Chapter 1: What is the latest update on the Alix vs Alex drama?
Have we seen the pap shots of Zoe Kravitz? I haven't seen anything. Zoe Kravitz is dating, of course, Harry Styles. Yeah. Yeah.
What have we seen?
A big fat diamond. Shut up on that. Now, I have said this and then immediately my brain's gone, what if it's AI? What if it's fake news? Yeah. Let's Google. Plus or minus 70% in 2026. Yeah. Came up on my Twitter feed this morning. Big fat diamond ring on that finger. I'm just going to Google and do a live fact check.
No, people have said that she stepped out wearing a ring on that finger.
It's big. He's a matcha drinker, if anyone's wondering. She's a coffee drinker. And you can see as she's holding her little cup that there's a ring. I don't actually care. That's the funny thing. Well, but I do.
I do care. I knew you'd care. They haven't been together very long, but I guess when you know, you know. How long have they been together? I mean, in my life, like three months, but probably longer than that. Does it warrant a collab post? Yes, but just to remind the listeners, it doesn't just have to be marriage or anything like that if that's not for you. Oh, she's progressive.
But yes, I would say an engagement is fine.
It's engagement or you're together for 10 years. That's Zara's barometer for a couple's collab post.
Didn't get as roasted as I thought in the news. Hello and welcome to Shameless, the pop culture podcast for smart people who love dumb stuff. You are joined, as always, by Melbourne writers Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald. Hello, Zara McDonald, and hello, producer Annabelle Lee. Hi. Hello. Oh, you got your jazz hands out today, Bellybutt. Yeah, I did a little wave. Hi, guys.
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Chapter 2: What are the details surrounding Olivia Rodrigo's new single 'Drop Dead'?
The quick and dirty is the top five stories from the Rothland Tumblr of a celebrity and pop culture news cycle. Michelle. What am I today? You're an angel. Annabelle's Olivia Rodrigo. She's always Olivia Rodrigo. Stop it. Role model's great love.
Oh, thank you. Andrews, what have you got for me? Okay, our first story. Inside Alex Cooper's unwell, tears screaming and employees looking for the exit. That is from Bloomberg. We will get to that story soon. But before we do that, let's give some updates to the Alex with an E, Alex with an I feud that has been taking over all of our... Consciousness this week.
Yes, all of our consciousness, of course. I can barely function. That's all right. Okay, so last week what we did is we left off on the video that Alex Earle uploaded of herself blind reacting to Alex Cooper's video about her. That felt like word salad.
Yeah. For those who need the reminder, Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy. Alex Earle of... Hot mess. TikTok fame. Hot mess.
Yeah. Okay, so in the days since, what's been most interesting here is we were all waiting for the big expose. Because don't forget, Alex Earl commented on the video and saying, on it, I'll say what happened. But she's been off it. Crickets, babe. Total crickets. And it's not been a fulfilled promise. It's been...
kind of annoying I think the worst thing you can do to your fellow women is promise them gossip like I have been geared it's like someone texted me and said I have to tell you something and then gone I'll tell you in person and I've gone fuck I really want to know and then I've seen them in person they've gone never mind no I think that's true you can't tell someone I've got something to tell you I'll tell you in person you just have to wait for in person yeah
But then we've met. It's kind of like the in-person stuff has happened and she's just left us high and dry. You can't wait a full week in TikTok land.
Well, no, I agree with you. In that time, though, Brianna Chickenfry of podcasting. Barstool. Barstool fame has decided to enter the chat.
Mm-hmm. So she entered when Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool, posted a screenshot of a message Brianna had sent him. That message read, she, as in Alex Earle, is going to destroy her, as in Alex Cooper. Brianna confirmed that, yes, she did send that message to her boss. This is...
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Chapter 3: What happened with D4vd and the murder charges?
Worth it or not worth it? Annabelle, you decide. I thought it was funny.
De Moximo. De Moximo. Okay. So we had Brianna Chicken Fry, Dave Portnoy. Alex Cooper then entered the chat. And I only saw this when Alex Cooper responded to it. Yeah, on Instagram stories. She re-entered the chat. She posted a bunch of screenshots of her sort of alleged message thread on Instagram with Brianna Chicken Fry.
Apparently in order to prove there was no beef between them, she wrote this girl on girl shit needs to stop while Alex tries to get her story together. Let me address Brianna Chicken Fry who was adding to the fake narrative and dog pile. Brianna, you coming online saying I'm a mean girl, that I'm going to get destroyed, and people's comments saying I hate Alex Cooper. Here are the facts.
I've never met you in my life. The only communication we've ever had is through DM. Here are our DMs. And she posted the history.
Did you say she then had to come back on and say, actually, I did meet her and I forgot? Oh, she didn't say. I forgot. She came on a couple of hours later because I think people were sending photos of maybe them together, like doing a podcast recording at Barstool. And then she had to come back and be like, oops.
The only defense I would give to this is when we live so online, it can be really hard to remember who you've met and who you haven't when so many people are visible to you. No?
Does it feel a little bit like shade? I never met you.
It's like, oh, I actually forgot. Michelle, this entire story is changed. It's like inbuilt into this thing. Brianna then replied to this whole thing via TikTok because of course, and she said this.
Okay, Alex Cooper just made a TikTok about me saying that she's not a mean girl because we had nice DMs back when, before I found out everything about this girl. I work at Barstool. So Dave introduced me to Alex Cooper. I was a fan of Alex Cooper before I knew the wrath of fucking Alex Cooper and what she does to people and how she treats people. I'm friends with Alex Earl.
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Chapter 4: What is the conflict between Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson?
Along the way, he's earned a reputation for frequently yelling at staff members, the people said. The issues have grown so acute that crew members have threatened to walk off the job at film sets and live tours if he doesn't keep his distance.
Okay, so according to a source, apparently, who is close to the situation, Matt Kaplan berated the staff on set at the Unwell Winter Games. that we've spoken about a little bit. Here's the quote. He threatened to prevent them from ever working in Hollywood again if they messed up, resulting in a prominent, long-experienced crew member breaking down in tears.
According to anonymous sources, several longtime staff members have threatened to quit if Matt Kaplan's behavior doesn't improve. I found this snippet quite interesting. In the past year, several high-level executives have left the network, including the company's head of brand marketing, the head of the network, its second in three years, and its chief growth officer.
Alex Cooper has said Unwell employees, about 100 people on LinkedIn, at least 20 have marked themselves as leaving in the last year.
So I did some digging on this when I read this story, because I was like, what is the average turnover rate for staff or employees in the US? Because it's one thing to throw out these numbers. It's another when you're not actually comparing them to the average. Yeah, it's like, well, every business has turnover. What is the average turnover and what is above that?
Oh, sorry, I just dropped my lip liner, but we're going to keep going in case you heard that little drop. So it's really hard to get... you know, concrete stats. A lot of this research is financed by HR firms and stuff like this. I found a stat that seems to be consistent with a few from a company called iMursa, where in the US, the average voluntary turnover rate from 2024 to 2025 is 13%.
So in that case, if you're employing 100 people, that's probably 13 people at... It's a little higher. It's a little higher. You also are looking at a new company that scaled very quickly, which doesn't feel unusual to me.
I think you and I need to say the quiet bit out loud, though. I think we will naturally be more protective over stories like this or more defensive because, hello. two co-founders of a podcast network.
I'm just like, there's so much that goes into running a business. It is incredibly easy from the outset. I mean, that said, what I don't want... His behaviour sounds shit, though. That's what I mean. What I don't want to defend is if there are people saying that he is berating them, yelling at them. I mean, I'll just never get around that kind of behaviour in any context. I agree.
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Chapter 5: Why did Meghan Trainor cancel her tour?
Yeah. Rare. Super fucking rare. It's genuinely, I have a soft spot for Versailles, quite randomly. You do? I love it.
When we were watching the music video. I love Versailles. You really wanted to pause? Like, I think you felt I moved on from Versailles too quickly. I think we've all moved on from Versailles too quickly.
I mean, did French Revolution in Year 12? Yeah. Every time I go... You were quite good at that subject, weren't you? I wasn't, I wasn't. Am I incorrect in thinking, did you win? I didn't win it.
You got a perfect score. I don't know. You doxed it. No, no, no. I will give Zara her flowers. I'm pretty sure Zara. Why are you giving me VCE flowers? Because I'm constantly in awe of Zara's VCE score.
When do we get to speak on that?
Can we tell them?
No, because now what you've done. She's freaking out. If you have made people believe that I got a perfect VCE score and now only.
I'll have everyone know. Not quite perfect.
It wasn't perfect.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of celebrity gossip on public perception?
Because I don't need the analysis on why Louis Partridge likes beer.
I just trust that he does. I'm directly clarifying that it's definitely about him.
Because he was in House of Guinness.
There was a teaser.
You take it away, Zara. It was a Guinness. It wasn't just a beer in the teaser. So it's obviously about him. Obviously, and she does say Pisces and Gemini. I think we might go really nice together. One of them's a Pisces, one of them's a Gemini. I think that was stronger. So, do we think they're still together? Because she's uploaded this new video for the song overnight.
where it's like handheld camcord vibe in Paris. Exclusive to Spotify.
Yeah, but yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's to push the Spotify charts, which I think is so fucking smart for the strategy of a pop star. Spotify is really gunning for YouTube spot as like the number one video platform and to give them their own music video that they'll then boost over everyone's algorithms, I think is very, very clever use of resource. You didn't have to make this so smart.
All I wanted to ask was, was it filmed by Louis Partridge? Oh, no, doll. Yeah, I think it might have been because you can hear his giggle in it. Really? I saw a comment saying that.
Do you think then it was filmed to be a music video or do you think it was just footage that she's repurposed?
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Chapter 7: How do online conversations affect artists like Meghan Trainor?
It's incredibly tragic, this one. Now, we spoke about this story for the first time in September last year. 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found dead in the back of a sort of in the trunk of a Tesla. It was a Tesla that belonged to the alt-pop singer David.
Yeah, in the months since Celeste's body was discovered, the LAPD has been quiet about their investigation, as they so often are. Well, they should be. Yeah, lots of people online are always like, well, why did this take so long? There's so much work that you need to put in. You need to gather enough evidence to make sure that... You want to do it properly. Exactly, that you do a thorough job.
So as per The Guardian, this week came the most significant development yet. Police armed with rifles arrested David, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, on Thursday afternoon at a residence on a Hollywood street. The LAPD said this in a statement provided to media.
Detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department Robbery Homicide Division have arrested David Burke, a 21-year-old resident of Los Angeles, for the murder of Celeste Rivas. Burke is being held without bail.
So shortly after he was arrested, David was officially charged with first degree murder. As per the BBC, he was also charged with murder for financial gain and with murder of a witness to an investigation. That was really interesting to me when I read that. He has not heard that wording before.
It's because it sounds like he was already being investigated for potentially having an abusive relationship with Celeste. So police were already looking at this dynamic he had with this teenager.
Yeah, 100%. Here's what David's attorney said in response to the charges. We believe that actual evidence will show that David did not kill Celeste. We will vigorously defend his innocence. In a statement to CBS News, Celeste's family said this. We are committed to ensuring that Celeste's voice is heard and her memory is honoured throughout this process.
Our fourth story, what is going on between Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson? That is from Vulture. Yes. I didn't know that there was a three-part Netflix series being filmed between former One Directioners Zayn and Louis. I had no idea. Were we supposed to know or had they not announced it yet? They announced it in October last year.
Oh, dear.
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Chapter 8: What are the potential impacts of the latest celebrity controversies?
Final show. This is one of those things where I'm like, release the tapes. I'd love to see the footage regardless. I do think this has been leaked from Louis' camp because it's very, like there's very little in here about Louis. I mean, beyond that, as I said, I picked my fighter. So it's, you know. How could anyone pick Zayn? Well, I know.
If a single person's getting punched, I think we know what's happened. Also, Louis and his two sisters reportedly, according to multiple news outlets, have unfollowed Zayn. But Zayn is still following Louis. Wow. Word from today's sponsor?
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Oh, sorry. That wasn't the answer I thought it was.
Our fifth and final story, why Meghan Trainor. Meghan Trainor? Meghan Trainor. We just looked straight at belly.
Come on, producer. Why did you take us out in the dark? Meghan. Yeah. There's a H in there.
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