See Cover Reveal for Haley Pham's ‘Just Friends'
Cosmopolitan is exclusively sharing a first-look at Haley Pham's Just Friends, which is set to be released on March 3, 2026. Blair and Declan were the ultimate BFFs growing up, but life had other plans and they soon went their separate ways. Now thrown back together in their hometown, old memories and feelings start to spark a new kind of relationship between them. Here's some more info from our friends at Atria Books:
Of course, you're going to want to meet Blair and Declan for your selves and you finally have that chance with the book's official cover. With a name like Seabrook, you bet that these two are getting cozy together at the beach. Check out the stunning cover that was designed by Michaela MacPherson for Atria Books.
We also chatted with Haley and asked her all about this perfect new beach read! Check out the exclusive interview below and make sure to pre-order Just Friends!
There are many beginnings that fizzled out before I started working on Just Friends. Namely, when I was 17, I started compiling essays and poems I thought would become a book one day. At the time I couldn't picture writing fiction. Then, in 2022, I started writing random scenes I could not stop thinking about in my head. I remember thinking I'd only spend 20 minutes on it before starting my day, and the next thing I knew my entire morning was gone. It was noon and I hadn't started my actual work. It was actually quite startling to discover something I loved so much that time warped. Felt like time traveling! It was crazy. For months I would allow myself some time to write, but I didn't think it was anything serious. I'd go back to making videos, but as time went on, the prickling urge at the back of my mind to write would crop up more and more. By the time I admitted it was my dream to write a novel, I already had 20,000 words done. So, it was a matter of admitting I wanted to do it too much to ignore and it was time to commit!
Definitely sharing! When I started the novel I wasn't picturing anyone reading it.
What surprised me most was how my brain felt after a day of editing/re-working/re-plotting the book, especially for the second draft. I remember taking a walk after a day of editing and being shocked at how new and strange the sensation of trying to come back into the real world was after being in my head all day. It's such an internal process, it felt like finding the deep end of my brain. I've never felt anything like it!
One of my favorite things to do since I was eight-years-old is to capture things; processes or experiences and then turn them into a video to watch back. It helps me understand and organize the experience, and even enjoy it more deeply. So, since writing a novel for the first time was such a novel experience, I wanted to document every step of the way so I'd remember it. Then, I thought sharing it would be fun for anyone else who dreams of writing a book, or for readers who are curious about the process since it seems so allusive!
Hmm, this one is tough to answer because I don't want to give anything away! But, I will say, the thing that breaks them apart is also the one thing that might have needed to happen in order for them to work in the present. Or, more specifically, what Declan learns in the past that can make him the perfect partner for Blair in the present. Blair has a lot to learn about relationships in general, but one thing I wanted to focus on was how she navigated sharing her grief, or even her motivations for her actions with her mom. Like her mom, she is more of a doer than a communicator, which to her makes sense, but in reality it causes lots of problems! Every character is acting in a way they believe is most loving, but sometimes, making choices without letting anyone into them will cause the exact opposite result you were hoping for.
Honestly looking back it's hard to remember exactly. I feel like it was both of them at the same time. The initial thought was: 'The It boy of middle/high school who's quarterback of the football team. And the girl who no one would've known the name of if it weren't for Declan.' But the thing that makes them so intertwined is how young they met and how much that friendship carries them through their adolescence. I wanted him to be born in the wealthy town of Seabrook, while Blair only ends up there because her mom was fleeing an abusive husband and her great aunt lets them live with her. So, if it weren't for Declan, she'd feel out of place in Seabrook. But because of him, she feels right at home. Inversely, Blair has loved Declan long before football became his defining trait to everyone around him, including his dad. So, when football starts ramping up, Blair's admiration of him means even more. He knows it's based on who he is, and it feels like this safe, unchangeable thing.
Definitely. The parts of the story that involve Vietnamese culture or, in particular, Blair's great aunt Lottie's story of coming to America from Vietnam are personal and true. I learn about history best through fiction, and my family's story of immigrating here during the Vietnam war is not only the reason I exist (lol I wouldn't have been born) but has also inspired me my entire life. In the story, I never mention it, but if you calculate it you'll realize that Blair is actually 25% Vietnamese whereas I'm 50%. Which I think is funny because if I were to have a daughter she would be a quarter Vietnamese like Blair. So, I think of her similarly, in that, when you have a child, they have tons of similarities to you but are also entirely different and singular.
Well, it's funny because I didn't realize I'd be writing a second chance romance at first. My thought process was: my favorite trope to read of all time is childhood friends to lovers. So, I definitely want to write that, but I want them to be adults and the childhood part to obviously be in their past. I love the yearning of both characters being so scarred by their attempt at their relationship not working out that neither of them has dated since. I also thought writing dual timelines would be easier because if you got stuck in the present you could go backwards, and it would help develop the characters so much for the present, but it turns out writing dual timelines is even harder than writing one. But what I love the most about it is the natural mystery it adds to the story. There's nothing I love more than reading a past timeline where the characters are closer than ever, they're doe-eyed and believe nothing can go wrong, and then you turn the page to the present timeline and they're barely making eye contact.
I actually had the past timeline much more mapped out than the present timeline. At first, there were way more flashbacks and I cut a lot of those scenes out. I probably wrote a whole book's worth of pages that got cut, but I was so excited by their past because it's when who they are as people are being developed and there's nothing like that feeling of first love. But I mostly wrote switching between the present and past timelines as I went. I was really excited for the part of the book where their past timeline ends, and they only have present chapters because their new love story is beginning.
I'd want them to know how much something as simple as an encouraging comment has gone for me during this process. Know that every time I share something about the book, there is even more terror than excitement behind it (and I'm extremely excited). I'm so aware that this is my first attempt at writing a novel and I have so much room to grow, but when I was scared to start, I convinced myself to by thinking: start now so that by the time you're thirty (hopefully) you'll have a few books under your belt. And with that, hopefully you'll become a better storyteller! In the meantime while you wait for Just Friends, listen to Drive by The Cars and look up a photo of a blue-footed booby.
Yes, I am obsessed with the cover! The setting of the book: Seabrook, California, was inspired by Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, and I really wanted the cover to capture some of that setting! So much so, I wanted there to be illustrations of Carmel's cypress trees on the past chapter headers. But back to the cover, I love the sunset behind the title, and the bird on the letters especially. Also, I'd love to hear what building/house they think is in the distance!
Yes: Thank you!!! The book is not even out yet but it's already been the most fulfilling and liberating (and terrifying) dream to explore. So, you supporting that journey is more than anything I could ever dream up or ask of you.
Just Friends, by Haley Pham will be released on March 3, 2026. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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Cosmopolitan
9 minutes ago
- Cosmopolitan
Pamela Anderson's October 1998 Cosmopolitan Cover Story in Full
Six decades ago, legendary editor Helen Gurley Brown took a stuffy literary magazine and transformed it into an audacious cultural tome. Cosmopolitan has kept evolving since, leading conversations with a sharp, provocative approach that's helped define entire eras of womanhood. One thing that's remained constant: our iconic cover stories, featuring definitive interviews with the leading stars of the time. Join us in revisiting the most classic ones—with their original headlines and exact wording, for better or worse, intact—for a hit of nostalgia and a deep dive into how celebrity has also evolved over the years. Dressed in tight capri pants and a tiny tee, Pamela Anderson Lee strolls through the soundstage where her new action-comedy series, VIP, is being filmed. Stopping to chat with everyone from the producers to the grips, Lee, 31, appears to be the den mother of the set. 'How's your mom?' she asks a crew member, offering to hook him up with a new doctor to help the situation. 'Let me know what I can do," she says, tenderly squeezing his arm. On the syndicated VIP, Lee plays Vallery Irons, a hotdog-stand worker who, through a zany series of events, becomes a bodyguard. Invited to a movie premiere by a Hollywood action star, Irons ends up saving the actor from a would-be assassin. Her beautiful, heroic face is splashed across front pages and magazine covers, and the owners of a protection agency decide she's just the woman to run their company. What they don't count on is that she actually likes the work and, as head of Vallery Irons Protection (VIP, get it?), becomes engrossed in her clients' problems 'This show is perfect for me. I'm producing it, so I get to decide just how ditzy Vallery acts,' says the ex-Baywatch beauty as she walks by the pool at Vallery Irons's apartment. 'I get to decide when to put on a bathing suit. And I get to decide if I save everyone—or let a few of them die!' 'Glamour, action, comedy—the show has it all,' she adds. 'For storylines, I just have to steal from my own life!" Lee cracks up at this, but when she sees a crew member stringing lights, her laughter trails off and she rushes over to him. He had hit a rough patch with his girlfriend, and Lee wants to know how things are going now. 'Did she like the flowers?' she asks. He nods, and her face lights up—she's thrilled that her idea helped smooth things over. 'Now just be nice to her and everything should be okey-dokey.' It would take a lot more than flowers to rescue Lee's own relationship. Just two days before this scene unfolded, Lee's husband—Mötley Crüe drummer and notorious bad boy Tommy Lee—began serving a six-month sentence in the Los Angeles County Jail for spousal abuse, and the couple's divorce is pending. 'I'm not gonna cry because I have to do a scene in five minutes,' Lee says, fighting back tears. 'It's been the hardest thing. It's very, very sad. It just seems so unfinished, so unresolved or whatever, and I know he really loves me, and I love him. He's my husband, he's part of me, we're definitely soul-connected—definitely—so this is really painful.' Lee swallows hard and forces a smile. 'What a year,' she says, shaking her head slowly. What a year, indeed. In May of 1997, Lee was sued for allegedly backing out of the cable-TV movie Hello, She Lied. When the lawsuit hit the news, it was reported that she had quit the project because she didn't want to appear nude onscreen, which the script called for. The real issue, however, was money. The movie's producers claimed Lee had reneged on a verbal agreement to do the movie: they went ahead and made it anyway, changing the name to Miami Hustle and hiring Kathy Ireland to replace Lee. When the film tanked, the producers sued. 'They tried to prove how much they lost by not using me—isn't that ridiculous?' Lee says. 'They sued me for $5 million and lost on every count.' Lee's legal victory was complete—the judge found she had never agreed to do the movie—but the publicity (the trial was broadcast on Court TV) was stressful. Lee says she paid a quarter of a million dollars 'defending myself on something that was totally bogus.' And to some, she came off as hypocritical for supposedly protesting about appearing nude. After all, she'd made millions as a sex symbol, and the now-infamous video of her and Tommy honeymooning in Cancún, Mexico, had been in circulation for months before the televised trial. Stolen from the Lees' Malibu home and marketed over the Internet and via an 800 number, the video shows Pamela and Tommy making love. Lee says she's loath to be quoted about the video: 'Any attention I draw to it gives another person a reason to buy it,' she says. But she does have a few choice (unprintable) words for Internet Entertainment Group (IEG), the company that has made an estimated $50 million from sales of the video. 'These guys are selling stolen property, and we're suing them full-force,' she says of her suit against IEG, which is pending in federal court. Things went from bad to worse for Pamela this past February, when she and Tommy had a violent argument at their home. He assaulted her in front of their boys, Dylan and Brandon, then just seven weeks and 18 months old, respectively. Pamela called 911, and Tommy was arrested. 'Picking up that phone was the hardest thing I ever did in my life,' she says. 'But I had to protect the kids. I've never been so afraid.' 'I catch myself some days, you know, really missing Tommy,' she continues, 'and wanting to go to his rescue like I always have. But then I tell myself, That obviously doesn't work—it's his trip and there's nothing you can do.' As traumatic as it was, Pamela's split from Tommy has been a sort of godsend for her, the catalyst for a personal transformation. She has moved in to a new house, one that's 'bright and full of flowers, not dark and gothic like our old house.' Gone is the old Pamela Lee, the one who, during a trip to Tahiti, got a primitive tattoo in a hammer-and-bamboo procedure that was so painful it made her pass out. 'I woke up, threw up violently, then went back at two in the morning to have it finished,' she says. 'I used to say, 'If you're gonna do it, overdo it.' But I'm changing my theory on life. Things need to be done, not overdone.' Now, Pamela Lee is softer, less extreme. Instead of the wild I-just-got-out-of-bed hair, she has a sleek, understated do, pulled back with a little clip. Her new look is a far cry from that of the canyon-cleavaged character she played on Baywatch from 1992 to 1996 and the leather-clad biker chick she portrayed in the action flick Barb Wire (1996). On the day she was interviewed for this story, she wore just a hint of mascara and a tiny bit of lip gloss; her freckles stood out more than her breasts. Lee trips to downplay the apparent changes, saying she's still the same old Pamela. 'I've obviously evolved, but you know what? I like being a Barbie. Half of my closet has the Barbie clothes and the other half has Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, and Versace. I'm not trying to change my image. I'm just growing.' 'It's funny, when I do photo shoots lately,' she continues, 'photographers are like, 'We want to shoot you like you've never been shot before.' And I'm like, 'Oh, God, please. Just go shoot Kate Moss if you want that natural look.' Lee's life now centers around her sons, Brandon, who will be 2 when this story comes out, and Dylan, who will be 8 months. 'My little meatballs, oh, they're so cute,' she says. Lee's VIP dressing room has turned into a playpen. Stuffed animals and toy trucks are strewn about, and the baby's crib has leopard-print sheets. 'I've been a full-blown mother since I was a little girl,' she says. 'My brother, Gerry, is four years younger than me, and I thought he was born for me. I looked after him like he was my own. I thought I'd have children before I was 20. My cousins had kids when they were 16, 17, 18. That's what I come from.' Sitting amid the baby clutter in her dressing room, Lee kicks off her shoes and sticks her feet into my lap, giggling. She does things like this now and then, playful, girlish things that belie her image as a vixen and convince you that her transformation from wild child to mellow mama might just be for real. But I have my doubts when she blurts: 'I'm sleeping with two men now—and I'm more satisfied than ever! Wanna see their pictures?' She reads the shock in my face and smiles wickedly. Then, she pulls out a photo album and opens it. 'Aren't they gorgeous?' she asks, staring adoringly at snapshots of her sons. Pamela Anderson has lived on the edge all her life. Born in Ladysmith, on Canada's Vancouver Island, she is the daughter of teenage parents, Carol and Bany Anderson, a waitress and a furnace repairman. The first place Pamela can remember living was a tiny house perched on a bluff, 80 feet above the Pacific Ocean. The family moved around a lot, and although Pamela was a good student, she cared more about her social life. As brother Gerry writes in her biography on her official website, she was nicknamed Popcorn because 'she would kind of hop when she running from the boys.' The online biography describes Pamela's childhood largely as a happy one. During high school, she was popular and active in sports (especially volleyball) and music (she played saxophone and sang in a jazz choir), and she shared a close relationship with her brother. As Gerry writes, however, 'Things were tense at home. As far as I remember, Pam and our father were at odds a back, it seemed like there was a lot of yelling going on and the only voice being heard was the old man's.' Lee is quick to come to her father's defense. 'My dad has really mellowed out,' she says. 'He's a different man now than he was when I was young.' He and her mother moved to Los Angeles two years ago to be with Lee and her brother, and to help raise Brandon and Dylan. 'Dad's very close to the boys,' she says. 'He takes them out every day to play.' 'But my mom has grown up with this bitterness—she has a lot of resentment from years ago,' Lee continues. 'She's part of the reason I've been strong about Tommy, because she always told me, 'I don't want you to stay [in an abusive marriage].'' As she grew older, Pamela yearned to leave behind her small town life in Canada; she got her chance at age 22. A fitness instructor at the time, she was 'going nowhere—and had a bad boyfriend, to boot,' Lee says. One afternoon in 1989, she attended a British Columbia Lions football game, wearing a Labatt's beer T-shirt. When a camera scanning the crowd projected her image onto the stadium's wide screen, the fans cheered wildly. Pamela's obvious sex appeal and instant popularity impressed Labatt's executives, who tracked her down and offered her a contract as their Blue Zone Girl. Needless to say, she accepted. Having achieved minor celebrity with the ad, Lee attended a fashion show in which a girlfriend of hers was modeling, and a Playboy magazine editor who happened to be there approached her about doing a pictorial and possibly even a cover. 'I asked my mother what she thought about me posing nude, and she said she would do it if they asked her, so I did it.' Later that day, Lee went to Los Angeles to do the Playboy shoot—and never returned home. Her exposure in the magazine (she appeared on the cover of the October 1989 issue) quickly led to other work. She landed the part of Lisa, The Tool Time Girl on Home Improvement, and spent two years wearing overalls and delivering wrenches and screwdrivers to Tim Allen's TV-show character. Then, after a single audition for Baywatch in 1992, she signed on to play crystal-gazing C.J. Parker, the role that brought her to the attention of more than a billion people. During Lee's four years on the syndicated program, Baywatch was the most-watched television show in the world, and it became the first American show to be broadcast in China. In 1996, when she was pregnant with Brandon, Lee quit Baywatch to develop her new show. 'I felt like it was a great opportunity,' she says of VlP, whose producer is J.F. Lawton, the writer of Pretty Woman. During her transition from Baywatch to VIP, Lee also made the aforementioned feature film, Barb Wire, playing a futuristic bounty hunter in S&M garb. Although critics panned the movie, Lee counts it as a personal success. 'I had starred in just one television show,' Lee says. 'The fact that I was offered a starring role in a film that was gonna be a theatrical release was huge for me. I was really proud. In 1993, Pamela was engaged for a short time to actor Scott Baio, and after that union fell apart, she dated producer Jon Peters, Poison lead singer Bret Michaels, TV Superman Dean Cain, former MTV host Eric Nies, and surfer Kelly Slater. Then, on February 19, 1995, she married Tommy Lee on the beach in Cancún. The couple had met four short days earlier. 'It was a love-at-first-sight kind of thing,' Pamela says. 'There was a real strong attraction.' The bride wore a teeny white bikini and sunglasses; the groom was in nothing but cut-offs, proudly displaying the tattoos that cover his body (MAYHEM is written in huge letters across his stomach). The Lees certainly wasted no time starting a family (Brandon was born June 5, 1996). 'He has a lot of good qualities,' Pamela says of Tommy. 'I know he always wanted to be a father, and I thought he'd be a terrific dad.' Concentrating on her work has helped Lee rebound from the emotional trauma of her split from Tommy. It has brought a routine to her life, which is exactly what she needs now. 'I want things to be normal for a while, whatever the hell that means,' she says. Really, she knows exactly what it means: concentrating on her work, raising her boys, spending time with her family. 'Pamela's a lot smarter than she lets on,' says J.F. Lawton. 'It suits her needs to play innocent, but she's smart and shrewd and knows exactly what she wants.' What she says she doesn't want is to follow her usual romantic pattern and dive right in with another man (even if the tabloids hinted in August that she was seeing former boyfriend Kelly Slater). 'People talk to me about men these days and I just cringe,' she says. 'First of all, I'm still married to Tommy. Plus, I am so not interested in men now. I've never really been alone. I've always been, well, an overlapper in the boyfriend department. But I have two beautiful children, so I am very fulfilled.' 'And I'm working really hard, so I can't imagine even having time right now for men, or even for Tommy. If I ever meet another guy, he's going to have to be really great for me to allow him in my life with my children, and he's going to have to realize that I have three children, not just two; that Tommy's like another child, and he's always going to be in my life.' Lee holds out her left hand, displaying the tattoo on her ring finger. It reads TOMMY. 'I'm thinking of changing it to MOMMY,' she says. Lee says she now talks to Tommy occasionally in monitored telephone calls that he places from jail. 'You know, he has to change. He's in there, he's doing therapy, and when he gets out, we'll see what happens. I really don't believe that we'll ever be together again, but he's always going to be the father of my children. So, I support his growth as a human being—I want him to be a good dad.' 'Last Mother's Day,' she continues, 'he sent me a card. Inside. he wrote, 'It must've been really hard being a mother to all three of us, looking after us.' He knows what's going on; it's not just an overnight thing for him to get better.'
Cosmopolitan
6 hours ago
- Cosmopolitan
Britney Spears' February 2002 Cosmopolitan Cover Story in Full
Six decades ago, legendary editor Helen Gurley Brown took a stuffy literary magazine and transformed it into an audacious cultural tome. Cosmopolitan has kept evolving since, leading conversations with a sharp, provocative approach that's helped define entire eras of womanhood. One thing that's remained constant: our iconic cover stories, featuring definitive interviews with the leading stars of the time. Join us in revisiting the most classic ones—with their original headlines and exact wording, for better or worse, intact—for a hit of nostalgia and a deep dive into how celebrity has also evolved over the years. If you don't know who Britney Spears is, the only explanation is that you've been living on another planet for the past few years. After all, the transfixing 20-year-old is the dominating force of pop music and pop culture today. Turn on MTV at any given hour and you're likely to catch one of her sexy videos in heavy rotation. Flip on the radio and you'll probably hear one of the hits off her superhot new album, Britney. Drive down Any-Highway USA and chances are good that you'll spot the sassy songstress-cum-pitchwoman striking a provocative pose on a huge Pepsi billboard. But as much as you may have seen or heard of Britney, you may not really know the woman (yep, make no mistake—she's all grown up) that Cosmo is honoring as the Fun Fearless Female of the Year. This one calls the shots when it comes to her multimillion-dollar career, her image, and her personal life with boyfriend and fellow pop-music sensation Justin Timberlake of the chart-topping group 'NSync. 'I started off at a young age, so people had the habit of treating me like a child and taking things into their own hands,' she says while curling up in a chair on a giant soundstage in Universal Studios, Orlando, where her Cosmo cover shoot is taking place between rehearsals for her tour. 'But there was a point when I just needed to stand up and say, 'No, this is what I want to do, and this is how many days I want off, and this is how I want it to go.' I've done that with everything this year.' She's also taken some major risks. Her latest album is a meatier, edgier compilation that toys with rock much more than her previous pop albums and includes five songs that Britney penned on her own. And as if straying from her past proven formula wasn't ballsy enough, she's about to venture into the world of acting with her big-screen debut this month in Crossroads, a coming-of-age flick about three high school girls who bond on a cross-country road trip. Here, the incredibly down-to-earth Britney reveals what she does for fun (it has something to do with Justin), the fearless move she doesn't regret, and when she feels the most feminine. Born in Kentwood, Louisiana, Britney was raised by her mother, Lynn, a former schoolteacher, and her father Jamie, a contractor. At age 8, she convinced her mom to drive her to Atlanta to audition for the revived Mickey Mouse Club TV show. She didn't get the part, but a casting director referred Britney to an agent in New York City. Britney and her mom made several trips to New York, and a year later, she enrolled in New York City's Professional Performing Arts School. Nine-year-old Britney moved with her mom and newborn sister, Jamie Lynne, to the Big Apple, leaving her dad and brother Bryan, 13, at home in Kentwood. The Spears women lived in a sublet apartment in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen. 'It was really hard. It's very expensive, and coming from a small town in Louisiana…we weren't even financially stable there,' she says. Not only that, but several extended family members protested the idea of Britney pursuing her dream with the help of her mother in New York City. Within a few years, it all ended when, while doing a six-month run of the off-Broadway play Ruthless, Britney learned she'd have to perform on Christmas. 'I was like, 'No way.' I was only 11.' The day before they left, Britney auditioned again for the Mickey Mouse Club, and this time, she got the part. Britney performed in the Orlando-based show with stars like Christina Aguilera, Felicity's Keri Russell, and Justin. The show lasted only two seasons before it was canceled, and then Britney headed back to Kentwood to resume normal teenage life. 'I did the prom thing, had my first serious boyfriend,' she says. But soon, New York was calling again. At 15, she got an audition for Jive Records, which signed her. Now, four years later, Britney is on her third hit album. The latest debuted at number one and sold close to 746,000 copies in the first week—it was the second-highest debut of the year. Critics speculated that her new, slightly edgier sound might alienate her rabid teen-pop fan base. And while she's successfully gotten over that hurdle with this album, it's a fact that Britney is totally aware of for future projects. She admits, 'I have grown as a person, so it's only natural that I'm going to grow as an artist too. I just hope and pray that my fans grow with me.' It should come as no surprise that Britney is now venturing into movies. After all, her shows are so elaborate that each concert is almost a mini piece of theater. According to Ann Carli, the producer of Crossroads, Britney is a true natural when it comes to acting chops. 'She has dramatic and comedic ability as well as a charisma that transcends anything I have seen in her videos,' says Carli. Although Britney only had a week of formal acting training for the movie, she made it easier on herself by having a say in the script—she actually came up with the plot—so she felt comfortable with the character. 'I had the concept for the movie for a very long time, and I talked to my manager, and he got an amazing writer. I talked to her about the idea, and she elaborated on it,' she says. 'And then I was like, Well, I'm just going to take this chance.' She's not worried about the fate of recent pop singers trying to act, like Mariah Carey in Glitter or 'NSync's Joey and Lance in On the Line—both flops. 'I could relate to the character, but I'm not playing myself,' she says. Britney's also not headlining the movie—it's an ensemble cast. That takes the pressure off a little bit since she's not the only actor in the hot seat. Best of all, Britney is good in the role, and she's captivating to watch onscreen. 'This is a movie for my fans—a total girlfriend film. And if they can go watch it and have a good feeling, that's all that matters to me,' she says. 'This is the thing that I've done that I'm proudest of.' Britney also has the temperament to handle yet another aspect of fame. Despite her success, she still remains the sweet Southern girl who says please and thank you and calls everyone ma'am or sir. As for other movies, Britney's totally game. 'Movie stars have it made, seriously,' she says. 'There's so much waiting around during filming. It's a laid-back process.' Of course, anything seems laid-back to a chick who hit 28 cities in 50 days on her recent concert tour. 'I don't have as much energy as I had three years ago,' she says. 'For this tour, I had weekends off and was in the same city for three or four days.' A less rigid tour schedule helps Britney stick with her newfound priority of separating her personal life from her work 'This is my job,' she says, referring to the music, the movie, the touring, and the publicity. 'This is not my life. My life is God and my family and my boyfriend.' Of course, Justin is a star in his own right, making their time together difficult to plan. The two have been going out for almost three years—although only publicly for the last year and a half. 'The first two years we were going out were really hard because we were never able to see each other, so we were just going off of love. We have such a strong unexplainable connection—the force is like a magnet. We just had to stay together, and we knew it. These days, more control over their careers means more one-on-one time. 'We've been spending a lot of time with each other. I have seen him now for five weeks in a row,' she says with a smile. Although Britney had one serious boyfriend in high school, Justin is really the love of her life. He was her first kiss back in the Mickey Mouse days. 'It was during truth or dare, and we were listening to Janet Jackson. I remember it like it was yesterday,' she gushes. If Britney has it her way, Justin will be her last kiss as well. 'I hope that I will be with him for the rest of my life. I really do,' she says simply. Justin is clearly doing his part to keep Britney smitten. For her last birthday, he planned a trip to Pebble Beach. 'There was a fireplace in our room, and we had our own pool. There were pink rose petals throughout the whole place and—I know it's kinda cheesy, but I like cheesy stuff and it's cute—Justin spelled out my name in rose petals on the bed,' she says. Of course, dating a pop icon isn't easy on the ego for either of them when it comes to sexy scenes with others. Britney had her first love scene in Crossroads with newcomer Anson Mount, something she wasn't too psyched about. 'It was just awkward. And then I saw it onscreen, and it looked so real. But it's nothing because I didn't feel anything,' she says. But when the role was reversed and Britney watched Justin's onscreen canoodling in his video 'Gone,' she had a hard time remembering that. 'You could have just taken a knife and stabbed me. I was devastated. Devastated,' she says of her first viewing. 'I stormed into the bathroom. I was like, 'Don't talk to me for a second. I need a moment, please.' It was just too much for me.' Of course, the couple talked through it, but now, Britney deals with Justin's sexy videos by not watching them. Having more time for her beau isn't the only good thing about Britney's latest tour. The star, who was voted by Forbes magazine in its 2001 100 Top Celebrities list as the fourth-most-powerful star, is now using her might to give back. Not only has she created The Britney Spears Foundation, which offers a performing-arts summer camp for underprivileged kids, but Britney donated $1 from every ticket sold during her recent 31-show tour to the children of the New York police officers and firefighters lost on September 11. When Britney's not playing the power mogul, stage diva, or movie star—which doesn't leave a lot of time—she's pretty much like any other 20-year-old. She does yoga to stay in shape, is super into fashion, and loves to hang with her girlfriends. 'I love stuff from Bebe and Rampage, and I like taking my jeans to the Denim Doctors in L.A. They will take them and lower them to make them fit really well,' she says. And though she feels the most feminine when she's just around the house—she's bought herself a mansion in L.A. and a loft in New York—in a tee shirt and jeans, she admits she's a sucker for a great pair of heels. Britney's idea of a great weekend involves one of her favorite indulgences—a massage or a manicure or having a girls-only weekend. She recently flew her closest friends in to spend a weekend at a hotel, 'sitting in bed and eating ice cream and ordering room service and watching TV,' she says. 'Oh, and we talk about all the silly guy stories and who is dating who.' Sounds pretty normal for a 20-year-old, right? That may have something to do with the fact that Britney has finally figured out how to be who she wants to be despite her ever-growing fame. 'I think I've really grown into myself over the past year, and it's a good feeling to know who you are and what you want. I bought my own house and live on my own. I've just come into my own, from being a teenager into growing into the person I want to be and living up to my fullest potential. That's a cool thing,' she says, then runs off to go rehearse.
Cosmopolitan
6 hours ago
- Cosmopolitan
Margaret Qualley and Jack Antonoff's Astrological Compatibility
Margaret Qualley and Jack Antonoff seem to have it made. For one, they're both excelling on the career front—it seems like Jack is constantly producing a hit pop album, and Margaret stays leading critically-acclaimed feature films. But based on the way that they talk about their relationship, finding each other has been their greatest blessing. "Falling in love with Jack was the biggest feeling I've ever felt," Margaret shared in her Cosmopolitan cover story. "I spent so many years trying to be someone's perfect girl, and that girl changed over and over again. But I can't lie to Jack. I can't be that for him—he'd see through it. So I just have to be myself. He's been the person I've pictured my whole life." The pair started dating in 2021 and got married two years later at a star-studded celebration in Jack's home state of New Jersey (Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, and Zoë Kravitz were all in attendance). And before they were even together, not-so-subtle moves were being made to set them up. "We'd heard rumors [Jack] was looking for forever love," Margaret's sister Rainey told Cosmopolitan. "So when there was a small party on the roof and I had a bit too much to drink, I proceeded to tell Jack that he needed to date my sister!" So yes, everything about their love story seems like a that's probably because it was written in the stars. Jack's an Aries, Margaret's a Scorpio, and both of those signs are ruled by Mars, the planet of action and passion. Now that usually indicates a pair will be high drama with an incredibly fiery dynamic, but a closer look at their birth charts shows that Margaret and Jack are nothing of the sort. In fact, despite their global fame, they share a harmonious, comfortable, and pretty liberating inner life that makes them feel truly at home. That said, we went ahead and broke down the duo's birth charts to find out what makes their love story so special. Read on to find out for yourself. [OR WHATEVER LITTLE KICKER YOU WANT!]] There's a lot of deep Scorpio energy in this relationship. Margaret's Scorpio Sun sits close to Jack's Mars and Pluto in Scorpio, meaning they've got great physical chemistry, and the relationship has been super transformative for them both. This astrological overlay also explains why it was love at first sight for these two. 'We met right as COVID was ending, at the first party I'd been to,' Margaret shared in her Cosmo cover story. We saw each other on a roof, and we just started talking and never stopped.' Couples who share this synastry often find themselves immediately drawn to each other, and it can be scary how deep things get early on. Margaret and Jack share this astro aspect in Scorpio, a sign defined by its intense nature. That only magnifies the all-encompassing "this is the one" feeling they both had from the beginning. The ballad "Margaret" by Lana Del Rey and Jack's band The Bleachers is a tribute to their romance, but it captures the way this all-encompassing astrological aspect plays out well, too. "He met Margaret on our rooftop, she was wearing white/And he was like, "I might be in trouble"/He had flashes of the good life." This is the couple whose banter sounds like a foreign language to outside listeners. Their conversations about everything from the weather to global politics are animated, and it's because they come from super different schools of thought. These competing attitudes and perspectives will keep their dynamic fresh and entertaining. Margaret's Mercury, the planet of communication, is in the sign of Libra—so she's pretty diplomatic and likes to hear out both sides of any issue. It sits opposite Jack's Sun in Aries, which makes him a quick decision maker and unafraid of conflict. Their communication styles may contrast, but that keeps things interesting. Jack's Venus, the planet of love, is in a harmonious trine with Margaret's Jupiter, the planet of luck and expansion (aka their planets are in the same astrological element). This synastry aspect says that two people will share similar tastes and find it very easy to build a life together. Neither one feels forced to compromise when they're discussing plans for the future. They're naturally aligned on what they desire regarding home and family—be that where they live, how many kids they'll have, or which side of the family they'll stay with during the holidays. They both trust and understand what the other wants, and don't feel a need to question it.
