Friends star Jennifer Aniston has long been one of the most talked-about actresses in the world. From her fascinating personal life to her intriguing career decisions, fans just can’t get enough of the woman known around the world as “Jen.” Recently, Aniston made a splash by joining Instagram.
While this wouldn’t be a big deal for most celebrities, Aniston has been notoriously social-media shy. Read on to learn why Aniston has been so hesitant about social media, as well as why she likely took the plunge and set up an Instagram account.
Jennifer Aniston was one of the biggest stars of the ’90s, thanks to the staggering success of Friends. When the show ended in the early 2000s, Aniston wasn’t content to rest on her laurels. She moved forward, challenging herself with a wide variety of interesting projects, from Along Came Polly, opposite Ben Stiller, to Netflix originals like 2018’s Dumplin‘. She has received critical acclaim for her acting abilities, and even now, after decades in the business, people still love her.
Still, Aniston has been very reticent to open up to fans and reporters. Over the years, she has repeatedly stated that she has a strong dislike for social media, and was one of the select few stars to have never maintained a verified social media presence. Aniston stated in the past she has avoided social media in order to maintain her sanity because the world of social media creates extra pressure. She even said that social media was a sort of “man-made challenge” that she had no interest in. All of that has changed, and on October 15th, 2019, Jennifer Aniston officially joined Instagram.
When Aniston debuted her new Instagram account on October 15th, fans went crazy. Record numbers of people flocked to follow Aniston, which temporarily caused some issues with the social media platform. In fact, so many people tried to follow her that many people weren’t able to click the “follow” button, leading many users to see error messages such as “this page is not available.”
As excited as fans were to see their favorite star on Instagram, many wondered why, after so many years of speaking out against social media, Aniston finally decided to throw in the towel. The answer could be multi-faceted.
As most know, Aniston is making a highly-anticipated return to television in the new Apple TV+ show, The Morning Show. It is set to debut on the new streaming service in November and for her work in the series, Aniston will reportedly be making $1.1 million per episode. While the numbers are impressive, the show is somewhat of a gamble for Apple. After all, the streaming service itself is brand-new and untested, and relying mainly on Aniston’s star power (and that of her costars, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell) to sell subscriptions.
The Morning Show is a massive gamble for Apple, and Aniston signing up for Instagram is definitely a great promotional tactic. Certainly, there could be other reasons why Aniston finally took the social media plunge. In a recent interview, Aniston admitted that some parts of social media “sound intriguing” and could allow for celebrities to have a “little more control” over certain media stories.
Whatever the reason Jennifer Aniston joined Instagram, one thing is clear – her fans could not possibly be more excited and ready to see what sort of fun content she posts. She’s off to a promising start – her first post was one of her Friends costars.
These days, it seems that no one can get enough of Meghan Markle. From her iconic go-to hairstyle to her amazing and unique jewelry choices, the Duchess of Sussex always looks perfect from head to toe.
Every time Duchess Meghan steps out, she practically makes jaws drop around the world with the outfits that completely flatter her no matter what. Whenever the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are scheduled to make an appearance, we know we can always count on the duchess to wearing something spectacular.
So, does Markle put together her own looks or does she have a stylist as one of the many perks of being a duchess?
In the past few years, it is pretty safe to say that Duchess Meghan‘s life has changed drastically. She had to retire from her acting career in order to marry Prince Harry, and she also had to pack up her bags and move across the pond to England so that she could start her new life as a royal.
As if that weren’t enough, Markle must now adhere to royal rules and protocol when it comes to what she wears. Before her days as a duchess, Markle’s style was slightly different than it is now.
According to Harper’s Bazaar, before marrying Prince Harry, the Suits actress was known to sport dresses that were slightly above the knee and even an occasional belly-baring outfit. She was a big fan of jeans and on more than one occasion, Markle didn’t hesitate to sport leather pants for events or appearances.
Now that Markle is a member of the royal family, her style makes a huge impact on the world. Everything that she wears seems to sell out pretty quickly, sometimes in a matter of hours or even minutes. Fashion designers just love when the duchess chooses to wear one of their pieces, and according to The Guardian, having her do this can affect a brand’s turnover more than they ever could have imagined.
What is Duchess Meghan’s style like now that she is a member of the royal family? Town & Country reports that she is a big fan of blazers, button-down shirts, and long skirts. The Duchess of Sussex has also been seen in stylish trench dresses on several occasions, such as when she and Prince Harry introduced Baby Archie two days after his birth.
We have seen the Duchess of Sussex in dresses with sheer sleeves, as well as the occasional more daring look, such as a jumpsuit or belted denim dress. One thing, however, is for sure: No matter what Markle chooses, she always looks nothing less than gorgeous.
Markle recently debuted her fashion line, Smart Works, a charitable collection of women’s workwear. This is just another way the duchess has managed to reach out to people who need her, as the fashion line is aimed toward women who are unemployed and need to prepare for interviews.
Markle always seems to make the perfect fashion choices. So, is she choosing her own clothes when she dresses for royal events or is someone helping her to put together the perfect look?
Many fans will be surprised to learn that according to Elle, Duchess Meghan is actually a stylist to herself! Markle has an eye for what looks good, and she always hits the mark perfectly when picking out her clothes.
Another thing about the easy-going, relatable duchess is that she does her makeup herself as well. Aside from her wedding day look, Duchess Meghan has been known to take care of things on her own. Although she has looked to others for style inspiration, Markle deserves all of the credit for how amazing she looks each time that we see her.
What a strange signature character Angelina Jolie has sketched out for herself in the Maleficent movies, which currently represent two of her three big-screen appearances in the past eight years. Casting Jolie as the live-action embodiment of the evil fairy from Disney’s gorgeous 1959 cartoon Sleeping Beauty seemed like a coup—and it was enough to make a long-gestating live-action retelling of Sleeping Beauty both a go picture and a big hit. But while that 2014 movie took some storytelling risks repositioning one of animation’s most famously scary villains as a secret hero (the prefix “anti-” barely even applied), Maleficent in the flesh turns out to be far more inert than her animated counterpart.
That’s clearer than ever in the sequel Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil. Jolie’s famous face is still visible beneath her ornate horns, but the other makeup effects—those impossibly sharp, pronounced cheekbones; the shifting multicolored eyes—feel pointlessly constricting. They turn one of the world’s most famous movie stars into an animatronic attraction, spouting pre-packaged, kid-movie lines of supposed menace like “Don’t ruin my morning.” It’s hard to say what’s odder about Maleficent 2: that Jolie disappears for long stretches of it, or that her elegant, imperious darkness isn’t much missed when she does.
Mistress Of Evil (whose title feels entirely incidental) continues the earlier revisions to Sleeping Beauty by insisting that no one in the world of the movie paid them much attention. Though that film ended with Maleficent breaking the curse she placed on Aurora (Elle Fanning) and Aurora becoming queen of the Moors (the fantastical, fairy-laden woods where Maleficent presides), narration and characters in the sequel explain that the more familiar version of the story—where the evil, unrepentant Maleficent’s curse is broken by the heroic Prince Phillip—nonetheless dominated the kingdom.
When Prince Phillip and Aurora become engaged to be married, Maleficent balks at her goddaughter consorting with more humans, while Phillip’s parents, particularly his mother Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), regard their potential new fairy-in-law with suspicion. Though Maleficent doesn’t much care for Phillip, she’s polite enough not to observe that he looks a bit different, the original’s Brenton Thwaites having been replaced by Harris Dickinson. (To be fair, this is about as close an approximation as possible without casting an actual glass of one percent milk in the part.)
Soon it becomes clear that Ingrith intends to use the nuptials as occasion to start a fairy-tale race war, pitting her kingdom’s humans against the cartoony inhabitants of the Moors. Maleficent, meanwhile, plays the part of the dragon in the recent How To Train Your Dragon sequel, discovering an outpost where her winged kind has hidden from untrusting humans. The pending conflicts between fairy and human play out more or less as expected, with passages of dark fantasy bookended by belabored kid-friendly zaniness, over-reliant on Jolie’s negligible skills with a one-liner. Some movies twist; the Maleficent series politely flips on a signal before any turns.
In some ways, Mistress Of Evil is a marginally more enjoyable fantasy scramble than its predecessor. Director Joachim Rønning is half of the duo that made the crisp adventure film Kon-Tiki, as well as the little-remembered fifth Pirates Of The Caribbean adventure. His work on Maleficent is more akin to the latter, heavy on Disney hired-hand excesses: a great volume of creatures, digital sets, and special effects, without much unifying aesthetic sense. But there are some inspired bits and pieces of a kiddie fantasy epic. Ingrith has some appealingly weird subordinates on her side, including a nefarious scientist called Lickspittle (Warwick Davis) and a castle guard (Jenn Murray) who plays a poison-releasing organ with deranged ecstasy. The Avatar-ish secret fairyland is neat-looking, especially with its gigantic ancient painting of a phoenix. Sam Riley continues to have fun as Diaval, the sidekick who Maleficent shapeshifts at her will.
The Maleficent series at least attempts to play around with, even actively undermine, Disney stories rather than erecting redundant monuments to its iconography. The movies might be more successful at this if they weren’t so eager to acknowledge it, forcing poor Jolie and Pfeiffer to huff through lines about how this isn’t a fairy tale, love doesn’t always work out, and Aurora can’t go “running around barefoot with flowers in [her] hair.” As before, the movie’s actual feelings on these matters are murky even (or especially) in its sunniest moments. Mistress Of Evil approaches ideas about grief, guilt, and sacrifice, only to use magic to undo the worst of it and dole out wacky punishments. Maleficent enters the movie seen only in silhouette, like an enchanted-forest Batman; she exits on a clunky quip. Every time the movie tries to harness Jolie’s complicated movie-star charisma, it flies away with her alter ego.
At a moment of transition for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a new class of nominees for induction in 2020 puts generational and genre-based divides on full display: The Notorious B.I.G., Whitney Houston, the Dave Matthews Band and Motörhead are among the first-timers on the ballot, while returning acts getting another chance include Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Judas Priest, and Rufus featuring Chaka Khan.
The 16 nominees up for inclusion at next year’s ceremony — scheduled to take place May 2 in Cleveland — are rounded out by Kraftwerk (nominated five times previously), MC5 (four previous nominations) and Todd Rundgren (one), plus the shortlist newcomers Pat Benatar, Soundgarden, T-Rex, Thin Lizzy and the Doobie Brothers.
The wide swath of options may reflect what the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s incoming chairman, John Sykes, called a need to evolve, amid years of criticism about the diversity of the inductees. Sykes, the president of entertainment enterprises for the radio conglomerate iHeartMedia and a former MTV executive, will take over for the Rolling Stone founder and long-running face of the Hall, Jann Wenner, on Jan. 1.
“The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame could become irrelevant because rock as we knew it in the ’60s is beginning to age out,” Sykes told The Cleveland Plain Dealer in an interview earlier this month. “We have to evolve, and we have to change, because music is changing.” (Wenner has consistently brushed off concerns that the Hall admitted too few women and people of color, telling The New York Times last month, “Musical achievements have got to be race-neutral and gender-neutral.”)
In recent years, the Rock Hall, which was founded in 1983 and became a museum in Cleveland in 1995, has grappled with shifting cultural winds and the idea of a broader tent, welcoming acts like Janet Jackson, Tupac Shakur and N.W.A, in addition to younger, still-active groups who broke through in the 1990s, like Green Day, Pearl Jam and Radiohead.
Musicians become eligible for nomination 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording. A private nominating committee then makes its picks, which are voted on by more than 1,000 insiders (artists, historians and industry experts), who are instructed to consider “an artist’s musical influence on other artists, length and depth of career and the body of work, innovation and superiority in style and technique.” (Fans can also vote at rockhall.com beginning Tuesday, with the Top 5 vote-getters making up one official ballot.)
Inductees, typically between five and seven, will be announced in January, with the 35th annual ceremony to follow in May. A version of the show will be aired on HBO and SiriusXM at a later date, though it has yet to be announced.
Eligible acts that were overlooked this year, some of whom have been previously nominated, include: Willie Nelson, Beck, Sonic Youth, Rage Against the Machine, Mötley Crüe, Iron Maiden, Joy Division and the J. Geils Band.
The Notorious B.I.G., who was killed in 1997 at the age of 24 after completing only two albums, is eligible for the first time this year. He would be just the seventh hip-hop artist inducted, and the first since Shakur in 2017. (LL Cool J, a five-time nominee, failed to clear the final hurdle last year, and was not nominated this time.)
Others in the bunch have waited far longer: The Doobie Brothers, a more traditional classic rock choice from the 1970s, have been eligible since 1996, as has Thin Lizzy. Rundgren, eligible in 1995, and T-Rex, first up for inclusion in 1993, date back even further, while MC5, back for the fourth consecutive year as a nominee, could have made the cut starting in 1991.
