| MATTHEW LYNCH,
EXECUTIVE EDITOR |
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It’s been a demoralizing stretch for late-night television. The post-news talk shows that once gave so many viewers a last dose of shared American sensibility before they drifted off to sleep have been battered in these post-shared-American-anything days. When ABC said Wednesday that it was taking Jimmy Kimmel’s program off the air indefinitely amid FCC pressure following a remark the host made about reactions to Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer’s motivations—it seemed to confirm late night writ large’s ultimate fate. VF contributor Laura Bradley has been following the shifting late-night landscape already underway this year and reports today on what Kimmel’s MAGA-approved suspension means for the genre, near term and long.
Elsewhere today, Lorraine Nicholson has the best piece of travel writing you’ll read this week, detailing her actual nonfiction stay at the fictitious White Lotus; Chris Smith reports on a Donald Trump crypto guru; and Trump continues to be in England. |
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will finish its run in the spring, leaving CBS without any late-night programming for the first time in more than 30 years. On Wednesday, ABC announced it would be pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air “indefinitely.” It’s an ending that would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago, during the peak of the “peak TV” era, when networks and streaming platforms were green-lighting competitors to Colbert and Kimmel left and right.
In part one of a two-part series, nearly a dozen insiders explain how one of comedy’s oldest genres is being strangled—starting with the chilling effect of Trump’s culture wars. |
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From a “warm and friendly” meeting with Prince William and Kate Middleton to a jovial state banquet, King Charles is “thrilled” about the state visit, a source close to the monarch tells VF. |
Meet the finance firm that’s helped the president reportedly more than double his net worth in the past year. |
BY ELÉA GUILLEMINAULT-BAUER |
Although they appeared in just two films together, Redford and Newman had an iconic friendship bolstered by their love of cars and pranks. |
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Fleeing a breakup, and reality, in Los Angeles, Lorraine Nicholson accepted an invite to stay at the Four Seasons Koh Samui while the third season of Mike White’s HBO smash hit filmed. Not long after she arrived, life began imitating art—save for all the homicide.
“Like the characters on the show, I thought that by traveling more than 8,000 miles across the world I could escape my problems. Like the characters on the show, I learned quickly that just because I wasn’t living my life didn’t mean everyone else had stopped living theirs,” writes Nicholson. |
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