Barry Manilow has been told he doesn’t look quite right for almost fifty years, which is an odd thing to endure for fifty years. Before the cancer, before the facelift, before any of it, the criticism began. He told The Guardian that he had experienced fifteen years of cheap laughter on television when his name was mentioned, and that occasionally he would read the reviews and cover his head. It’s difficult to ignore how long that kind of thing can persist, even after someone achieves great success by any reasonable standard. Therefore, there was something almost anticlimactic about Manilow’s final…
Author: Jack Ward
On December 9, 2025, Zooey Deschanel appeared to be herself when she entered Jimmy Fallon’s set in a black dress with polka dots and a puffed skirt. The internet did what it does when she began speaking. Within hours, clips went viral. Theories abound in comment sections. She appeared to have had dental work, according to a comment. Her cheeks appeared unusually full for someone in her mid-forties, according to someone else. Ten years ago, before every late-night video was cut into freeze-frames and examined by strangers with strong opinions about facial architecture, this kind of moment most likely would…
On a Tuesday afternoon in Coral Gables, drive down Southwest Eighth Street, and you’ll pass tire shops, Cuban bakeries, strip malls, and then, almost without warning, a building that doesn’t look like much from the outside. There isn’t much signage. Both a marble lobby and a valet are absent. However, the clinic’s own statistics show that over 50,000 procedures have been carried out over the course of 20 years. Depending on your preconceived notions about Miami’s cosmetic surgery economy, this statistic may either impress you or cause you to pause. Volume and specialization are the cornerstones of Svelta Plastic Surgery’s…
Outside a daycare center, a woman in her early thirties is sitting in a parked car with the radio and engine off, staring at nothing in particular for longer than she intended. She’s not in tears. She’s not doing well either. When she eventually brings up this incident weeks later, her therapist doesn’t inquire about her workload first. Another question she poses is, “When did you stop wanting any of this?” The question “Is this actually your life?” rather than “Are you overworked?” has become a common one in therapy sessions for adults over thirty. Physicians who previously used burnout…
Making yourself appear worse on purpose requires a certain level of discipline. No prosthetics, no shaved heads, no obvious suffering shown to the camera with theatrical gravity—not in the dramatic, awards-campaign manner. For the most part, Amy Adams has done it quietly by quitting her workouts, allowing her weight to naturally settle, and resisting the Hollywood instinct to show up on set looking trim and ready for the camera. For someone employed in a field that has traditionally viewed a woman’s body as a professional asset to be managed, it is, in its own subtle way, a fairly radical act.…
A specific type of cruelty is reserved for former celebrities. Comment sections, radio hosts posing loaded questions, and the half-second pause before a camera lingers on someone for a bit too long are all examples of it. The internet did what it always does when Mikey Graham was lifted from underneath the Emirates Stadium stage in early June 2026 and settled onto a stool to perform a few songs with Boyzone in front of thousands of fans. It saw that he had a different appearance. It spoke loudly about it. Furthermore, the majority of those speaking had no idea what…
The picture of a man joking on social media from a hospital bed about the NHS’s 70th birthday, just hours before medical professionals would have to run him down a hallway at midnight with a needle stuck in his chest, is subtly unnerving. That’s exactly what happened to Richard Bacon in early July 2018—a series of events so abrupt and severe that the time between a happy tweet and a potentially fatal coma was measured in hours rather than days. On a flight from Los Angeles to Britain, Bacon fell ill. He was treated in midair before exiting the aircraft…
Some people move through the outdoors with the ease of someone who truly belongs there, not someone pretending to belong for a camera. They seem almost constitutionally suited to the outdoors. Among them is Iolo Williams. The Welsh broadcaster and ornithologist has been stalking hillsides, watching red kites through binoculars, and narrating the more subdued dramas of the British countryside with a warmth that television rarely produces for over twenty years. This may be the reason why his body’s most dramatic moment occurred exactly where you might expect it to: by himself, in the middle of a run, somewhere in…