After Rowling’s emergence as a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist - or a feminist who is against trans rights 🙄) in 2019/2020, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and many of the original cast have been outspoken against Rowling’s views (to be clear those against JKR are in support of trans people and their rights). Rowling then chose to maintain a public beef with the cast (mostly transpiring on X/Twitter, which is definitively the bad place now). It’s become clear that a few years later Rowling was in talks with HBO and Warner Brothers to reboot the series which is interesting timing in hindsight.

It’s my personal opinion that the series is being rebooted early (it’s only been 15 years since the end, this is way too soon) because of two key reasons: money, obviously, (let us not forget that her HP spinoff movie series Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was unceremoniously cancelled mid-way through in 2022) and to distance Radcliffe, Watson, Rupert Grint and the rest of the anti-Rowling cast from the franchise (affecting their money and legacy). Here at prettybusy we’ve already established that billionaires are petty *ssholes, so it’s not a leap to categorize Rowling among them. Now let’s pretend the Mashable article and the main cast decrying Rowling’s beliefs isn’t enough to convince you, there are also huge issues with the reboot that have been revealed with the trailer: the new TV series looks like a carbon copy of the original movie series with dull colors and a lack of magical energy. Also, they cast a black actor, Paapa Essiedu, as Severus Snape and he’s already getting death threats. I’m all for race swapping (I loved when they made Hermione black in the Cursed Child stage play), but SNAPE?? Way to set up this black man for failure already.

What then happened was an insane pile on of people criticizing Chappell’s behavior, causing her to defend herself the next day on her IG Story, saying she didn’t even see a little girl and the security guard wasn’t even her security, which only fueled the backlash more. The security guard in question has since released a statement taking responsibility for the incident and saying “the accusations currently circulating are false and constitute defamation.” And as of yesterday, we’re seeing reports that 23% of the posts bashing her were from bot accounts, and this is what happens when we let X/Twitter exist.

In all seriousness though, I’ll admit I was quick to believe the soccer star’s claims because of the last few years of criticism Chappell has faced in response to her trying to set boundaries with the entertainment industry. Even I get caught up in the misogynistic storytelling and disproportional standards that women are held to, as much as I like to think I’ve dismantled patriarchy in my life. And then I saw someone else’s take that she’s having a very human response to being famous, and I instantly checked myself. I have a lot of empathy for Chappell and her sudden explosion of fame (and I think she’s an incredible artist - I saw her perform last year live), and while I do think there’s probably a truth to all these stories somewhere in the middle, I think we have bigger fish to fry (literally why aren’t people coming for Kanye’s antisemitism, or Shia LeBeouf’s abuse allegations, or the f*cking convict of a president with as much smoke as they are for Chappell!).

A few days ago, Melania Trump did some sort of pitch to the public with a company called Figure AI to bring humanoid robots into schools as teachers who have unlimited knowledge. You may have seen me scream about it on TikTok and IG.

Trump said a lot of things on camera this week, including but not limited to: regarding NATO, “Why would we be there for them if they're not there for us? They weren't there for us.” Mind you, he’s spent the last decade threatening to have the US leave NATO and now that he wants them to join his war, he’s disappointed in them. He also gave the lawyers of his future criminal trials some great ammo: "We have a thing called a war, or as they would rather say, a military operation. It's for legal reasons. Because as a military operation, I don't need any approvals. As a war you're supposed to get approval from Congress. Something like that. So I call it a military operation.” Get this man into a nursing home (or JAIL) stat.

TMZ put out a public call for videos of Congress heading through airports to vacations amidst the 6th week of the partial government shut down, which some political commentators have credited as being a factor that drove the Senate to pass a bill funding TSA late Thursday night, but as of yesterday morning, the House rejected that same bill, so airports will continue to be hell and TSA agents will continue to work without pay. 😑