In the news
■ Taylor Swift has been spotted recently kissing and cozying up to British singer Matty Healy, sparking outrage among “Swifties” over Healy’s past crude comments. Healy, 34, is frontman of the edgy pop-rock band The 1975. Earlier this year, he laughed as podcast hosts Adam Friedland and Nick Mullen joked about the race of rising-star rapper Ice Spice, calling her an “Inuit Spice Girl” and “chubby Chinese lady.” (She’s of Nigerian and Dominican descent.) In that interview, he joked about masturbating to the porn site Ghetto Gaggers, which shows mostly
Black women getting, as Healy put it, “brutalized.” Last week, Swift, 33—who broke up with long-term partner Joe Alwyn in April—announced a new song with Ice Spice, which some fans took as damage control in light of her romance with Healy.
■ Pop star Shakira is “begging” Tom Cruise to stop asking her for a date, a source told Heat Magazine last week.The two met last month at the F1 Grand Prix in Miami, and Cruise, 60, reportedly was “extremely interested” in pursuing a relationship with the Colombian singer, 46, even sending her flowers. “She doesn’t want to embarrass or upset him,” the source close to Shakira said, “but there’s no attraction or romance on her part. She was just being friendly.” Us Weekly reported that Shakira, who last year divorced Spanish soccer star Gerard Piqué after he cheated on her, found Cruise’s interest “hilarious.”
■ Former PresidentTrump gushed about the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour last week while playing in an LIV pro-am event atTrump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia. “They have unlimited money,”Trump said of the Saudis, who’ve spent billions of dollars to woo top golfers from the PGATour. LIV Golf has failed to generate comparable interest from fans, butTrump said “it’s been great publicity for Saudi Arabia.” His company will host three LIV tournaments this season. As president,Trump consistently promoted Saudi interests and defended Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after he allegedly ordered the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Trump won’t disclose how much the Saudis are paying him for the use of his courses, but called it “peanuts for me.”