Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | December 18, 2025
The year is almost done, and, hopefully, things are wrapping up. But we live in odd times and there's a solid chance that something utterly unheard of and bananas could happen before we ring in 2026. I'm taking my chances and calling time of 2025 because I am very tired of this damn year. It's safe to say that a lot happened over the past 12 months. A lot of it was, well, hell on earth. Some of it, mercifully, was highly silly. Seasons may change but we can always rely on the celebrities being at it once more to keep us sated. Here are some of the biggest pop culture stories of 2025!
TAYLOR AND TRAVIS GET ENGAGED
When news that you're getting married leads to push notifications from every major news outlet on the planet, you know you're in another realm of fame. The singer and the American football player, the musical diva and her head-butting beau. It's the stuff of, well, Taylor Swift songs. They're an undeniable power couple, perhaps the first true example of such that Taylor's experienced in her public life, and both loved being in the spotlight. He danced with her on stage. She wrote a song comparing his wang to a redwood tree. Not even a poorly reviewed new album could dampen TNT.
THE GIRLBOSS SPACE FLIGHT FIZZLES
Sometimes, it's nice to see the world unite around a common target of mockery, and there were few stories more ludicrous and worth laughing at in 2025 than the Blue Origin flight of feminist freedom. Lauren Sanchez, pre-Bezos wedding, wanted to take that phallic shuttle and punch the glass ceiling alongside a cohort of girlbosses that included Gayle King (who clearly regretted her choice) and Katy Perry. The whole thing was over in less time than it takes to listen to the uncut version of 'Freebird' and everyone agreed it was dumb. The harder the press tried to spin it as a glorious advancement for science and ladyfolk, the more we memed it.
KATY PERRY AND JUSTIN TRUDEAU?!
Her latest album may have been an embarrassing flop that saw her eagerly align herself with an accused sex criminal, but astronaut Katy Perry moved on from her split from Orlando Bloom in an unexpected manner. How do you upgrade from dating Legolas? You move onto a former world leader. Justin Trudeau is no longer running Canada so he's got some free time on his hands to tolerate acoustic editions of 'Woman's World.' It was a pairing that made all of the sense and none of it, and in a year as bleak as this one, it offered some low-stakes gossip solace. Come on, start wearing matching outfits like Kylie and Timothee!
SYDNEY SWEENEY'S GOOD JEANS BACKFIRE
That's so brave. Thank you for finally breaking your silence on this
— Tim Price (@timprice.bsky.social) December 6, 2025 at 6:18 PM
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How do you put the breaks on your rising career with one ill-judged pun? Sydney Sweeney's been sold to us as the next major star of her generation for years now, and it felt like 2025 could be the breakout moment. She had her potential blockbuster, her Oscar vehicle, and the implicit endorsement of Jeff Bezos. A deal with American Eagle jeanswear seemed like a good idea at the time. Whatever you thought of the 'Sydney Sweeney Has Good Jeans' slogan, it was tough to ignore how it was immediately latched onto by the hard-right, who had long tried to adopt Sweeney as one of her own, mostly because she has big boobs. It could have been dealt with easily enough had Sweeney herself not been so smarmy and fence-sitting about the entire affair. Finding out she was a registered Republican was the final nail in the coffin. Her Oscar bait movie, Christy, became an all-time flop, and her non-apology about being against hate rang hollow.
COWBOY CARTER WINS ALBUM OF THE YEAR
'AOTY, I ain't win', sang Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter, her exploration-slash-homage to Black country, calling out how the Grammys repeatedly snubbed her, the most awarded person in the organisation's history, from the big three awards. The streak was over with her ambitious Act II, and she snatched up Best Country Album in the process. Now, please make Act III a rock one, Bey.
KEITH AND NICOLE DIVORCE
I'm sure Chappell Roan was thrilled to hear about this, too.
— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) November 20, 2025 at 8:30 PM
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Some stories you can see coming from a mile away. But nobody predicted that one of Hollywood's most secure marriages would come to an end. Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban were beloved for their forever-in-love united front, and people wanted her to get her happy-ever-after following her escape from the clutches of Cruise and Xenu. It's not just that the divorce announcement was unexpected: it's that the entire marriage was dissolved so efficiently and we got no whisper of it until the deed was done. Sources talked of Nicole wanting to stay wed to Keith, but his weird on-stage coziness with one of his band members and the decision to sing 'Pink Pony Club' at Mar-a-Lago had Kidman fans glad she left.
WAS PAM AND LIAM FOR REAL?
Pamela Anderson confesses she and Liam Neeson had one 'intimate week,' but are not currently together. It was "a little bit like a Nancy Meyers film.'
— Vulture (@vulture.com) December 10, 2025 at 12:11 AM
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We were all rooting for it. The Naked Gun co-stars Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson seemed like the perfect second-act celebrity romance. He talked so lovingly about her and she seemed giddy to be with a guy who wasn't a rockstar douchebag. Everyone went wild for them. Then, suddenly, it was done. Was it a quick workplace fling or was it just good PR for their movie? Pamela has refuted claims it was a showmance, yet cynicism prevails. Still, the movie was a blast.
DID MARVEL FATIGUE FINALLY HIT HOLLYWOOD?
Matt Shakman on casting Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards in 'THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS':
"I was looking for an actor who could contain multitudes. There's the very cerebral Reed Richards, and then there's the action hero, the leader, the husband, the father-
— Cosmic Marvel (@dailycosmicmarvel.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 5:16 PM
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We've been speculating about the moment when Marvel fatigue would finally hit audiences for years now. It was getting to the point where many of us wondered if the MCU was truly impervious to the backlash that hits everything else in pop culture. Well, 2025 was the moment where things seemed to fizzle in an undeniable way. Captain America: Brave New World was DOA. Thunderbolts/The New Avengers got stronger-than-expected reviews but it wasn't enough for audiences to head to the theatres. Everyone was expecting The Fantastic Four: First Steps to be the one that changed things and got the franchise back on track. To the surprise of the industry, audiences liked it but there was a distinct feeling of 'meh' in the air. There are no Marvel movies in the top ten highest-grossing films of 2025 chart. That's truly shocking to me. Disney had a great year but it was sequels and live-action remakes of non-superhero properties that carried them through. There's more riding on the next Avengers movie than ever.
SEAN COMBS GOES TO JAIL (BUT VICTIM-BLAMING WINS THE DAY)
Following her testimony, Cassie's lawyer shared a statement from the singer's husband, Alex Fine. 'I did not save Cassie,' Fine wrote. 'Cassie saved Cassie."
— New York Magazine (@nymag.com) May 16, 2025 at 11:10 PM
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When video was leaked showing Sean Combs, a.k.a. Diddy, beating his then-girlfriend Cassie Fine as she tried to get away from him in a hotel, his long-rumoured abuses and hatred of women seemed undeniable. But when it came time for Combs to face the music in the courtroom, it quickly became obvious that good old-fashioned victim-blaming would reign supreme. Combs will spend time in jail but nowhere near as much as expected, and his supporters have only grown more vocal in their giddiness over his impending freedom. I'm no longer surprised by the ways that openly and provably abusive men can rally bands of zealous supporters to their cause. We've seen this time and time again, from Johnny Depp to Tory Lanez. With Combs, the stomach-churning misogyny felt more potent than ever. Creeps poured baby oil over themselves in celebration outside the courtroom because they so violently hated women. The post-#MeToo backlash has never been more obvious or insidious in its agenda.
LILY ALLEN EXPOSES DAVID HARBOUR'S YOU-KNOW-WHAT PALACE
She thought it was a dojo. Lily Allen let the world know just how messy her marriage to David Harbour was through her latest album, West End Girl. The mouthy queen of London pop has never been one to shy away from confessional song-writing, but even her nosiest fans were shocked by her stories of infidelity, gaslighting, and, ahem, toy collections. Harbour has, smartly, kept his mouth shut on the matter while Allen has received some of the strongest reviews of her career. It's only going to get messier from here.
TRUMP VS. LATE NIGHT
As CBS became consumed by another needlessly overpowered media monopoly, it soon became clear how quickly the whole thing was a Trump toadying exercise. CBS News was handed over to Bari Weiss, an act equivalent to letting Hannibal Lecter run PETA, and Stephen Colbert and The Late Show. faced the chopping black. Paramount claimed it was just ratings-related, but nobody believed them. Things only got messier in late-night over on ABC when Jimmy Kimmel was benched in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination. The most anodyne quote on the matter was spun into a violent attack against poor defenseless Trumpites, but protests and a lot of Disney+ cancellations led to ABC walking back their nonsense. See, sometimes, bullying works.
SELLOUTS AT THE SAUDI COMEDY FEST
Let's Make Selling Out Embarrassing Again
— Pajiba (@pajiba.com) October 15, 2025 at 6:04 PM
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As I said earlier this year, we need to make selling out embarrassing again. Watching a string of A-List comedians, the same rabblerousers complaining about how wokescolds are trying to cancel them, run to the Riyadh Comedy Festival to make big money in exchange for actively censoring themselves, was Exhibit A of my argument. Bill Burr, Jimmy Carr, Kevin Hart, Jim Jeffries, Jack Whitehall, and many others claimed they were the real heroes as they helped to whitewash the Saudi dictatorship, and they clearly didn't expect the pushback they got. It highlighted just how eager the entertainment industry has become to get in bed with the country and its well-funded efforts to cloak their cruelties in artistic endeavours. Check out how many of them went to the Red Sea Film Festival to lavish praise on them (also, did you know Johnny Depp was giving an acting masterclass there recently? The jokes write themselves.)
ANDREW'S A PRINCE NO LONGER
It's been several years since Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor gave one of the biggest car-wreck interviews in TV history, one so embarrassing that it led to him being pushed to the sidelines by his own family. Most of us assumed that the one-time Duke of York, a notoriously hated individual even by royalists, would just live his life in quiet luxury and hope we all forgot that he bragged about being friends with Jeffrey Epstein. Well, that didn't happen. Following the release of the late Virginia Giuffre's memoir, as well as several key documents pertaining to Epstein's crimes, it became apparent that Andrew was not only an accused sex criminal but also a bad liar. Revelations that he tried to smear Giuffre with help from his police protection officer were enough for King Charles to pull the plug on his brother and strip him of his titles. Will he face any legal repercussions for his alleged crimes? Alas, probably not, but sometimes embarrassing the guilty is as good as it gets.
D4VD
The 20-year-old rapper David Burke, known as D4vd, was a rising star whose songs gained traction on TikTok. But the chances are you first discovered him when the news broke that police had discovered the decomposed remains of a 14-year-old girl in a car registered in his name. LAPD is currently investigating the case as a potential homicide, but as of December 2025, no charges have been filed against anyone. It's one of the bleakest and most tragic stories of the year.
KENDRICK TAKES THE DRAKE BEEF TO THE SUPER BOWL
Have you ever wondered if you're a good enough hater? Yes, you can be snarky with the best of them but are you hating efficiently and effectively? Kendrick Lamar paved the way for us to be that bit more indulgent with our hateration. Releasing one of the best diss tracks in modern history wasn't enough, nor was an endless spree of anti-Drake songs that may have killed the Canadian's momentum with the zeitgeist permanently. He had to go on and win three Grammys for 'Not Like Us', then perform at the Super Bowl Half-Time Show and let his nemesis know that he wasn't finished stomping his face on the kerb. He even got Aubrey's ex, Serena Williams, in on the fun. Meanwhile, Drake kept trying to sue Kendrick over losing the battle and his case was thrown out. Ha.
WARNER BROS. GOES TO THE CHOPPING BLOCK
Did you ever wonder how David Zaslav could possibly get any more evil? Somehow, the most insidious cultural vandal of the modern age of Hollywood pulled it off, by putting Warner Bros. Discovery up for sale for no other reason beyond his own profit. Netflix is currently the victory, and the sad thing is that it's the preferrable option because Paramount is desperately trying to outbid the streaming service. Whatever happens, it's safe to say that the art of cinema may never be the same again, and that's before AI gets involved. Media monopolies are an actively corrosive force in our society and those who allow them to happen should never know peace. Zaslav, I hope you're visited by a ton of ghosts on Christmas eve.
THE EPSTEIN LIST
It feels kind of insulting to end a list on celebrity drama with something so serious, but it was undeniable that the revelations contained within the Epstein files exposed the ways in which politics, money, and celebrity are inextricably entwined. We were aware of how deep Epstein's ties to every corner of power ran, but having the evidence in front of us, often in stomach-churning detail, served as a cruel reminder. Nobody has greater class solidarity than rich people who think they're above humanity and the law. Also, let's be honest: none of us are surprised that Woody Allen was in the files, right?
