- Hello. Hello, my name is Mina and
welcome back to my channel. Welcome if you've never been here, but today we're gonna be talking about celebrity relationships. (light music) I feel like there's always like so many different celebrity relationships that people are talking about all at once, but I feel like the
biggest news in my circle, in my algorithm, which granted may have been affected by the fact that I did go
to Taylor Swift Eras tour. Yes, I did. My friend's dad works for
this company that had a box at the MetLife Stadium, so I
was able to get a free ticket, which was really nice, and I had a blast. I love concerts. I feel like I don't really
go to concerts very often because I'm just not very
savvy with like Ticketmaster and I also feel like I don't love any particular artist enough to spend like hundreds of dollars
on a ticket to see them. So I'm really happy that I
got this opportunity though, because I do really like Taylor Swift. I was just like looking
at those ticket prices and I was like, oh,
that's not gonna happen. So I'm really thankful
to my friend Francesca shout out to you for
offering me a free ticket. But why did I bring this up? Oh yeah, because Taylor Swift
was on my radar naturally. Her relationship with Matt
Healy was also on my radar, unfortunately, actually
because, okay, sorry guys. I keep calling him Matt, even though I know in my
heart that it's Matty, it's just like this is
new information for me because for years I always
thought his name was Matt. And then it was only recently
that it was clarified to me that it's Matty and I'm still
trying to get that, you know, sound moving in my mouth. Ew. If you don't know who Matt Healy is, he is the front man of the 1975. Matt Healy's a very controversial figure. I feel like everything I know
about Matt Healy has been fed to me against my will. I'm really not a fan at all, and he's done a lot of like crazy things. But most recently he was
on the Adam Friedland Show, during which him and the host
were making fun of Ice Spice, who is this new rapper. They
not only made fun of her, they were making disparaging
remarks about her body and her ethnicity. And then later in the episode, Matt Healy asked the host
for their impressions of Japanese people working
in concentration camps. He's also just like done weird stuff, like he's eaten raw meat on
stage, which is not problematic. It's just weird. He also has a tendency to kiss fans or people who are in the audience, which I feel like is a weird thing to do considering the power
dynamic between a celebrity and their fans. - Let's kiss for real right now. - No. - Needless to say a lot of
people were not thrilled by the fact that he and
Taylor started dating and there was actually this one hashtag that was being circulated called #SpeakOutNow, which was
accompanied by a graphic imploring Taylor to reflect
on the impact of her and her associates behavior. So yeah, a lot of the
Swifties were desperate. They were like if sh she
at least like decides to keep dating him, please like at least disavow
what he's been saying, but she never did. So as of this past week, but by the time this video comes out, it would be in a couple weeks. So I'll just say as of recently, Matt Healy and Taylor Swift did break up according to Page Six. You know, super, super legitimate source. I bring this up because I feel
like whenever Taylor Swift is involved in something, she obviously gets a
lot of media attention, but just in general, people really care about who their favorite
celebrities are dating, even on like a less like crazy note, Timothee Chalamet and Kylie
Jenner are allegedly dating and I've seen so many memes about that, so many jokes about how weird it is. So yeah, even if like
the people themselves aren't necessarily controversial, people still care to a degree where it becomes an online conversation. And I just wanted to
look into why we care. We'll also get into like the
history of certain couples. We'll do some case studies. This should be, this should be fun. - Is it me? Am I the drama? I don't think I'm the drama. Maybe I am. - Of course, we don't care
about every single couple that exists, right? There's like thousands, millions of them. But we do care whenever
a couple makes a headline because of some spicy drama
going on in their lives. Because when that happens, their relationship becomes
a form of entertainment. In 2016, a group of
scientists actually found that watching dramatic
movies triggers endorphins and brings in an increased
sense of group bonding. So watching celebrity
drama probably creates some of the same effects. Fixating on other people's
problems can also act as a form of escapism for people from their own stressful lives. So there are some
couples that are involved in multiple dramatic scandals
over a long period of time throughout their relationship. For example, F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, or more recently Tristan
Thompson and Khloe Kardashian, but one of the biggest
celebrity relationship scandals of the 20th century involved
movie star Elizabeth Taylor, who actually had seven
marriages throughout her life. One of her husbands, Richard
Burton, a Welsh actor. She married in 1964, divorced
in 1974, remarried in 1975, then divorced again in 1976. Elizabeth and Richard
first started Rendezvousing as an extramarital affair. Elizabeth was on her fourth marriage with singer actor Eddie Fisher. And Richard had been married
to actress Sybil Williams for the previous 14 years and counting. Given the circumstances of how they met, plus the on off divorcing and remarrying, it's no surprise their
relationship caused a media circus. The press even dubbed them, Liz and Dick. According to gossip
columnist Louella Parsons, "The massive amount of
publicity they received ought to have killed them." So the pair met in 1962 on
the set of filming Cleopatra, which was produced by 20th Century Fox. Remember this was the '60s, so extramarital affairs were even spicier than they are today. As a response to the scandal, 20th century Fox sued Elizabeth
and Richard for $50 million and the US State Department
considered even revoking Richard's work visa after
an Ohio representative called their relationship
a public outrage. The couple was also known
for spending lavishly, which added this like cinematic
flare to their relationship. According to a "Vanity Fair" article, Burton once bought a
$960,000 jet plane on a whim after they flew on it to Paris. The couple supported an army of charities, extended family and staff. They brought property in Puerto Vallarta, Switzerland, and Ireland,
and owned the Kalizma, their floating luxe palace. They also owned paintings
by Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Rouault, Pissarro, Degas, Augustus John, and Rembrandt. But their most lavish
spending was on jewelry. Taylor had an insatiable
love and desire for jewels. And like you would expect
for any whirlwind romance, Elizabeth and Richard were also
known for their fights both in the private and public sphere. And some of the comments that they've made to the press raise eyebrows on whether or not these
fights were genuine or if some of them were more performative. For example, Elizabeth once said, "Richard loses his temper
with true enjoyment. It's beautiful to watch." And Richard spoke on the subject too, telling the "Daily Mirror" "We live out for the benefit of the mob, the sort of idiocy they've come to expect. We will often pitch a battle
purely for the exercise. I will accuse her of being ugly, she will accuse me of being
a talentless son of a bitch, and this sort of frightens people. I love arguing with Elizabeth." Sounds healthy. However, despite the strain, the press undoubtedly put on
their relationship and coverage that usually painted Elizabeth
in a misogynistic light. Tabloid, and media coverage
of their incredible wealth, European socialite status
and performative drama all contributed to public
interest in them overall, which ultimately added
to their career success. For example, in 1964, the New York Times covered Richard's run as Hamlet on Broadway. The couple drew unprecedented
crowds of 5,000 plus people that required a dozen
policemen to barricade a path for their exit. The "New York Times" reported at the time, "It becomes evident after
questioning theater veterans and people in the crowds
that neither Mr. Burton alone nor Ms. Taylor by herself
attracts the thousands. Rather, it appears that
the combination of both has created a kind of third personality that has excited the
imagination of the public. When question members of
the crowd usually reply that they wanna see Mr.
Burton and Ms. Taylor because of all the publicity
about their romance." Even in the '80s, the hype for their relationship continued. By 1983, Richard and Elizabeth had moved on to other partners, but they collaborated again professionally on a stage revival of Noel
Coward's play "private lives". The premise of the play centers around fighting honeymooners, and of course the two actors
were starring as the leads. Initially, when "Private
Lives" debuted in Boston, a lot of critics were left unimpressed and wrote unfavorable reviews. However, the appeal of these two leads basically mirroring their
relationship for the stage brought in so many sales. WJ Weatherby, who reviewed
the play for the "Guardian" when it reached Broadway, called it "the show business
event of the season." As tabloids filled their
columns with gossip and whole their rumors of a third marriage surfaced. Couples that are also tied
together with a love triangle also tend to bring in a
lot of media coverage, specifically misogynistic media coverage. Society loves to see two women
in particular in competition over a man. They love to frame the
tension, the tension. I use air quotes because sometimes it's completely fabricated, but quotes the tension
between the two women as a signal of a cat fight. And they love using shaming
tactics to criticize the quote unquote other
woman in the relationship with, of course, little
attention on the man even if he's cheating. For kids in the 2000s, our big celebrity love
triangle was Aaron Carter, Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan, and recently Selena Gomez and
Hailey Bieber's apparent feud over Justin Bieber made headlines, but I actually think the
most interesting coverage of our time was on the
triangle of Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. As a preface, Brad Pitt and
Jennifer Aniston started dating in 1998 and tied the knot in 2000. In January, 2005, they announced they were
separating and two months later, Jennifer filed for divorce. During the divorce proceedings, Brad was filming "Mr. Mrs.
Smith" with Angelina Jolie. They immediately started dating. They claimed there was
never any infidelity. And in June, 2005, Brad Pitt did an interview
with Diane Sawyer, who interviewed him or
more like grilled him about his relationship with Angelina. - Did Angelina Jolie
break up your marriage? - No. - Everyone says she's a home wrecker. - That's a good story. - Ultimately, this love
triangle had the right optics for a Hollywood picture. Angelina Jolie's image in the '90s was as "Vanity Fair" put it
that of "A tattooed vixen with a taste for bisexuality,
heroin, brotherly incest, mental institutions, and
wearing her husbands' blood." In contrast, Jennifer Aniston was "The girl-next-door,
America's sweetheart." As guardian columnist Zoe
Williams argued in 2022, "Jennifer was an ideal woman
for the post-feminist '90s as exemplified by her hair." Not too long, attention-seeking,
not too short, feminist/independent, not
too blonde, conventional, or too dark, vampy,
not too shiny, airhead, nor in any way dull, frigid. It was the perfect man-pleasing hair for the late 20th century woman." And of course, a lot of the
people who were team Jennifer held onto these kinds of '90s
characterizations of them. - I Think I was questioning
whether all those that that part of me that
you know with my tattoos and my wild side and my darker side, whether that same person
could also be one day a wife and a mother and a good friend. - Angelina's pivot towards
humanitarian work and motherhood in the early 2000s added
another element to the story, ultimately swaying much of
the public into her favor as Constance Grady explains for "Vox". "Jennifer was painted as
the loser, the spinster: poor pathetic Jen. Dark rumors swirled that maybe she hadn't
even wanted children, that maybe she picked
her career over kids." So what was Brad's role in all this? Grady notes, "Brad Pitt
didn't have to prove he was the right kind of man; that was already assumed. He existed to choose the right woman and to prove her rightness
with his approval." The love triangle framing gave
the audiences an opportunity to pick sides, which allowed fans to bond within their chosen teams
and gave them the illusion that this was like a game
rather than, you know, something that deals
with real people's lives. Cheating or alleged
cheating is always a way to draw media attention. Last year we saw couples that
mostly flew under the radar, like Try Guys, Ned Fulmer and Ariel, and John Mulaney and Anna Marie Tendler suddenly get a storm of attention when one member was suspected
to have cheated on the other. And a lot of the reason for
why we respond to cheating in this way is not just because in this country a lot
of people hate cheating and they feel like another
couple's cheating drama potentially brings up maybe
their own trauma with cheating, but also a lot of the reason
that the public responded to John Mulaney and Ned Fulmer was because of their personal image
crafting as celebrity figures. Another case where celebrity
image crafting goes into the reception of
a relationship fallout is Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Britney Spears became
famous at a pretty young age on "Mickey Mouse Club" and then
became a worldwide pop star by the time she was 18 years old. She also grew up in the Bible
belt and was raised Christian and as a teenager had professed
that she was going to wait to have sex until marriage. All of this was emphasized
by the fact that everything about her presentation leaned
on the innocent and docile. Her "Hit Me Baby One More
Time" video had her dancing around in a school girl outfit
and she was pressured to sing with the childlike
voice by her management. Evidently in the biggest
move of the century. During a radio interview for
Star and Buc Wild Morning Show in 2002, Justin Timberlake broke the news that he and Brit did have sex
during their relationship. - [Host] The Star and
Buck Wild Morning Show. Justin Timberlake is in the house. And I just wanna ask you one question. Did you (beeps) Brittany Spears? Yes or no? - [Justin] Oh man, - [Host] Come on man.
- [Justin] Okay, I did it. - [Mina] Justin also went on
this like retaliation crusade, which inevitably raised
support for him over Britney. - The world has long been
full of Madonna wannabes and I might have even dated a couple. - For example, for his
Crimea River music video that was released in 2002, he showed getting revenge on a woman who has been unfaithful to him. And the woman, of course, looks
a lot like Britney Spears. Part of the reason for
the anti-Britney fervor was of course like textbook misogyny, but also because of
this perceived switch up from her innocent Puritan image. Not only did she sleep with Justin who she was not married to, she also slept with someone else who was not even in the relationship. When Diane Sawyer
interviewed Brit in 2003, she attacked her for cheating. - You broke his heart, you did something that
caused him so much pain, so much suffering. What did you do? - Well, the public generally
has been supportive of Brit posts conservatorship. I still feel like the
way that image crafting affects relationships and
the coverage of relationships has been a constant issue. John Mulaney, for instance, was known as a wife guy
always talking about how much he loves his wife. - I love and respect my wife very much. - And the media framed him
as this good guy feminist. And because of that image crafting his fans were really betrayed and upset when he divorced his wife
and then almost immediately started a relationship with Olivia Munn. Ultimately, the public loves a good show when it comes to a celebrity
relationship drama coverage, though for nine times outta 10, the coverage usually
skews more misogynistic. Even though we like to
think that we've fully grown past 2000s era reporting, I feel like just the
misogynistic remarks targeted towards Hailey Bieber,
Olivia Wilde, Amber Heard, and Angelina Jolie, I missed their own scandals in the past year, prove otherwise. On a more positive note, people are equally invested in quote unquote successful
celebrity couples. These couples that share
wholesome photos of each other on Instagram and do
cute couple quiz videos for GQ and whatnot provide their fans with that happily ever
after Dopamine rush, such as the case was
Zendaya and Tom Holland and Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, the latter couple who were
once engaged but broke it off and then finally married 20 years later in a very romcom Hollywood type of finale. (bright music) When it comes to celebrity
relationships, though, it's not just the real ones that matter, it's the fictional ones too. For example, Larry Stylinson, Larry Stylinson, is that correct? The fictional pairing of Louis
Tomlinson and Harry Styles from One Direction. I'm not gonna go too deep
into the lore for this one because there's quite a lot and I was also never a One Directioner, so I can't really pull
much from my memories. But in general, Larry was believed to
varying degrees by fans, and nowadays most of
them can at least admit that it was more for fun than
for any actual believability. So a brief history of how this came about. Fans noticed Harry Styles
and Louis Tomlinson were affectionate with each
other and closer friends than with other members of their group, which led the swarms
of mostly teenage girls to come to the conclusion
that the boys were in a romantic relationship being kept secret by their
alleged homophobic management. Although there were other pairings, Larry was by far the most popular and had the most dedicated fan base. But you know, this is not the first time that fans have shipped band members. One of the earliest ones I
can think of is McLennon, which is the ship name of
John Lennon and Paul McCartney from The Beatles. Granted because a lot of people were more openly homophobic in the '60s, their fan base cannot compare to the scale of the fan base of Larry. But it just goes to show that fixating on a band's inner dynamics
is not a new concept. And part of the reason why fans do this is because band members usually
have a little social life or little publicized social
life outside of their group. Especially since the
'90s, boy and girl groups have been mostly just cogs in the pop culture manufacturing machine. They would rehearse long, long hours and they weren't allowed to
date or really do anything fun that most young people
do with their lives. In South Korea, the K-pop
industry is notorious for this kind of like
controlling management style. This all incidentally leads to
a lot of intergroup shipping. The rationality behind it is
if they don't have time to date or hang out with other people, then who's to say they're
not dating each other? Tae-hyung and Jungkook from BTS are one of the more popular ones, and Jennie and Lisa
from Blackpink as well. So Thomas Baudinette wrote
a really good article on this topic and how
idol shipping affects fans of different cultures. He writes, "In particular, shipping that reimagines
boy groups such as BTS within romantic or
homoerotic relationships is especially common as a
method of articulating fandom and exploring sexual agency, thus producing spaces within
Korea's patriarchal society where women's sexual desires
can be safely explored. While BTS shipping in Japan tends to conceptualize
homoerotic relationships between men via sexual practices and behaviors divorced from identity, Anglophone shipping tends
to instantly overtly deploy LGBTQ identity politics. Nevertheless, both practices
possess queer potentials that allow fans to effectively
explore their sexuality." Shipping has become such a
big part of fandom culture that there's also like
rumors that go around that management companies
encourage shipping among fans as a marketing tactic
like they have the idols doing skin ship and other
kinds of like fan service. And while we're on the topic, in general, there's been a long history
of bands and artists, especially those with queer
audiences performing queerness or bisexuality on stage by
everyone from pop punk boy bands to the infamous 2003 VMAs
Madonna, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera Kiss. But we can't talk about fake ships without talking about
Taylor Swift or Gayler. Gayler is this fan theory
that Taylor is queer. Gayler fans have come to this conclusion by fixating on
interpretations of her lyrics like secret romances and
disapproving families, and on her documented female friendships with other celebrities like Dianna Agron and Cara Delevingne. But most famously, her friendship with Karlie
Kloss was shipped as Kaylor. So how did Gaylor come about? Well, Taylor Swift's brand, like what most music artists try to do, encourages para sociality
well among her fans. But what I think makes
Taylor particularly special is the fact that she is been
around for over a decade, which allows a lot of fans
to grow up alongside her. And also her songwriting style, which leans towards confessional. Part of her songwriting style also includes leaving Easter
Eggs aka self references or hints at future projects, which lead fans to believe
that she does the same with her sexuality and relationships. This ultimately intensifies
the parasocial relationships that her very dedicated fans have with her because they feel that they
have a secret knowledge of who she's actually
that other more casual, less dedicated fans don't have. For example, when her song
"Lavender Haze" dropped, some fans interpreted the song
as a reference to queerness because of lavender's
symbolism in queer history. Another reason why fans might believe that a certain celebrity is queer because of the music industry
and Hollywood's history of forcing their talent into the closet. Lance from NSYNC was closeted until 2006 to protect the band's reputation. Theorizing on its own is harmless and it does have the potential to build close-knit communities. And while I don't believe
Gayler and, you know, Larry fans are maliciously
trying to out celebrities in any particular way,
unfortunately fixating on a person's sexuality, especially in public online
spaces can lead to that and especially when fans cross boundaries and start harassing
celebrities for answers. Louis Tomlinson actually admitted that the Larry relationship allegations hurt his friendship
with Harry in real life by making them feel as though every minor interaction they had was being surveyed and over-analyzed. I also remember the actor
Kit Connor from Heartstopper was pressured into outing himself because fans were accusing
him of queer baiting. (bright music) Similar to the idea that
a celebrity hanging out with their friend or
with their band member leads to people theorizing
that they're in a relationship. This also applies to
romantic co-stars for actors. Across so many movies and TV shows, fans believe that great chemistry
on screen must translate to great chemistry offscreen too. For example, David Duchovny
and Gillian Anderson in the "X-Files", Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain
in "Scenes from a Marriage" and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
and Zooey Deschanel in "500 Days of Summer." It all seems rooted in this belief that everything that's portrayed
on a siege or on screen must have some kernel of truth. And all the public facing PR
acting that celebrities do when they're promoting their
movies must be genuine. The fact that there are
actually lots of examples of real celebrities meeting
on set and falling in love like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and Branngelina as I mentioned before, only fan the flames. But you know, just because celebrities have
great chemistry doesn't mean that there's actually anything going on. For example, Sydney
Sweeney and Glen Powell were facing dating speculations
during their filming and press interviews for
their upcoming romantic comedy "Anyone But You." even though they never officially dated, their public flirtiness made headlines made especially scandalous
considering they were both dating other people at the time. Sydney is still engaged to
restaurateur Jonathan Dino and she was engaged to him throughout the entirety of this filming, but it's a relationship she
has kept mostly low key. Glen was dating Model Gigi Paris. Adding to the conspiracy of it though, Glen and Gigi broke up with
Gigi posting an Instagram video with the cryptic caption, know your worth and onto the next at the height of the speculations. But it's funny because also Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon they used a romcom together, what is it called? "Your Place or Mine", which
got pretty bad reviews. But I also remember when they were doing all these press events
for it, people were like, could they look any less
attracted to each other? People on my timeline on
Twitter were complaining about them not doing the
performative PR flirtation act. So it's kind of like, what do people actually want (laughing) out of celebrities who are
co-starring in these movies? Do you want the show of like
flirtation or do you not? And then on the flip side of relationships that are fabricated by the public, there are relationships
that are fabricated by PR. The idea of a PR relationship isn't new and it makes total sense why they work because, you know, as we've mentioned, celebrity relationships can
get a lot of press coverage, which can not only be
used to promote a movie that two people are in or
just like elevate their status as celebrities as a whole. But I will say that over the years people have become more skeptical about whether or not
a relationship is real or if it's just PR. Also, I found that the more
random a coupling seems to be, the more likely people think it's PR. So for example, Kim
Kardashian and Pete Davidson, really Pete Davidson with any woman, also Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet's rumored relationship
as I mentioned earlier. Of course, we'll never really
know if something is PR, but it's usually easy to tell, like are they usually together only for the length of a press cycle? Do they only have photographs together during planned paparazzi walks? Do their friends tell like Page Six, anything particular
about their relationship or is it just the very general,
oh, they're just so in love? One of the most talked about
romantic co-star couples from the 2000s was Kristen
Stewart and Robert Pattinson, who met on the side of "Twilight",
which premiered in 2008. They began dating in 2009 and publicly announced
the relationship in 2011, then broke up in 2013 after all five Twilight Saga
movies have been released. What's interesting about this
particular relationship is that Twilight's production
team was heavily against it from the beginning, though once they actually started dating, they were really hoping that
they would stay together fearing that any drama between them would affect their onscreen chemistry for the remainder of the
movies that had to be filmed. While the couple did genuinely
get together at the start, there were still reporters who all alleged that it was a PR relationship
and a lot of it had to do with the fact that Kirsten
Stewart's sexuality has been like a longstanding debate topic for no fucking reason at all, 'cause it's no one's actual business. And despite the fact that she
has said that she's bisexual, a lot of people use the fact
that she's dated a lot of women as ammo for why this relationship
could not have happened. However, sometimes relationships
are less about capitalizing and more about self-preservation, though I feel like it's
rare now with like the fact that society has been way
more tolerant and accepting of LGBTQ relationships. But historically, lavender
marriages were ways for celebrities, for queer celebrities to protect themselves from homophobia. A lavender marriage, by definition is a male-female mixed
orientation marriage undertaken as a marriage of convenience to conceal the socially
stigmatized sexual orientation of one or both partners. Emily Martha writes for Vice, /'/lavender marriages,
as they were called, began as a response to big
studios including moral clauses in their stars' contracts. Gay stars picked wives, often actresses and celebrities themselves in order to hide their sexualities and keep fans lusting
after them on screen. After Rock Hudson married his
wife Phyllis Gates in 1955, and while their marriage
was never a public scandal, Rock's gayness was considered
an open secret in Hollywood. As biographer Mark Griffin told NPR. - [Mark] As one person expressed it to me, he was so kind to everyone
that he worked with, whether that was the
leading lady or the gaffer or the editor, that everyone sort of
kept this secret for him. They knew that if he was
exposed at that time, that that would've just
ended his career immediately. So it is sort of a conspiracy of silence, but it's interesting
that they're doing this because they really love this person that they're working with
and feel protective of him. - A year before the couple
married MGM actor Van Johnson was outed by Confidential Magazine. So there are theories that
Rock's talent agent Henry Wilson was catching wind of similar
targeted exposes towards Rock and knew he had to get
him married off quickly. So Rock ended up marrying
his 30 year old secretary who Griffin describes as having, "A very engaging
fresh-off-the-farm quality with this air of county fairs
and church socials about her. But it was clear that
Phyllis didn't know anything about the marriage because in 1958, after three years of marriage, she confronted Rock about the gay rumors and she also hired private eye Fred Otash to tape record their conversation. And then in 2013, the Hollywood reporter
obtained Otash's secret files and released a transcript
of the conversation. According to the tape
transcript, Phyllis asks him, "how long after we were married did you have your first homosexual affair? And Rock says, oh, I
don't know, the next day. I feel bad for both Rock and
Phyllis in this situation. Obviously I do feel bad for
Phyllis because she was lied to, but, you know, also I feel bad for Rock because it was something that
he had to do to save himself, his image, his career, everything. I mean, J. Edgar Hoover even
launched an FBI investigation of Rock for homosexual tendencies in 1965. Rock and Phyllis had the most proof as to having a lavender marriage. But people have speculated on Judy Garland and Vicente Minnelli and Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as well. Considering old Hollywood
studios documented strict control of its stars, the widespread
homophobia of the era and the taboo of remaining unmarried, it's not hard to believe
that these relationships could have been concocted
by the studio system. However, most of the information
we have was concocted by gossip calmness or
it was all like hearsay. So we can't say for sure
which relationship out there was fake and which wasn't. (bright music) Ultimately, I feel like
the reason we care so much about celebrity relationships is in part because of how the media covers them. Tabloids especially love using
overtly traumatic phrases like Angie and Jen explosive
face-to-face showdown and Selena's Secret Pregnant and alone. Media outlets know how to construct celebrity
relationship drama, and they manipulate audience's
desire for para sociality and insider secrets about
their favorite celebrities, which in turn ends up hurting audiences and hurting celebrities. And usually a lot of this
information is based on like lies or they're just based on
like these like tidbits that have no factual grounding, right? And for non-fans, the news just covers our
timelines and our feeds. So it's like inescapable, even if we didn't necessarily
care about these people to begin with. I think that while
celebrity ships can be fun, they can be escapists, they can build communities even. Ultimately, what's
important to remember is that we don't know any of these people. We don't know the celebrities, we don't know the people they're dating, and we don't know the nature
of their relationships either. I think over time, I've realized
that like I cannot project any type of moral
idolatry onto a celebrity because usually they'll prove me wrong because I mean I think it's unfair to project that kind of
pressure onto anyone anyway because we're all human
and we're all imperfect and some people way more
imperfect than others, particularly if you're wealthy
and have no understanding of your own privilege. But needless to say, some of the expectations that people have towards their favorite stars
are impossible to live up to. But I also think celebrity relationships and the fanfare for them are inevitable. It's about as inevitable
as celebrity culture is because they're just soaked tied together. I just think it's like
interesting to talk about. And I also think it's interesting that as like the older I get, obviously like the more detached I get from celebrity culture and how as a kid I was like super, super
into it and just the way that I responded to
certain celebrity gossip versus the way that I respond
to it now is so different. And I'm wondering if anyone else has gone on that same kind of journey. But anyways, thank you all so much for listening to me today. The extended version of this will be coming out on Wednesday. And yeah, for now, I'll talk to you guys later and I hope you have a
lovely rest of your day. Bye.
