Gift of the Magi (and the Rachel)
The easiest way to inoculate yourself against (checks vocab list) *brain rot* in 2025
We’re here to reclaim the “women’s magazine.” Every week, two veteran editors read it ALL to bring you everything we believe women’s media should be: juicy yarns, big ideas, deeply personal essays, hot goss, and the odd shopping tip—aka, the full Spread. Plus: original interviews, podcasts, and more. Come hungry!
Magnanimous Spreadoonskis,
Did you, too, emerge from the fog of scrolling Supergoop! super-sales and prevaricating over that alluringly tonal “bedding bundle” you’ve been sweating pretty much empty-handed, with nary a box checked on the holiday gift list in this, the shortest holiday-prep season on record? (OK, we didn’t check that fact but it is short.) According to Vox, some $148 billion worth of gifts were returned last year, and that’s not entirely because gifters innocently missed the mark. Experts have identified five broad patterns of habitual bad-gifting, which include seeking bragging rights, trying to impose one’s own identity on the recipient, and general self-centeredness (gifting what you like, not what they like).
Well, folks, we’ve got the *perfect gift* for you. This week only, we’re offering full subscriptions at the rock-bottom rate of 40 percent off! That’s $4.20 a month, or $45 a year. Or as we say in the biz: a steal!
There’s never been a better time to treat yo’self—or the chattiest reader you know—to a paid subscription to the Spread. Think about it: A Spread sub says, “You’re top shelf.” It’s clutter-free. Environmentally sound. Woman-founded. Looks good on everyone. Keeps things spicy. And, while the Cut did just gift us all a list that is certain to turn up the heat on those late-night gift-wrapping sessions (“The Sexxxiest Christmas Movies to Watch This Year”), the Spread is a gift best served unwrapped…though never cold.
Ho ho ho,
Rachel & Maggie
Nicole is GAME, people.
Our favorite thing about W’s new cover shoot with Oscar-winning Hollywood royal Nicole Kidman is imagining the negotiation that must have gone into blocking this shot by artist Robert Longo—a recreation of his Men in the Cities series (right! we knew that!) “So Nicole, we thought maybe you could roll around on this bit of concrete. Sound good? Not quite? OK. Would it help if we lay out a few sheets of cardboard, or in your native tongue, cahdbow’d?” Kudos to Kidman. Somehow, at 57, by virtue of being extremely unprecious in her choice of projects and leaning heavily on Zac Efron’s unquenched desire for her, she’s made herself a “get” again. Even her dermatological proclivities are taken in stride. (And if that is, indeed, a wig, we’ll take two please!) As Alison Willmore writes in Vulture, in a back-to-back string of roles, Kidman has made “a five-course meal out of…variations on the theme of the discontented matriarch.” These aren’t just any old matriarchs. They’re all six-foot-tall, cashmere-swathed, deeply unrelatable paragons of aristo perfection. “Even her performance of unhappiness looks aspirational,” Willmore writes. After all, who could pull off “high-fashion rooftop Nell” but this creature?
Check out the W story here.
Read “The Anti-Everywoman” in Vulture here.
OK, here goes: She’s a brunette with a heart of gold, artistic leanings, legs for days, and a lucrative gig at a New York City strip club.
One night, while she’s working the late shift, she meets a new client in the VIP room, the wayward son of a powerful dynasty who has requested a private dance. It’s basically love at first sight. Next thing you know, they’re up all night…talking. Soon, they’re official. Drugs abound, as do luxury hotels. But he loves her! And he’s rich! And they’ll be together forever! Until, you know, his baggage comes creeping in, and it all falls apart. This is the plot of the Sean Baker-directed, Oscar-favorited film Anora. AND THIS IS ALSO THE EXACT SETUP OF THE ZOË KESTAN-HUNTER BIDEN AFFAIR, AS DETAILED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BY JOSEPH BERNSTEIN. Now that Joe has pardoned Hunter—the perfect capper to the phantom article about this absolutely Shakespearean father-son relationship that exists only in our heads, and that for years we’ve been suggesting GQ assign to Michael Chabon (riiight??)—Kestan has come forward with her side of the debacle. It’s a devastating tale of love and deception and addiction. To the Times’s credit, Kestan comes off sounding smart and sincere: a Horace Mann- and RISD-educated, Pucci-loving, sex-positive young woman with big ambitions who was letting it rip in downtown Manhattan à la Julia Fox when she met Hunter (and his laptop) and all hell broke loose. Now, it’s been six years since she last saw Hunter (outside of court, that is), and there’s no sign of her being able to shake the association. We don’t know if this story will accomplish that—more like the opposite—but it does set her up as intriguing in her own right. A fashion week star is born?
Read “She Met Hunter Biden One Night at a Club. Then She Fell in Love.” here.
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