The Tea — May 08, 2026

Today's energy: people who thought things were over finding out they very much are not. A settlement that didn't actually settle. A defamation trial closing with the phrase "fantastical liar" entered into the record. A Bluesky post deleted six hours too late to matter. The through-line is consequences arriving in slow motion — and a few celebrities deciding the smart move is to keep talking.

There is posting something edgy, and there is posting an AI-generated image of the sitting president lying in a grave with the caption "If Only." Mark Hamill, on Bluesky, did the second one.

The headstone in the image read "Donald J. Trump 1946–2026." Hamill's caption hoped Trump would live long enough to see an "inevitable devastating loss in the midterms," then be "impeached, convicted & humiliated," per Variety's reporting on the post. The White House's Rapid Response 47 account on X called Hamill "one sick individual" and tied the post to the rhetorical climate around recent reported assassination attempts against Trump, according to The Hollywood Reporter. James Woods and Rob Schneider piled on. Hamill then deleted the image and posted what The Daily Beast described as a non-apology — an "Accurate Edit for Clarity" claiming he had actually been "wishing him the opposite of dead."

What changes if this metastasizes: a sitting White House communications shop has now demonstrated it will turn a celebrity Bluesky post into a multi-day news cycle, which is a new equilibrium for actor-activists who came up under a very different press posture. The signal to watch is whether Hamill goes silent, doubles down, or gets quietly disinvited from something — a Star Wars anniversary panel, a voiceover gig, a charity gala. Career consequences for political speech are usually invisible until they're not.

This one has actual stakes, and the phrase that came out of Sydney's Federal Court in closing arguments is going to follow Rebel Wilson around for years.

Wilson is being sued for defamation by Charlotte MacInnes, the lead actress of The Deb — Wilson's directorial debut — who alleges Wilson publicly claimed MacInnes had made a sexual harassment complaint against producer Amanda Ghost, then walked it back for career gain. In closing arguments, MacInnes' barrister Sue Chrysanthou accused Wilson of a "complete revision of history," calling the Pitch Perfect star "a fantastical liar who has made up terrible, terrible allegations about other people," per Deadline. The New Daily reports that Wilson testified she told a local producer about the alleged complaint the day it was made — but that producer gave evidence she didn't hear about it until a week later, relayed by someone else.

Justice Elizabeth Raper has reserved her decision, meaning a verdict could land any day. Per Art Threat, Wilson also faces two related lawsuits — one in Australia, one in the US — both brought by The Deb producers. If Wilson loses, the damages award and the language in the judgment become a template for how courts treat celebrity social-media allegations made about colleagues. If she wins, it's a green light for the next decade of Instagram-as-public-record. Watch the verdict; watch which streamer quietly stops returning her calls.

In a recent ELLE "Ask Me Anything," Billie Eilish — vegan since childhood — answered "what's one hill you'd die on" by arguing you can't love animals and still eat them. The Mirror reported fans calling her "delusional" and "performative." Most celebrities, at this point, would post a Notes-app clarification.

Eilish posted the opposite. On Instagram Stories overnight, per GMA News, she urged followers to watch slaughterhouse footage and wrote: "So stay f mad at me. I really don't give a Goddamn f*." She added, per Yardbarker: "Pls continue to live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance and denial and try to convince urself that ur not living a lie."

The timing is either disastrous or genius — her concert film opens in theaters this weekend. If ticket sales hold, every artist with a publicist learns that the "stay mad" school of crisis management actually works. If they crater, expect a very swift pivot back to inscrutable mumbled press answers. Either way, Eilish has stopped pretending to care, and that's the more interesting development than the meat itself.

The settlement everyone exhaled about on Monday lasted approximately 72 hours. According to a Manhattan federal court filing — covered by Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, and Variety — Lively is now seeking attorneys' fees, tripled compensatory damages, and punitive damages tied to Baldoni's failed defamation countersuit, which a judge dismissed last June.

The legal lever is a 2023 California statute designed to protect sexual abuse accusers from "weaponized" defamation suits, per Variety. Lively's team argues that as the "prevailing defendant," she's entitled to the full menu. NBC News reports a source familiar with the matter confirmed no money changed hands in Monday's settlement — which means whatever Baldoni thought he was buying with that joint statement acknowledging Lively's allegations "deserved to be heard," he may have actually bought himself a damages hearing. The observable signal: if Baldoni's team files a substantive opposition rather than a quiet payout, this drags into summer. If they pay, it's a tacit admission and a number that will leak within 48 hours.

Brendan Fraser, 57, confirmed to Variety he's actively training for The Mummy 4, nearly two decades after his last outing as Rick O'Connell. His quote — asking fans to "wish me luck" getting his "57-year-old gear in shape" — is the kind of thing that would be unremarkable from any other actor and is genuinely moving from this one.

This is the same Brendan Fraser who won an Oscar for The Whale in 2023 after a roughly decade-long Hollywood absence following his 2018 sexual assault allegation against former HFPA president Philip Berk. Universal handing him the keys to a tentpole franchise is the loudest possible signal that the industry's rehabilitation of his standing is complete. What to watch: whether Mummy 4 gets a real marketing budget or a quiet release. The first signals that Fraser is a star again. The second signals that everyone wanted the goodwill of casting him without the financial commitment of believing in him.

A 74-year-old Jedi deleting a graveyard meme six hours too late, a Sydney barrister entering "fantastical liar" into the official court record, and a vegan pop star telling 95 million Instagram followers to stay mad while her concert film opens Friday. Somewhere in the Vatican, the film version of a first American pope is lacing up his Nikes and quietly running the most successful PR operation in Hollywood.

Stay messy.

Forward this to the friend who texts you every Blake Lively docket update — they've earned it.