Real Housewives alert: The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City took a girls trip to SF this week and hit all the hot spots: Hot Cookie in the Castro for some penis-shaped sweets, Good Vibes sex shop and antique vibrator museum in Nob Hill, and of course, a St. Patty’s Day pub crawl. The Waggle reached out to places the women were spotted, but sources were so secretive you’d think we were asking about how Heather Gay really got that black eye. (opens in new tab) Bravo executives clearly have this shoot under an NDA.
But this didn’t stop fans from uploading reams of video of the women around town. Fan favorite Bronwyn Newport looked right at home as she strutted down Sacramento Street in a floor-length green ballgown during the pub crawl, taking a drag from what looked like a joint but might have been a cigarette, which she then passed back to her costar Angie Katsanevas. The women were spotted exiting a party trolley and drinking Guiness with rumored new cast member (opens in new tab) Ashley Quai at Irish Times. In one video, Quai appears to be wiping back tears as the cameras circle and Lisa Barlow and Meredith Marks make their best attempt at showing sympathy.
Newport used to live in San Francisco and actually met her ex-husband Todd Bradley — the CEO of Palm, creator of the Palm Pilot — here. “Him and I were both having lunch by ourselves and he was talking to me and I thought he was hysterically funny,” she told People magazine (opens in new tab).
That marriage is over and she’s now dating extremely chiseled facemaxxer model Brandon Good. Is this trip to her former stomping grounds a post-divorce victory lap? Or just a way to introduce her RHOSLC costars to the magic of SF? Either way, we hope they enjoyed themselves.
LaScandal: Hyphy East Bay rapper LaRussell should be riding high right now. The indie rapper had begun a meteoric rise, going from backyard shows in Vallejo to opening for Green Day at the Super Bowl half-time show produced by Jay-Z, who signed LaRussell to his Roc Nation label a few months ago. But no. On Friday, LaRussell deleted his Twitter and Instagram accounts and went dark after releasing a video of himself rapping a song called “Heaven Sent,” in which he said Adolf Hitler and Jeffrey Epstein, along with heroes like Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr., were “heaven sent.” The point may have been that we are all God’s creatures, but it left fans perplexed. LaRussell did not respond to requests for comment but did issue a statement (opens in new tab) saying, “The selective outrage and fake righteousness is a joke. It’s always US.”
The Waggle called up Billy Joe Agan, who runs indie music venue Thee Stork Club in Oakland, to ask what he’s hearing from East Bay music insiders. He said people are baffled. “The group chats are popping off. People are like, ‘What the fuck were you thinking?’ My own personal take is that it’s just so crazy to see someone completely shipwreck their own meteoric rise that fast. People felt really positively about him until this.” Agan called “Heaven Sent” a “brain fart turned into a song.”
Director’s cut: Beloved Bay Area booster John Waters, who hosts Oakland’s annual Mosswood Meltdown (produced by Thee Stork Club’s Agan) and has an apartment in San Francisco, was seen this week buying CDs and books at Amoeba Records on Haight Street. The shopping spree was part of the store’s YouTube series “What’s in My Bag, (opens in new tab)” in which celebrities indulge their musical tastes. Among Waters’ picks: the Shangri-Las and the Donnas’ first LP.
Oscars so Bay Area: Director Ryan Coogler and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw (the first woman to ever win the category, yessss!) might have been the highest-profile locals to win at last week’s Academy Awards, but guess who else went home with a golden statue? Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who won for his role as executive producer of the documentary “All the Empty Rooms.”
Zinzi Coogler and Ryan Coogler at the 98th Annual Oscars | Source: Michael Buckner/Penske Media via Getty Images
But the real Oscar goss happened offstage, after the show. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the man behind the AI video generator Sora, which some in Hollywood consider an existential threat to the film industry, was for some reason invited to the Vanity Fair after-party. He was just trying to eat canapes and mingle with the people he wants to put out of work when playwright Jeremy O. Harris, best known for “Slave Play,” approached and called Altman the “Goebbels of the Trump administration,” sources told Page Six (opens in new tab). When reached for comment, Harris reportedly told the paper that he’d been intoxicated at the time, which is why he made an error, referring to Altman as the wrong Nazi. “I misspoke when I said Goebbels. … I should’ve said Friedrich Flick,” he reportedly said. (Flick was a wealthy industrialist and Nazi collaborator.)
Strangely, Nancy and Paul Pelosi were at the same party (opens in new tab). And so was our parasocial BFF Alysa Liu.
Project Hail a VC: If it seems like all your friends have already seen “Project Hail Mary” — the new film starring Ryan Gosling, based on the hit sci-fi novel from former Bay Area computer engineer Andy Weir — you’re right. Scores of early screenings took place across the Bay Area ahead of the official opening Wednesday.
Tech companies and VC firms bought out theaters to invite guests, leading Try Flint CEO Michelle Lim to note wryly on X, “sorry babe i can’t make your vc-sponsored project hail mary movie premiere. i’m going to another vc-sponsored project hail mary movie premiere.”
Truth was, you didn’t need to be invited by a tech insider to get early access to the movie. A source told us that after early test screenings proved to Amazon MGM Studios that excitement would be high, the company was “bullish about screening aggressively.” The Waggle saw the film at an IMAX in Daly City four days before the official opening. We bought our tickets on a little-known, insider-only platform called Fandango.
Danielle Walter has a fiancé: First the influencer known as “The Carrie Bradshaw of San Francisco” captured attention by being single and looking for love. And then the world watched as she found her man, whose identity Walter slowly revealed over the course of many months. Well, it’s time once again to congratulate Walter, whom an entire subreddit with 21,000 members (opens in new tab) loves to hate. Brazilian personal trainer Lucas Alcantara proposed Monday in what People called an “intimate moment.” The magazine published photos of Alcantara kneeling on a custom stage at the beach in Half Moon Bay, snapped by local wedding photographer Bridget Burnett (opens in new tab). (opens in new tab) Congrats to the happy couple — and to the redditors who are obsessed with them!