Today’s tea is piping hot and honestly probably too flavorful for the likes of Arielle Haspel, a self-proclaimed nutritionist who has opened what she calls a “clean” Chinese restaurant in New York’s West Village. The restaurant is called… wait for it… Lucky Lee’s. Look, we don’t have to tell you that she’s white, but we will because how else will you know the food at her restaurant is “clean”? In her words, her food won’t make you feel “bloated and icky the next day”.
This tells us a few things. One, she clearly has not been privileged enough to have Chinese friends invite her over for good home cooked Chinese food, and honestly, we feel for her. Like, she probably has only ever eaten Chinese food when she gets it from a takeout Chinese restaurant when she’s hungover or wants to feel like she’s “cultured.” Two, this woman has not studied abroad, and if she has, then she probably got trashed in public and only hung out with Americans the whole time. Honestly, she probably still wears a sombrero on Cinco de Mayo and we’re embarrassed just thinking about it.
Like, let’s get one thing straight. Takeout is fast food. Saying Chinese food makes you feel sick because you’ve only ever eaten sh*tty Chinese food is like visiting America and only eating McDonald’s and then thinking that all American food is greasy and comes with an action figure. Like, has this poor woman ever heard of Din Tai Fung? Honey, if you can’t afford a nice Chinese restaurant, I’m sure someone will donate to your GoFundMe. Truly we cannot stop laughing at the idea of this entire thing, because while wanting to eat healthier is totally valid, she missed the mark so hard in this marketing that she must not have enough cool friends who could have told her to definitely not do this.
She’s since removed the controversial language in her IG post, but when it was up, she called her restaurant a healthy alternative to “oily” and “salty” typical Chinese cuisine, claiming her restaurant was for “people who love to eat Chinese food” and “and love the benefit that it will actually make them feel good.” In other words, girls who will do a line off a bar bathroom toilet but can’t handle a little bit of garlic. I’m not speaking for all Chinese people, but yawn, call me when a white person will admit that cheese gives everyone diarrhea before complaining that Chinese food makes them sick.
Furthermore, calling the restaurant Lucky Lee’s is just like, so cringeworthy. Apparently her husband’s name is Lee, but somehow we don’t think she would have called it like, Lucky Connor’s if that was his name. It would be like if a Chinese person opened a diner called Becky With the Good Flavor and promised American food with actual seasoning.
If a Chinese person wants to befriend Arielle Haspel so she doesn’t do this kind of thing again, they could probably write it off as philanthropy because this woman needs help. Because, honestly, gluten free Chinese food isn’t a bad idea—it’s the implication that every single Chinese restaurant is unhealthy and bad for you that makes us want to cancel Lucky Lee. Hit us up when you figure out gluten free hot dogs too, thanks babe.
Images: Frank Zhang / Unsplash; luckyleesnyc (2) / Instagram
If you ever went on a group trip to any major city in middle school, there’s a decent chance you spent an hour or two at Madame Tussauds wax museum. This was in the pre-selfie era, so you probably ended up with a whole lot of grainy camera phone pictures of you posing with Leo DiCaprio and Shakira. Some of the wax figures are more realistic than others, but people are now angry about some, um, questionable Beyoncé lookalikes. Basically, they look nothing like her. In fact, they kind of look like Julia Stiles in Save The Last Dance. Or like, a cross between Ke$ha and Shakira. Or…well, you know what, why don’t you just see for yourself.
The first one is at Madame Tussauds in Orlando. She wears a blue sequined robber and some knee-high boots that are definitely cheap fake leather, but the outfit isn’t bad overall. I mean, I’ve never seen Beyoncé wear anything like that but sure, maybe. The biggest issue here is the hair. The bleached blonde wavy look is more knockoff-Paris Hilton than Beyoncé, whose hair is almost always flawless.
The face looks Lindsay Lohan got plastic surgery to look like Beyoncé, but ended up just looking like a fucking psycho. Literally, none of the facial features are remotely right, and the skin is way too light. People have accused Madame Tussauds of whitewashing Queen Bey, who, if you didn’t get the note from Formation, is a black woman. This statue, on the other hand, appears to be of a white woman who probably has at least one photo on insta where she refers to her friend group as “ma n-words” to be funny. In response to the criticism, Tussauds claimed that the lighting was just off in the photo. Yeah, sure. When in doubt, blame it on bad lighting.
The second one is at the Niagara Falls Tussauds, which doesn’t even sound like it should be a thing. This wax figure is wearing a truly tragic satin dress that looks like it’s from an 80s music video, and we truly only know it’s supposed to be Beyoncé because it’s wearing a name tag.
The hair is more accurate in color, but still limp and tired. The face, however, looks like Mariah Carey but if she starved herself and also turned into plastic. The eyebrows are truly terrifying, and the arms are so skinny she probably couldn’t even hold a microphone. Fucking help.
Last but not least is the Madame Tussauds in Hollywood. You’d think this is where they’d put their best work, but this Beyoncé looks like a cross between Fergie and the lady who got plastic surgery to look like a cat. Her pose looks like she’s checking in the mirror to make sure she shaved her armpit, and the orange and pink dress they put her in should be fucking illegal. Someone help this Beyoncé, she’s lost somewhere between the 70s and hell.
We might never know why these wax figures are so incredibly awful, but we’re pissed about it. Like, how dare they? Kylie just got a literally stunning wax figure, so there’s no excuse. Fucking fix it, Madame Tussaud. This is Queen Bey we’re talking about.
The illustrious members of Bachelor Nation have spent most of the summer being pretty fricking P.O.’d, thinking our absolute favorite summer series was dunzo. I mean, we were like, concerned about the seriousness of the allegations and shit, but we also definitely wanted to see our favorite cast members who failed to find love have sex with each other on the beach. Fortunately for us, the Bachelor producers have literally no shame, and all the DeMario and Corinne drama did nothing to diminish their desire to make money off of our guiltiest pleasure.
Now, the teaser for the season that almost never happened is out, and, TBH, I hate saying it, but it actually looks kind of lame. Part of why we were all so excited about BiP this season was because Corrine was going to be on it. Now that’s not happening. Chad is busy with Famously Single for some reason. DeMario is also out, so, like who is even going to bring the drama? Amanda? Raven? I don’t think so.
So let’s break this down: The preview starts with a bunch of tweets from Bach fans basically just talking about how devastated they (we) were the show was maybe almost sort of not going to happen when allegations of sexual misconduct started swirling.
Of course when a show called “Bachelor in Paradise” almost gets shut down but then totally doesn’t, you have to throw in a “Paradise Lost” reference. Clever.
We get a few flashes of some of the cast members, including baby-voiced Amanda from Ben’s season and one of Rachel’s more annoying suitors, Iggy. We also see that Kristina is on the show. I almost didn’t recognize her because she has highlights now. She legit looks good and I’m happy she didn’t end up with Nick because she’s already been through too much shit in her life — fuckin Russia, amirite?
Anyway, then we get some more tweets about how happy people are that the show is back on. Then Robby says “It’s crazy” and that’s pretty much it.
Can I just say: booooooooo.
I don’t particularly like that they’re capitalizing on the fact the season almost didn’t happen, ya know, because the reason it almost didn’t happen was because there was a sexual assault investigation. Like, if it almost didn’t happen because of a hurricane or some shit, sure, play that up. IDK I just had a weird feeling about how they approached that whole thing, and critics generally agree. The trailer has been panned by basically everyone, with critics calling it both exploitative and tone deaf. So basically like everything BiP related. Isn’t the first rule of PR like, not to bring up the shitty parts of your brand all the time? IDK.
The show comes out August 14, though and we’ll be watching. Duh.
Despite being the most boring of the Kardashian clan, Kendall Jenner cannot keep herself out of trouble these days. As a recap, Kendall first got shit (and rightfully so) for appearing in the now infamous Pepsi ad where she takes a break from modeling to solve police brutality by giving a Pepsi to a cop. Still not over the fact that out of the like, hundred people who had to watch this ad, nobody said, “eh maybe we should slow our roll on this one.” Where’s Don Draper when you need him? Next, Kendall came under fire again for her promotion of the Fyre Festival, aka the Millennial Hunger Games. Kendall promoted the fest on her personal Instagram alongside models like Bella Hadid and Emily Ratatouille (or whatever her name is), but unlike literally everyone else involved in the Fyre Festival, Kendall has not apologized.
Cue Kendall’s appearance on the cover of Vogue India’s 10th Anniversary edition. You’d think two giant controversies in the span of a month would be enough for ol’ KJ, but here’s the thing: Kendall Jenner is an over acheiver. She’s not one to look at 30 straight days of bad press and throw in the towel. Hell no. Kendall is going big, or going home (to her giant mansion).
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) May 4, 2017
As anyone who has been awake for even one minute in 2017 could have predicted, people are pissed that Vogue India would choose to commemorate its 10th anniversary with a Jenner rather than like, an actual Indian person. People noted that, given the fact that India has like a billion people in it, it seems strange that they wouldn’t be able to find a single Indian model for the honor. Or maybe an Indian actress?
Hmm. Wonder where we could find one of those.
Honestly, I feel like we’re being a little too hard on Kendall. She’s a 21-year-old model who has never attended real school and has spent her entire life on reality TV. Can we really expect her to understand the nuances of a complicated issue like police brutality, to do research into the things she promotes, or to even know what India is?
JK. We totally can. And we do.
Kendall, you’re officially cancelled until you learn how to behave.
