On 21 March 2020, the anonymous woman behind the Instagram account known only as DeuxMoi posted a message on an old account that had become dormant.
“Ok, better than… my amazing & captivating commentary… DM me any celeb stories (first or second hand) you are willing to share.” It didn’t take long for the responses to come in, the encounters to be shared, and the followers to rack up.
While those who don’t spend hours on the social media site may never have heard of DeuxMoi, to many it is the go-to source for pop culture, posting behind-the-scenes stories, anecdotes and rumours from insiders, as well as celeb sightings, casting info, and even details of who tips well at restaurants – and who doesn’t. (Tipping, especially the difference between UK and US stars, is a hot topic.)
Followers share their encounters and inside info, DeuxMoi reposts their stories; only moderated to sometimes remove a name or identifying details, should the sender not want to disclose. These are known as “blinds” – leaving followers to do their own detective work.
Speaking to Sky News, the nameless woman behind the account insists her content is mainly innocuous and isn’t presented as fact or as if she is an authority, but “in reality, the audience is on the same journey I am to finding out the truth about a rumour. We’re all in it together”.
DeuxMoi says she makes it clear she is not a journalist, nor a Hollywood insider. “Curators of pop culture,” reads the bio. “Some statements made on this account have not been independently confirmed. This account does not claim information published is based in fact.”
But many of the followers are. From publicists, assistants and nannies to record label workers, TV runners, restaurant workers and even celebs themselves, many are willing to spill the tea. As a result, DeuxMoi has been first with some big celeb stories, such as Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles‘ relationship, and Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s break-up.
While some celebs understandably aren’t fans, there are others who can’t get enough. Kardashian herself has reportedly described it as “the Bible”, Cardi B and Chrissy Teigen are among the account’s followers, and Drew Barrymore recently interviewed Deux on her podcast, Drew’s News.
There is now merchandise. A podcast. A recently released novel, Anon Pls – referencing the request by all titbit submitters to keep their names private. And in the works, according to reports, a HBO drama.
More than just gossip?
There is an obvious argument against unverified stories being shared publicly. DeuxMoi appears to have filled the hole left by many celeb gossip mags of the noughties as they toned down – but with a follower count of 1.7m and rising, there is clearly an appetite for it.
Most is low-stakes. The “blinds” are for the content that is less so. In an era in which the rich and famous have almost complete control over the content they put out on social media, the appeal seems to be that this is unfiltered. DeuxMoi says the account is not just about gossip. Growing during the pandemic, as people were stuck at home, it created connection, she says.
“Drew, she understood, like, the humanistic side to it,” she says, speaking about her interview with Barrymore and the A-lister’s love of the site (she is also among its followers).
“In quarantine, when everything was closed down, people were sending in stories from five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it was almost like a study in like human interaction. Like, how certain celebrities would interact with fans or how they would be at certain points in their career. I felt like Drew understood that aspect of the account and didn’t take it… as just a gossip account, because I do think it’s more than that.”
While there has been much speculation about her identity – with names reported in the US – DeuxMoi says who she is doesn’t matter. “I don’t think it’s an important factor. I’m not posting about myself.”
We know she lives in New York and she doesn’t use anything to alter her voice, she says, so apparently I’m hearing the real DeuxMoi. There are about 20 people in total, close friends and family members, who know her identity. At first, she was holding down a job and running DeuxMoi at the same time – living in constant “anxiety” for fear she might be unmasked. Now, DeuxMoi is the job.
And while she remains nameless, most celebrities are certainly aware of DeuxMoi. In an interview with Rolling Stone around the release of her fourth album in November 2021, Adele joked about the difficulties of dating. “You can’t set me up on a f****** blind date! I’m like, ‘How’s that going to work?’ There’ll be paparazzi outside and someone will call DeuxMoi, or whatever it’s f****** called! It ain’t happening.”
Rihanna headlining Glastonbury (rumours) and the next Bond…
Two rumours the account has posted about recently: Rihanna apparently headlining Glastonbury, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson being named as the next James Bond.
She addresses Rihanna first: “I want to go on record saying I don’t know how reliable that information is, but she has new music, she’s doing the Super Bowl. Her name has been thrown around for Coachella. Somebody wrote in and said she was close to confirming. But I’d like to say I don’t know how reliable that information is, so not to get everyone’s hopes up.”
British actor and Marvel star Aaron Taylor-Johnson she is more confident about. “Someone messaged me yesterday with some information that I can’t share because that would probably give them away. But he’s being heavily considered, if not already chosen.”
The Bond information “came from somebody I’ve been messaging with for years and they’ve given me information about stuff in the past”, she says. “The Glastonbury information came out of the blue from somebody I don’t really know.” This is how she differentiates “something from being reliable to not very reliable”, or not knowingly reliable.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson: the next 007? Pic: AP/Lee Jin-man
Most recently, mentions of Styles and Wilde in her messages have been on the rise following their break-up. “People think they are fake broken-up,” she says. “So there’s interest in that.”
As the account has grown, she now has several people she considers trusted sources for information. “I won’t give a number but [I have] a handful of people I trust explicitly.”
With 1.7 million followers, there must be a sense of responsibility? She says there are certain issues, and celebrities, she won’t share information about. “I don’t like to post about somebody’s sexuality unless it’s been discussed publicly. And anything to do with anyone under the age of 18. Also… I really wouldn’t feel comfortable posting about things that have to do with rehab.”
Information that might have legal implications, she says she also passes on – but will sometimes give the information to journalists to investigate. And there are five individual celebrities you won’t see featured in DeuxMoi posts either, she says – two she says have made their feelings clear publicly, and three she has had private conversations with.
But there are celebrities and brands who want to be associated with DeuxMoi; the brand she has built has earned her invites to all sorts of exclusive events. She says she doesn’t accept. “I’ve been out in New York to restaurants that are celebrity-frequented that I post about all the time, I’ve sat very close to celebrities who I DM (direct message) with, and it did not make me feel good.”
The celebs on the DeuxMoi nice list
Pic: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Following the release of Anon Pls, a novel based on the story of DeuxMoi – mixing stories of fictional celebrities with real ones – there is now the TV show to prepare for. “It’s being produced by Greg Berlanti,” [The Flight Attendant, Batwoman, Free Guy, Dawson’s Creek] she says. “They are securing writers right now and the person who was named to me, I can’t say who because it’s not 100% signed, sealed, delivered. But it’s exciting, so cool.”
DeuxMoi ends the interview on the question anyone who works in the entertainment industry always gets asked: which celebs are the good ones? Giving the caveat again that these are not based on her own experiences, but on positive intel, she reels off a list of names: “Drew Barrymore, Paris Hilton, Hugh Jackman, Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore… I don’t know if this one is going to be controversial, but Will Smith, he was always someone that, stories were submitted about him and he always [seemed] like really, really nice to people he’d meet.
“Tom Cruise, another one who conducts himself very professionally and in that same manner. Oh, and Harry Styles, obviously. Those are the ones I think stand out. Colin Farrell, he’s a name that always comes up. Oh and Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe. The Harry Potter kids, always nice. And the Jonas Brothers.”
But, she adds, you have to take into consideration “what type of environment… is it a red carpet event? Like, of course a celebrity’s going to be nice at a red carpet event!”
And DeuxMoi is diplomatic about the not-so-nice ones, choosing not to name names. “I haven’t had personal experiences with these people. Somebody could have caught them on a bad day, do you know what I mean? We’re all human, right?”
You’ll have to read the posts and decide for yourselves.
The Menendez brothers’ bid for freedom through resentencing can continue with the hearing scheduled for Thursday, a judge has ruled.
Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, received life sentences without the possibility of parole after being convicted of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, at their Beverly Hills home in 1989.
Lyle was 21 at the time, Erik was 18.
Last year, Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon asked a judge to change the brothers’ sentence from life without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life. That would make them immediately eligible for parole because they committed the crime when they were younger than 26.
But Mr Gascon’s successor Nathan Hochman submitted a motion last month to withdraw the resentencing request, saying the brothers must fully acknowledge lies they told about the murder of their parents before he would support their release from prison.
Separately, Governor Gavin Newsom, who has the power to commute their sentences, has asked the parole board to consider whether the brothers would represent a public safety risk if released.
Anamaria Baralt, cousin of Erik and Lyle Menendez, hugs attorney Mark Geragos. Pic: AP
In light of Mr Hochman’s opposition, Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Michael Jesic ruled on Friday that the court can move forward with the hearing.
“Everything you argued today is absolutely fair game for the resentencing hearing next Thursday,” he said.
From prison, the brothers watched through a video link and could be seen in court seated next to each other in blue.
Speaking after the hearing, the brothers’ lawyer said: “Today is a good day. Justice won over politics.”
Prosecutors accused the brothers of killing their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance, although their defence team argued they acted out of self-defence after years of sexual abuse by their father.
The brothers were convicted in 1996 of first-degree murder. Pic: AP
The brothers have maintained their parents abused them since they were first charged with the murders.
A Netflix drama series and subsequent documentary about the brothers thrust them back into the spotlight last year, and led to renewed calls for their release – including from some members of their family.
Entertainment
Erin Brockovich: ‘My chiropractor saw mud on my stiletto – I said, I’ve been collecting dead frogs’
Erin Brockovich says a chance conversation about a muddy stiletto with her chiropractor led to the making of the award-winning film about her life.
The climate activist, who was played by Julia Roberts in the movie, told Sky News: “My girlfriend, who was a chiropractor, was giving me a chiropractic adjustment and asked me why I had mud on my stilettos.
“I said, ‘Oh, I’ve been collecting dead frogs’. She goes, ‘What is wrong with you?’ So, I started telling her what I was doing.”
Then just a junior paralegal, Brockovich was in fact pulling together evidence that would see her emerge victorious from one of the largest cases of water contamination in US history in Hinkley, California.
Her hard work would see her win a record settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric Company – $333m (£254m) – but that was all still to come.
Little did Brockovich know, but her tale of a muddy stiletto would get back to actor Danny DeVito and his Jersey Films producing partner Michael Schamburg, and through them to the film’s director Steven Soderbergh.
Brockovich says Soderbergh was “wowed” by what he heard.
She says he realised her image “was something that Hollywood might be drawn to that I was never thinking of – the short skirt, the attitude, the big bust, the stilettos, the backcombed hair. Somehow, it came together.”
‘I was always going to be misunderstood’
Released in 2000, the powerful story of one woman’s fight for justice made Brockovich a household name, and the film won actress Julia Roberts an Oscar.
Now, 25 years on, Brockovich says she believes her legal victory was helped in part by an unlikely ally – her learning difficulty.
Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe win best actress and actor at
the 2001 Oscars. Pic: AP/Richard Drew
Brockovich says: “Had I not been dyslexic, I might have missed Hinkley.”
Recently named a global ambassador for charity Made By Dyslexia, she’s been aware of her learning differences since childhood and still struggles today.
She says “moments of low self-esteem” still “creep back in”, and she long ago accepted “I was always going to be misunderstood”.
But for Brockovich, recognising her dyslexic strengths while working in Hinkley proved a pivotal moment: “My observations are wickedly keen. I feel like a human radar some days… Things you might not see as a pattern, I recognise. There are things that intuitively, I absolutely know.
“It will take me some time in my visual patterns of what I’m seeing, how to organise that. And it was in Hinkley that that moment happened for me because it was so omnipresent [and] in my face. Everything that should have been normal was not.”
‘A huge perfect storm’
Brockovich paints a bleak picture of what she saw in the small town: “The trees were secreting poison, the cows were covered in tumours, the chickens had wry neck [a neurological condition that causes the head to tilt abnormally], the people were sick and unbeknown to them, I knew they were all having the exact same health patterns. To the green water, to the two-headed frog, all of that was just I was like on fire, like electricity going, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going on out here?'”
She describes it as “a huge, perfect storm that came together for me in Hinkley”.
But a side effect of the movie – overnight global fame – wasn’t always easy to deal with.
Pic. Made By Dyslexia
Brockovich calls it “scary,” admitting, “when the film first came out the night of the premiere, I was literally shaking so bad, I was so overwhelmed, that Universal Studios said, ‘If we can’t get you to calm down, I think we need to take you home’. It was a lot”.
Brockovich says she kept grounded by staying focused on her work, her family and her three children.
With Hollywood not always renowned for its faithful adherence to fact, Brockovich says the film didn’t whitewash the facts.
“I think they really did a good job at pointing out our environmental issues. Hollywood can do that, they can tell a good story. And I’m glad it was not about fluff and glamour. I’m glad it was about a subject that oftentimes we don’t want to talk about. Water pollution, environmental damage. People being poisoned.”
‘Defend ourselves against environmental assaults’
While environmental awareness is now part of the daily conversation in a way it wasn’t a quarter of a century ago, the battle to protect the climate is far from over.
Just last month, Donald Trump laid out plans to slash over 30 climate and environmental regulations as part of an ongoing effort to boost US industries from coal to manufacturing and ramp up oil and minerals production.
In response, Brockovich says, “We’re not going to stop it, but we can defend against these environmental assaults.
“We can do better with infrastructure. We can do better on a lot of policy-making. I think there’s a moment here. We have to do that because the old coming into the new isn’t working.
“I’ve recognised the patterns for 30-plus years, we just keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over again, expecting a different result.
“For me, sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, just get your ego out of the way’. We have to accept that this might be something greater than us, but we can certainly defend ourselves and protect ourselves and prepare ourselves better so we can get through that storm.”
You can listen to Brockovich speaking about her dyslexia with Made By Dyslexia founder Kate Griggs on the first episode of the new season of the podcast Lessons In Dyslexic Thinking, wherever you get your podcasts.
Entertainment
Ex-Abercrombie & Fitch chief executive Mike Jeffries ‘unfit to stand trial due to dementia’, prosecutors and defence team say
Abercrombie & Fitch’s former chief executive is not fit to stand trial on sex trafficking charges as he is suffering from dementia, both prosecutors and his lawyers have said.
Mike Jeffries has Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and the “residual effects of a traumatic brain injury”, his defence attorneys wrote in a letter filed at a federal court in Central Islip, New York.
The 80-year-old needs around-the-clock care, they added, citing evaluations by medical professionals.
Prosecutors and defence lawyers are calling for Jeffries to be placed in the custody of the federal bureau of prisons for up to four months. They say he should be admitted to hospital to have treatment that could allow his criminal case to proceed.
The business tycoon, who led fashion retailer A&F from 1992 to 2014, pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges in October, and was released on a $10m (£7.65m) bond.
A total of 15 men allege they were induced by “force, fraud and coercion” to engage in drug-fuelled sex parties.
Prosecutors have accused Jeffries, his partner Matthew Smith, and the couple’s alleged “recruiter” James Jacobson, of luring men to parties in New York City, the Hamptons and other locations, by dangling the prospect of modelling for A&F advertisements.
Smith and Jacobson have also pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
‘Progressive and incurable’
In their latest letter on Jeffries’ health, his defence lawyers said at least four medical professionals had concluded his cognitive issues are “progressive and incurable”, and that he will not “regain his competency and cannot be restored to competency in the future”.
These issues “significantly impair” his ability to understand the charges against him, they wrote.
Jeffries’ partner Matthew Smith, pictured outside the court in December, has also pleaded not guilty. Pic: AP
Read more from Sky News:
Tech executive and family die after helicopter crashes in New York
‘Wolf of Wall Street’ speaks to Sky News about Trump tariffs
“The progressive nature of his neurocognitive disorder ensures continued decline over time, further diminishing his already limited functional capacity,” said Dr Alexander Bardey, a forensic psychiatrist, and Dr Cheryl Paradis, a forensic psychologist, following evaluations made in December.
“It is, therefore, our professional opinion, within a reasonable degree of psychological and psychiatric certainty, that Mr Jeffries is not competent to proceed in the current case and cannot be restored to competency in the future.”
Jeffries left A&F in 2014 after leading the company for more than two decades, taking the retailer from a hunting and outdoor goods store founded in 1892 to a fixture of early 2000s fashion.
His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests by the Associated Press news agency for comment. The US attorney’s office for the eastern district of New York declined to comment.
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