Sometimes we need some good ol’ queer celebrity relationship gossip.
While expected or inevitable celebrity pairings are always fun (here’s looking at you Bennifer), there’s something so chaotic about the famous people you least expect reportedly getting together. This week’s top queer pop culture story captures exactly that energy in that it’s a pure, delightful, weird development in the midst of a crushing news cycle.
Every week in “The Buzz,” we catch you up on what you missed in queer and trans pop culture. Beyond the reported new queer celebrity couple everyone’s talking about, we’ve also got news on Gentlemen Jack Season 2, awards show delights and Elvira’s next big role since coming out as queer earlier this year.
Here’s what you missed this week in queer and trans pop culture.
→Two celebrities dating isn’t always big breaking news. But when it’s two celebrities that feel plucked out of a hat like a Mad Libs prompt or a Clue solution, there’s a special sort of joy to it.
That’s all to say, if this was a game of Clue, it would be Canadian electro-pop musician Grimes and former U.S. soldier and whistleblower Chelsea Manning in an apartment in Texas, according to reports.
According to a Page Six story published last week, the Juno-winner and Wikileaks leaker are reportedly dating and have “U-Hauled” together, not long after the birth of Grimes’ second child with billionaire Elon Musk.
“They’re getting serious. They U-Hauled it,” a source told the entertainment gossip news site. “They’ve been living together in Austin.”
Grimes had been in a tumultuous relationship with tech bro Musk since 2018. The two had their first child, X Æ A-Xii in May 2020, and reportedly had a second child, Exa Dark Sideræl, via surrogate in late 2021. This week, Grimes confirmed on Twitter that the pair were broken up “again,” but Musk was still the “love of [her] life.”
Manning, on the other hand, is best known for leaking hundreds of thousands of U.S. military documents to WikiLeaks, for which she was sentenced to 35 years in prison. She served seven years until January 2017, when President Barack Obama commuted her remaining prison sentence. Manning came out as a trans woman in 2013. She is set to publish a memoir later this year.
Needless to say, if reports of their relationship are true, they make for an unexpected pair. Then again, Grimes herself has said she wants to start a lesbian space commune.
“I’ll be colonizing [one of Jupiter’s moons] Europa separately from Elon for the lesbian space commune,” she joked after the pair initially split in September.
Sounds like her and Manning could be the very first residents.
→Jamie Lee Curtis used her daughter’s birthday this week to share a vital message of support for trans kids and their parents everywhere.
→Dolly Parton said she’s bowing out of contention for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, claiming she doesn’t deserve it. But more importantly, she hinted we might one day get a rock and roll Dolly Parton album so that she could be considered! Sign me up!
→A new season of Survivor launched last week featuring Jackson Fox, the franchise’s first trans contestant to be openly so from the start (Zeke Smith was outed part way through Season 33). Unfortunately, Fox didn’t last long after he was forced to bow out of the competition after only 48 hours for medical reasons related to not disclosing that he was taking lithium medication.
→JoJo Siwa gave a stirring speech at a concert last week in response to someone asking her not to talk about being gay.
“Hi my name is JoJo, and I’ve shared over half of my life with the world. And being gay is a part of who I am,” she said while carrying a Pride flag with her face on it. “And one thing that I want to teach everybody is that being who you are is the most important thing ever.”
→Retired soccer star Abby Wambach and author Glennon Doyle, who’ve been together since 2016, presented singer Brandi Carlile with the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award this weekend, and she shared a touching story about marriage.
→Someone please give me an oral history of this moment at last weekend’s Critics Choice Awards involving two Haim sisters, Lady Gaga and West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler.
→And speaking of awards shows, the Queerty Awards are this week! Tune in Wednesday to see the best of the best in queer media!
→CBC is set to launch a new ballroom competition show that will give Legendary a run for its money. CBX: Canadian Ballroom Extravaganza will see 10 stars from the ballroom scene paired with 10 queer and trans filmmakers to compete in a variety of categories. But in a pandemic-friendly twist, competitors aren’t at a ball—they’ll be producing short videos for each category and will be judged by fans rather than a panel. The first episode drops March 16.
→Elvira (a.k.a. Cassandra Peterson) is starring in Rob Zombie’s movie reboot of The Munsters as a realtor named Barbara Carr.
→Gird your loins, history-loving sapphics: the Gentleman Jack Season 2 trailer is here.
→In the wake of Disney financially supporting some of the politicians behind Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, GLAAD will now start grading film studios on their political donations.
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