Read this: how to lose a grand slam title in 10 days.
Including Wimbledon, Pedro Pascal, private jets, and the new "The Social Network"
Every Sunday, I bring you the best celebrity profiles, essays, fashion features, political thinkpieces (etc. etc.) summarized by me, so you can skip the tab overload and still sound smart tomorrow in the office. If you want to go deeper, the link’s right there. If not? I’ve got you covered with summaries. Learn something! Cure your Sunday Scaries!
PS: Scroll to the end for my current TV lineup and 'SWAG' picks.
⭐ Weekend spotlight
Carlos Alcaraz’s Wimbledon final and how to lose a Grand Slam title for the first time
The Athletic
By Matthew Futterman
Jannik Sinner had never won Wimbledon until today. He dropped the first set to Carlos Alcaraz, but stormed back to win 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 and become the first Italian man to lift the singles trophy at the All England Club.
Just five weeks ago, Alcaraz beat him in a brutal, nearly six-hour French Open final. So for Sinner, this match was both revenge and recalibration. Sinner played like someone who’d spent the month lifting weights, studying tape, and meditating through the heartbreak. He absorbed Alcaraz’s firepower, returned with surgical precision, and didn’t flinch—not even when someone in the crowd popped open a bottle of champagne mid-serve and the cork landed at his feet.
After the loss, Alcaraz (graciously) said: “I’m just really, really happy about having this rivalry with him. It’s great for us, and it is great for tennis.”
And he’s right: this is the first French Open/Wimbledon final rematch between two men since the Federer-Nadal trilogy. If you're not following this rivalry yet, what are you doing?
On the women’s side, Polish star Iga Świątek absolutely dismantaled Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 in just 57 minutes. Świątek hit 72% of first serves, converted 67% of break points, and barely blinked. Anisimova, who’d played brilliantly to get there, double-faulted five times and racked up 28 unforced errors. Her serve fell apart; Świątek’s didn’t. “I didn’t even dream [of this one], because it felt too far away,”
Świątek said afterward, clutching the Venus Rosewater Dish. It was her first Wimbledon title and eighth major overall, making her just the eighth woman in the Open Era to win Slams on all three surfaces.
Off the court, the Wimbledon crowd was full A-list: Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley, Matthew McConaughey, Sadiq Khan, John Lithgow, and Paul Mescal’s now-gray hair. Plus, the full royal crew—William, Kate, and the kids—watched it all unfold from the Royal Box.
💌 Read this
Lena Dunham Gets Into Bed With Mel Ottenberg
Interview Magazine
By Mel Ottenberg
Lena Dunham is back, and I for one am very excited about it. Full review on her new Netflix show Too Much to come (still in the process of watching it), but for now, here’s a bit of coverage from her current press tour. She’s talking Nicorette, neurotic millennial dating, and how her Netflix series Too Much is soooo closely based on her life. In this chaotic, cozy interview with Mel Ottenberg (conducted partially in bed, pur), Dunham opens up about writing through heartbreak, casting Meg Stalter as her thirtysomething alter ego, and why she's more concerned with remembering to brush her hair than surviving public scrutiny.
The conversation veers from elevator trauma to British sobriety (which, spoiler, includes champagne), but what anchors the piece is Lena’s signature self-awareness. She knows her body was treated like a public crime scene during the Girls era, and she’s not trying to reclaim that narrative so much as move on from it. In her words: “There was literally no version of a female body, especially one that was getting naked in public, that was going to fly with people.”
Also, she may or may not have fantasized about haunting an ex’s apartment covered in white paint. The interview honestly reflected why we’ll always need Lena: The self-loathing, the sincerity, the spiraling, the script notes in her Notes app. It’s all still there, just now its with five cats, two dogs, and a blueberry matcha in bed.
Read this if you were obsessed with Girls and/or Too Muchs, need a good laugh, or just want to hear from someone who actually still writes their own scripts.
With $217 Million in Ticket Sales, ‘Superman’ Helps Save Warner Bros., Too
New York Times
By Brooks Barnes
In March, Warner Bros. looked cooked. Their 2024 slate had flopped so hard that industry gossip had already moved on to who’d get fired first. But as of Summer 2025, the studio has five consecutive No. 1 hits—including Minecraft, Sinners, F1, and now James Gunn-directed Superman reboot that somehow survived being branded “Superwoke” by Fox News. The turnaround is so dramatic it feels like a script written by… well, someone trying to sell a comeback story to Warner Bros.
The Times piece is part business reporting, part coverage on a cinematic redemption arc. CEO David Zaslav is suddenly back in exec-core mode, praising his golden boys (Gunn and Peter Safran) and flexing a 10-year DCU plan like it’s Phase One all over again. The studio’s animation arm is getting rebooted. Practical Magic 2 and Gremlins 3 are on the calendar. Wonka 2 is happening (for better or worse).
To be clear: Warner Bros. still has its issues. It’s spun off cable, it’s probably angling for acquisition, and Hollywood’s polarizing Zaslav is still Zaslav. But for now? They’ve got hits, hype, and a superhero who says human kindness is a value.
Read this if you think DC deserves a second chance, you're Marvel-fatigued, or need something—anything—to believe in post-Barbenheimer.
What It Means to Be a Mystic Girl
The Atlantic
By Emma Williams
One thing I learned from reading this incredibly poignant piece from Emma Williams is that every Texas girl knows Camp Mystic. Author Williams isn’t a former camper—but she grew up wanting to be one. In this moving Atlantic piece, she reflects on what Mystic meant to the girls who were Mystic girls: freedom, faith, freckles, friendship, God. And now, grief.
On July 4, a flash flood swept through Mystic, killing at least 27 campers and counselors. Girls who once prayed at devotionals are now posting memorials. Camp songs have turned into hymns. The place that taught generations of young women how to believe in God is now the place many are begging Him to explain.
In the Atlantic piece, Williams doesn’t sensationalize the tragedy. Instead, she writes with the kind of reverence only an outsider with insider intel can bring. She traces Mystic’s deep-rooted culture—the rings, the cabins, the sacred landscape—and captures how something so intimate and innocent could be forever altered by something no one could have imagined.
Read this if you’ve been following the San Antonio flood coverage and want to understand what Camp Mystic meant to the girls who called it home.
Everyone Wants a Piece of Pedro Pascal
Vanity Fair
By Karen Valby
There are few men the internet agrees on, and Pedro Pascal is one of them. But what happens when the internet’s boyfriend doesn’t totally know how to be… a boyfriend? Or a celebrity? Or even himself?
In this Vanity Fair profile, Pascal is equal parts heartthrob, hermit, and haunted man walking. He’s dodging questions about his love life, cracking nervous jokes about his biological clock, and, at one point, literally crying on the roof in a “I miss my mom and don’t know what I’m doing here” kind of way.
The story traces his rise—from Chilean immigrant kid who idolized River Phoenix to Emmy-nominated icon and reluctant zaddy of the internet—and peels back the curtain on what all that attention actually feels like. He’s lonely. He’s grateful. He’s chronically online. He drinks whiskey. He goes to Korean spas. He thinks about legacy and loss more than he wants to. And he’s clearly trying to keep some piece of himself untouched by virality, which is almost impossible when you’re meme’d to death and asked about fan cams in real interviews.
This is not a puff piece, it’s more of a portrait of a man mid-morph: trying to figure out who he is now that everyone else has already decided for him.
Read this if you were also soooo into Oberyn Martell
The Secret Group Chats Where the Rich Score Seats on Private Jets
The Wall Street Journal
By Andrew Zucker
You know how your group chat is mostly memes, shit talk, and dinner plans that never happen? Now imagine it’s just rich people casually splitting $30K private jet flights to Turks and Caicos.
That’s the vibe inside a 676-person, invite-only WhatsApp group where ultra-wealthy travelers buy and sell spare seats on private planes. Think: Aspen, Palm Beach, Cabo, and zero TSA lines. One guy heard about it in an Amex Centurion Lounge at LaGuardia. Another made a separate 23-person splinter cell for people who summer in Turks. The goal? Fly private without footing the whole bill, and without having to (God forbid) check a bag.
But beneath the bougie ride-share energy is a very real legal gray zone. The FAA requires private operators to have a Part 135 certificate to accept more than a pro-rata share of costs. And yes, they’re now lurking in Facebook groups and watching Instagram for these informal jet-flipping arrangements. Still, the group keeps growing. Because what’s luxury if not crowdsourcing a Gulfstream with strangers who are just like you—rich, delayed, and a little bit over commercial air travel?
Read this if you're fascinated by the quiet chaos of rich-person logistics, have ever daydreamed about flying private, or want to know what the FAA is lowkey stalking on social media.
Madelyn Cline Is Ready to Graduate
Allure
By Brennan Kilbane
Madelyn Cline is booked and busy. Still best known as Sarah Cameron from Outer Banks, Cline is now on a 300-day press-and-production bender, pinballing between Netflix, nail salons, and nations with a suitcase full of pajamas, cherry-scented perfume, and imposter syndrome. This Allure cover story doesn’t just glam her up in glitter lids and Chanel polish, it gives her room to breathe and reflect and spiral.
In the piece, Cline is blunt about the chaos of early fame and late-twenties burnout. She opens up about body image (calling it her Roman Empire), the real mental toll of always being “on,” and her semi-retirement from dating after exes that include Jackson Guthy, Chase Stokes, and, yes, Pete Davidson. (“The jokes write themselves.”)
She’s also leading two movies this summer (I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Map That Leads to You), closing out OBX, and dreaming about a home screening room and 8 hours of sleep. This profile doesn’t just showcase a sleepy girl growing up, it shows a woman realizing she’s the one writing her own script.
Read this if you were once a Tumblr girl with big dreams and bad sleep, or just want to read about what it feels like when someone graduates from Netflix heartthrob to something more real.
Sam Altman Is Getting ‘Social Network’-ed
Puck News
By Matthew Belloni
So here’s a plot twist Sam Altman probably didn’t see coming: Amazon is making a movie about him, and he’s… not the hero. Artificial, directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name), is a $40 million dramatization of the 2023 OpenAI meltdown, and it doesn’t exactly pull punches. Andrew Garfield plays Ilya Sutskever, the sweet, brilliant co-founder who gets pushed out by Altman and a rapidly commercializing Silicon Valley. Think The Social Network, but with ChatGPT instead of Facebook, and the looming threat of AI extinction.
The script, written by Simon Rich (Pixar, SNL, also the son of Succession’s Frank Rich), portrays Altman as a master manipulator—literally called “one of the most manipulative people on the planet” in dialogue. Elon Musk is comic relief. Mira Murati and Satya Nadella show up. Even Kara Swisher makes a phone cameo. It’s tech-world cosplay with Oscar ambitions, and Amazon of all companies is bankrolling it, despite being deep in the AI race themselves and heavily invested in OpenAI rival Anthropic.
Why Amazon said yes when other studios passed is anyone’s guess. The project feels like a hot potato with prestige credentials: Garfield, Guadagnino, and Bond producer David Heyman are all attached. Whether it lands as awards bait or a legal liability is TBD, but the Social Network-ification of AI history is officially underway.
Read this if you love tech drama, or just want to see Andrew Garfield get betrayed again.
📺 Watch this
Currently watching:
Love Island USA finale tonight (!!!) (if Amaya doesn’t win I’m never watching this trash again) (!!!)
Too Much by Lena Dunham is so good so far! Still in the process, will do a full review this week.
Below Deck Mediterranean Season 9 just because I’m gearing up for my European adventure next week and am trying to channel “Kylie Jenner in Greece over the weekend with her besties and adorable daughter,” obviously.