Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Vanity Fair

PROMOTION EVENTS Campaign Hollywood 2018 Los Angeles A few short months ago, Genesis premiered five bespoke flagship sedans, which transported celebrities to and from events during Vanity Fair’s iconic Campaign Hollywood—a week-long series of events that has become synonymous with Oscar week, celebrating the year’s best talent in a way that only Vanity Fair can. WATCH Red Nose Day Returns to NBC Noses On! Every year, the biggest names in entertainment join forces for an awesome night—and an awesome cause. This year, NBC’s annual televised event returns on May 24 at 10 P.M. E.T. (9 P.M. Central), for an electric evening of fun and fund raising as superstar celebrities, big-name comedians, and chart-topping musical acts come together to entertain and raise money to benefit kids in need. Hosted by Chris…

I’ve been an avid watcher of The Crown for its first two seasons. It is one of the most subtle and fascinating studies of female power I’ve seen. Like so many women in history, Elizabeth II learns to lead less by exercising direct authority than by mastering the covert art of influence. In part that’s because the actions of the British monarch are carefully circumscribed, but it’s also because no one expected her to ascend to the role so young and so untried. To see her hold her own against Churchill—even in their fictionalized versions—is a cathartic experience. The show has also grappled with the intersection of monarchy, celebrity, and the press. In Season One—or as we call it in real life, the 1950s—television and mass-media coverage humanize the new…

Revisit this episode of The Crown Nearly 60 years ago, the royal family celebrated another highly publicized May wedding—the Westminster Abbey nuptials of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones. “Matrimonium,” on Netflix, depicts the tumultuous backstory. Watch The Royals docu-series The “Royal Weddings” episode features Kate Middleton and Prince William’s 2011 ceremony; a shout-out to Queen Victoria for revolutionizing bridal fashion; and explanations for why the world is so royal-wedding-crazed. Follow this social-media account Since William, Harry, Kate, and Meghan don’t have accounts of their own, follow @KensingtonRoyal, the Palace’s official Instagram and Twitter feed. Listen to Meghan’s favorite jams Before shutting down her lifestyle Web site, The Tig, Markle regularly posted her favorite songs. Get in her headspace with Maggie Rogers’s “Dog Years,” Janelle Monáe’s “Dance Apocalyptic,” and Dragonette’s “Let…

Puff, puff … moisturize? The healing properties of cannabis have been extolled by different cultures for centuries, but the feel-good plant is becoming increasingly mainstream in new forms, in both luxury beauty and wellness. The herb produces many cannabinoids, the best known of which are tetra-hydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). THC is known for its psycho - active properties when smoked or ingested and is legal in some states for recreational or medicinal use. CBD, however, is the beauty industry’s latest obsession—the compound won’t get you high, but, according to adherents, may help alleviate pain, inflammation, and anxiety. “We believe we are part of a revolution,” says Cindy Capobianco, of Lord Jones. The former fashion executive from New York City co-founded the wellness brand in Los Angeles with her husband,…

In Omaha, Nebraska, in the financial-aid department of Metropolitan Community College, Nick Behrens answered his office telephone. The caller introduced herself: it was Princess Margareta of Romania. Behrens was dumbfounded, but, as he recalled not long ago, the princess “was so very gracious, and I remember her saying that the needs there were so immense because of how Ceauşescu left the country: the illnesses, the orphanages, the aids, the lack of infrastructure, no tourism, no way for people to make money.” The year was 1990. The Communist governments of Eastern Europe were falling, and Behrens, like many other members of the International Monarchist League—a private organization based in the United Kingdom, with members in many countries whose aim is, “quite simply, to support the principle of monarchy”—was full of hope.…

It took just one date for Prince Harry to realize that Meghan Markle was different. The couple first got to know each other in July 2016 over a bottle of chilled rosé at Soho House on London’s Dean Street. They had already connected on Instagram and evidently liked what they saw. A mutual friend, Violet von Westenholz, gave Meghan’s number to Harry and suggested he call her. Another pal in common, Markus Anderson, who works at the private members’ club, “cleared rooms and corridors so they could meet in secret without the fear of being spotted,” according to a friend. After several dates, Harry invited Meghan to join him on a holiday to Botswana, where their love blossomed. He has since said that the “stars were aligned.” By royal standards…

At the ripe old age of three, Charlie Siem fell in love with a piece of music his mother played regularly on cassette tapes. It was the first movement of Beethoven’s majestic Violin Concerto, and “this very simple melody,” he says, “represented something almost unattainable in its beauty. It happened to be the violin that was playing the melody, so that’s what I started doing.” The son of a Norwegian businessman and a British mum, Siem (pronounced “SEE-em”) made his concert debut at age 15, received a music degree from Cambridge, and is now, at 32, a classical virtuoso with a jam-packed schedule of 30 to 80 performances a year. Concerts this May take him to São Paulo and Rio, Istanbul, Izmir, and Bergen, Norway. Because he’s crossed over into…

The decision to have Lena Waithe on your cover is tremendously significant and a bold statement as you take the reins as the new editor of Vanity Fair. Our jobs now are to make cover stars like Waithe not “bold” anymore. Let us tell stories about stars both on and off the screen, about the persons that sit in the corner office and those who sit outside. Let’s give this generation’s children newsstand covers they can actually see themselves on one day. I grew up passing subway and airport newsstands wishing I could be a cover star but knowing that, if I didn’t become a famous model, I wouldn’t have a shot. But why “famous” and why “model”? We can change that. Those kids in Florida know what I’m talking…

Since its launch in 1987, South by Southwest has evolved from a humble music showcase into a recipe for maximum pop: one part tech nerds, one part cinephiles, and a dollop of hip-hop scene-sters. Season with barbecue sauce, bake in the Texan sun for 10 days, and garnish with Bill Murray in a bucket hat. This year’s festival drew the stars of music’s new guard, including Kelela, Billie Eilish, Crush, and Noah Cyrus, to Austin for a spectacle of talent. Every niche and subgenre was represented, from neosoul and shoegaze to Caribbean and electro-funk, each bringing its own trends. Vintage tracksuits, punk tartan, frayed denim, and, of course, cowboy boots all made for a polychrome parade of individual style throughout the festival. The pros networked, while fans hopped between indie-punk…

What is your idea of perfect happiness? To survive from an impossible condition. What is your current state of mind? Emptiness. What is your greatest fear? Losing consciousness or awareness. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? To re-start. Which historical figure do you most identify with? I would say Kafka. Which living person do you most admire? My son. Which living person do you most despise? I think myself. What or who is the greatest love of your life? Self-love. When and where were you happiest? Now, in this moment, in this city. On what occasion do you lie? When interviewed by Vanity Fair. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Forgetfulness. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Insensitivity. Indifference…

AATISH TASEER In the early 2000s, New York Times contributing opinion writer Aatish Taseer dated Ella Windsor, the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. Courting a minor royal afforded Taseer unique insights into British society—and copious memories of heedless romps in and around royal residences—which he captures in “Palace & Prejudice,” on page 88. “I wanted desperately to be a writer,” says Taseer, whose critically acclaimed novel The Way Things Were was published in 2015, “but was tooling about palaces and castles instead.” LAURA JACOBS In “Heads Up,” on page 64, Contributing Editor Laura Jacobs probes the provenance—and, to some, the presumption—of fascinators, the species of hat that offers women the infrastructure to affix often surprising objects to their heads. “I like to think that the fascinator is…

Awkwafina (Nora Lum) AGE: 29. PROVENANCE: Queens, New York. EARLY YEARS: “My mom passed away when I was four, and I learned to harness humor as a defense mechanism. I could hold a crowd at five years old.” Her love of performance led her to the trumpet, which she studied at LaGuardia High School, a teen incubator for the arts. “They take the best of the city. I was the best in junior high but not the city, so it killed a lot of my music dreams. But it showed me the arts as a way of life.” THE ALTER EGO: In 2014, Lum released Yellow Ranger, her fiercely funny debut rap album, under the name Awkwafina. “I was producing songs off my MacBook and started rapping on top of…

“I didn’t know a show like this was even possible, because it didn’t exist before,” says actress Mishel Prada, who stars as Emma, the older of two Mexican-American sisters, in the spectacular new series Vida, premiering this month on Starz. Created by playwright and TV writer Tanya Saracho, the drama centers on a pair of estranged sisters who must come together after their mother’s death. They return home to East L.A.’s Boyle Heights, where the series is filmed, confronting the gentrification of their neighborhood along with secrets from their past. “Seeing the diversity in the storytelling is inspiring,” says Prada. Inspiring, too, is how the show doubles down on female empowerment. Melissa Barrera, who plays younger sister Lyn, calls her character “very into her sexuality, which is refreshing.” Plus, almost…

O Captain! Our Captain! Robin (Henry Holt) is Dave Itzkoff’s biography of Robin Williams. V.F. contributing editor Laura Jacobs gets us into first position with Celestial Bodies (Basic). Charles Spencer sets out To Catch a King (William Collins) in this 17th-century version of The Fugitive. It’s murder and mirth in Christopher Buckley’s The Judge Hunter (Simon & Schuster). Catch a rare glimpse of a fledgling David Attenborough in the wild with Adventures of a Young Naturalist (Quercus). Patrick Chamoiseau’s Slave Old Man (New Press) finds freedom in the forest. Mark Adams’s moose-cellaneous memoir is just the Tip of the Iceberg (Dutton). William Stadiem’s Madame Claude (St. Martin’s) escorts privilege to pleasure. Passion and preservation conspire in Elizabeth Barlow Rogers’s Saving Central Park (Knopf). Richard M. Cohen puts a potential cure for M.S. under the microscope…

M. Night Shyamalan busted Margaret Lyons’s streak in 2015. The current New York Times TV critic had been reviewing television shows for a decade for various publications including Entertainment Weekly and New York magazine’s Vulture, priding herself on never having missed a scripted network pilot. For 10 years, as the television universe proliferated wildly, she had watched every single one that came her way: drama, comedy; half-hour, hour; multi-cam, single-cam. Then came Wayward Pines. “That show broke me,” she said of Shyamalan’s mystery series starring Matt Dillon and Carla Gugino that went on to last 20 episodes on Fox. “I just wasn’t interested in it, and I knew my dumb streak had to come to an end eventually.” Spend some time talking to critics and it’s clear that Lyons wasn’t…

For as much as one gains, in material terms, by marrying into the royal family—jewels, palace apartments, Hamilton tickets—there is just as much to lose. If you were not a member of British, royal-adjacent high society from birth, you would suddenly find yourself in an unfamiliar world, with a complete lack of privacy and anonymity, a calendar of public events, and a crush of critics. Meghan Markle reportedly met Prince Harry when she was 34 years old. She had been married before, and was starring on a successful basic-cable television series, Suits. She had a lifestyle Web site and more than a million Instagram followers. She also had a close-knit circle of friends, many of whom appeared in that social-media feed, dining, laughing, and traveling around the world. Now that…

In a louche past life, I was almost a member of the British royal family. In the early 2000s, I dated Ella Windsor, the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. Prince Michael was first cousin to the Queen and married to the unpopular Princess Michael, whom the British press had labeled “Princess Pushy.” For three surreal years, Ella and I hung about Kensington Palace; we swam naked in the Queen’s pool in Buckingham Palace; we did MDMA in Windsor Castle; and we had scrapes with the British press, who, due to a misadventure of mine as a peer health educator at Amherst College, reported the story of our relationship with the mortifying headline: PRINCESS PUSHY ‘DELIGHTED’ OVER HER DAUGHTER’S ROMANCE WITH INDIA’S CAPTAIN CONDOM. There were schlosses, and…