coins are aplenty! They are not obsessed with imaginary money that prevents them from being generous. These dudes know what’s up! They know they gotta pay to in order to have the pleasure of female (or male) company because their jizz is expired and their personality is like a bag of rotten, soft carrots. Do you think the FIVE TIMES married Rupert Murdoch is a fun hang? Are you convinced that Leonardo DiCaprio keeps dating women who are barely 25 because he has read a book in the past decade and has interesting thots? Do you really believe that at 82-years-old, Mick Jagger, if he wasn’t wiring $30,000 a month, or whatever the fuck to his girlfriend’s checking account, she would happily be holding his limp ass laffy taffy dick in her hands at 5:15pm on a Tuesday? Please have some common damn sense. These are mutually beneficial relationships and there’s nothing wrong with that.

What I take umbrage with this whole 50/50 concept is that men like James are so cheap and only value money. They only care about equality when it comes to finances. These cheap clowns have zero interest in being 50/50 anywhere else in the relationship. How about being 50/50 when it comes to domestic labor at home? Or being 50/50 in remembering birthday presents for loved ones, in writing a grocery list, in making room for his boo to have time for hobbies? How about being 50/50 in terms of supporting your partner’s career? Studies have shown that when a woman succeeds, her male partner feels worse about himself. How about not asking her questions about where things are in the house when these guys can easily go look for them themselves? How about making the relationship beneficial to the woman as much as it is to the man because as we all know by now, married men and single women are the happiest. How about being 50/50 in correctly identifying and articulating a feeling, so she’s not up at 2am having a fight with you because you can’t express yourself or regulate your emotions? Women need sleep. More than men! We need like 9 hours. Poll straight women and ask them who the fuck is getting NINE HOURS while in a relationship with a man?! The answer is none of them. We are run ragged. We are the portraits of Dorian Grey that live up in an attic, while these dudes are fresh-faced menaces. Because while they’re out here unnecessarily concerned with being used for their money, they have no problem being emotional diggers. Labor diggers. Sex diggers. Personality diggers. Like don’t even get me started on how so many men’s personalities are basically amalgamations of the interesting women they dated previously.

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The point is, 50/50 is not about equality and never has been. Like with James, more often than not, it’s about gaming the system. It’s about men seeing what they can get away with without having too much skin in the game. It’s about seeing how they can get a woman to lower her standards in a way they would deem unacceptable for their mom, sister, daughter, or hell, even themselves. And I’m not saying there ain’t women who use dates as a meal service. Of course there are, but that’s not what’s going on here. There’s a thing called manners and to think that you can ask a woman out, pick the restaurant, pick the food (very clearly steering clear of the entree side of the menu), and that she’ll go halfsies with you, and when she doesn’t, you’re irritated is a supreme miscalculation about what’s going on. We are adults. This is not the time for fuck shit. It’s not the time to huff and puff because at 45 years old, you don’t have a handle on your life or your finances enough to pick a place you could afford. It’s not the time to put in minimal effort because the pickings are slim for women in New York City. It’s also not the time to not even check in to make sure I got home safely.

Yep, it was probably 10:45/11:00pm when I got into my Uber and nada from him. No manners. No class. Y’all, I am so glad that I didn’t add to the single plink! of him dropping his raggedy ass Amex on the table. I’m thrilled that I didn’t bring in da noise, bring in da funk of adding to the plink! with my own Amex card. I’m not the 50/50 type anyway. Why start now?

#ThotNaysh, we need to bring back beating ass. We really do. Because give a man a microphone and an aux cord and 9.9879 times out of 10, they’re gonna act a damn fool. And no one’s stopping them! Look, I’m not a proponent of violence, have never been in a fist fight, and I can’t really watch more than three minutes of a boxing match. BUT! When I was younger, men feared talking sideways out their mouth would get them yoked up against a Toyota RAV 4 in an Arby’s parking lot. I mean, who’s got time to be cleaning up spilled roast beef sammiches at dusk? Not I, said the cat! Like the stress boys experienced in high school when a classmate challenged him to fisticuffs at 3:15pm stuck with them so much that they went into a career in IT and learned to mind their business. Not anymore! These days, dudes put on a Panama hat and talk shit, desperate to grab a shred of relevancy and we’re stuck with dealing with the ear pollution. Remember former President of the United States Joe Biden’s motto: Build Back Better? Well, we need to Beat Bitches’ Behinds. Jump a Heaux at Trader Joe’s. Fuck Up a Trick in the Lacrosse Section of Dick’s. You get the point. Now, lemme back up.

Recently, three-time MLB All-Star David Justice went on the All the Smoke podcast and was interviewed by one of the hosts, former NBA Champion Matt Barnes for a career-spinning and really, life-spanning, conversation. It was business as usual until Barnes asked about having personal relationships in the public eye, which kicked off Justice discussing his four and a half year relationship (mid 1992-1997) with actress and future Oscar winner Halle Berry. Granted, of the nearly two hour interview, she is only the topic of conversaysh for about 10 minutes, yet what Justice said about her made headlines. Now, we all know websites create incendiary headlines to drive traffic, so I rolled my eyes initially. Then I decided to listen to the podcast segment about Berry and immediately, this iconic clip from VH1’s trashy show Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School (oh, how I wish we had time to unpack the fact that not only did women compete to be Flava Flav’s girlfriend for multiple seasons, but that the series generated spin offs such as this one), which was hosted by comedian and also future Oscar winner Mo'Nique:

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In this case with Justice and frankly, the majority of dudes, “we” meaning women, are the ones doing clownery! Seriously, the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus theme music should be the soundtrack to straight women’s lives because we are fools for liking men because they really do never fail to embarrass our asses. Not only that, it turns out there’s not really a statute of limitations on the embarrassment! You could be going about your life, taking a Women’s One-A-Day multivitamin and eating yogurt to improve your bone density and a dusty ass motherfucker you dated when Delia*s clothing magazine was still in print will appear like his name is Punxsutawney Phil and will crawl outta his burrow to reconfirm what we already knew: six more weeks of him being a trifling piece of shit!

Y’all, what Justice says about Berry over the course of these ten minutes is just a series of funky ass fart bombs that had me pulling out an unused K95 mask that I bought during the height of Covid. This is how this fool started:

“You know, Halle asked me to marry her after knowing her for five months. And I said, “Okay.”

Wow, I think all our vaginas dried up at his lackluster enthusiasm regarding one the most important decisions a person could make in their lives. Just a very dehydrated “okay” like someone bribed him to get his prostate checked with the promise of 16 Handles fro yo afterwards. Please get over yourself and stop acting as though you weren’t bricked up like tenement housing in the Bronx cuz Halle Berry wanted to spend her life with you.

“Cuz I couldn't say no. So I said, ‘Okay,’ but I don’t know if my heart was really in it.”

Is this motherfucker a 501(c) non-profit organization or something because he sure is acting like she’s a charity case and he was practically forced into marrying her. So brave. So philanthropic.

“But I didn’t want to make her feel bad and say, ‘no.”

LMAOOOO FOREVER. DAVID JUSTICE, TO PRETEND THAT LIFE WOULD NOT GO ON IF YOU TURNED DOWN HALLE THEE FUCKING BERRY IS TO GREATLY AND GROSSLY OVERESTIMATE WHO THE FUCK YOU ARE AND TO ERRONEOUSLY UNDERESTIMATE WHO THE FUCK SHE IS. YOU, SIR, ARE DELULU.GOV/CONTACTYOURSENATOR.

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Sorry not sorry, but if you didn’t want to be with her, she would’ve listened to Mary J. Blige for a month then spent the time she wasted on you doing a HIIT workout of dodging bad dick and riding good dick, continuing to build her career to ensure her financial independence, so she could take care of herself, and hanging out with her girlfriends. Oof! That sure is a rough life. Men, hear me loud and clear: Please be fucking for real and stop behaving as though you’re doing women a favor by being with them.

This narrative that women are hopeless, sad sacks if a man doesn’t want them is honestly some of the greatest PR the patriarchy has ever done. It’s right up there with “men are visual creatures” yet so many of their homes look like a worn down safe house from the Taken movie franchise and “men are natural born leaders” yet can’t find the condiments in the fridge that are right in front of their fucking faces without the help of their wives and girlfriends. 😑😑😑 Truth is, all this nonsense about fragile, pathetic women is projection, babe!

Cuz who can’t be alone? Men. Who’s more prone to quickly remarry after a divorce or death of a spouse? Men. Whose health declines without the presence of a woman? Men. Who struggles in adulthood to have meaningful friendships? Men. Who, once they get into old age and their jizz has curdled like a dollop of Daisy, are out here seeking essentially a hospice wife to take care of their behinds until the day they die? Men. Richard Gere (he’s 75; his wife is 43). Sean Penn (he’s 64; his girlfriend is 30). Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis (he’s 62; his girlfriend is 20). Lionel Richie (he’s 75; his girlfriend is 34). Last I checked, I haven’t seen TV showrunner extraordinaire Shonda Rhimes, who is 55, sign up to marry some 27-year-old man who has never owned a headboard. Does it seem like rock star Stevie Nicks, who is 77, wants to spend time with a 35-year-old dude with gnarly ass feet because getting a pedicure would shatter his fragile masculinity, so every time the two of them cuddle, the bottom of his feet are sanding down the first layer of skin on her ankles like they’re an antique table in the middle of being refurbished? And could you imagine icon Diane Keaton, who is 79, boo’d up with a 30-year-old man who doesn’t wash his legs when he showers, but just “let’s the soapy water trickle down from his nips to the bottom of his toes?” She’s probably like, “Lemme stay single, and keep wearing zoot suits and top hats in fucking peace.” And she would be correct! Schlong story short, for us goofy ass straights, marriage and relationships, almost unilaterally benefits men and are a detriment emotionally, financially, physically, and mentally to women. So this whole notion of agreeing to marry a woman out of pity as if she really needs it as if the man wouldn’t get anything out of having a wife is bull fucking shit.

Now, before I get into what else Justice said, I need to make a very important PSA. Women: do not propose to men. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care how that sounds. Do. Not. Do. It. Because, they, for the rest of their soggy ass lives, will act like they are God’s greatest gift and their inflated egos are gonna have them running off at the fucking mouth instead of jotting their stupid ass thots down in a Moleskin notepad and carrying on with their days.

Y’all know how many engagement rings and wedding rings Elizabeth Taylor had? TEN. She was like Thanos with a full set, heaux! And was she out here talking about it? NO. She was trying to raise money and cure AIDS. PRIORITIES! Meanwhile, this ding dong-asaurus David Justice is holding onto the one time in the ‘90s that a woman unwisely liked his ass too damn much in order to make national news. Seek. Help! End of PSA.

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Anyway, as we’re aware, some of the real damning comments came when Justice talked about why he decided to leave her:

I’m thinking a wife at that time should cook, clean, [be] traditional, you know? Then I’m thinking, ‘OK, if we have kids, is this the woman I want to have kids with and build a family with? She don’t cook, don’t clean, don’t really seem, like, motherly.

Interesting. Whenever men say, “Oh, she’s not that motherly,” rarely do they ever do the introspection to see if they are fatherly. Most men want wives, yet rarely express any interest in being husbands. Also? Trashing a fellow Clevelander (I’m also from Cleveland) with some sexist garbage really ought to be beneath people by now. In 1994, Justice signed a [checks pad] five-year, $27.5 million contract with the Atlanta Braves. He was rich. If he wanted someone to cook and clean for him, he could have easily hired a chef and a maid. But he didn’t. Because he wanted her to do it for him. Because the way to feel special is if a woman is subservient. Because then he could tell himself, “Look at all that she is doing for me. She must be doing it because I’m amazing. And she’s doing it for free, so she must really love me.” But do you love you though? Because why in the natural hell would you expect a career driven woman to put a halt on everything she’s trying to build in order to serve you? Men like him would rather pursue a woman who he could break down into what he wants because there ain’t no way you can convince me that a fine ass, talented athlete, in the nineties, could not find one woman who wanted to live the domestic life. The truth is the real “get” is landing a woman who does not want the same things he wants in the way that he wants it and breaking her down into what he wants. To land the baddie, the ambitious woman and clip her wings.

I mean, what exactly was Berry supposed to do? Seriously. He acknowledged that she was zipping all over the world modeling and shooting movies, so when was she supposed to have time to stop down and wait on him hand and foot? Hmm. Wild that he had the extremely unrealistic and selfish expectation that she was supposed to give up her life for him when, based on his account, he really that into her. Look, I know these days there’s much ongoing talk about women decentering men, but a discussion also needs to be had about men decentering the expectation that 1) women will give up their lives for men and 2) that if a woman isn’t foolish enough to set herself on fire to keep him warm, that is somehow an indictment of her character and is grounds for divorce. Because, honestly, we’ve all seen that movie too many times. Woman gives up everything for a guy and deals with financial abuse. Her identity can only be as his wife and/or mother of their kids. Her stay-at-home wife and mother duties/work, emotional labor, etc. end up not being viewed by the husband and society as valuable even though, her efforts are often integral to men having the freedom and mental space to pursue their dreams.

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I truly do believe that everyone should end up with the partner they desire. I also believe people need to be honest about the things they want and need in order to have a successful partnership. But as All the Smoke host Matt Barnes and Justice said, you can’t say no to Halle Berry. The subtext being: you can’t say no to a baddie, you’re with Halle Berry, someone you can brag about to your boys about and show off to others as if to say, “I’m incredible because look who I have on my arm.” You cannot mislead someone to boost your ego and then decades later, come out of nowhere with a critique to trash them. It takes two to make a marriage sink or swim and dishonesty and sexism is giving Billy Zane in Titanic. #YouAintGettingALifeBoatHeaux. Jokes aside, it really stinks that in 2025, women have to be on the lookout for character assassinations from exes. That people must try to bring us down a peg and make others believe we have failed in our womanly “duties.”

After all, I saw countless keyboard warriors proclaim that they don’t care what Berry had going on, she should have been cooking for Justice because he was an amazing baseball player. Why must she have shown deference to him? Why the automatic assumption that she should have taken a backseat to him? They met with they were both booked and busy, so to minimize her career because he, at the time, was making millions while she was still laying the groundwork for what became a history-making career in which she became one of the highest paid actresses in the 2000s and was the first Black woman to win an Best Actress Oscar feels short sighted and disingenuous. For some folks, it doesn’t matter what a woman does, she will never as an important, valuable, or worthy as a man, who to them, is the standard.

And what really stinks about this interview, is Justice painting an ex as this pathetic person who he took pity on. It’s almost as though he’s still trying to get those shots in via dog whistles to imply that she embodies all the pejorative patriarchal stereotypes of a woman - weak, fragile, desperate to be in a relationship, not subservient enough, not maternal - and those qualities are ultimately what led to the downfall of their marriage. Again, I don’t think he had to lie and say that she was the most amazing person if that’s not how he feels. However:

A) If you are happily married and living life with your three kids, he could have kept it classy and kept it moving. And a lot of his defenders online wrote how he is so happy and has been married for twenty-four years, so clearly, he’s right and Halle’s wrong. I mean…there are plenty of people who are married and they’re not happy about it. So to make the false equivalence that because he chose his next wife and has been married for so long means he’s automatically happy feels a bit presumptuous. We all make choices in life and sometimes come down on the side of unhappiness. I recently had a bowl of cacio e pepe pasta and was on the toilet for the rest of the night. I love pasta! Ended up pooping my brains out because cream-based sauces are not something I can do at my age. Was not being happy about that choice. If you are truly in a joyful, happy season of your life, dredging up the past to get some additional hits in, is not going to be a priority.

B) He alleges in the interview that she “had no money” despite working a lot and they didn’t have kids, so they should walk away clean without him having to pay alimony. Right. So, if she was dumb enough to put her career on pause for the duration of their relationship (which during the 90s, late 20s to mid 30s was the prime age period for an actress and Berry and Justice got together when she was 27) to be his stay-at-home wife, and then when he was done, he was gonna pack up and leave her, would derailing her career have been worth it? Obviously not. Not only would she still “have no money,” but she would be further back then where she started because historically, when people, and particularly, when women have a break in their career whether it’s for motherhood, marriage, or otherwise, they are adversely affected and are less likely to be hired and are paid less. And even in this part of the conversation on the podcast, Justice presented this discussion of alimony like, “It was a bit much for her to want any alimony.” Of course, Berry ended up better than fine, but again, another dog whistle: she was after my money.

This is all obviously trash. But what I found to be the most municipal solid waste was when he said, “We probably could have made it if I went to therapy.” If I was his current wife and heard him say that, I would have set all his Panama hats and linen shirt/short sets on fire like I was Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale. The fuck you mean if you went to therapy, you would’ve still been with your first wife?!?!?!

Clowns. Clowns. CLOWNS. HALP! Women are clowns to keep signing up for this stupid ass circus called Men. Seriously tho, this is insane, so I ran my ass to the comments and social media and read comment after comment about how he’s a great guy, a great husband with three awesome kids. Ummm, he sucks! THIS DUSTY ASS MAN HAD THE BALLS TO PUBLICLY STATE THAT HE PROBABLY WOULD STILL BE WITH HIS EX-WIFE IF HE WENT THERAPY WHILE HE IS MARRIED TO SOMONE ELSE AND BUILT A WHOLE ASS LIFE WITH HER? He’s not a catch. He is a dropped ball. He is the descended testicle of an octogenarian who can’t get it up anymore. He’s highly disrespectful and cruel. He’s not proof that he’s a great husband.

Look, I don’t know the inner workings of his marriage with his current wife, but saying this loudly into a microphone is wild as fuck. And if he’s bold to say this for public consumption, what has he said in private to friends and family and even to his wife? Like what actions has he made? Has his current wife ever wondered why he didn’t do “xyz” because she didn’t measure up in some way? And was she trying to contort and fix herself or do mental gymnastics whenever something in their relationship seemed off. Because if Justice is telling this interviewer this, he has, in large ways and small, probably let his wife know over the years this exact sentiment maybe through a passive aggressive comment, being distant, etc.

To me, what belies this bonkers ass comment is that maybe there are some unresolved feelings for Berry. Sure, he tried to laugh off the therapy comment, but a lot of truth is said in jest. And laughing can fend off vulnerability. It’s scary to be that open. That honest. Now, I wasn’t expecting him to then do performative self-flagellation following the therapy remark, but some maturity and accountability would’ve been nice. To stop and take ownership over his part in why a relationship did or didn’t work out. Imagine if he had been brave enough to say, “Hey, we were young. We rushed into get married and didn’t fully understand all the work that would entail to make it successful when we’re living apart. We both probably made some mistakes and I’m sure, on my end, my not being in therapy contributed to the relationship ending. But we both moved on, found love with other people and isn’t that great?” Sure, it’s not easy to man up and take responsibility, but it makes far more sense than barfing up sexist nonsense, sprinkling in a pearl of wisdom about therapy, and carrying on spewing garbage and taking shots at someone you knew damn near thirty years ago. That’s punk ass behavior.

It also feels like Berry is, in some way, the one who got away, even though Justice is the one who left. And that can be a complicated feeling. Despite the incompatibilities. Despite being the one who pulled the trigger and said goodbye first. Despite presenting like you were never really into the person you left in the first place. She’s still living rent free in his mind, which has to be a mind fuck in some ways. To reckon with unresolved feelings is hard when she was the one who proposed to him. She made him feel like the prize. And she wasn’t good enough, so he had to leave to find the person to do all the things that Berry couldn’t do. But she for all intents and purposes is the one who truly moved on, at least publicly. She doesn’t talk about him at all. She’s not taking opportunities to dog him out publicly decades later when I’m sure she could’ve. The script wasn’t supposed to go this way for Justice because he walked away from the baddie who didn’t measure up. The script is not supposed to go this way for the guy who claims he was never all that invested in the woman who was so into him. He was supposed to win the game that Berry probably wasn’t even playing.

To go out of your way to trash someone after damn near thirty years says a lot about who you were then, and more importantly, who you are now. And just because you have some Ringling Bros. strands all up in your double helixes, doesn’t mean you need to stay at the circus. You can always leave. Silently.

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Oof, sorry, #ThotNaysh, for the jump scare. Totally fine if you need to bill me for making your buttholes pucker at the sight of these two atrocities. But we must discuss them, which is a shame because I hoped to be high on enjoying my summer: talking to a man on a dating app and him asking for my number only for him to never call me or talk to me again, playing the game “Is This Perimenopause Or Is It Just Gahtdamn Hot On The Subway Platform Cuz It’s Summertime,” and the classic “It’s Summer Friday Season, But People Clearly Stopped Working at 11:47am on Thursdays.” What’s going on? Is it pencils down because we all just watched the most recent episode of And Just Like That and we need emergency therapy and multiple days of self-care practices to process what the hell is happening in this Sex and the City multiverse? LOL. Not And Just Like That catching strays. Sorry, boo. I’ll deal with you another time. Point is, these heinous men, comedian and podcaster Andrew Schulz and the President of the United States Donald Trump, have a bitch (read: me, I’m the bitch) messed up. Now, should I be surprised by their nonsense? Course not. Another day, another buffoon podcast bro doing the equivalent of verbal diarrhea and we’re left to sift through the undigested corn. #WhereIsMyPulitzerPrizeForWriting #TheyCallMeTheBobRossOfLanguage #ICanPaintAPicWithWords

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Recently, a clip from Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh was circulated all over social media because Schulz, a Trump voter, fixed his mouth to say:

‘I voted for none of this. He’s doing the exact opposite of everything I voted for. I want him to stop the wars — he’s funding them. I want him to shrink spending, reduce the budget — he’s increasing it. It’s like everything that he said he’s going to do — except sending immigrants back, and now he’s even flip-flopped on that, which I kind of like.”

What a tired cliché from the Doofus 101 Playbook: playing victim after making a disastrous decision you 1000% knew was trifling the whole time, the whole time, THE WHOLE TIME (Sally Field in Mrs. Doubtfire hive, stand up) is an insult to even the basest of intellects. You mean to tell me that you’re genuinely dismayed that this extremely dangerous, morally vacant presidency has been going the way it was FUCKING OUTLINED IN PROJECT 2025 AND ALLUDED TO BY FORMER VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE KAMALA HARRIS THROUGHOUT HER CAMPAIGN? I am to understand that Trump had the ability to commit the ultimate rope-a-dope on Schulz, who is now bewildered with the direction the Trump presidency is going in as if Schulz and his fellow podcast bros (more on them later) weren’t sitting in the side car with MapQuest directions printed out and saying, “make a left at Total Destruction So You Can Feel Like Your Dick is Big.” Like we’re all to believe the theater Schulz is presenting - Audra McDonald he ain’t - that this alleged “betrayal” by Trump after Schulz gleefully had him on his podcast back in October 2024, which garnered 9.6 MILLION views on YouTube has now left Schulz dumbfounded to the point of saying, “I don’t want to be too cynical, but now I’m getting to the point where it’s like, ‘Can they do anything?’”

Huh? What Trump has done now is the tipping point? So…not the sexual assault. Not his racial discrimination to Black people and turning them away from renting apartments at his father’s business. Not his general lack of understanding in how government works. Not him taking out full page ads, demanding the death penally be reinstated, so the Central Park Five could be killed for a sexual assault they did not commit, but were coerced to say they did. Not his abominable and heartless response to a multitude of disasters. Tossing paper towels to crowds following the Hurricane Martha ravaging Puerto Rico. Callously saying, “Want me to go swimming?” when asked if he was going to visit the site of the deadly Washington DC plane crash that took the lives of 67 people. Constantly undermining Dr. Fauci during the height of Covid and not caring about the growing number of deaths. The list goes on and on. So please, miss me with this bullshit of your surprise at things going down exactly as planned.

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The reality is this goes down one of two ways:

1. If you are so dumb and can be easily duped by a man with the vocabulary of my toenail, the mental acuity of a fruit fly (not fruit flies and my toenails catching strays, too!), and a hair with the structural integrity of cotton candy dredged in sewer water before being tossed into the ocean at Coney Island, then you need a license in order to speak into a microphone. You have zero business being a voice that anyone listens to, especially a voice that profits by rallying legions of people to support and vote for a man who has routinely displayed psychopathic tendencies. Because, clearly, lining your pockets matters more to you than basic human decency.

OR

2. This is exactly what you voted for. You knew, you fucking knew and you didn’t care because you didn’t think the consequences of your piece of shit choices would come within a 100 squared miles of your life. You were perfectly fine with Trump being the tornado of chaos as long as it didn’t touch down in your backyard. You were thumbs up with him lying to everyone else as long as you believed he was never going to lie to you. Wow, what delusional arrogance. And now that you’re seeing your actions (having complete and total disregard for anyone other than those you care about) is having the unintended fallout of potential harming you and let’s be honest that the following is the reason: you’re concerned about how history and time is going to look on your persona. That time will not look kindly on the shitshow you willfully and loudly participated in. So, now you’re trying to cover your ass and save face.

Either way, the damage is done. You believed the con, on some level, and you didn’t notice because you were too high off of being within an arm’s distance of the power. Of course, Trump lied to you just like he lied to everyone else. His entire fucking raggedy life is in a web of lies and arrears! The six times his businesses have declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Has unpaid campaign bills in six cities (Spokane, WA, Erie, PA, Mesa, AZ, Albuquerque, NM, Lebanon, OH, & El Paso, TX). His grifting with that stupid ass $5 million dollar gold Trump card as a “residency permit.” Him constantly selling merch (those gauche Trump Sneakers) like it’s Coachella. Da fuck? Was Theodore Roosevelt selling monocles during campaign stops, you clown?

This “now” that has Schulz up in arms is the Epstein list debacle. He wants answers. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so stupid. Like you truly expected Trump to share the actual Epstein list when this trifling motherfucker wasn’t willing to share this tax returns? The House Democrats, in 2022, had to force his hand in order for us to see a single damn W-2. I mean, this all sounds infuriatingly dumb, right? Almost as if we’re living in Mike Judge’s 2006 movie Idiocracy, a satire about anti-intellectualism and consumerism, among other things. Only the run time isn’t 1 hour and 24 minutes like the movie, but it’s the rest of lives. I mean, how else do you explain this other than being idiocracy:

This man? In what world is he the foremost political journalist. Where? When? How? Why?

You mean this man who, in one of his “jokes” referred to the Coronavirus as the “Asian parasite.”

You mean this man who had the disgraceful and corrupt NYC Mayor Eric Adams on and asked him which borough has the most attractive women.

You mean this man who said, “What I’ve realized is, you’ve gotta have empathy for how people see you based on the way that we consume information. You can’t be angry that people didn’t do an eight hour deep dive and find out exactly how nuanced you are and like what your thought process is.” But like…isn’t that part and parcel of being an engaged political citizen of the world? Isn’t doing deep dive and accumulating knowledge, so you can speak intelligently about things that profoundly affect those around you and for generations to come a requirement to have conversations that will have a wide reaching audience?

You mean this man who, in this NYT profile, was asked why he hadn’t really drilled Trump on anything substantive re: the economy despite doing that with Bernie Sanders. Schulz responded that he had three topics of importance that he wanted to discuss with Trump. One of them being protecting IVF because he and his wife had a baby via IVF. Then Schulz followed it up with: “Yeah, I know all this horrible stuff that this guy has been accused of or convicted of doing, but I want to have a family. Unfortunately in elections, we look past certain transgressions because there are things that are more important to us.” NOPE. You don’t get to pick and choose nor minimize. Labeling sexual assault and sexual harassment as “past transgressions” is deeply destructive. IF you claim that you want to protect women, then protect all of womanhood, protect our bodies at all times irrespective of the situation. Protecting IVF is only of importance because it’s about a woman’s body being useful for you. And that’s giving The Handmaid’s Tale, boo.

You mean this man who, instead of pushing back, was joking and cackling with Trump, a fascist, which only allows Trump to be humanized and his toxicity to be normalized and encouraged to the detriment of the lives of countless and nameless people?

You mean this man who claimed that having Trump on his podcast was not an endorsement: “I don’t believe in endorsing candidates. I’m a comedian. And I didn’t want to go to the inauguration either. They were very kind to invite me, but it wasn’t for me.” Ah, yes, the classic “get out of jail free” card that many comedians attempt to utilize when they don’t want to be held accountable for their actions and comments. “I’m just a comedian! Don’t take me seriously, but do seriously give me your hard earned money and attention, so I can get rich.”

This is the foremost political journalist? Please! This is all sooo…hollow. The New York Times, stand up! Does someone have dirt on you? Is there footage of the NYT Editor-in-Chief Joseph Kahn at the 1996 Freaknik in Atlanta hungover and twerking for a bowl of shrimp and grits at 3am? What the hell is happening? Is doing this interview all in the name of clicks? Of course, it is. I know the commodity these days is our attention, but for the love of any and everything good in this world, please understand the ramifications of your silent (and not so silent) acquiescence to unmitigated and unchecked fuckery and skullduggery. Sadly, it seems the NYT is not willing to do that and that Schulz is not some random outlier.

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There’s Joe “I’m just asking questions” Rogan, who, according to CNN, allowed 32 false claims from Trump to slip by him during their October 2024 interview. Theo Von, who happily dined with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and on his podcast This Past Weekend, explained to Tom Green that one of the reasons why he wanted to interview Trump is that, “You don’t hear a lot about his feelings, Trump’s feelings. And if you do, he doesn’t communicate it in a way where it’s very emotional to people, I don’t feel like. So I was just curious about that.”

WHO CARES?!?! LITERALLY WHO CARES WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT, WHITE SUPREMACIST, FACIST MONSTER THINKS AND FEELS! I HAVE NO INTEREST IN HIS ORIGIN STORY NOR A DESIRE TO COAX A GROWN ASS MAN ON THE CUSP OF 80 INTO ACCURATELY IDENTIFYING AN EMOTION FOR ONCE IN HIS SORRY, SAPPY LIFE. YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE, BITCH. TIME’S UP!

Why are you so hellbent on “humanizing” a person who does not give a damn about humanity and only exists to cause damage and destruction? This is like that moronic movie Crash in which Matt Dillion’s character sexually assaults Thandiwe Newton’s in front of of her husband and then at end of the film, his character is “redeemed” because he pulled her out of a burning car and she gratefully collapses into his arms. Motherfucker, get your grubby hands off her and let her stop, drop, and roll outta that bitch herself. Truly, the obsession with excavating the supposed goodness out of vengeful and hateful white men such as Trump, who has had 79 gahtdamn years to show a modicum of basic human decency yet hasn’t is confounding and beyond stupid. To pretend that somehow with the right talking to, the goodness that lay dormant and hidden will magically appear instead of demanding they display qualities of greatness throughout their lifetime and is not only wishful thinking, but lazy and often a signifying that they, too, will be treated with grace whatever “past transgressions” that may come to light. Furthermore, you not hold these people accountable for their behavior is irresponsible. The truth is this: if a bitch is irreversibly raggedy, they gon be raggedy until the day they die. And then, and only then, will they be of any positive use because we will take their ashes to fertilize mulch and grow some motherfuckin’ trees. NEXT!

Jokes aside, what I actually think is going on is these guys are quasi Trump supporters and grifters. And we’re the ones stuck paying the price for this duality. See, because whether they believe everything they spout or “question” is immaterial. That has never been the point. The point has been to monetize off beliefs, not matter how vitriolic, and an audience, no matter how rabid and hungry they are to hear the next most outrageous thing to come out of their mouths. And if what Trump was/is doing did tangentially line up with these podcasters’ ideologies, that was an unexpected bonus. All that mattered was them sticking to plan: not explicitly stating their point of view yet platforming those who boldly did. This allows these podcast bros flexibility, or so they think, to play both sides, which is why Schulz calling out Trump is, at best, wildly disingenuous, and at worst, textbook con artist behavior.

Look, Schulz isn’t the first and won’t be the last to pull a stunt like this. After all, just a few weeks ago, clips from an interview that former FOX News messiah Tucker Carlson conducted with Senator Ted Cruz. After years of peddling racist, divisive hatred, Carlson decided to hold Cruz’s feet to the fire, calling him out for things such as Cruz’s inability to give clear consideration answers on anything. So, as we all know, this means that years and years ago, Carlson knew exactly what was going on and didn’t care because: grift. Being a foot solider for Fox News paid the bills, until it didn’t. Time to course correct and try another tactic then. Enter sacrificial lamb Cruz or displays of umbrage over Trump’s behavior. But Cruz and Trump are not the only liars. Carlson and Schulz have peddled dishonesty as well, which is why they’re so quick to try and get ahead of the story, when they sense the tide is turning so that they can rewrite history as though they’ve always been on the right side of it. But we have receipts. So good fucking luck.

What I really wish this loud and proud clowns with microphones would do is shut up and seek help. Go to therapy. And not just go to therapy, but tell the TRUTH in therapy. Tell the truth about yourselves instead of the version that gets their therapist to say what they want to hear because the licensed professional is only making assessments based off half-baked lies and obfuscation. I would love for these podcasters to ask themselves why spewing nonsense in order to gain followers and access without ever bothering to wonder why anyone NEEDS to follow them in the first place is their modus operandi. What is worthy about them that requires their leadership. If they can so easily be fooled by a pathological liar, they must know, deep down in the depths of their souls, that they’re not qualified to be a leader. Let alone a thought leader. Hell, they’re not even qualified to apply to be a fucking intern for their obvious vacuity should have swallowed you whole by now if not for the grace of luck.

I would further ask them to sit in the wrongness of their choices and accept that any shred of their fecklessness being reversible and forgivable has been obliterated by the fact that we have video and audio evidence of you willfully bending your knee to eat Trumps’ fucking ass like groceries. Too much? Perhaps. But maybe it’s too little.

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We should call them out, every single time for being the no moral having, subcutaneous leaches that they are. Because they know exactly what that their choices and platforming would continue to decimate communities far and wide, so they might as own it. We should call them out for treating the world as if it’s a playground and we’re all a bunch of toys they can screw around with. Enough is enough! The number of lives destroyed and/or lost all because some dusty ass man “didn’t think” what was happening was gonna happen is immeasurable and debilitating to absorb if you ponder it long enough.

And so while I’m equal parts furious yet not surprised by the behavior of the podcast bros, I’m heartened by the fact that it’s being called out a bit on social media and by some people such as The View’s Sara Haines who called out Schulz and Rogan for flip-flopping. I want to see more of that. Just because we live on the same planet as these guys does not mean we wanna be on the ship that they are actively steering into an iceberg. Keep calling them out. Media outlets, do not write up long form profiles and give them titles and respect they have not earned because every time you platform someone so unqualified, knight someone with a title they do not deserve, you are an accessory to the metastasizing of that cancer on society.

When I started writing this earlier today, I stumbled upon this illustration by Ciaran Murphy for Financial Times’ article “The Podcast Bros Who Helped Put Trump Back in the White House.” From left to right, we see Lex Fridman (host of Lex Fridman Podcast and has a reputation for spreading lies about science), Rogan, Von, Schulz, and Logan Paul (host of his podcast Impaulsive, which also had Trump on as a guest). Looks like a Last Supper of sorts, doesn’t it? Well, let them starve.

#ThotNaysh, ain’t it just like a crusty ass, lowlife butterface, butter body, butter everything (cuz everything on this ignorant buffoon is busted) to get his Wranglers in a bunch over a Black woman being successful while successfully minding her business. All because this insecure dude just had to peek over the metaphorical fence a la like Wilson from the TV show Home Improvement and got his feelings hurt when he saw that, in comparison to her, he is utterly devoid of the otherworldly talent that he assumed he possessed. Now, white men taking umbrage over the presence and specialness of a Black woman is business as usual, but this particular strain of nonsense always irritates and tickles me in each measure.

You see, [checks pad for this loser’s name] Gavin Adcock’s umbrage isn’t just that Beyoncé created Cowboy Carter following the mistreatment she suffered by performing her song “Daddy Lessons” with The Chicks in 2016 at the CMAs. It’s that she had the audacity to not only make this incredible album, but to, and this is the cardinal sin, make it without asking permission. And instead of asking for forgiveness, she exuded confidence, trusting her instincts, talents, lifelong experience of growing up in Houston as well as educating herself further in all the ways that Black people and culture provided the blueprint and foundation of country music. This is not a shred of sheepishness to be found on Cowboy Carter. No head tilted down, eyes fearful of making contact. This album is a self-possessed piece of art that’s a celebration of Blackness and the contribution and ongoing legacy of Black artists within the genre. And the thought of centering whiteness never crossed her mind. And that’s what stings, [checks pad again] isn’t it, Gavin Adcock?

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Like many folks, I had no idea who this man was until a couple of days ago when a viral video of him at his “concert” for 37 people as he stood on a “stage” that was dressed with bull horns and saloon doors from the sales rack at Hobby Lobby. Adcock fixed his mouth and said, “Only three people in front of me on the Apple Music country charts, and one of them’s Beyoncé. You can tell her we’re coming for her fuckin’ ass,” to loud ass hootin’ and hollerin’. First of all, call me paranoid, but white people cheering a white man for saying he’s coming for a Black woman’s ass has me on speed dial with Django to see if we need to mount on some horses and ride at dawn. THE HELL YOU SAYING SOME SHIT LIKE THIS IN 2025?! And second, BITCH, CAN YOU DO MATH? I just looked up the charts and [checks pad once more], Cowboy Carter is currently #17 on the Apple Music Country Album charts and his album Actin’ Up Again (an apt title) is #56. Lmaooooooo. The temerity. The audacity to rewrite history to make it seem like he and Beyoncé are in competition with each other. And if his outsized ego wasn’t enough, he continued, “That shit ain’t country music, it ain’t ever been country music.” FUCK. THIS. GUY.

To be clear, I’m not writing this as an overly intense Beyoncé stan. Yes, I do enjoy her music A LOT and her concerts are some of the best in the biz. I just think it’s important to state this because historically, it’s easier to dismiss the merits of someone’s thoughts and opinions when you can chalk it up to the delusional ramblings of a crazed fan who lacks nuance and instead just eats, breathes, and sleeps their own myopic point of view. That’s not what’s going on here. Some things are just objectively true: climate change is real, I’m at the age where I ask the seating situation at an event - “Will there be chairs? And can I sit in them?” - before RSVP’ing “yes,” and Lenny Kravitz is so fine that I would bone him with his bootcut Levi’s on. What’s also similarly true: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter is country music.

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Plenty of acts like Florida Georgia Line and Tim McGraw have incorporated rap and hip hop and they’re considered country music. Rock star Elvis Costello released a country album Almost Blue in 1981 and has continued to dabble in and out of country music his whole career without anyone raising a stink. And, magically, when Lil Nas X put Billy Ray Cyrus on “Old Town Road” because Billboard removed it from the Country charts, the song was put back on the country charts and it helped launched X’s career. Hmm. I could go on and on, but I think a trend is becoming abundantly clear: that when white artists experiment with the genre either by expanding it/blending it with other genres OR when white artists like Costello, who typically work outside the genre step in it and do a album of traditional country covers, that’s okay.

When folks like Adcock proclaim what is and isn’t country music, I think about the genre’s origins. An article from the Jacksonville Music Experience highlights how integral Black people are to country:

The melodies of many early country hits were lifted from hymns performed by Black ministers in the South. Black artists such as guitarists Lesley Riddle and Rufus “Tee Tot” Payne influenced the music of The Carter Family and Hank Williams, respectively.

DeFord Bailey was the very first performer on the Grand Ole Opry radio show, which was formerly know as WSM Barn Dance). Linda Martell was the highest charting Black woman on the country charts (the 1969 single “Color Him Father,” which peaked at No. 22 on the Hot Country Singles chart) prior to Beyoncé’s hit “Texas Hold ‘Em.” Charley Pride was the first Black country singer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. Darius Rucker is the first Black solo artist with a diamond-certified country song aka sold and streamed 10 MILLION units. Only three other country songs have achieved this status in music history, by the way. Black people have always been a part of country music, have been the blueprint for country music, have incorporated other sounds into the genre, and will continue to drive it forward. Conveniently, this is forgotten in the discussion about what is and what isn’t “country music,” which is less a conversation and more a shitty decree: country music should be made by and for white people.

Yes, Cowboy Carter isn’t traditional sounding. Beyoncé isn’t interested in mimicry of the past, but fusing paying homage to those who came before her with her artistry to create something impactful, joyful, multi-layered, and timeless. It’s what country music sounds like coming out of her mouth. And isn’t that what an artist does? Shows you the world through their lens? She did it here and she’s done it before.

We all remember her now legendary performance of her song “Daddy Lessons” with the Chicks at the 2016 CMAs. 98% of the audience made the same face I did when one time, an old man on an 11am flight opened a Tupperware container of hard boiled eggs and we all just had to sit in the sky and smell that shit. The CMA audience in the theater and at home made it abundantly clear that they did not want Beyoncé there. The vitriol on Twitter was rough. The backlash was so swift and loud that even Queen Bey couldn’t ignore it:

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And boom, Cowboy Carter s born, which drew even more outrage from folks as if to say, “She still on this?” Like they were FURIOUS that Beyoncé still believed had the right to belong. LOL. Like you really thought Beyoncé Giselle Knowles Carter was just going to take disrespect lying down? You must be new here. Pull up a chair-no, matter fact, stand in the hallway, so I can school your ass and then slam the door in your face! Sorry not sorry, but you don’t get to reject someone and then object to how they turn their pain into art. You don’t get to decide how she processes the darkness and ugliness she had to endure. And you certainly don’t get to act like her making an album that celebrates how country music makes her feel rather than making an album centering the country people who tried to dim her light is a crime. It’s not a crime. It’s freedom. Her freedom. Her business.

Yet the gatekeepers want to keep making it their business. Like Luke Bryan when he was on Radio Andy and was asked about Cowboy Carter being snubbed at the CMAs. Mind you, Beyoncé never said anything about the CMA snub and just kept it moving, but that doesn’t stop Bryan from weighing in with foolishness:

Boy, bye. “Family?” This is disingenuous for two reasons. One, the aforementioned “Daddy Lessons” performance and two, when Justin Timberlake went solo and started working with Timbaland, did Black people treat the R&B genre like it’s nighttime in a sundown town and ask him to get the fuck outta dodge? When P!nk was Black for one album (lol, Can’t Take Me Home is full of bops), did Black people demand she show her recipe for potato salad or we weren’t gonna listen to “There You Go?” NO! We let these artists put out their work and let the chips fall where they may. Sink or swim. You’re either an Eminem or an Adele or Vanilla Ice. The same can’t be said the other way around because here’s the truth they know, I know, we all know: Ingratiating yourself as Bryan suggests is a fool’s errand as the goal is a moving yardstick and it will never, ever be enough.

Beyoncé could have made the rounds, kowtowed to all these fools, dropped country songs periodically throughout her career, dyed her hair a lighter shade of blonde, and they would still have rejected her because they never wanted her around in the first place. So, all this theater about how it would have helped if she bent the knee Game of Thrones style in order for them to be more welcoming is just them telling on themselves: that like so many times in history, after they reject Black people, they stay watching us, fully expecting that we’re just gonna sit twiddling our thumbs. For them, it’s about surveillance. We are not allowed to move without being watched. The concept of “Black people minding their own business” is a foreign one. So, they monitor our moves, stifle what they cannot understand, sabotage what they wish they had until they see the foundation we’re building in which they can take over and colonize and falsely claim as their own. And when they can’t do that, they get mad, which brings me back to Gavin Adcock.

The fact that fifteen months after Cowboy Carter was released, Adcock kicked up dust again as if the detractors at the CMAs didn’t learn their lesson the first time around SHE’S OBJECTIVELY BETTER AND INFINITELY MORE TALENTED THAN YOU - has me wondering: do you have rocks for brains? Is your skull thicc like the ass cheeks of a botched BBL that the lesson you ought to take away from this cannot be absorbed? Is your ego so fragile that you can’t consider the possibility that the real reason you’re upset is that despite the scrapping and clawing and desperation of gatekeeping, Beyoncé leapt over each and every hurdle placed in her path and achieved what was supposed to be denied to her and yet, you have all the advantages in the world and this level of success has denied you? That instead of the success, accolades, relevance, and influence, you’re grasping at straws and using her name to get you clout and attention because she has what still and probably always will allude you?

Let’s face it, #ThotNaysh, he KNOWS just how difficult those roadblocks are, how firmly in place they are, so if someone like Beyoncé can not only succeed, but crush it in spite of the obstacles, then he just might, gasp!, have to bend his knee to her immeasurable talent. But that’s too disorienting a thing to do because that would undo his sense of self and how he views the world.

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And so Beyoncé and every single Black person must routinely deal with these tantrums. Fight against all odds to not have our energy zapped when we’re just trying to exist in peace. To do own thing only to have nosy bitches rudely and loudly announce their presence and send a reminder that we’re always being watched. Sometimes, it works. Other times like this situation, it doesn’t. Shortly after Adcock’s video went viral, he posted another video to social media and backtracked, attempting to soften his message:

“When I was a little kid, my mama was blasting some Beyoncé in the car. I’ve heard a ton of Beyoncé songs and I actually remember her Super Bowl Halftime Show being pretty kick-ass back in the day, but I really don’t believe her album should be labeled as country music.”

It’s like JoJo, another blue-eyed RnB singer, sang, “It’s just a little too late.” Like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun in order to chastise and make a “villain” out of someone who’s not the problem. It’s hubris. It’s very Drake behavior.

But I can’t even call Gavin Addock, “White Drake” like I wanna because that would imply he ever had the tiniest chance in this dogfight he failed to create and has already lost. The loss is not just because Beyoncé is not taking the bait as she’s too business minding her business, but because he’s missed the entire point. Instead of studying her music in terms how she created a rich sonic tapestry of melodies and messages, collaborating with other artists he admires because he understand the concept of “rising tides lift all boats,” dipping into the deep well of country music he claims to love so much and using what he found as an inspiration to create something new, he’s flailing, throwing punches in the wind. Perhaps if he can take anything away from this clusterfuck, it’s that if he minds his business, perhaps he can make an album as top tier as Cowboy Carter. But I doubt it. And I think he does, too, because if he could do that, he would be doing that. Oops. Now, there I go minding his business.

Since the film’s release a couple of weeks ago, there’s been much discourse all over social media, in part because of the ending [SPOILER ALERT]: Dakota Johnson’s character chooses Chris Evans’s dusty ass, broke, cater waiter/struggling actor character over Pedro Pascal’s wealthy, home-owning financial advisor, who is a decent guy in his 40s and, in his words, has searched HIS WHOLE LIFE for someone like her. Babe, have you ever been to a farmers’ market? A Starbucks? The “live, love, laugh” shiplap signage aisle at Home Goods? A basic woman with bangs in New York City is not difficult to find. How hard did ya look? Anyway, that’s beside the point. What surprised me was how many people were shocked she ended up with Chris.

To me, that outcome was clear from the trailer. Think about it. The only time a white character chooses a POC as their life partner in a movie is if it’s some civil rights story and Andra Day’s “Rise Up” plays in the background as the interracial couple slurps down milkshakes while being harassed. According to Hollywood, interracial love only exists in a tornado of strife and is an oft-ignored “lesson” of how racism makes no sense because we’re all human and all bleed red. So: OBVIOUSLY, DAKOTA JOHNSON WASN’T GONNA CHOOSE PEDRO PASCAL IN THIS MODERN DAY ROMANCE STORY ABOUT HOT PEOPLE BEING HOT IN NEW YORK CITY. Still, given all the components - a highly talented, South Korean, Oscar-nominated writer/director in Celine Song, Pedro Pascal, a soundtrack with interesting bands like Japanese Breakfast - I was bummed that the film felt like more of the same. After all, what’s the point of getting your turn at bat if only to perpetuate narratives and that are not only outdated, but more importantly, are boneheaded?

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And even if I do give Song the benefit of the doubt that this movie was trying to start conversations about modern love and the sometimes silly decisions people make, it is important to note how messages get emphasized or diluted based on the package they’re presented in. This is why I balk at people stating that choosing the broke man is rejecting capitalism. In theory, that makes sense. In reality…that is so dependent on who gets to reject the hustle. Who gets to be anti-capitalist and seen as a romantic hero.

Let’s be real: if Pascal was playing the part of the broke man who has not displayed any semblance of growth and maturity and has no real future all because they simply loved each other, many people would’ve left the movie theater like, “Girl, let that man blow your back out then you dip out to the next sauseege with central a/c and a good FICO score.” A financially insecure man of color is not seen as valuable or lovable or a dream partner; he’s seen as a cast member from season 25 of 90 Day Fiancé: I’m Tryna Get That Green Card Tho. But a Chris Evans’ type? True love. Because whiteness = worthiness, which explains the prove your exceptionalness people of color have to go through, which Pascal’s character represents, in order to earn what’s freely given and assumed from birth for white people.

To be clear, I have nothing against Chris Evans! He’s a fine actor! I met him in passing at a Vanity Fair Oscar after party years ago. We shook hands and they were soft. He lotions! Hallelu! A white man using lotion instead of pretending his skin ain’t ashy certainly feels like one of Martin Luther King Jr’s dreams - albeit an extremely minor one - so a win is a win, baby!

I also have nothing against a broke man. I’ve dated them. Even a waiter like Evans’s character. Yep! I had a dalliance with an Italian waiter. And not the shit from New Jersey, but a man from Italy, y’all, so it was primo gabagool. Also? For most of my adult life, I’ve been broke. So. I. Get. It. Money is not everything. If it were, as my dad likes to say, “Then everyone who is rich would be happy and everyone who was poor would be miserable.” However, the stats on Evans’s character aren’t great: 37 years old, with $2k in the bank, has three roommates, by his own admission, has anger issues, and most glaringly, has not demonstrated that he has worked on himself or grown at all in the years Johnson and Evans’s characters have known each other. Her choosing a scrub is not a win! THIS SHIT IS A CAUTIONARY TALE AND MADE ME MAD AS HELL! And I would have ripped my edges out in the theater, but they’re already on life support and I need what strands I have for vacation box braids I’m gonna get installed. After the anger faded, the movie made me wonder: Celine Song, you okay, girl?

Cuz even if we take race out of it, this narrative of high achieving women, who go on an emotional journey and evolve (the less said about the reason behind Johnson’s character development, the better) yet end up with aimless men devoid of personal growth, but possess supposed untapped potential is ridiculous and is why people have been clamoring on social media about how this is broke man propaganda. And I get it!

Wanting economic stability with your partner is not, on its face, materialistic! It’s not! Johnson’s character talks a lot about money and how being broke put a strain on her parents’ marriage, but when they show the flashback of her five year relationship with Evans, I’m failing to see all these alleged materialism. She wants him to be able to afford to take her out to dinner on their FIFTH YEAR ANNIVERSARY (he admitted that he couldn’t and that’s why he was being a jerk). In the present, she has ONE nice bag and owns her apt and that makes her…obsessed with money? I’m thoroughly confused because if the goal is lifelong partnership then one actually does need to have a financial plan or, at the very least have direction, a work ethic, and show up for themselves. And if someone does not have their own life together (i.e. being able to support yourself) then how can their partner trust them to show up in the myriad ways - financially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually- one is required to as an adult? So we can say all you need is love, but honestly, Johnson ending up with Evans feels like settling because she doesn’t love herself enough to choose herself. Furthermore, betting on potential is something that’s never romanticized, suggested, or indoctrinated in men. Men do not marry potential. Period. If I told a guy to do that, he would be like, “Potential…

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Like name a movie where a man chooses between a good on paper woman and a woman who has nothing going for herself. Doesn’t exist because men are never tasked with making such decision as the latter woman would never be an option he would consider in the first place. For example, in Bridget Jones’ Diary, Colin Firth had the heartless lawyer colleague or Bridget Jones who is a bit bumbling but has a thriving career and is beautiful. In Serendipity, John Cusack is a successful ESPN producer who must choose between his perfectly wonderful and pretty fiancée or Kate Beckingsale’s carefree and also pretty therapist. The men here are choosing between who does the best job of making him feel better about himself. Who has more of the manic pixie girl energy to uplift him whenever he needs. Never once considering a sprinkle of her potential within that could unlock a newer, better version of herself for herself.

And, if we’re being honest, besides not seeing this imagined potential Evans’s character is supposed to have in Materialists, I’m struggling to comprehend what exactly was Evans and Johnson’s romantic connection. That he knew her ten years ago or something and they dated for five years? Bitch, I knew my Sallie Mae phone operator ten years ago. Does that mean her and I are meeting up tomorrow for eggs benny and bottomless mimosas at Pastis? No the fuck it does not. So what we’re left with is not much chemistry and some of the things Song left out of the discussion about modern dating, namely how difficult it is for a high achieving woman.

Studies have shown that highly successful women are more likely to be cheated on by their male partners. The American Psychological Association wrote an article about how when women achieve something, their male partners are more inclined to take her success as an indication of his personal failure. More and more is being written about marriage and relationships fundamentally benefiting men more than they do women. According to Jimenez Law Firm, money issues contribute 20%-40% of ALL divorces. I’m not writing all this to be a Debbie Downer. I believe in love and have seen it work up close. My parents have been together for FORTY-FIVE YEARS and I hope to find my soulmate one day. But it’s important to overstate that love wins all is simply not true. Love is in fact, not enough. And I’m not saying to pick the rich guy just because he’s rich. But I do believe that picking someone just because you love them is also not advisable when that person is not showing signs that they would be a good partner.

When the two meet for the first time at the beginning of the movie, Evans’ character admits he’s embarrassed because he’s still a cater waiter and she has this successful job as a matchmaker. And she still flirted with his ass and invited him back to her place. Thankfully, he passed because he didn’t think it would be a good idea for them. But all I could think was, Heaux, if a man’s self-loathing within the first 10 mins of y’all talking, the dick is gonna be trash. Like what if he did go back to her place? She’d probably end up playing therapist to his fragile ego by cupping his dong and balls and give them a Friday Night Lights “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” speech in order to have mediocre sex. WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT IN 2025?!

As we lurched towards this love triangle being set up only for Johnson to inevitably break up with Pascal, because he is so criminally underdeveloped, it feels less sad and more like, “Oh, ok, I guess.” All that we know about him is that he is a rich guy in a suit who liked her and lot and who, in her words, made her feel valuable. And when she finally calls it quits and he tells her about having a leg lengthening procedure so he could from being 5’6” to being 6’0”, he said that he wouldn't have had the courage to walk up to her when he was shorter. Cut to me in the theater:

I’ve dated a man shorter than me (he was 5’6”), so I absolutely understand what he was getting at. Shorter men do get written off due to their height and that is wack as hell. What had me rolling my eyes is having a man of color tell a white woman (who for all intents and purposes of the movie is supposed to be extremely regular) this when she herself told them told him on at their first dinner that she wasn’t spectacular in any real way. She is unremarkable. Has no friends. Isn’t amusing, yet that first dinner, he spent the entire meal, building up her confidence (um, okay), telling her she’s amazing (we never learn how), and as I mentioned earlier, stating how she’s everything he’s ever looked for in a woman (why?). The fact that he spends the movie being exceptional, trying to prove to a regular ass white woman that he’s good enough only for her to go, “On second thought, I’m good. This broke ass white dude with anger issues is where it’s at” really bummed me the fuck out. It’s giving “you’re a placeholder until I’m ready to be with the white guy.” Frankly, Pascal and people of color in general deserve better than that.

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Yet, the movie continues on and we finally reach the grand speech. He sees them growing old together, their future kids, blah, blah, blah, true love, blah, blah, blah. Round of applause. Yeah…no. This is love? THIS is LOVE?!? I mean, does he even love himself? Seriously, if one hasn’t matured at all or worked to improve their life and happiness over the span of years and years, does that sound like someone who loves themselves and therefore is capable of loving another? Or does that sound like someone who’s complacent and refuses to change because they’re too caught up in feeling sorry for themselves? Or is it even something worse: infuriating nonsense. Because at the end of the movie, he says he’ll do this, do that, will “get a real job.” And all I could think was, Motherfucker you could’ve done this shit 10 years ago when her bangs were freshly cut. But all of a sudden that now you’re nearing 40, you’re gonna do the things you should’ve done when you were 27?

Like What are the chances he’ll follow through on the promises he’s making? Low. What are the chances that the issues (money) that contributed to their relationship crashing and burning the first time around will reappear? 50/50. And what are the chances that she will have wasted her time going all in a man who will end up doing what he’s always done - not following through - instead of doing what he should of and could’ve done? Really fucking high. So not only is selling this fairytale disingenuous, but, frankly, it’s annoying.

Because diluting her needs, wants, and standards down to rich vs. poor is really to miss the point. It’s not that Johnson’s character wants money for the sake of wanting it; it’s that she saw what financial security did to her parents’ marriage. It’s not that she sold her soul to have a good paying job; it’s that when the character tried and failed at being an actress, she course corrected in order to support herself. It’s not that she’s achieving for the sake of achieving; it’s that she’s not spinning her wheels in life or getting down on herself to the point that she’s in the exact same place she was when she first met Evans. And all those things - being a self-starter, thinking about the future, operating at your fullest potential instead of coasting, working on the flaws that have contributed to your previous relationships not panning out - are not attributes that blossom cuz you love someone a whole lot. Love does not conquer all and certainly, it does not conquer someone’s bad habit of not showing up for themselves. Hell, love of a celebrity (me for Pascal) doesn’t even erase the fact that I’m still waiting for those three and half orgasms he owes me.

Jokes aside, for all the discussion of modern dating in Materialists - the difficulties, the comedies of errors, the heartbreak, the disappointment, the incredibly magical moments - and the valid points it raises such as people often do expect too much or count themselves out too quickly or get in their own way, the film still falls into the same old trap. Having the female heroine choose a relationship with man, in which he will undoubtedly benefit more from their marriage than she ever will and calling that love. Settling because being alone is too high a cost, but is it? In this economy? I’d say that loving yourself enough to walk away from bullshit is gahtdamn priceless.

Just look at this photo. The arrogance. The entitlement. The disrespect. The lack of accountability. The self-satisfied jubilation over being so utterly wasteful and indulgent. The obvious joyful disdain for the have nots. The obscene budget. Every single thing about this wedding is vomit inducing, gauche, and embodies the phrase “Eat the Rich.” Like we all deserve a nib-nib for suffering the indignity of having to live in a world with these harmful, ruinous, and greed-filled human beings.

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But on second thought, we are what we eat, so perhaps we should hold off on chowing down out of fear of the stupidity being transferred to us. Seriously, absolutely everything about this wedding is mind numbingly idiotic. Everyone riding around in yachts like Bond villains. These celebrities gleefully waving to people and cameras, pretending that this wedding hadn’t been plagued with several protests to the point that the wedding venue had to change. Even this invite is a meditation in abject buffoonery:

What in the Microsoft clip art is this bullshit? Y’all spent over $50 million on a three day extravaganza, wearing Dolce and Gabbana couture, but you decided to cut corners on the invite? Did Paperless Post block you from using their website? Is this why their wedding invite looks like something an intern whipped up in Canva while taking a dump? Jeff and Lauren prove the old adage: just because you have money does not mean you have taste. It means you have access. Just take a look at Vogue’s digital cover with Lauren Sánchez Bezos:

Right now, André Leon Talley, in his [hella thicc French accent] Louis Vuitton caftan, is probably doing barrel rolls in his grave over this cover. And Anna Wintour, who announced she is stepping down from her storied thirty-seven year career as the Editor-In-Chief of Vogue, choosing Lauren as the June 2025 digital cover star before deactivating her Slack account is very much giving “I’m tired of this funky ass job, fuck all y’all, and don’t K.I.T.” Look, clearly there’s nothing wrong with this Dolce & Gabbana wedding dress. It’s beautiful, well tailored, and yet. Something’s off. The cover feels as the Brits like to say, “a bit worthy.” In other words, trying too hard. Lauren has always been a bit of a social climber and this cover reeks of “I got in the ‘right’ circles to get the ‘right’ access to things I have not and could never earn through merit, but I can buy, and so by accumulating these signifiers of class and taste, that then means I have class and taste.” Not so fast.

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In fashion circles, being on the cover of Vogue can feel like a coronation of sorts. Can be a driver of culture to make the wheels of capitalism go ‘round. But if you think being on the cover of Vogue means that taste and elegance have automatically been transferred to you like college credits from University of Phoenix being transferred to a more “respected” college (lol, not University of Phoenix catching strays) then I have to quote my girl Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City 2 movie:

Gatekeepers like Vogue are not the arbiters of taste. Not really. And I’m saying this as a fashion girlie who has been reading the magazine since college, loves mixing high and low fashion, and sees every photo shoot I do for work as an opportunity for self-expression and celebrity how wonderful fashion can truly be as I did for this 2020 Marie Claire profile on me.

Like wearing this Valentino dress inside the Russian Tea Room does not make me fabulous. Or more special. Or have taste. I possessed all those qualities before I hoisted what little cocoa titties I have up inside that couture gown because that’s who I am internally. The reality is taste is an inside job, not something you try to convince others you possess. Not something you elbow your way into getting. If anything, landing the cover of Vogue because Lauren had enough zeroes in her bank account only puts her more under an microscope and show that regardless of how much she may have practiced bridal poses in the mirror in order to look the part of a princess and how much she has leveled up into “high society,” she is still the Lauren Wendy Sánchez before the Bezos of it all. The glaring emptiness of it all now has a bigger spotlight. It’s like my dear friend Wanyi likes to say: “Everywhere you go, there you are.” No matter the dizzying heights one reaches, they cannot escape themselves. So, despite the trappings of pomp and circumstance, it’s abundantly clear taste alludes Jeff and Lauren because they never had it to begin with, which explains how we ended up with this cover, and more importantly, that tacky invite. I didn’t forget about it. How could I?!

Not that I needed them to have an invite made out of diamonds and pearls, but shit like this burns my toast about some wealthy people. Like the second they have to do something not reliant on spending copious amounts of money or using a designer label to “signify taste,” they show just how uninventive and absent of thought they truly are unless the thought is about how to accumulate more wealth, of course.

And that’s one of the things that irritates me the most: that these hoarders of wealth and resources are so woefully tacky, so demoralizing vacant, so completely absent of a point of view yet they’re the ones holding the keys to the castle. And they holding them because, as their self-mythology would have it explained, they’re smart and worked hard enough to earn their success (no matter how morally bankrupt it is) when they are shockingly hollow human beings lacking a single original thought that is not dredged in a self-serving ulterior motive. That when they slip up, as they always inevitably do like with this horror show invite, and reveal their lack of creativity and intellect, I can’t help but wonder about all the talents that go unrecognized in world built to obfuscate and subjugate in service of propping up the select few. Just how different this world would be if those who indeed do have taste, a distinct point of view, are wildly inventive, and are concerned with the state of humanity were in charge. And, yes, I know that’s a lot to extrapolate from a piece of shit invitation, but often, things are other springboards for bigger ideas and this invite is no different. Speaking of which, let’s get back to it!

This abomination has shooting stars, a bird flying around with a quill pen made out of a feather of another bird, a lone dragonfly, a gondola, and are basically telling guests that their presence is helping Venice. HELPING VENICE?! Riiiiight. The lovely city of Venice is sinking lower than an auntie at a cookout dropping it to Keith Sweat’s “Nobody” who doesn’t have the knee or core strength to stand back up, but sure, the presence of Bill Gates in a bland ass Brooks Brothers suit or whatever the fuck he was wearing is undoubtedly helping Venice defy gravity. #InsertCynthiaErivoAsElephabaAndHerBattleCry.

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And if I’m being honest, that’s probably what I’m taking umbrage over the most. The delusion that these people have about themselves. That while they’re actively destroying the planet and the lives of those around them with carbon emissions, abusive work environments, hoarding of resources, bullshit mastubatory philanthropic “efforts” (Sánchez Bezos is a “climate change advocate” and the Vice Chair of the Bezos Earth Fund), etc., they still see themselves as the heroes whose birthright is to act this way. That to do something other be self-serving would be antithetical to everything that is right in this world.

As the US government nose dives into idiocracy and dehumanization, these celebrities get to laugh, tucked away in their billionaire and multi-millionaire cocoons that protect them from effects of the tragedies they either helped create, refuse to destroy, or both. At times, it’s heartbreaking and feels oh, so damn dumb. Like it’s all a waste. Being a good person, paying taxes, learning the Pythagorean Theorem, building a little life, having hobbies, trying to do some good, falling in love, eat amazing food, getting really fucking good at karaoke, raising kids, only to live in the same timeline as these clowns.

And then we take a breath. And then another one. And another one and yet another and remind ourselves that nihilism and allowing ourselves to be crushed under the weight the haves are putting on us is what they want. Well, I don’t want that. I don’t want us to give up or be bitter or think there is no way to turn this ship around. And seeing the groundswell of backlash over the ostentatiousness of this wedding is a comforting reminder that we aren’t going to take this lying down. We are going to speak up. Make some noise. Call them out. And they can insulate themselves as much as they want. No one is impervious to being chastised and feeling embarrassed. So, let’s keep doing is applying pressure and naming names, so that it’s harder for them to hide. Like when rumors swirled about the wedding guest list, I channeled my inner Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Sutton Strake:

THE LIST OF CELEBRITIES WHO ATTENDED JEFF & LÁUREN SANCHEZ BEZOS WEDDING:

Oprah (You spoke at former Vice President and Democratic nominee for President Kamala Harris’ DNC convention TEN MONTHS ago and now you’re at the wedding of a man who donated $1 MILLION to Tr*mp’s inaugural fund?! Harriet Tubman ain’t do everything she did, for you to do this?!?!)

Gayle King (Still waiting for you to tell us the results from all your “findings and research” when you went to space for three minutes. Lmaooooo.)

Director Darren Aronofsky (Haven’t watched one of your movies in twenty-fives years. Feels like that was a good call.)

CEO of Kering François-Henri Pinault (Salma Hayek, throw a chancleta at your husband and tell him to get his shit together!)

Bill Gates (Already mentioned his stupid ass earlier.)

Jewel (Girl, I stan’d hard for you are when you turned one of your songs into a jingle for Schick’s Intuition razor commercials. I was a gahtdamn fool for doing that, apparently.)

Sydney Sweeney (I mean, she’s selling body soap with droplets of her bathwater in it, so her common sense ctrl + alt + del itself a while ago.)

Queen Rania of Jordan (Girl, I know they’re your friends - eyeroll - but you are the queen of a country. Aren’t you busy? You 100% could have skipped this and sent a text to group chain twelve minutes before the nuptials began: “Sorry I missed this text invite. Wish I could be there! Congratulations! LYLAS, Raina.”) For the uninitiated, LYLAS means “love you like a sister.”

Orlando Bloom (I can’t believe I once wanted you to go Downton on my Abbey aka go down on my vajeen while you wore your The Lord of the Rings Elven ears.)

Ellie Goulding (Kind of surprised you got an invite. Def giving third tier guest invite, but it’s an honor to be included. 🙄)

Karlie Kloss (Pass! Truly not worth the effort to write anything about her.)

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump (Literal pieces of dog excrement deep baked into a bowl of refried beans with expired Pace picante sauce on top.)

Kris Jenner and Corey Gamble (Their relationship has always given me Lakeith Stanfield and that old white lady couple in Get Out, so middle fingers to them both.)

Kendall and Kylie Jenner (Radioactive trash.)

Khloé Kardashian (Non-biodegradable trash.)

Kim Kardashian (Municipal solid waste.)

Usher (To quote Tyra Banks, “We were rooting for you. We were ALL rooting for you.)

Tom Brady (I mean, obviously, his was gonna be here.)

Diane von Fürstenberg (You may be the queen of wrap dresses, but it’s a WRAP on you. Lol. Not my finest work, but I’m tired.)

Leonardo DiCaprio:

L.O.L. Bitch, we know it’s you!! What the fuck do you think this hat covering your face is doing? Oh, are you embarrassed? Your skin feeling a little hot under your collar cuz you don’t want us to see you for the person you’ve always been? Good! And I know this is petty, but I feel vindicated! When Titanic came out and all my classmates wanted to smash DiCap in a fogged up Coupe de Ville, I was like, “I don’t see it. He’s not hot.” It’s as if my spirit knew he was a raggedy bitch and it was only a matter a time before we all saw that.

Because everywhere all of these people go, there they are.