Melania’s agony, Meghan’s betrayal, and how love changed Prince Harry, in this week’s dubious celebrity magazines
"I'm tired of the lies," says Melania Trump on the cover of this week's Us magazine, below the headline: "Melania's Agony."
"Will she stay in the marriage?" asks the mag, following a week of humiliating revelations from the president's alleged former mistresses.
It's a fair question, but when you read the four-page article, you realize that there isn't a single quote from Melania in the piece. Not even: "I'm tired of the lies." If she is indeed "tired of the lies" (and who wouldn't be in her position?) she may be even more weary of seeing fictional quotes attributed to her on the cover of magazines that claim to be a rung above the supermarket tabloids.
Us magazine's insights into the Trump marriage come from a body language expert who interprets such signals as Melania descending from Air Force One in Florida on March 23 ahead of her husband. The message is clear, says the expert: "She made the decision that I'm not going to be last, and my son is not going to be last." Or perhaps she was just desperate to get to a bathroom, or Trump asked her to go first, or she was helping son Barron down the stairway, or was feeling air-sick and wanted to get off the plane . . . there are a hundred reasons why she may have deplaned first.Just because any sane woman would be miserable if married to Donald Trump doesn't give Us free reign to put words in her mouth.
"Wedding Scandal - Meghan Betrayed!" screams another story on the cover of Us. So it's rather disappointing to find the story inside is a mere paragraph reporting that Prince Harry's future bride has "lost sleep" because her half-sister and her nephew have both signed deals to be live TV wedding correspondents when she ties the knot in May. These are relatives who have made critical comments about Markle for the past year, so that's hardly new, and certainly doesn't rise to the level of a "wedding scandal." It's the sort of wishful thinking that we routinely see in the tabloids.
People magazine hardly fares better with its Royal cover story: "How Love Changed Harry." The British Prince reportedly "struggled to find his way before meeting Meghan Markle," but then goes on to describe how he has changed and matured since losing his mother, Princess Diana, when he was 12 years old. Shocked as People may be that Harry has changed since he was a pre-teen, its story makes clear that he's been changing through the years, and at 33 years old perhaps it's just maturity that changed him, and Markle simply makes him happy. In fact, People explains that Harry's interest in military veterans gave him a "newfound sense of purpose" and "a stability that he had long lacked." Yet that interest came before he met Markle. So really, the entire premise of the article is false - more wishful thinking.
Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us to tell us that Bella Hadid wore it best, actress Danielle Savre carries exfoliating wipes and rose geranium facial spray in her solar-charged BirkSun backpack (and who doesn't?), rapper Remy Ma believes that "Waffle Crisp is hands down the best breakfast cereal," and that the stars are just like us: they carry groceries, pump gas and shop at farmers markets. Those down-to-earth celebs!
People magazine routinely takes readers inside celebrity homes, but perhaps Tyrese Gibson should have thought twice about inviting the magazine into his 25,000-sq-ft six-story Georgia mansion. When your living room's Corinthian columns are dwarfed by an 11-ft tall steel and cadmium yellow gleaming metal replica of Transformers star Bumblebee (with a copy of Optimus Prime in your garden) and your dining room features grandiose gilded thrones at each end of the dining table, you might want to keep your home-decorating skills to yourself.
Onwards and downwards . . .