Recommendations for Your Weekend
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Happy Friday from VEGAS, where I’m deep into day one of BravoCon 2023, the third incarnation of Bravo’s convention full of Bravolebrities and fans and photo ops and behind-the-scenes drama that we’ll see play out on our favorite Bravo shows in 10 months’ time. While the first two BravoCons were in New York and just required me to hop on the Subway to get there, this one has me headed west to spend some time in Sin City. God help the people in charge of wrangling the Bravo talent all weekend!
Keeping it short up here this week, but there are a ton of great recs for your weekend listed below. I’ll be posting live updates from BravoCon — from panels, from the convention floor and, most crucially, from the media room, which all Bravo talent will be talking to the media in — all over my socials, so I’m linking to everything below for easy access. Follow along! I’ll also be having a special guest on my new podcast “Gabbing with Gib” on next Friday’s episode talking about our BravoCon experiences.
Follow for live BravoCon updates: Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads
Subscribe to “Gabbing with Gib” for my forthcoming BravoCon episode: Apple Podcasts, Spotify
Read
North West’s first ever cover story interview deserves top billing. (iD Magazine)
Relatedly, this deep dive investigation into Adidas’ relationship with Kanye West and Yeezy was fascinating and contains a lot of first-hand details on what led to the once-fruitful collaboration’s rise and fall. (Megan Twohey for The New York Times)
There was a lot of talk online about this apparent exposé about Bravo and its reality talent, especially after Page Six ran a report a couple weeks ago hyping it up. While it was well-written and well-reported, it ultimately felt like a lot of the information it revealed either wasn’t new for anyone who follows “Real Housewives” closely or didn’t really ladder up into “Reality Reckoning” poster child Bethenny Frankel’s “mission.” The glaring exception to that, of course, is the reporting around Ramona Singer’s alleged use of racial slurs while on set of “RHONY,” which ultimately resulted in her reportedly being dropped by BravoCon (and her real estate job) ahead of this weekend after texting a Page Six reporter what is being called “a partial racial slur” while refuting certain details of the report. (Anna Peele for Vanity Fair)
This was a nice piece comparing what it’s like watching Britney Spears as a girl and as a woman. (Amanda Hess for The New York Times)
“Summer House” star Lindsay Hubbard answered a bunch of burning questions about Carl Radke ending their engagement. (Stephanie Radvan for Us Weekly)
“Southern Charm” star Olivia Flowers shared some heartbreaking and illuminating details about her late brother’s struggle Lyme disease, subsequent addiction issues and his recent death. (Dave Quinn for People)
Two fun articles for the New Yorkers who read this newsletter:
I loved this interactive piece which shared the fascinating results of a survey done asking New Yorkers to define certain neighborhoods, where they stop and start and what that says about us. (Larry Buchanan for The New York Times)
Another great interactive article detailing how Resy reservations work at the city’s top restaurants, which I learned a lot from. (Priya Krishna, Umi Syam and Aliza Aufrichtig for The New York Times)
Watch
Gayle King Interviews JAY-Z for “CBS Mornings”
JAY-Z rarely does interviews, and I found this two-part sit-down with Gayle King to be really well-done. The second part was especially notable — it’s where he talks about Blue and Beyoncé.
Julia Fox Takes Vanity Fair’s Lie Detector Test
To the shock of no one, this is an amazing watch full of soundbites that are just waiting to go viral on TikTok.
Reneé Rapp’s “Wicked” Duet with Lizzy McApline
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I braved Terminal 5 for the second time in as many weeks on Monday to see Reneé Rapp live — and she did not disappoint! Truly the most packed crowd I’ve ever seen there, and she sounded incredible. The highlight was when she brought out Lizzy McApline (who sings the viral TikTok hit “Ceilings”) to sing a surprise duet of “For Good” from “Wicked” for the Broadway show’s 20th anniversary.
Self-Promotion
Subscribe to my new weekly podcast “Gabbing with Gib”: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube
Interview with Dr. Heavenly from “Married to Medicine” (Gabbing with Gib)
This week’s interview on “Gabbing with Gib” is with Dr. Heavenly from “Married to Medicine,” which returns for its 10th season this Sunday on Bravo. As I’ve mentioned in this newsletter several times, I binged “M2M” from the start starting two years ago and just caught up in time for this new season, which features the addition of Phaedra Parks and — in a Bravo first — the return of a cast member’s ex-husband with his new fiancée. I loved chatting with Dr. Heavenly about all of it!
Discussing All Things Taylor Swift with Betches’ Sami Sage (Gabbing with Gib)
For my first discussion episode, it was kind of a no brainer to talk about the single biggest dominant force in pop culture right now: Taylor Swift. It also serves as a reminder that, while there will be a lot of Bravo content on my show, it’s not exclusively about that — there’s stuff for the non-Bravoholics, too! Betches co-founder, podcast host and Taylor Swift expert Sami Sage joined me to break down the State of Taylor Swift. Listen here!
Bravo, Bravo, Fucking Bravo
Just noting that I’ll be talking about my weekend at BravoCon on my podcast with a special guest next week — so make sure to subscribe to hear that episode!
Currently
I’m probably already running on fumes and it’s only day one in Vegas. Wish me luck!