This Week in Gossip (January 18)

Why Did the Golden Globes Have Built-In Gambling Mechanisms This Year?

The 2026 Golden Globes were a mess. Fork found in kitchen. Okay, the wins themselves were pretty great for the most part. Yay to Wagner Moura, Jessie Buckley, Stellan Skarsgard, and Paul Thomas Anderson. Yay to Wanda Sykes ruining Bill Maher’s week, and yay to Nikki Glaser for being a very good emcee. As long as you don’t take anything the Hollywood Foreign Press Association does all that seriously, the picks were good. But the ceremony was largely weird and kind of gross. The announcers were inept and charmless, the shoehorned-in ads for UFC were baffling, and to top it all off, the whole thing featured gambling ads that pushed the changing odds for various categories of the night.

Polymarket, a gambling startup (which received funding from Donald Trump’s VC firm, because of course it did), was prominently featured throughout the ceremony. They showed the changing odds of certain categories and encouraged viewers to put their money down and make the event more “fun.” It was gross and tacky and every cultural critic I know hated it. It cheapened the night and made what should be a fun evening into a game with a ton of unwitting spectators.

The scourge of online gambling and its sudden proliferation across every platform makes me so depressed. It’s taken over every corner of social media. Every third or fourth ad I see on TV or in web banners is related to gambling. I wrote a piece for Pajiba on how it’s made everything worse, so I won’t repeat myself too much here. I do believe that, though: there is something so corrosive and transparently corrupt about making everything into a game you can bet on. Yes, stuff like this has existed for decades in some form or another, but its hyper-expansion and legitimising through things like celebrity endorsements, sports and entertainment sponsorships, and tech bro investment is a whole other level of sh*t. Why the hell do I need to see Kevin Hart or Danny Dyer shilling for this stuff so often? It makes those Royal Match game ads seem dignified by comparison.

With the Globes, it was yet another reminder that these are not serious people, and we should continue to view the HFPA as a big joke. Sure, they throw a good party and I can’t be mad at seeing my guy Wagner Moura get a pretty trophy, but how disrespectful was it to see gambling odds for various winners up on the screen like that? Congratulations on your life’s work, but you’re trailing in the bets, and someone’s going to lose money because of you. The HFPA spent years claiming your show was legitimate and not a total payola nightmare so this is your alternative?!

Thanks, I hate it. But at least we have yet another reminder that the Golden Globes are stupid and we should never take them seriously.

Sydney Sweeney’s Team Work Overtime to Make The Housemaid’s Success 100% Her Doing

The Housemaid has now crossed the $100 million mark at the domestic box office. Anyone with a brain cell knew this would be a hit. It’s based on a book by Frieda McFadden that is one of the biggest-selling works of fiction of the decade. A sequel has been announced, with star Sydney Sweeney returning to the title role. It’s a much-needed win for everyone’s favourite Republican jeans spokeswoman, and boy, does her team know it. They’re so desperate to ensure that Sweeney gets 100% of the credit for The Housemaid’s success. The latest line: claiming Sweeney was a marketing guru because she suggested the cast appear on Family Feud. Really.