Culture Club - Gwyneth Paltrow Sells Out, Dua Lipa’s Wedding & Olivia Rodrigo’s Best Album Yet？

00:00:00.000 Dua Lipa's Married, the Social Network sequel is coming out, and Gwyneth Paltrow sells out.

00:00:10.560 I'm Maggie Zhao.

00:00:11.660 And I'm Jasmine Wallace.

00:00:12.980 And you're listening to Culture Club, where two writers and editors chat about pop culture,

00:00:17.380 current affairs, and the internet.

00:00:19.260 Today we're on the lands of the Wondry Woiwurrung people of the Kulin Nation.

00:00:23.140 We would like to pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend this to any Aboriginal

00:00:27.380 or Torres Strait Islander listeners today.

00:00:30.000 Olivia Rodrigo's album You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love has dropped this morning and

00:00:39.560 we've been like what do you call it like cram listening to it before we get to have the record

00:00:43.720 literally down to the minute right it's a 50 minute album we skipped I don't know about you

00:00:47.840 skipped Drop Dead and The Cure and we're like let's get to the new tracks and I actually kept

00:00:52.280 a notes app log of how I found the songs there are so many bangers and you already told me

00:00:58.640 straight away when we saw each other you're like i love expectations and i knew you'd love it

00:01:03.360 oh that's nice to be loved is to be known yeah i feel like it's not a surprise because it's

00:01:08.220 the most poppy on the whole album i'd say but i went into it this morning being like i like

00:01:14.120 olivia not her biggest fan in the world but by halfway through i was like i love this album so

00:01:19.940 much it's so good i think it's her best album so far it's got so many layers it's like you know

00:01:25.960 the really sad emotional love songs and then super fun poppy songs which i think she does so well

00:01:30.300 i don't think i've listened to it enough to be able to like guess your favorite yeah okay give

00:01:35.020 me try one song you think i'd like there's two songs that haven't been the single so far

00:01:40.280 that i've been that i love one of them particularly but i don't want to spoil oh just try

00:01:47.800 if you get it wrong i hate you but like that's fine because i've only listened to them once

00:01:52.320 through and half of it I was like thinking about the podcast oh my god this is such a guess it's

00:01:57.860 okay but maybe you plus me equals love her I do like that one and that's funny because I wrote

00:02:02.580 that down for you as well do you like it oh okay that was a gamble that one okay the one I'm

00:02:08.580 obsessed with which I actually sent you her playing it live it's actually what's wrong with

00:02:12.960 me with Robert from The Cure Robert Smith from The Cure and I freaking love that song I actually

00:02:19.000 think it's like half created in a lab for me because I just find it so catchy and he like

00:02:23.200 he like hits the right parts of my brain and I freaking love it like I that's when I'm like

00:02:28.100 stomping down the street like I already know the lyrics like I'm there I love that one I didn't

00:02:32.680 realize until this morning that he's actually he's on the track I'm surprised too I thought

00:02:36.880 it was just at the concert they played a festival together um last week and they debuted the song

00:02:41.960 and I thought it was just like guest star on the stage and my dad is the biggest cure fan the cure

00:02:48.080 fan in the world um he actually my parents have a portrait of robert smith in our living room

00:02:53.520 alongside freddie mercury from queen so they're like above the tv when you're watching tv

00:02:58.080 so robert smith has been a big part of my childhood my dad and i danced to friday i'm in

00:03:03.700 love at our wedding oh my wedding what's one night in the south of america so that is really

00:03:11.840 special and do you have i have a favorite that i actually sent my dad that's not the robert smith

00:03:16.760 one i sent that to him too being like oh my god look who it is and my dad replied it's bob it's

00:03:21.400 like my friend bob um no i wrote another one down that i really like that you haven't well are you

00:03:27.760 talking about in this same vibe i think that honeybee actually reminds me of oh wait i'm

00:03:35.420 thinking about the strokes but i'm thinking it reminds me of i'll try anything once by the

00:03:38.800 strokes but i don't think that's what you're talking about i did really like honeybee i love

00:03:43.020 it made me that song was the first one where i'm like oh my god her sad songs have improved so much 0.90

00:03:47.520 her songwriting has improved so much me too but that's not the one well i love stupid song that's 0.98

00:03:52.520 one of my other favorites no sorry and you had the you just pulled a really bad face you hate 0.78

00:03:56.560 that song i hate myself um girl i actually don't know me oh i don't know because i didn't love some

00:04:04.100 of the others okay tell me maggots for brains oh nice okay i wrote 90s 2000s old pop song

00:04:10.940 tad cringe sorry i knew you love it okay i don't when she's saying like my baby going away i don't

00:04:17.020 like that line yeah sorry but it was a great song more so the melody than the lyrics i had to look

00:04:22.700 up the lyrics be like wait what is she actually talking about yeah don't love the name but i love

00:04:25.860 the pop melody it's very the cure i sent to my dad and he was like yes very the cure new order

00:04:30.440 so that's got the seal of approval from an 80s music journalist so love that one i started 0.92

00:04:36.300 writing notes on all of them on the tram but then i stopped stupid song i wrote like it grower

00:04:41.920 love the bridge so like it definitely grew but at first i was like oh no this is like the olivia

00:04:47.140 that i struggle a bit with it's a bit like teenage s because she's so much younger but no overall

00:04:54.320 great great first impressions with stupid song just to redeem it i said catchy af boppy builds 0.55

00:05:02.320 same as like you and for me it felt like running down a hill I guess that's like similar to the 0.98

00:05:07.560 bridge okay I can't wait to keep listening I actually had a little um chat chit chat with a

00:05:12.940 stranger in the elevator coming up because they were talking about Taylor Swift and I was like

00:05:16.820 I'm listening to Olivia Rodrigo so it's nice when the pop girlies unite us all

00:05:21.160 so jazz the queen of leisure pop princess Dua Lipa has gotten married to Callum Turner

00:05:38.680 finally I feel like we've been talking about this wedding for so long

00:05:42.520 what most people would have already seen is that intimate civil ceremony that they had

00:05:48.340 in London. You know, we saw the photos of all of them she posted at Old Marlebone Town Hall.

00:05:54.800 Let's talk about her outfit a little bit. She was in a Schiaparelli bridal suit. She was wearing 0.59

00:05:59.540 this wide brim hat by British milliner Stephen Jones. What did you think about it? I posted the

00:06:05.660 photos instantly on Culture Club as soon as I saw them. I think they're very iconic. I think it

00:06:09.840 definitely is leaning into the whole like, it's so chic to get married at Town Hall and have an

00:06:13.920 intimate wedding. We know Charlie XCX did the same thing as well. The outfit wasn't like the most

00:06:17.960 standout thing for me like she obviously looked incredibly stunning um it was more just like

00:06:22.880 seeing them look so happy that I don't know that shone through for me more so than like

00:06:26.660 the beautiful outfit but you had like a hot take on her outfit I had two hot takes number one I was

00:06:32.760 like why do these photos that have been first shared virally look AI they had like an interesting

00:06:38.420 like filter effect on it where it was a little bit like overly saturated a little bit overly

00:06:42.840 sharpened so i was like i think it's fake that was my first thought number two the carousel that

00:06:47.880 she posted right herself on her feed i'm like this is giving my campaign why did the flowers she's

00:06:53.940 like holding they look fake why like the the vibe of those photos were so plain i just i didn't like

00:07:01.340 them and i'm a big jewa fan and i think she's the coolest girl in the world so i was like whoa

00:07:06.000 i see what you mean about like the style of photography it's really sharp and really crisp

00:07:11.440 So I think that's what you associate, yeah,

00:07:14.520 like a fashion campaign with, that like sharpness and crispiness.

00:07:18.340 I wonder if you noticed it more as well because we have seen this like

00:07:21.660 return to a kind of film aesthetics and, you know,

00:07:25.680 Super 8 video footage for weddings a lot.

00:07:29.680 So now when you see like a crisp digital camera photo from a wedding,

00:07:33.660 it's like, oh, that looks so like harsh, quote unquote.

00:07:36.100 Yeah, and it's like very pristine background.

00:07:37.840 Like in the town hall, it's like quite plain.

00:07:40.060 that wasn't her proper wedding she actually had a three-day wedding in palermo sicily we actually

00:07:47.300 don't have any official details like no official pics yet but of course there had been some bts

00:07:52.800 pap moments on the first evening duet wore a white bottega veneta halterneck gown with this plunging

00:07:59.720 back and a mermaid style skirt which was made from white ostrich feathers so i again thought that was 0.94

00:08:06.660 like a rogue look for her like it was it was different than I thought she'd go like she's 0.99

00:08:11.060 really that was obviously like the first evening of the party but yeah it's she's gone a bit I

00:08:17.040 don't know rogue with this I wouldn't expect that from her for some reason I think it reminded me

00:08:21.740 of her onstage stuff like it's a bit Cher like it's quite fun and I felt like that was quite her

00:08:27.360 okay yeah but they got married you know apparently they got married at this 18th century baroque

00:08:33.180 estate called Villa Valguanera um apparently they got married outside beneath a gazebo

00:08:39.620 apparently Elton John performed your song amazing imagine Elton John performing at your wedding

00:08:45.340 I have a question though because like when you're a celeb and you're like you have friends in all

00:08:49.140 the right places I'm sure you have so many musicians being like and I'll perform at your

00:08:53.880 wedding yeah like how do you even choose I feel like with Elton John it's like he's such a legend

00:08:59.580 he's like beyond he's like one of the all-time performers of the 20th century so if you had a

00:09:05.100 lineup of like your friends who you've done duets with like oh so has they have that amazing track

00:09:10.660 together i feel like it wouldn't be a question you're so right there was also other dj sets from

00:09:15.240 djs like carl cox martin garricks david guetta and peggy goo despite the rumors and pap shots

00:09:21.520 there has also been some negative press from the wedding some palermo locals were reportedly

00:09:27.100 unhappy with the wedding taking place which we also saw with jeff bezos's wedding last year the

00:09:32.740 locals especially had an issue with the welcome event which was held in a public square there

00:09:37.300 were some protest posters and graffiti appearing around the city with messages saying palermo was

00:09:43.620 not for rent and not for the rich but according to the sun jewer and callum paid around nine thousand

00:09:50.380 four hundred dollars to local residents as a compensation for the parking issues during the

00:09:54.780 events and i feel like that aligns with jewish values yeah but jeff bezos also did something

00:10:00.120 similar where he donated like a lot of money to the city right to the city yeah so to the locals

00:10:05.560 here it's hard to know how that's split up also nine thousand dollars is a drop in the ocean for

00:10:10.720 them i it's funny because i think we were so harsh on jeff bezos i think especially when it was in

00:10:17.060 venice which is a unesco world heritage site this one isn't so um i have to check myself i'm like

00:10:23.260 oh, how do I feel about this? I feel kind of fine about it, but I'm like, oh, is it just because

00:10:27.460 it's Dua Lipa? So true. I think in the context of like Venice is thinking it's like a symbol of

00:10:34.280 climate change at the moment as well versus Palermo, obviously same country, but I think

00:10:39.800 they are a bit different. The first trailer for the Social Network sequel,

00:10:53.260 The Social Reckoning has dropped.

00:10:55.720 Of course, The Social Network was released back in 2010.

00:10:59.080 It became an Oscar-winning success

00:11:01.060 and it followed the story of Mark Zuckerberg's rise to fame

00:11:04.200 and his invention of Facebook.

00:11:06.840 So now Jeremy Strong has taken over the role of Zuckerberg

00:11:10.480 from Jesse Eisenberg.

00:11:12.640 Have you seen the trailer?

00:11:14.080 Yes, of course, of course.

00:11:15.360 So good.

00:11:16.120 Interesting.

00:11:16.560 I'm excited for this.

00:11:17.680 I feel mixed.

00:11:18.940 Okay.

00:11:19.380 It feels like, this is not negative,

00:11:21.460 feels like a play and it feels very much centered on like the court case we'll get into like the

00:11:25.340 premise of it but I loved the social network or I guess like how holistic it was like how we see

00:11:32.220 him in his like college life and like with his friends and it was like a really compelling

00:11:36.700 narrative even if you don't care about Facebook whereas this is like more like drama yeah but I

00:11:45.540 think that is a sign of where Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are like we don't have all of the

00:11:52.260 information of like what he does day to day and like his like the testaments from his friends

00:11:57.460 and stuff in the same way like it would all be like NDA and all strict now whereas back in the

00:12:02.120 2000s it was so much like looser and like an origin story so I'm excited to see what they do with it

00:12:08.420 so this film follows the true story of a former Facebook engineer called Frances Hagen she's

00:12:13.620 going to be played by Mikey Madison as well as Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz which

00:12:19.320 is going to be played by Jeremy Allen White. Both of them by the way in the trailer look so young.

00:12:24.280 The power of costuming and makeup right? They are young. They look like 20. Mikey might be quite

00:12:29.900 young but Jeremy Allen White is a lot young. So Mikey's 27 and Jeremy is 35 and looking like you're

00:12:35.600 like like you look 20 years old. Yeah. It's pretty impressive. I feel like the lighting is very soft

00:12:41.060 in that scene. They're outside and they're like some sort of gazebo thing. But the story is going

00:12:45.400 to follow the reporting that Jeff Horwitz did, which exposed the company's internal research

00:12:50.200 and decision making. So their work together, Francis being the whistleblower, culminated in

00:12:56.100 the Facebook Files, which was a 2021 investigative series revealing Facebook's harmful effects on

00:13:01.960 teens, as well as its role in spreading misinformation, including the link to political

00:13:07.120 violence i found this interesting because i was like hang on i remember this i wrote about this

00:13:12.080 for refinery 29 when i was there and essentially at least our angle for like a women's publication

00:13:16.900 was like instagram knows that it's bad for self-esteem and body image which is like

00:13:22.560 but of course the reporting was so important what i found interesting is why did they not talk why

00:13:29.300 did they not focus this film on cambridge analytica yeah i think that's so much more pivotal so much

00:13:34.260 more important back in 2016 when Facebook and Meta was found out to be like selling information

00:13:39.880 that influenced a lot of international political elections. Well, we don't know for sure if they're

00:13:45.620 not going to touch on that, right? Like if this was in 2021 and Cambridge Analytica was 2016-17,

00:13:51.800 then hopefully like they do at least touch on it somewhere because it's really pivotal.

00:13:56.360 Yeah. As a juxtaposition, I feel like one of the best movies that kind of deals with this

00:14:01.420 whistleblower journalism thing is All the President's Men, which is about Watergate,

00:14:06.960 the Watergate scandal. I love that. And I feel like that was such a good example because it

00:14:12.800 was such an important political moment. Whereas this one, sorry, the Facebook files doesn't feel

00:14:17.660 as influential. Well, reports are saying that the movie could also touch on Facebook's role

00:14:22.500 on the January 6, 2021 riots on the Capitol, which is when supporters of Donald Trump stormed

00:14:28.780 Capitol building in the US to protest the election of Joe Biden as president. So maybe it could touch

00:14:35.020 on the political ramifications and the effects on teenagers and just like the way society has

00:14:39.460 literally changed, like the fabric of society has changed because of this company. They can't not

00:14:43.980 talk about that. So I think that's just like the tagline and it should branch out into a wider map.

00:14:50.740 Speaking on the Town podcast in 2024, the writer and director of both the Social Network and

00:14:56.220 social reckoning, Aaron Sorkin, said, quote, I blame Facebook for January 6th. You're going

00:15:01.260 to need to buy a movie ticket. I guess we will see. It's out on October 8th in Australia.

00:15:18.320 Academy Award winning actress and group founder Gwyneth Paltrow is facing backlash online

00:15:24.160 after she starred in an advertisement for a luxury Israeli real estate project.

00:15:29.420 Yes, called 51 Park. This is a real estate project in the coastal city of Herzliya,

00:15:35.660 just north of Tel Aviv. In the ad, interestingly, it was actually shot in New York.

00:15:41.100 It was released this week. She actually says at the end, there's a reason the world's most

00:15:46.560 iconic buildings are by a park, 51 Park. But then someone says in New York, and she goes,

00:15:52.880 that's yeah Israel yeah I was shocked to find out that this was filmed in New York but then I also 0.79

00:15:59.700 wasn't I was like it's the epitome of I guess privilege to be able to make money of Israel

00:16:06.560 without even you know endangering yourself going to the place let's say we'll play a bit of the ad 0.88

00:16:11.480 now waking up for a morning run can be brutal but it's a price I'm willing to pay because once I hit

00:16:20.720 the park. Pure energy takes over. It's hard to explain. There's a reason the world's most

00:16:34.040 iconic buildings are by a park. 51 Park. New York? Where's Celia? Israel. 51 Park.

00:16:41.700 What I find the most horrendous is she says, like, it's so brutal to wake up for a morning run, but that's the price I'm willing to pay.

00:17:02.720 first of all you are shilling luxury apartments on Israel which is currently in a war with Gaza

00:17:11.180 and it is on stolen land which we'll get into later and that's the price I'm willing to pay

00:17:15.720 it's like how much are you willing to get paid for this like incredibly political and ethical

00:17:22.660 moral like advert when you are already so rich I don't think we've ever looked at Gwyneth as like

00:17:28.880 the moral beacon of values and ethics right so in some ways it doesn't surprise me but I'm just like

00:17:36.640 how much money do you need or like how much money do you want like what price would you say is worth 0.73

00:17:42.460 this truly like she knows like she's not silly like her and her team know the backlash that

00:17:47.860 they were gonna get but perhaps I'm like but maybe they're in their like safe bubbles that

00:17:52.100 they don't care I think that's definitely the case that's what I was thinking like you and I

00:17:56.960 get approached for adverts as like part of our jobs and we're constantly weighing up like the

00:18:01.540 you know the ethics the morals like which what's this company done what what are they invested in

00:18:06.140 and it can't always be perfect because we live under capitalism etc and we are like working

00:18:10.640 class people who are trying to just like pay rent and then you have someone like Gwyneth and it's

00:18:15.860 just like it just boggles the mind that she is so so wealthy but still felt the need to accumulate

00:18:22.320 more wealth. I think it's literally some sort of disorder. I think it is. It's like greed.

00:18:28.860 Famesick, greed. I think being at such a high level of fame and becoming so accustomed to a

00:18:35.160 level of privilege and wealth does warp your perception of the world and what do you expect

00:18:40.940 from others? Let's talk about the building. So it's located in Herzliya, which is an Israeli

00:18:46.680 settlement. It was established in 1924 and it used to be the Palestinian village of Al-Haram.

00:18:53.720 The settlement was actually named after the founder of the modern Zionist movement, Theodore

00:18:58.900 Herzl. Also, just days before the ad went live, it was like a double whammy. Gwyneth was on a

00:19:05.280 podcast episode of the Goop podcast, obviously her own beauty and lifestyle company, which is worth

00:19:10.660 hundreds of millions of dollars. She went on with Trey Stevens, who is the co-founder of an AI

00:19:15.920 defense company, Andrel, who said that the United States problems cannot be fixed without open and

00:19:22.020 respectful dialogue. And then she goes on to say that she does not align with either major political

00:19:27.260 party. She says, I'm pretty centrist. She notes that her husband, Brad Folchok, who she met on

00:19:33.200 the set of Glee when he was a producer and she was starring, she described Brad as so progressive

00:19:38.080 that he thinks that she's a Republican. And then she says, quote, I don't feel anything right now

00:19:44.000 to be totally honest with you I feel like I'm completely an independent can you imagine in the

00:19:50.260 big year of 2026 saying I don't feel anything right now towards politics whether it's one way

00:19:55.220 or another and in a lot of the interviews around this as well she's really like I just don't see

00:20:01.520 like we why we can't all get a lot like she said this in the past as well she's been a part of like

00:20:06.340 democratic kind of like fundraising things in the past now she's gone like I don't like people think

00:20:12.500 I'm MAGA but I'm not but she's very much like everyone's so angry and it's like why can't we

00:20:18.640 just like I don't understand the divisiveness which is very much like a bright leaning viewpoint

00:20:25.820 because it's like we have to unpack all of this to like get to equality essentially this is like 0.65

00:20:31.400 a very top line level of like basic politics but we also saw this in the White Lotus the most

00:20:36.260 recent season where you have the group of the women at the table and one of them's like I'm

00:20:40.960 an independent yeah exactly and then all the others are like that means you're a republican

00:20:45.900 so people were kind of comparing the two this week as well and I don't deny that other celebs

00:20:49.960 also hold her same viewpoint I just think they are digging themselves into a deeper grave when

00:20:55.320 they choose to say all this on mic I think you're right about bubbles and echo chambers like in her

00:21:01.740 world, wealthy, New York, American business land. I don't think that this is like seen as any sort

00:21:11.880 of like extremism. Maybe that's like too hard of a word, but in our circles and like the media that

00:21:18.860 we consume, it's like, oh my God, like of all the things to do, of all the things to advertise,

00:21:24.840 this is what you're choosing. And this is like the line of like, I will sell my face and my body

00:21:31.520 for this Israeli like real estate luxury company which sells 10 million dollar penthouses like

00:21:37.900 also we haven't even touched on the fact that she used to be married to Chris Martin

00:21:41.200 who's all like you know we can't go on world tours because of climate change and like very

00:21:45.960 like peace and love and stuff I'm not like conflating like obviously they can have different

00:21:49.960 values and opinions but it definitely feels like a juxtaposition between those two as well

00:21:55.220 what do you think do you think that this is going to change anything for Gwyneth

00:21:58.600 No, not at all.

00:21:59.720 Goop was going to go down in the stock market.

00:22:01.800 Nah, Goop's already fielded so many different controversies in the past.

00:22:05.340 Like, I really don't think this will affect much.

00:22:08.140 Instead of Bookmark this week, we are actually releasing a special winter favourites video

00:22:13.400 where we will still be talking about, you know, books and movies, but also things like

00:22:17.340 beauty and skincare.

00:22:18.820 So keep your eyes and ears peeled for that in your podcast feeds very soon.

00:22:24.000 Thank you so much for joining us today and we'll talk to you later.

00:22:26.960 Bye.

00:22:28.160 Bye.

00:22:28.600 you

Culture Club - June 15, 2026

Gwyneth Paltrow Sells Out, Dua Lipa’s Wedding & Olivia Rodrigo’s Best Album Yet？

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