She sat in the dark, the glow of her monitor illuminating a stack of blind items. The first one made her raise an eyebrow.

“Welcome back to Blind Item Breakdown,” she said, voice low. “Our first blind item is about Kim Kardashian and her failed pregnancy scheme.”

She pulled up the text.

“Back in the day, this illiterate reality star tried to get pregnant with a member of the singing family, the Jacksons. Then she quickly realized no one in the family had any money other than the two A-listers—Janet and Michael Jackson—and they only shared it with their own kids. So she dumped him.”

She paused.

“And this is about Kim K and TJ Jackson.”

She pulled up a comment.

“Kim uses men just like men use women. You go, girl.”

She shook her head.

“We go through a lot of celebrity lore on this channel, and I’ve talked about Michael Jackson and the Jacksons a bunch, but I did not realize that Kim Kardashian is connected to them. I should have known.”

She pulled up the headline.

“Kim Kardashian’s crazy relationship with a famous boyfriend that we all forgot about.”

She pulled up the details.

“Kim revealed on a podcast that she dated TJ Jackson, the son of Tito Jackson, the nephew of Michael. She said she dated TJ for years when she was only fourteen years old. Speaking about the relationship, Kim revealed that dating TJ came with unique benefits, including going to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch.”

She pulled up Kim’s quote.

“It was a magical place. TJ threw my fourteenth birthday party there. We took a bus. Those were some magical times. We had the greatest childhood.”

She paused.

“I’m sure she did. I forget that Kim is a nepo baby because she’s done so much, but she really did come from some of the richest people in Beverly Hills. If some of these rich men got into trouble, they ran to Robert Kardashian as fast as they could.”

She pulled up the darker detail.

“Despite the magic, though, Kim said that dating TJ was horrific at times. TJ’s mother, Dolores, was unalived while they were together. Kim attended the murder trial with her then-boyfriend, and shortly after, she was part of the OJ Simpson murder trial with her father, Robert Kardashian, representing OJ.”

She pulled up Kim’s quote.

“My boyfriend at the time was going through trials with his uncle Michael Jackson. It was back-to-back trials. As a fourteen-year-old going and testifying in a murder trial, supporting my boyfriend at the time, being thrown into it before I was fifteen—that was crazy.”

She nodded.

“It does seem like Kim and TJ are on good terms. But according to that blind item, it sounded like she was planning for her future far in advance. Which I’m not surprised about. Kim’s a planner. Her plans changed a little bit. But she has been married like three or four times. She’s got a JLo history to her. Good for her. She’s always leveling up her worth.”

She pulled up the first hinge.

“Kim Kardashian didn’t just date TJ Jackson. She dated the idea of the Jackson fortune. And when the math didn’t add up, she moved on. That’s not romance. That’s a spreadsheet.”

She pulled up Jimmy Fallon. The blind item that made her frown.

“Our next blind item is about father of the year Jimmy Fallon. It reads, ‘This late-night talk show host is back to his tricks with other women. Hey, at least this time they are old enough to drink.’”

She pulled up a comment.

“He discovered how much more fun they were when they drank.”

Another: “Jimmy Fallon has a wife and two little kids. If I were Miss Fallon, I would be an ex-wife by now. He needs to go away.”

She pulled up the news.

“Jimmy Fallon’s NBC show was canceled after just one season. NBC has decided to officially axe the show. First off, the show struggled with a very difficult time slot, often moving between Tuesday and Friday nights. It was inconsistent. I’m not watching any show on Friday night. I’m going to be enjoying myself.”

She pulled up the ratings.

“The ratings are supposedly very low at 0.17. I’m hoping that’s not out of ten or out of a hundred, because he did really bad. If I got ratings like that, I would be ready to wrap it up, Jimmy.”

She paused.

“I’ve heard that he has issues with partying and he’s shown up to work with drinks in his system. So who knows what this show was like. I was not tuning in.”

She pulled up the TikTok. The Ariana Grande rumor.

“Now that it’s coming out about the toxic work environment, this is what I need one of you to tell me. Have you ever heard this rumor that these two are always hooking up? That he has her on the show all the time because they’ve got a thing going on? Allegedly, someone saw them making out—a staff member. Not only do I think it is possible, I think it is probable that those two had a thing.”

She stared at the screen.

“I don’t know about that one. But sometimes all that partying leads to destructive behavior.”

She pulled up the second hinge.

“Jimmy Fallon’s late-night career might be dying. But according to these blinds, his partying habits are very much alive. And his wife might be the only one not laughing.”

She pulled up Justin Bieber. The Planteer gig. The sellout rumors.

“Our next blind item is about Justin Bieber. You guys know how Justin recently sold out to the elites. This blind item reads, ‘I’m not going to fault the North of the Border singer for performing for the company that wants to control the world. He probably has zero clue who they are. However, the permanent A-list actress Julia Roberts and the permanent A-list comedian Chris Rock know exactly what this company is about and how they want to watch every movement of every person in the world at all times, and they just said yes, please, to the big checks.’”

She pulled up a comment.

“Bieber will take a check from Satan as long as it clears.”

She pulled up the headline.

“Justin faces intense backlash as Planteer gig leak sparks criticism over Trump-linked deportation ties. Fans call out his Grammys ice-out stunt.”

She paused.

“This article reports it’s supposed to be a season of redemption for Justin Bieber. After a rocky few years dominated by health scares, divorce rumors, and the dark cloud of the Diddy trial, Justin seemed to be winning back the public’s opinion. He headlined Coachella. Even if people called it lazy, people liked him. He trended. His music did the numbers. So he walked away with a payday.”

She pulled up the leaked schedule.

“According to a schedule leaked by an employee that’s gone viral, Justin was booked for an 8:15 p.m. time slot at the Manor Bar. The event wasn’t just a birthday party. It was an invitation-only Brain Trust conference hosted by entertainment mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg.”

She shook her head.

“It’s kind of crazy to see where he went from at the Grammys to where he is now—performing for these billionaires, probably getting a huge paycheck.”

She pulled up a comment.

“Mind you, everyone’s going to let this slide because he’s a man.”

Another: “Justin has no moral values. He’s still friends with Chris Brown and never turns down an opportunity to make a penny. People who say he was a victim are delusional.”

She pulled up the third hinge.

“Justin Bieber wore an ice-out pin at the Grammys to protest something. Then he performed for the people who want to track your every move. That’s not activism. That’s branding.”

She pulled up Rihanna and ASAP Rocky. The tension. The other woman.

“Our next blind item is about Rihanna, ASAP Rocky, and Tyla. If ASAP doesn’t get his act together, he’s going to be out soon. This blind item reads that it wasn’t that the very fast rapper was talking to the model that upset the one-named singer. It is the fact that the very fast rapper was talking to the woman that he bought a condo for—one of his side pieces—and he invited her to the big ball alongside his singer/baby mama.”

She pulled up a comment.

“What a jerk if it’s true. I can’t see ASAP being that stupid. He’s got a good life going for himself with a gazillionaire Rihanna. But stranger things have happened. If true, he gets the award for king of the dumb asses.”

She pulled up the red carpet moment.

“There are so many clips of her being tense with Tyla, being tense with ASAP Rocky, even publicly arguing with him. And everyone can see it.”

She played the clip.

“They are not happy. Are they arguing?”

She pulled up the moment where Rihanna was super annoyed with ASAP not paying attention to her, having a full-blown conversation while she’s stranded all on her own.

She pulled up Tyla’s interview.

“Everyone knows I love Rihanna. Oh my gosh. So I met her last night, and she was so cool. I went up to her, and she was like, ‘Oh, hey.’ And then she was like, ‘My baby daddy’s calling me.’ And then she left. I felt awkward.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Her baby daddy was calling her. While she was at a public event. And Tyla felt awkward. That’s not nothing.”

She pulled up Rihanna’s rep response.

“Rihanna’s reps said it was a long day and they were running on empty. That they weren’t arguing. It wasn’t a big deal.”

She paused.

“Sure.”

She pulled up the fourth hinge.

“Rihanna is worth over a billion dollars. ASAP Rocky is worth a fraction of that. If he’s messing around with side pieces and condos, he’s not just stupid. He’s financially illiterate.”

She pulled up Blake Lively and Taylor Swift. The friendship fracture.

“Our next blind item is about Blake Lively and Taylor Swift. Because it looks like Blake Lively’s recent settlement was actually driven by her former friend Taylor. There was a lot of pressure exerted on the actress from the team of the singer to settle. The singer wanted no part of being called to testify.”

She pulled up a comment.

“I know Taylor Swift doesn’t want to be in a courtroom, but I’d love to see her in some kind of courtroom drama. That would have been so great. Really, Blake and Justin did us wrong by settling this. I think we deserve to see the truth.”

Another: “Taylor wanted to settle. She loves publicity. I think she’s the one who tricked Blake into doing the false accusations in the first place.”

She pulled up the news.

“In recent news, it looks like Blake is reportedly certain that she will make Taylor Swift’s guest list and has already picked out a dress for her wedding.”

She paused.

“Remember that Blake and Taylor have been friends for years and years. Actually, Taylor Swift is the godmother to Blake’s children. So I don’t know if that has ended. That’s kind of harsh. Imagine telling the kids, ‘Yeah, Taylor Swift is no longer your godmom.’”

She pulled up the legal analysis.

“Blake Lively was on the verge of perjury. When you sue someone in federal court, you sit for a deposition. You go under oath. You lie, that is a felony. Blake testified under oath that she did not ask anyone to delete the dailies. Then the documents got unsealed. And the documents told a very different story. Legal commentators called her on the verge of perjury.”

She paused.

“But it gets more stupid. Blake Lively was a producer on the movie. Not an actress who was bossed around by some evil director. A producer. She wrote a letter to the Producers Guild of America begging for a producer credit. She had script rewrites. She had cast input. She had editorial decisions. She had power over the cut. She had power over marketing. She was just as much of a boss as Justin was.”

She pulled up the fifth hinge.

“Taylor Swift didn’t abandon Blake Lively. Taylor Swift is a brand. And brands don’t go down with sinking ships. They launch lifeboats.”

She pulled up Cher and her son Elijah. The restraining order.

“Our next blind item is about Cher and Elijah. Afraid that her son might do to her what another celebrity offspring did to his famous parent. Our one-named permanent A-list actress and singer Cher is going to get a restraining order against her offspring, Elijah.”

She paused.

“That’s got to hurt. Your mother is out here living her best life, and she’s filing a restraining order against you because she’s scared that you’re going to Riner her.”

She pulled up the details.

“Elijah Blue Allman, who’s forty-nine, complains that his mother no longer sends him money. Can you imagine being forty-nine? At that point, I wouldn’t even want my parents’ money.”

She pulled up the numbers.

“He used to get $10,000 a month. $120,000 a year just for being Cher’s son. Oh, but he alleges that this comes to $6,790 post-taxes.”

She pulled up Cher’s claim.

“Cher claims last month that Elijah, who she called gravely disabled, has no concept of money, is unable to manage his financial resources, and is unable to withstand fraud or undue influence because he has severe mental health and addiction issues. Cher says that he spends all the money he gets immediately on drugs, expensive hotels, and limousines.”

She paused.

“Elijah, do you need a limousine?”

She pulled up the arrest.

“He was arrested after police say he broke into someone’s house and officers found him smoking a cigarette on their couch. This is the second time in forty-eight hours that Cher’s son has been arrested. His home is worth more than $16 million. So not sure why he chose to come to New Hampshire in the middle of winter.”

She shook her head.

“I do think that Cher has a point here and a very real struggle. Whether you’re a celebrity or not, you could have people who have addiction issues in your family, and it affects everyone involved. I’m not going to call Cher a terrible mother. Dealing with addiction struggles and family members is really tough.”

She pulled up the sixth hinge.

“Cher has a net worth of $360 million. Her son is breaking into strangers’ houses. Money doesn’t solve addiction. It just buys better lawyers and faster limousines.”

She pulled up G-Eazy. The allegations. The blind item.

“Our next blind item is about G-Eazy. We already knew that the Coca-Cola-loving rapper was a serial creep. But the news that the one-named perpetual victim singer was in on it with him while they were doing it is very new.”

She pulled up the headline.

“G-Eazy allegations resurface as predatory behavior claims go viral. Anonymous stories from women who claim they had disturbing experiences with G-Eazy over several years. One woman claimed that G-Eazy forced her to remove her clothing, did unthinkable things, and then abandoned her while she was left nude and vulnerable.”

She paused.

“In 2018, G-Eazy was arrested on assault and drug possession charges in Sweden. That does show that he uses.”

She pulled up the TikTok story.

“I went to VIP to meet G-Eazy. He comes into VIP. I’m starstruck. He’s saying hi to all the girls. I’m trying to act cool. Then he looks at me and does this—” She mimed a dismissive wave. “He walked away. When I say humbled at that time, humbled. It was my villain arc.”

She laughed dryly.

“So because G-Eazy rejected her, she dropped this video. Then other women began to send her testimonies of their interactions with him.”

She pulled up the seventh hinge.

“G-Eazy’s music career might be over. But according to these allegations, his predatory behavior apparently continued long after the cameras stopped rolling.”

She pulled up Tom Cruise and Suri. The estrangement.

“Our next blind item involves Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and their daughter Suri. It reads, ‘Even though the child of the actress is way over eighteen, it appears that as long as the actress remains silent about their relationship with the pint-sized actor and doesn’t get married, that she will get a monthly check for life.’”

She paused.

“Tom Cruise, I don’t know where he’s getting all this money from. He must have trees in his backyard just dropping coins, because he is paying the church he’s associated with. He’s paying off Katie Holmes. He’s probably paying a lot of people off. Where is all this money coming from?”

She pulled up the Suri detail.

“There is a rift between Suri and her father. It began in 2012 whenever Katie and him split. Suri was just six years old at the time. Sources close to Suri claimed that the two haven’t seen each other in nearly fourteen years. Their last public sighting dates back to August 2012, only months after the divorce, when he took her to a Disney water park in Florida.”

She paused.

“Since then, there’s not been any connection between them. Which is actually really insane.”

She pulled up the child support detail.

“Cruise does still reportedly pay $33,000 a month in child support. So it’s not like they don’t have a connection. It’s just that the connection is a check.”

She pulled up the eighth hinge.

“Tom Cruise pays $33,000 a month to not see his daughter. That’s not child support. That’s a subscription to absence.”

She pulled up Shania Twain. The stepfather. The childhood trauma.

“Our next blind item is about Shania Twain and her stepfather. This long-time A-list producer who was once married to a former A-list singer is about to go down for the things he did to up-and-coming male singers. That would be at least the second person in the singer’s life who did very bad things with underage kids, and yet she did nothing about it.”

She paused.

“So, Shania Twain claims that her stepfather would do really disturbing things to her.”

She pulled up Shania’s quote.

“I would hide myself. Flatten my boobs. I would wear bras that were too small for me. I would wear two. Play it down that there was nothing girly about me. Make it easier to go unnoticed. You didn’t want to be a girl in my house.”

She paused.

“In 2018, she said, ‘I was worried about my stepfather killing my mother. Many nights I went to bed thinking, don’t go to sleep. Wait until they’re sleeping. I would wake up and make sure everyone was breathing.’”

She pulled up the story of her escape.

“I just declared to myself in bed the night before that I am not living like this anymore. When I got up in the morning, when my dad went off to work, I brought my mom a coffee in bed, brought her a cigarette, lit her cigarette, and I said, ‘Mom, we’re leaving.’”

She paused.

“The car is packed. I’d already done that. All you got to do is get your clothes on and drive.”

She let that sit.

“Some of the most powerful people, the strongest people in Hollywood, have these horrific stories. It’s sad, but it’s also powerful for people who have also gone through that to see that Shania Twain survived it.”

She pulled up the ninth hinge.

“Shania Twain sang about not impressing her much. But the one thing that should have impressed us all was that she packed a car at thirteen and drove her mother away from a monster. That’s not a country song. That’s a survival story.”

She pulled up Ryan Seacrest. The health concerns.

“Our next blind item is about poor Ryan Seacrest. I have been telling you since he quit a show because of health reasons about how the A-list everything celebrity has been battling serious health problems.”

She pulled up a comment.

“Ryan is looking rather frail. Health problems or too many drugs? He should have enough money at this point that he could take a step back from a few projects and just focus on his health. He looks awful.”

She pulled up the headline.

“Ryan Seacrest sparks concern at LA fundraiser after deflated look. One person wrote, ‘Ryan, your fans are worried about your appearance. You have lost your spark with the extensive weight loss.’”

She paused.

“If this is a health struggle, that is really sad. If this is an addiction to Ozempic, it’s even more sad that we’ve gotten to this point.”

She pulled up the TikTok.

“They got him. They got him good. Hollywood is literally playing Pokémon Go with their celebrities. This is not the Ryan Seacrest I remember. Who are you, man? This is the Ryan Seacrest I remember from American Idol—full of light, full of personality. And this is the Ryan Seacrest we’re getting today. Total robot vibes. Look how glazed over his eyes are. I feel a darkness. I feel a void.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know about all that. But people have been growing up with you for decades. If they see you and they can see that there’s something wrong, it’s natural for them to be concerned.”

She pulled up the tenth hinge.

“Ryan Seacrest said he wants to feel twenty-nine again. But chasing youth isn’t the same as finding health. And one of them is a lot more expensive than the other.”

She pulled up Cardi B and Stefon Diggs. Again. The cycle continues.

“Our next blind item is about Cardi B and Stefon Diggs. The A-list rapper just can’t get rid of bad things, which is why she’s back with the NFL player and wants another baby with him. Get some self-esteem, please, Cardi B.”

She paused.

“I love Cardi B, but she loves a bad guy. I was hoping this wasn’t true. I’m rooting for you, Cardi, but you make it hard.”

She pulled up the Mother’s Day sighting.

“I did see that Cardi B was with Stefon Diggs on Mother’s Day at an event. Here they are hugging. You got to keep in mind that she did give birth to their baby last year. So she’s still got a very young baby that she’s raising with this man, and she’s been on tour trying to fulfill her tour duties.”

She pulled up the quote.

“The Sun reported that in January, prior to their split, that Cardi had told him plainly that if he cheats or has a child behind her back, it is over.”

She paused.

“Well. Don’t get your hopes up.”

She pulled up the final hinge.

“Cardi B has a song called ‘I Like It.’ Unfortunately, she also has a type. And that type keeps cheating. The only thing she likes more than a bad boy is giving him another chance.”

She sat back. The screen cycled through them all. Kim and TJ. Jimmy Fallon. Justin Bieber. Rihanna and ASAP. Blake and Taylor. Cher and Elijah. G-Eazy. Tom and Suri. Shania. Ryan. Cardi.

“Eleven blind items,” she said. “Eleven different kinds of dysfunction. And every single one of them is happening right now. In real time.”

She pulled up the final hinge.

“Blind items are like funhouse mirrors. They distort and exaggerate. But the fact that we keep looking means somewhere, deep down, we know there’s a version of the truth in there. And that version is almost always sadder than the gossip.”

She reached for her water.

“I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Leave a blue heart if you’ve been here the entire time. Thank you for tuning in.”

She set the glass down.

She hovered over the stop button.

“Thank you guys for everything. I’ll see you soon. Bye, guys.”