The Hilaria Baldwin expose (The Streisand Effect) is lots of fun, but it's worth mentioning the details have been out there for a long time. Her former classmates have been fact checking her actual background on different forums for years. She apparently competed around Boston in Latin Dance competitions on school breaks (not soaking up Spanish authenticity in upscale, expat-dense Mallorca, where her parents didn't relocate until 2011.). People who knew her pre-NYC knew her as Hillary Hayward Thomas and her parents as affluent Boston professionals. Never knew her to employ a wobbly Spanish accent that doesn't in the least sound Mallorqui or Catalan.
Alec Baldwin waxed creepily white-knighish in her defense on his own social media but himself has been hyping the "my wife is from Spain" meme for years in interviews. I don't think he was catfished - he knew. An adorable, "exotic" "European" (I threw out my TV! Who ees Alejandro Baldwin? Haf some vegan soup! I don't like drama!") younger wife whose NYU attendance thus makes her "internationally" educated is a more marketable credential than a basic trust fund baby from Boston.
She can rename herself what she wants. OTOH, gambits such as claiming she's mistaken for the nanny when she's out with her kids ("We need to do better") while her WASP ancestry pre-dates the Mayflower and she grew up on Boston's Beacon Hill*, or using MLK day as a social media teaching moment about color by holding her spray-tanned arm against her daughter's pale one makes the concepts of offensive, entitled and audacity feel inadequate.
Her facade got blown up via her response to an Amy Schumer tweet in which she neglected to use her accent, prompting another twitter account to comment on her "decades long grift" pretending to be Spanish. The floodgates opened and twitter came with receipts. I don't know why that was the tipping point.
Tessa Virtue connection - Nivea sponsored Hilaria Baldwin's most recent miscarriage post (the one prior to the birth of her fifth child). So there's the standards. I didn't know the sponsored post game had gone that low.
Naturally, Hilaria has been hyping projects based on the importance of one's individual authenticity and comfort in one's own skin. Like other influencers we know.
Right wing publications like The Federalist love to take the foibles of virtue signaling left wing celebrity progressives to undermine progressive values, but these observations about the corrupt entertainment media are not wrong:
Domenech and Jashinksy agree that the media’s role in attempting to defend the celebrity shows publications’ corruption and unwillingness to provide accurate coverage to their audiences.
***
In the aughts, bloggers like Perez Hilton earned a lot of money and a lot of backlash for harsh coverage of celebrities. Some of that backlash was warranted. But now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Rather than treating celebrities neutrally, the entertainment media treats them reflexively as protagonists. (See: the early coverage of Jussie Smollett’s hoax.)No surprise Hilaria's "defense" has been gaslighty, but people aren't having it. That's because the media isn't helping her, absent the predictable NY Times. I didn't think the media would go in this hard on Baldwin, but she's been wading in cultural appropriation waters for one, and for two, I don't believe the media actively knew differently about her. For three, once on the scent, acquiring receipts takes no effort - poof, here's her yearbook, the home where she grew up, a few quotes from former neighbors. Baldwin was able to perpetuate her scam for over a decade because the media just took what she said about her background on face value.
That's not the case with Tessa and Scott and the Canadian entertainment media which has enthusiastically cooperated with Tessa and Scott's con for well over a decade. That's where the points made by (sadly) The Federalist hit their target. CTV, for example, captioned Jackie Mascarin as Scott Moir's "fiancee'" knowing he's married to Tessa. This decades long complicity will complicate any coverage of their actual status. But we can be sure of a tidal wave of straw men and gaslighting.
Think about a guy on stage with his wife at a hometown Hall of Fame ceremony announcing his engagement to another woman while his own mom stood by lending her "authenticity" and the majority of those present knew this for the scam it was but kept their mouths shut or were denied an outlet to report what they knew. This is the sort of thing the Canadian entertainment complex has promoted and enabled. Where does that fall on the spectrum of audacity?
*Not to mention her boob implants, obvious 00 clothing size, strategically sculpted face, microbladed eyebrows, excruciatingly toned, flexible physique and blinding white, even dentistry (all $$$$ indicators) would guarantee fellow upscale mommies understood she was no nanny no matter what accent she deployed makes her claim even more comical.
V&M's eldest is turning 10. There is something about that child turning 10 that really drives home the point of how long this is all been going on and wondering how and when it might end. I am so weary of the lying from V&M and the others who have followed behind them down the same path. V&M have been doing this the longest, but I'm tired of it out of the others too.
ReplyDeleteOC, I know you don't check comments that often, but do you think if any of couple teams doing this now are outed, they'll all end up outed? Or, do you think if it were like, Team 3 (I'll call them that since I'm not at a point yet where I think they've been heinous enough to out), that was outed, the truth about V&M and H&D would come out too or would it just be the truth about Team 3? If V&M were outed, would the others be exposed as well or stay hidden?
Hi - one reason I'm not checking comments often is I want to maintain the blog when things are quiet - hence posting at least once a month, but then I move onto other things and as I said in a previous post my mind's been preoccupied with the election and the stress was high. And, like many people I'm being careful during quarantine and trying to work on projects I can do at home that are constructive, versus using this blog as a diversion.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with forecasting what would happen with other couples is I have no idea why those duos are doing what they're doing and have no first hand reliable information - only what I've been told online. I doubt their situation is similar to Virtue and Moir's origin rationale for lying about their relationship. Surely H&B (if their actual status is true) did not anticipate becoming the figure skating equivalent of rock stars, unlike the young Virtue Moir. And yet for HB (if true) it seems more than the typical "We're not dating - oops, now that we've retired look at us we got married!" low key figure skating partner scenario. Re Team 3 I'm assuming you mean Weaver & Poje. With those two I just think it was what you did if you were with Skate Canada.
Paul & Islam were outliers and it showed in how they were treated by their Federation. We'll see what happens when Weaver & Poje officially retire. I just can't see what is gained for other skaters to execute an elaborate con. It seems more and more to have restrained what Virtue and Moir can and can't do themselves, and what opportunities they get.Tessa is an influencer, period, getting the same sponsorships and limited collaborations as every other C minus celeb. Scott is pretending to live out his reality show persona out on a muddy farm field somewhere. Tessa's gonna be a "businesswoman" with a completely fraudulent public persona once she finishes that MBA - can't wait to see what that looks like.
I don't see H&B and others looking at Virtue and Moir and thinking - "That's where we want to be." So I'm at a loss. TBC
When I started this blog and along the way I felt I had a fairly sophisticated understanding of PR vis a vis journalists but recently I've learned a whole lot more. For example, currently I am convinced Ryan Pyette of the London Free Press, who routinely trots out a new Virtue Moir narrative or embeds one in an article ostensibly about other things (like him claiming Tessa was pals with an entire junior hockey team) is one way or the other on the Virtue and Moir payroll and has been for years. Someone like him is not making a lot of money. They wouldn't have to pay him a fortune - a few hundred per interview/article is fine and it would be set up by their PR. It's been instructive to find out how common this is, even among what one would think are reputable journalists and news outlets. Sometimes it's a side deal, sometimes there are straight up rates. I doubt anyone at the London Free Press is vetting what Ryan Pyette writes about Virtue and Moir. If you look at many of the Virtue Moir interviews that show up and push a specific narrative we can be sure the majority of the piece was provided by their PR and money changed hands. That's the business model today. Entertainment media is not journalism; "sports" media is entertainment media, particularly in figure skating.
ReplyDeleteNobody cares. Virtue and Moir's PR have them as massively famous and sensitive to privacy but if you google them everything that comes up is their PR releases translated into the same stories, same angle, same points hit. His engagement announcement was pure sting - "engaged to his partner - but not Tessa!" That's from their PR. Anything about how fans react is their PR.
If you google from a non VM-centric angle they are very low on the google hits even if you try "famous Canadian athletes" and even if you try "ice dance." Their fame is not as organic as their PR wants us to believe.
With the Hilaria Baldwin situation people on a couple of forums - data lounge and especially something called DC Urban Moms - had been clocking her charade complete with receipts for a long time. It was asssumed by most that she wasn't interesting enough for the media to pick up on these details. However, what I read today was the person who outed them did so on Xmas, when their reps offices would be closed and their agencies, etc. not working. And here are quarantined people on twitter having a blast the entire weekend until Monday rolls around. CAA didn't get around to changing her bio until 3 days later.
If the HB situation is true (and I'm take for granted Weaver & Poje are), and a whole VM thread blew up on twitter, then I would anticipate others with an inside line would say, "It's not just them, it's HB and others." I'd imagine Weaver and Poje would be left out of it because as you say, they're extremely restrained.
Lastly, it's really depressing how weaponized misogyny is the go to gaslighting tactic when fans or others criticize or get a bit to close to the mark about a protected celebrity. "Jealous" is fucking EVERYWHERE. Old, fat, middle-aged, no job - all are supposedly epithets that shame a critic into shutting up lest they confirm the accusation. The framing is insane. "Criticize this person and you're obsessed, have no life, you have no partner, you're OLD, you're overweight." All shit that is female-centric - this isn't the stuff hurled at guys when they get into battles on stereotypical "guy" forums. The media uses this too. They also use straw men. For example, on the few times this blog has been mentioned elsewhere not only is it "deranged" but it's premise is distorted - secret this, secret that. Their status is not a freaking secret. The skating world knows, the skating media knows, and a million fans know, even those that police other fans on line. It's not publicly acknowledged, the end. The blog has said this a million times but it serves the PR agenda to pretend it is promoting a secret convoluted shadowy conspiracy a la illuminati or whatever that junk is. This is TACTIC.
ReplyDeleteWhen/if it does come out, unless we get a nice tsunami of verification in whatever twitter thread gets it started, that's what the push back will look like. It seems to work.
Finally, one reason I'm following the Hilaria Baldwin story is there's a husband with corporate clout in the picture as well as media connections. No matter how much of a dysfunctional blowhard he may be. he has pull that goes way back with similarly-aged, influentially situated, powerful men. Reading one thread, some posters are confessing they sent "tips" and links to various tabloid outlets, the Daily Mail, etc. over the years as they found Baldwin's stunting at things like James Galdofini's funeral repellant and wanted to expose her.
ReplyDeleteWhat would happen after that is the entity would call Baldwin's reps and Baldwin's PR would either lean in to squash it or they'd pay off the publication. It does not take a lot. When brand name publications are in the "click the link and we may get a compensation when you do." business we are talking an industry that is financially scraping the bottom of the barrel. There has to be a compelling cost/benefit analysis for a publication to reject a check and push ahead.
Social media, OTOH. That thread was already viral before the media got onto it, and while a push back was initially attempted ("Hilaria claps back) it failed because the incoming was too relentless. The "expose" was not media led.
Thanks for your reply, OC. I completely understand about being more hands-off when things are quiet.
ReplyDeleteHubbell and Donohue were public with their relationship for a good 2 1/2 to 3 years. They started laying the groundwork for sham about 3-4 months after their never publicly announced engagement. Several of us kept waiting for it to be announced, but it never came, and then the sham started. After laying the groundwork, they went full blast with around Worlds 2015, right before they moved to Montreal to train at Gadbois and a couple of months before they married. With two kids, it's not going to be an easy scenario to backtrack when they retire sometime in the next few years. (They have said the 21-22 season will not be the end, but they don't see themselves still competing by the time 2026 happens.) Scott choreographed their FD this season (a fantastic program and I think he learned a lot from Marina that carries through in his own choreography work), but I also have trouble seeing why anyone else would want to hem themselves in the way V&M have. I sometimes half joke maybe this started because it was a requirement by Skate Canada for them to be able to train in Canada.
W&P are not actually the Team 3 I was referring to (although I have no doubts on their status either). The third team I was referring to is an outlier in that they are not North American or have any direct ties to Canadian skating or training centers. They are still an actively competing team. V&M and H&D have grossed it up many times over in their own ways of grossing things up. W&P have played it as clean as you can if you're not going to tell the truth. The European team hasn't played it quiet as clean as W&P--they drop some subtle rumors and the occasional photo out there to obscure, but they haven't done anything gross yet.
I have the same suspicions about Pyette and have for years. He is most certainly in on this and has been forever. Other media outlets, particularly those who report in depth on North American skating, are very much aware and in on the gig for V&M and H&D (and I'm sure also aware of W&P). Lynn Rutherford has put in a lot of work in articles and on skating message boards to help push H&D's narratives and retcons. When someone challenged a timeline given in an article vs the proverbial receipts, she commented that sometimes people forget when exactly they broke up. The Euro team has used the press there to dump out their own narratives, and I'd imagine that press is aware of the truth too.
I do also think you're right that if/when things come out about V&M (or any of them), that it'll come from social media. Who, I don't know.
Thanks for the fuller picture.
ReplyDeleteLynn Rutherford is one of those. In skating for years, can't tell a front inside edge from a back outside edge, waxes smarmy until pushed the slightest bit then "turns it around" (bullies, gaslights, blocks). Feh on her. She's a niche reporter and is protecting her club.
No idea on earth why HB would want to follow in VM's shoes. While VM are enabled, as I said, I think they're also massively constrained. The influencer world has no conscience so Tessa will continue her little deals here and there w/the more prolific or niche brands on social media, and of course for the next ten years at least there will be no shortage of publications eager for photo shoots, but in the long term WTF? Where you need genuine, not social media, credibility? She's getting her MBA and purports to love the business environment which just gives me the creepy feeling that she thinks the business environment is a space where those who are fraudulent can feel legitimized cause you can stick it under branding. I don't think that's how it works.
Yes, I'm saying if it comes out it will be a social media event, definitely not a reporting event. My primary hope is Marina gets in her licks somehow. She has been treated like garbage by VM. Publicly, at least, VM have often behaved like the worst variety of Cluster Bs - we love and adore you while we need you but when we need something else we don't know you. Over and over. Unlike many of their relationships over the course of their competitive career I think their relationship with Marina was absolutely genuine which makes their trashing it for expedience post 2014 plenty disgusting. The Gadbois ass licking was an obvious prerequisite for Peyongchang and even then they very nearly were screwed over anyway. However, they seem to have no qualms so one wonders how genuine ANYTHING they claim is outside their ties with immediate family members.
PS don't know why I'm abbreviating HD to HB but anytime I type "HB" I mean "HD" and will watch the keyboard in future.
ReplyDeleteI started thinking of them as Bubble and Honahue and I think that's fun :P
DeleteFor me , there is something bigger behind the scenes, not only them that paid journalists to write what they want . There is someone else who has power and money that works against these three teams. Or 4 if we count W/P
ReplyDeleteI don't know about that. The 2010-14 Olympic Cycle that gave Davis White the gold in Sochi was an obvious fix enabled by "skating journalists" that don't know anything about skating and use the protocols to confirm the skating instead of the skating to vet the protocols. But it was an extensive fix that got everybody on board with the narrative. In the past there have been naysayers - objections to Rachel Flatt winning over Mirai Nagasu, debates over this team or that team. Nobody from any country was allowed to push back against Davis White over VM. Not in 2013 and not in 2014. You could wake a mid-level skating coach from Turkmenistan up in the middle of the night and he/she would blurt, "Tessa is fat! Davis White skip across the ice!" That was corruption on a massive scale but I wonder how they pulled it off and got everybody - everybody - on board.
DeleteBut - what would power and money have to do with forcing or controlling how three non-star teams present their relationship status? I can't independently validate what is said about HD but that's a fairly convoluted charade for a couple of ice dancers that barely hit anyone's radar, however talented they may be.
Media coverage is nearly 100% transactional. You can't wade through even supposedly mainstream news sites without stumbling over affiliate links. Unless you're a star journalist with a fat network contract you're not making money. The publications and individual journalists can be and are easily bought, particularly for what is viewed as a low stakes issue like this one. So as far as VM are concerned it costs a whole lot less than their skating career cost them to pay off journalists either proactively (Ryan Pyette) or defensively (don't write that).Costs a whole lot less to scrub the web of data. Costs next to nothing to get some free lancer to do an interview with spoon fed questions and premises and an agreed-up perspective.
I have spent some time over the past year looking into just how famous Virtue and Moir actually are, particularly as for awhile Tessa's PR push was the beautiful, sensitive, attention-averse ice dancer whose gold in Pyeongchang made her the most famous athlete on earth (let alone Canada) and the strain was showing on her beautiful face. But she was plucky about it. Meantime this entire narrative was a product of her own PR and not true. It evoked her narrative during the reality show - she's very private, she's "protective" of those close to her but here comes a reality show warts and all. Of course it's totally phony but that also means we have the W Network complicit in the charade.
If they get called out it'll be social media, end of. Even the tabloids are bought on the cheap.
The way it's working now is not that they're being exposed, but I think their professional world is constrained, more random, they are less respected and possibly considered out of their ever loving minds. These factors limit their marketing potential. Curious to see what Tessa actually does with her business degree. I suspect they will maintain a "presence" on social media for branding purposes but most of the money will be and has been made the usual way - property investment, business investments, trust instruments, etc. The rest is just persona. They may get itchy and want to make another attention grab. Kind of sorry a fake wedding never got to happen at ye olde Ilderton Community Center avec Scott and Jackie, his lovely bride to be.
Given the age of their eldest and her resemblance to Tessa I am assuming she's not on track for a competitive skating career. Maybe synchro. Otherwise it might get tricky for her to compete nationally under her actual name, and that would be sort of disgusting.
For me their kids have another family name
ReplyDeleteI think there are no kids and I think something will change next year or in 2022. I think Scott is not planning to marry Jackie otherwise he would have already.
ReplyDeleteThere are most definitely kids. Scott can't marry Jackie without becoming a bigamist since he's been married more than 10 years to Tessa. He can stage a phony wedding on social media though, as they've staged phony a bunch of things.
ReplyDeleteYou have no proof. I mean that there won't be a fake wedding because they would have staged it last July if they wanted to.
DeleteIf it is true that they married in Europe , probably it is not legal in Canada and he can marry J and divorce after a couple of months
DeleteI totally do have proof and have not put it on this blog. I know it for a fact.
DeleteHere are separate things: 1) I know they're married with kids and have never shared how I know on this blog, but what I know is irrefutable.
2) I've used this blog to show how they use social media to manipulate fans, how they constantly shift their narrative, and how they lie lie lie even about shit that is not about them being married. I.e., after the Olympics 2010 they incontrovertibly stated they were estranged and didn't speak or see each other for months when she had her exertional compartment syndrome in 2008 even though there are photographs and video proving the contrary, and even though they were LIVING TOGETHER the entire time. And I don't expect fans to know this one but it is absolutely impossible to be skaters at their level and not see, speak or train with one another and come back and win 3rd place at 2009 Worlds. Proof of their lying and shifting their narrative and contradicting themselves and contradicting what's on the public narrative is in this blog. Proof of their marriage is not and I'm never going to show how I know that to be a fact. That fact, though, is the reason I started this blog. I've also used the blog to flag how they've lied their asses off about timelines nine thousand ways from Sunday.
Of course it's legal in Canada. Their marriage is registered in Canada.
Delete(New commenter, not the previous anon)
ReplyDeleteI believe the blog's author when they say they have direct offline knowledge of the marriage and kids. However, could it be possible that V/M are separated at this point?
I know that sham photos can be banked ahead of time, but the Morgan Rielly stuff in the spring was unusual in that the rapidly unfolding context of the pandemic majorly constrained what could be faked. During the time that the country was under lockdown and there was supposed to be no mixing of households, Tessa and Morgan showed up on two livestreams. And there was also a pic of Tessa handing out something (PPE? I don't remember) at a Vancouver hospital, placing her in that city as she claimed, instead of Morgan being with the Moirs in Ontario or something.
Of course a plausible explanation for that is that they were simply flouting the lockdown guidelines. There were still flights occurring. V/M have certainly proven that they're the kind to not care about the gravity of the situation and instead exploit it if they can.
But why would the Maple Leafs involve themselves in this circus, when they operate on another level entirely when it comes to stardom and the need to maintain credibility? I'm sure players can get away with fake relationships like other celebs, but why touch this particular situation with a ten foot pole? If V/M's bizarre execution of this charade is constraining their opportunities, I would have thought that the Leafs would be the kind of organization that would avoid them.
It's been interesting the last week to see several Canadian politicians being forced to resign their roles after being outed for traveling internationally this month. Maybe the thing that will burst V/M's bubble will be spurning pandemic restrictions in order to create sham opportunities.
Re: the credibility of media, I don't understand how the Canadian Press both reported Scott's "engagement", and then again mentioned that Rielly is Tessa's boyfriend in their news release of V/M's appointment to the Order of Canada. I know that the entertainment media is not real journalism, I can easily accept that. But I had been under the impression that the CP, Associated Press, etc. would have a high standard to check and report the basic facts truthfully. It leaves me not knowing what to think about V/M's recent status.
I mean, the Jackie Mascarin Hall of Fame stuff was so absurd, I don't buy it at all. So I guess that means I do believe the Canadian Press is willing to print inaccuracies. I find Morgan and Tessa more believable, and that's been the more recent, as well as harder to fake because of the pandemic. So sometimes I can't help but wonder.
Poster from 3:08 again - I went back and read your actual post from last week again, and... of course so much of what is printed about celebrities isn't factual. So I don't know why I'm hung up on this. I just hope it's an lack of active fact checking, taking at face value what a celeb says about their life, rather than knowingly printing false information under the Canadian Press banner. But when Canadian media is a smaller world and so much of entertainment/sports media does know about V/M, it does raise questions.
DeleteI used to think it was a lack of fact checking and also simply see no evil, hear no evil and also CYA and also a journalistic propensity to see the public as "ick" (I don't think people realize how much even respected journalists think the public are an embarassment and a bunch of idiots and only care about the opinion of those they cover and the opinion of each other) while being susceptible to flattery.
DeleteBut it's much more than that. It's strictly transactional. Here's your money, write what I ask, or write what I ask and I'll hook you up. Or DON'T write what I'll ask and I'll hook you up or pay you. It's the cost of doing business for celeb and sports reps and built into the budget. It's a big part of WHY celebs have reps - not just promoting projects and setting up projects.
US celebrity journalists may for the most part be broke but I guarantee you Canadian entertainment "journalists" (and sports falls under that category) are broker. And hungry for validation and flattery and status.
Tessa and Scott have screwed with timelines many many times - filmed stuff at "This" time and claimed it was at another time. She is married to Scott Moir. She's not with Morgan Reilly. They are all in show business. Hockey players are no exception. We all know how people play fast and loose, Scott and Tessa far more than most and they are completely capable of playing fast and loose with COVID. They have no integrity - why would they have integrity with this? They are stupid in many ways and have done many reckless things. Take a fast COVID test do a five minute film and you're done. They are completely capable of that - they've done worse.
I agree about both celebrity journalism and V/M's lack of integrity, which I clearly said in my initial post.
DeleteI wasn't wondering about either, but rather about what the trustworthiness is of non-entertainment outlets in the same category as the Associated Press, as well as the logistics of how V/M could manage staging some of this. I wasn't questioning their willingness to do that, just their ability to get away with it. (And perhaps Morgan's willingness to do that.) But if you know V/M are still married, I believe you.
If you haven't already seen it, here is the post from the Vancouver hospital in May. I had forgotten that a Nivea giveaway was involved lol.
https://www.facebook.com/lghfoundation/posts/10158317905723695
There was also this
https://www.facebook.com/lghfoundation/posts/10158320408868695
Just for interest's sake, rapid antigen tests for COVID were not yet created in March (when the livestreams happened), and at the time swab testing was very restricted and slow in Canada. (Antigen tests are still not widely used here, and swab testing can still take days.) Maybe V/M got their hands on something sketchy and unapproved from the US, but it's probably more likely they wouldn't have bothered.
The quick health scan mentioned in the hospital post would have been a temp check and questionnaire, not a test. And obviously it wasn't until later that Canadian officials started pushing for mask usage.
Getting away with it is the easiest part. There is no such thing as investigative celebrity journalism. If someone is "exposed" it's because the issue is forced or it's hit the legal sector. EVERYTHING in celebrity journalism is transactional. I do believe some fans think the press are overseers and Virtue and Moir have to cover their ass. They don't. There is no such thing as "busted."
DeleteThe only thing that would bust them is a tabloid - and tabloids can be bought off for extremely cheap - or somebody putting their name to it on social media and coming with receipts, and the timing has synced up with a tipping point where others come with receipts.
I'm just speculating as to what would compel Tessa to film with Morgan Reilly. It has nothing to do with the facts of her being married to Scott Moir and having kids with him.
Please PLEASE don't say, "Reilly would never do this." Every celeb - even every celeb-adjacent person - is obsessed with keeping that going as is just about everyone around them. And please do not cite anything they've ever said in public as reflecting their reality or what they think. When they coincide, it's a coincidence, and that's it.
Just for the sake of clarity, I am 1:58 and I'm not the same person as 2:24/1:32 below.
DeleteI'm no longer doubting that V/M are still married because I trust OC's knowledge, but I feel like people keep talking past what my actual points were.
Do you consider Associated Press to be celebrity journalism? Do people pay them off to knowingly print "alternative facts" in other kinds of stories? Where is your line? I don't need to be convinced about celebrity journalism in general.
And the "getting away with it" was not re: V/M's sham in general, because up until now it has made sense to me. My skepticism was about two things specific to the pandemic. First, legal or at least legal-adjacent - flouting pandemic guidelines, and the current willingness of bystanders to police the behaviour of others. And second, the willingness of other celebs to stoop that low in the midst of a global health emergency. I don't think that's silly to stop and think about - has this blog not again and again pointed out that V/M are rather atypical in the degree to which they are shameless and shortsighted? That most other celebs seem to have some degree of moral compass and/or the ability to see how their bottom line will be impacted if they lose their credibility? That V/M are limiting their prospects by this kind of behaviour?
Of course it was always *possible* that Rielly is as bad. And since V/M are still together, then yes, he is. I think some surprise is warranted though. So many people's perspectives and priorities shifted in March, especially in Canada where the level of skepticism and sacrifice-the-weak attitude was much, much lower than in the US. FWIW, people offline who had previously believed me about V/M no longer did after the livestream unveiling of Morgan, because they couldn't believe anyone would be that shameless.
For V/M's part, no it's not surprising, but I do think it's the lowest thing they've ever done, to exploit something causing so much pain globally and to risk the health of their family to get on-the-record, highly visible sham. People already wondered if she was with him because of the banquet photo, and Scott/Jackie were already established, so there was no reason they couldn't have just kept implying stuff on social media.
Probably you are right, they have a deal with the journalists but months ago she said that they knew that the judges wanted them to be second, third or forth at PYC. It means , and we know , that judges and ISU are corrupted. They won two gold medals and broke the plans. In a way or another they have to pay this and someone ( a man ,and probably others too , that is out of his federation but has threatened many people in the fs world) decided that , J and Rielly, are the price that Tessa and Scott have to pay for their victories.
ReplyDeleteThink about it.... Rielly was a mediocre player who had not good behavior, since Tessa is by his side “he has become a good boy “ and kinda replaced Leafs' cap as spokesperson
And Scott is a Leaf fan, so such a good way to destroy him to see Tessa with a player and he with a woman ( a Maga overall) that hates figure skating.
Why are you so sure that is all their fault and that there isn't someone/other people who force them to act in this way?
Since it appears that more teams (H/D, W/P and like the other anon said another european team whom I would be curious to know who is about) are engaging in the same hiding and pretending act like VM, wouldn't that mean that it's not their will? I think there's someone or a group behind all this, who knows that all of them have children (not sure about WP) and threaten them for something and treat them as paws. Who plays this horrible game?
Because they're in their freaking thirties. They are married to each other. They are parents. They're not precocious kids. They own this and have owned this a long time. No matter what they pretend, their fame has abated, and their fame was never what their PR pretended it was. Considering how the media default is the celeb is the main character and the story is told from the celeb POV, considering how badly 90% of the media want validation from the celebs they cover and would love to be celebs themselves and pander to the overall contempt held for the public, and considering how pretty much the only consistency throughout V&M's PR is fans are obsessed with them, it's easier than falling off a log to claim they conned everybody to protect themselves from stalker fans. Nobody's going to point out the book, the reality show, the social media.
DeleteTessa and Scott paid for their Pyeongchang victory by ditching Marina, shifting to Gadbois, kissing Gadbois ass, and, we can be sure, getting their actual choreography and training from others. Their first year they paid lip service to Papadakis & Cizeron, fluttering across, the ice, doing little kicks, skating like the freaking mechanicals in Midsummer Night's dream. They won. That accomplished, they entered 2017-2018 reworking Carmen in the form of Moulan Rouge and good for them. And whatever agreement got them to Gadbois was reneged upon and they were able to get gold only because Papadakis had a wardrobe malfunction in the short.
I really would consider the save face aspect more than anyone else. They have clearly doubled down many many times, and that doubling down became an excuse. Whenever things started to ease up and it became like - just don't say anything, just leave it alone and maybe in a few years come clean sort of sideways, then bury the story - suddenly the ante is upped like Scott Moir announcing a fake engagement while standing onstage with his actual wife. That freshens up the scenarios and makes it more difficult.
IMO these are two extremely self-conscious, extremely over-sensitive people who got in over their heads, have received hellaciously stupid advice from the people who are closest to them and are insanely self-obsessed.
Ann Onimous
DeleteJust because they are in their thirties, retired skater , married and with kids this behavior is so strange. P/C were , are and will be over scored until the gold medal in a Beijing. The French president is working on it since 2015. If you remember no deduction for her wardrobe malfunction and no one federation Canada , USA , Russia , Italy said a world against this .. not so strange for you ? Ice dance is corrupted and it was clear more than other times in pyc . VM won? Now they have to pay in the worst way possible ... I don’t know what will happen if the Russian will win in Beijing. Didier said he wants a revenge for the silver at Europeans .
After PYC they were and perhaps ready to tell the truth but something went wrong.
And probably who knows is too scared to help them to talk about the truth
And what about Rielly .. now he seems to be the best player and guy ever. What a surprise ( thank you Tessa) but he is still on social with other girls but no one pay attention at this.
Family and friends or not, PR and magazine or not ...
it's not all their fault!!
I mean, it is so hard to believe that three or four “team” decided to their own to have fake relationship or deny to be together only to save their marriage and families. Anon said there is someone or something else behind this and probably is right at this point
ReplyDeleteJackie's email is jaclynmascarin@hotmail(.)com pass it one
ReplyDeleteMoir is back on social with a cute project and perfect for him . But have you seen the names on his fire pit? Scott and Jackie. And J’s dog in his arms . It is a way to say I am still with her or what
ReplyDeleteBtw, the commenter at 6:44 on January 1 mentioned Scott choreographing Hubbell/Donohue's FD this season. They just got back their national title -- after a hard coordinated mainstream media and USFS push for Chock/Bates (who themselves claim to be a couple.......won't get into that right now) -- and Two for the Ice did an in-depth feature about their work with Scott: http://www.twofortheice.com/hubbell-and-donohue-compose-a-hallelujah/
ReplyDeleteAfter PYC it was clear that the usfs would have supported CB. The interview about Hallelujah interesting and how they feel abou this song .
ReplyDeleteAnd about CB, they are together but they aren’t and HD are married with kids and can’t say it. This situation is so .... strange ?
Why would waste time with a woman like Jackie if Scott was supposedly married with Tessa ?
ReplyDelete