This T-shirt Costs $550. Hear Us Out.
For Jillian Simpson, 41, wedding season once meant panic-buying flouncy dresses that didn't suit her style. But last June, the New Yorker bucked convention and paired a floor-grazing black skirt with a white T-shirt from the Row for a friend's Philadelphia nuptials. 'Certain occasions used to pull me out of character—I don't even like dresses,' Simpson said. 'But a luxury T-shirt always feels totally me, whether I wear it with a black-tie skirt or jeans.'
Welcome to the new era of boundary-defying power tees that boast refined fabrics, subtle details and hefty price tags. (The Row's Chiara tee, for instance, with its signature vertical back seam, rings up at $420.) These not-so-little luxuries are working hard in women's wardrobes, replacing starchy button-downs for the office and going-out tops at night.
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USA Today
7 hours ago
- USA Today
Oprah seemingly threw shade at Patti LuPone during the Tony Awards
Oprah seemingly threw shade at Patti LuPone during the Tony Awards The 2025 Tony Awards paid very little mind to the recent Patti LuPone controversy that made waves in the Broadway community recently, but Oprah Winfrey was seemingly the only one to make reference to it during Sunday night's show. In the lead-up to this year's Tony Awards, LuPone made incredibly disparaging remarks about six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald and fellow Tony-winner Kecia Lewis in a New Yorker profile. The Broadway community was furious at the slight, so much so that LuPone eventually apologized for the comments, stating "I regret my flippant and emotional responses during this interview, which were inappropriate, and I am devastated that my behavior has offended others and has run counter to what we hold dear in this community". Broadway actors such as James Monroe Iglehart and others were asked about the controversy on the Tonys' red carpet, but the show itself steered pretty clear of the topic for the majority of the night. That is until Oprah took the stage to announce the winners of Best Actress in a Musical, where McDonald was nominated. In the lead-up to announcing the winner, Oprah seemingly threw shade at LuPone and the "lively conversations among theater fans" that ensued. "Lotta talking going on" indeed!
USA Today
a day ago
- USA Today
Patti LuPone controversy: Offensive comments, backlash and apology, explained
Patti LuPone controversy: Offensive comments, backlash and apology, explained Patti LuPone is a Broadway and musical theater legend who's as famous for her performances as her unfiltered opinions about everything from mid-show interruptions to the president. She's appeared in dozens of shows, and among her many accolades are three Tony Awards — two for Best Actress in a Musical (Evita, 1980 and Gypsy, 2008) and one for Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Company, 2022). The 76-year-old actress — who also has had an extensive film and TV career — knows a lot about theater. Probably more than most. But one thing she clearly still needs to learn is that you can still be an outspoken diva without being mean, derogatory or straight-up racist. Leading up to the 2025 Tony Awards on Sunday, LuPone has been in the middle of an ugly controversy seemingly entirely of her own making. In a May 26 New Yorker profile, she made disparaging remarks about six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald — the most nominated and awarded performer in Tony's history — and fellow Tony-winner Kecia Lewis. This sparked tremendous backlash from fans and those in the Broadway community and LuPone ultimately apologized. Here's a breakdown of the Patti LuPone controversy. Who is Patti LuPone? As we mentioned, she's a theater star with three Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Emmy Award nominations. Along with Gypsy, Evita and Company, LuPone has been in productions of Anything Goes, Sweeney Todd, Sunset Boulevard and Les Misérables, among many others. After making her stage debut in the 1970s, she's been part of shows on Broadway and West End. What did Patti LuPone say in her New Yorker profile about Audra McDonald and Kecia Lewis? The New Yorker profile by Michael Schulman about LuPone was long, wide-ranging and in-depth, but we're here to focus on a couple specific parts at the end of the feature. LuPone was in a 2024 two-woman play The Roommate, for which her co-star Mia Farrow earned a 2025 Tony nomination. The show shared a wall with the theater showing Hell's Kitchen, the Tony-winning Alicia Keys jukebox musical. The New Yorker notes the musical sound was so loud it could be heard through the walls leading LuPone to ask the show to address the noise issue. She then sent thank-you flowers after it was fixed. Kecia Lewis — a star of Hell's Kitchen who won a 2024 Tony Award for her performance — took to Instagram in November 2024 to read an open letter responding to LuPone labeling "a Black show loud in a way that dismisses it" and accusing her of committing microaggressions. "These actions, in my opinion, are bullying," Lewis says in her Instagram video. "They're offensive. They are racially microaggressive. They're rude. They're rooted in privilege, and these actions also lack a sense of community and leadership for someone as yourself who has been in the business as long as you have." From The New Yorker: 'Oh, my God,' LuPone said, balking, when I brought up the incident. 'Here's the problem. She calls herself a veteran? Let's find out how many Broadway shows Kecia Lewis has done, because she doesn't know what the [expletive] she's talking about.' She Googled. 'She's done seven. I've done thirty-one. Don't call yourself a vet, [expletive].' (The correct numbers are actually ten and twenty-eight, but who's counting?) She explained, of the noise problem, 'This is not unusual on Broadway. This happens all the time when walls are shared.' But LuPone didn't stop the insults there. When Schulman pointed out that Audra McDonald responded to Lewis' Instagram video with "supportive emojis", LuPone insulted McDonald and her Tony-nominated portrayal of Rose in Gypsy, the same role LuPone won a Tony for in the 2008 revival. More from The New Yorker: I mentioned that Audra McDonald—the Tony-decorated Broadway star—had given the video supportive emojis. 'Exactly,' LuPone said. 'And I thought, You should know better. That's typical of Audra. She's not a friend'—hard 'D.' The two singers had some long-ago rift, LuPone said, but she didn't want to elaborate. When I asked what she had thought of McDonald's current production of 'Gypsy,' she stared at me, in silence, for fifteen seconds. Then she turned to the window and sighed, 'What a beautiful day.' Did Audra McDonald or Kecia Lewis respond to Patti LuPone? In an interview with CBS Mornings published this week, Gayle King asked McDonald if she was surprised by LuPone's comments about her. McDonald said: "If there's a rift between us, I don't know what it is. That's something you'd have to ask Patti about. I haven't seen her in about 11 years just because we've been busy just with life and stuff, so I don't know what rift she's talking about. So you'd have to ask her." Despite previously responding to LuPone on Instagram in November, it doesn't seem that Lewis has responded publicly to LuPone's recent comments. How did the Broadway community respond to Patti LuPone's comments? Outrage on behalf of McDonald and Lewis was abundant. More than 500 actors from around the industry signed and published an open letter on May 30 condemning LuPone's comments as "degrading and misogynistic" and "a blatant act of racialized disrespect." According to Playbill, the total number of signatures on the letter is more than 700. Before demanding a broad and consistent standard of accountability in the industry, the letter added: "It constitutes bullying. It constitutes harassment. It is emblematic of the microaggressions and abuse that people in this industry have endured for far too long, too often without consequence. "To publicly attack a woman who has contributed to this art form with such excellence, leadership, and grace—and to discredit the legacy of Audra McDonald, the most nominated and awarded performer in Tony Award history—is not simply a personal offense. It is a public affront to the values of collaboration, equity, and mutual respect that our theater community claims to uphold." Others reactions included one from Emmy Award winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, a current star on Abbott Elementary who starred in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls in 1981, for which she was Tony nominated. Speaking to Page Six from the Gotham Television Awards red carpet, Ralph explained why she's not judging LuPone, 'Why not be nice?' before adding: "But was it a moment where, maybe, you wanted to say, 'Zip it, girl. Zip it'? Inner thoughts need not always be outer thoughts." Patti LuPone ultimately apologized for her comments about Audra McDonald and Kecia Lewis LuPone posted her apology on social media. It read, in part: "I am deeply sorry for the words I used during The New Yorker interview, particularly about Kecia Lewis, which were demeaning and disrespectful. I regret my flippant and emotional responses during this interview, which were inappropriate, and I am devastated that my behavior has offended others and has run counter to what we hold dear in this community. I hope to have the chance to speak to Audra and Kecia personally to offer my sincere apologies." Taking responsibility and committing to doing better is a good thing. But after so many performances, accolades and decades in the industry, she should have known how offensive the words coming out of her mouth were.
New York Post
2 days ago
- New York Post
The horse Bobby Flay couldn't sell has long-shot Belmont Stakes dream
SARATOGA SPRINGS — At 15-1 odds, Crudo is a long shot to outrun Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty and Preakness champion Journalism to the wire in Saturday's Belmont Stakes at Saratoga. One could argue, however, that this outcome would be no more of a surprise than the circumstances that led Crudo into the Triple Crown race in the first place for owners Bobby Flay and Jimmy Ventura and Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. 'Jimmy and I were going to buy him as a pinhook proposition — we bought him as a weanling and we were going to sell him as a yearling. We brought him to the Saratoga [Fasig-Tipton] sale, and he didn't sell, so we kept him,' Flay, the chef, restaurant magnate and Food Network star told The Post early Friday morning before visiting Crudo. 'I don't usually race colts. I usually race fillies only. But I have him, so he's racing, and he's turned out to have talent,' Flay continued. 'The Belmont Stakes is New York's most important race and as a New Yorker, it's clearly important to me.' 3 Celebrity chef Bobby Flay is pictured next to Crudo on June 6. Jason Szenes for the NY Post Flay, 60, says he's been watching horse racing since his teenage years when he and his friends from the Yorkville neighborhood in upper Manhattan would cut school and take the A train to Aqueduct. The Belmont Stakes has long been a staple of Flay's social calendar. 'I go to the Belmont every year. I usually take 20-30 people to Belmont Park and make a day out of it,' Flay said. 'It's become a tradition where I have people over to my house for brunch, everyone comes dressed in their racing gear — suits, summer dresses, hats. I feed them in the morning and then put everyone in cars and we go to Belmont and we have a day.' He said those nights usually end with a group dinner at Wolfgang's Steakhouse on 33rd Street. But Saturday, the stakes will be much higher. On Preakness Day at Pimlico, in his third career start, Crudo won the Sir Barton Stakes by 7¹/₂ lengths. Pletcher, a four-time winner in the Belmont, gave the son of 2018 Triple Crown champion Justify a few weeks to breeze, considered other options and decided to give it a go in the $2 million race. 'The horse is here, he's doing well, I don't see a whole lot of pace in the race, we've got [jockey] John Velazquez available,' Pletcher said. 'I couldn't come up with a reason not to give it a try.' Crudo's name, not surprisingly, has ties to the culinary world. 3 Bobby Flay is pictured June 6. Jason Szenes for the NY Post 'I came up with the name,' Flay said, explaining he acknowledged raw talent, though on menus everywhere the word means raw fish. 'It's so hard to name these horses. I liked the fact that it meant raw because he was such a young horse when we bought him and he had talent. 'I told Jimmy what I named him and he was like, 'Really?' He wasn't impressed,' Flay added about his partner, who is in commercial real estate and has been involved in horse racing for more than 30 years. 'Naming horses and naming restaurants. If they turn out to be good, the name makes perfect sense. It couldn't be anything else.' Flay spent much of his spring rooting on his beloved Knicks from the first few rows at Madison Square Garden. Like most fans, he reveled in the team's longest playoff run in 25 years and still is feeling the disappointment. 3 Bobby Flay and co-owner James Ventura are pictured with their horse, Crudo, on June 6. Jason Szenes for the NY Post 'I remember all the playoff seasons when we ran into Michael Jordan,' said Flay, who lists the Knicks and Yankees as his biggest sports passions. 'We were good then, but we kind of couldn't get past it. It was fun to watch those guys play this year. They're a really good team and, unfortunately, they lost to Indiana.' Flay said he was surprised at the firing of coach Tom Thibodeau. 'I am. I thought he did a good job. I mean, we beat the world champions. We beat the Celtics soundly,' he said. 'A couple things go different ways and you're in the Finals. I don't always think that new is a good idea, but it's not my team.' His team on Saturday is Crudo-Flay-Ventura-Pletcher. 'Both Bobby and Jimmy love horse racing. Bobby's been terrific to train for, for a number of years,' Pletcher said. 'He's knowledgeable and also always says, 'You can make the decision.' We've had some success together and these guys are fun to train for.'
