British vloggers Dan Howell and Phil Lester — known for their gaming and comedic slice-of-life style videos — are taking ownership of their long-rumored romance after more than a decade of incessant fan “shipping” online.
The longtime collaborators revealed Monday that they have been dating for more than a decade, pretty much since they gained popularity in the late aughts. The YouTubers confirmed they have been an item in a 46-minute video titled “Are Dan and Phil in a Relationship?”
“We fell into it hard and fast in 2009,” Howell, 34, said. “And here we are almost 16 years later.”
Before Howell and Lester, 38, spoke about the origins of their couple-dom, the YouTubers— who both came outas gay in 2019 — talked extensively about why they waited go public with their relationship. First, they tackled some fans’ obsessive behavior.
Howell and Lester began appearing in each other’s YouTube videos in the late aughts and eventually, in 2014, launched their shared gaming channel — that page currently boasts 2.95 million subscribers. The pair documented their lives together, opening the door for fans to speculate on their relationship and foster a parasocial connection, Howell explained in the video. Among the most prominent internet personalities at the time, Howell and Lester often became the subject of fan fiction and fan edits on Tumblr.
“Some think that shipping real-life people is problematic. I think that humans cannot stop this natural tendency,” Howell said, later adding that “a line gets crossed” when fan speculation turns into investigation.
The pair recalled fans combing through their old social media posts, reaching out to their loved ones and filming them out in the real world. “If all this digging, investigating was small it could’ve been ignored,” Lester said.
“The problem is this became so big we could not ignore it,” Howell continued.
Howell and Lester also recalled fans dissecting their on-camera interactions and spreading the romance rumors during live events. Ultimately, the rumors became “too loud to ignore,” Lester said.
Howell said he was wary about how going public with Lester would impact their professional dynamic and spoke candidly about how his struggles with his sexuality affected their relationship.
“I had an extremely homophobic childhood,” Howell said, adding that the constant fan pressure to address the rumors took a toll on his mental health. He said that when he and Lester gained popularity he felt he “had to hide the relationship because I was still hiding who I was to my friends, family, myself.”
Online chatter didn’t help and “hit a nerve,” he said. Howell said Lester was “like a literal ray of light in my life back then” and committed to protecting their relationship.
“So when other people tried to grab it and drag it into the light, I felt completely violated,” Howell continued. “Having all of these people trying to out us and being so hostile to me when I tried to hide it was so triggering. Honestly, it could’ve killed me.”
Lester added: “It’s sad because those should’ve been the happiest times of our life. It was so amazing and we were having so much fun personally.”
Invasive fan behavior hung over their success “like a curse” and that led to anxiety and panic attacks, Howell said. Lester also recalled a “breaking point” in their relationship where a personal video leaked on YouTube and spread online, with re-posters refusing to take it down.
As they acknowledged the negative impact of some fans’ invasive behavior, the YouTubers said they don’t hold a grudge. Howell said the skeptics “were just young people that had absolutely no idea what the effects of their actions were.”
“In the same way that we all want people in our lives to give us patience and grace and benefit of the doubt if we ever make a mistake, I have to extend that to the world in regards to this story,” he added. “So I understand and I forgive.”
Howell and Lester, whose work also includes BBC Radio programming and several live tours, ended their video announcing the launch of a new podcast.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Five years after protests roiled Portland, Oregon, the city known for its history of civil disobedience is again at the center of a political maelstrom as it braces for the arrival of federal troops being deployed by President Donald Trump.
Months of demonstrations outside Portland’s immigration detention facility have escalated after conservative influencer Nick Sortor was arrested late Thursday on a disorderly conduct charge by Portland Police.
On Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency would send additional federal agents. She also said the Justice Department was launching a civil rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding Sortor’s arrest, and whether Portland Police engage in viewpoint discrimination.
Meanwhile, a federal judge heard arguments Friday — but did not immediately rule — on whether to temporarily block Trump’s call-up of 200 Oregon National Guard members to protect the ICE facility and other federal buildings.
The escalation of federal law enforcement in Portland, population 636,000 and Oregon’s largest city, follows similar crackdowns to combat crime in other cities, including Chicago, Baltimore and Memphis. He deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles over the summer and as part of his law enforcement takeover in Washington, D.C.
A conservative influencer arrested in Portland
Sortor, 27, who’s a regular guest on Fox News and whose X profile has more than 1 million followers, was arrested Thursday night with two other people outside the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. He is set to be arraigned on Monday.
What exactly led up to the arrests was not immediately clear. Portland police said in a news release that officers observed two men fighting and one of the men was knocked to the ground. Neither of the men wanted to file a police report. Police moved in about three hours later, as fights continued to break out, and arrested Sorter and two others.
All three were charged with second-degree disorderly conduct. Sorter was released Friday on his own recognizance, according to Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office’s online records. An email seeking comment from Sortor sent Friday went unanswered and no one answered phone numbers listed for him.
In a post on X on Friday morning, Sortor said his arrest proved that Portland Police are corrupt and controlled by “vioIent Antifa thugs who terrorize the streets.”
“You thought arresting me would make me shut up and go away,” he wrote.
Sortor also said that Attorney General Pam Bondi had ordered an investigation into the circumstances of his arrest and of the Portland Police Bureau.
A history of Portland protests led to this moment
Portland famously erupted in more than 100 days of sustained, nightly protests in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement. In his first term, Trump sent federal law enforcement to the city to protect the U.S. District Courthouse in the heart of Portland after protests attracted thousands of people following George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police.
The presence of the federal agents further inflamed the situation, with federal officers repeatedly firing rubber bullets and teargassing protestors. Viral videos captured militarized federal officers, often unidentified, arresting people and hustling them into unmarked vehicles.
At the same time, Portland police were unable to keep ahead of splinter groups of black-clad protesters who broke off and roamed the downtown area, at times breaking windows, spraying graffiti and setting small fires in moments that were also captured on video and shared widely on social media.
A report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that while the federal government had legal authority to deploy the officers, many of them lacked the training and equipment needed to carry out the mission.
The tensions reached a peak in September 2020 when a self-identified member of the far-left anti-fascist movement fatally shot 39-year-old Aaron “Jay” Danielson in the chest. Danielson and a friend were seen heading downtown to protect a flag-waving caravan of Trump supporters shortly before the shooting.
The shooter, Michael Forest Reinoehl, was himself later shot and killed when he pulled a gun as a federal task force attempted to apprehend him near Lacey, Washington.
A different context for today’s protests
The situation in Portland is very different now.
There’s been a sustained and low-level protest outside the Portland ICE facility — far from the downtown clashes of 2020 — since Trump took office in January. Those protests flared in June, during the national protests surrounding Trump’s military parade, but have rarely attracted more than a few dozen people in the past two months.
Trump has once more turned his attention to the city, calling Portland “war ravaged,” and a “war zone” that is “burning down” and like “living in hell.” But local officials have suggested that many of his claims and social media posts appear to rely on images from 2020. Under a new mayor, the city has reduced crime, and the downtown has seen a decrease in homeless encampments and increased foot traffic.
Most violent crime around the country has actually declined in recent years, including in Portland, where a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that homicides from January through June decreased by 51% this year compared to the same period in 2024.
City leaders have urged restraint and told residents not to “take the bait” this week after the announcement that the National Guard would be sent to Portland.
Oregon seeks to block National Guard deployment by Trump
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Karin J. Immergut heard arguments on whether to block the deployment of National Guard troops in Portland, where they would defend federal buildings such as the ICE facility from vandalism.
Oregon sued to stop the deployment on Sept. 28 after Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek failed to convince Trump to call off the deployment in a 10-minute phone call on Sept. 27.
Immergut did not immediately issue a ruling Friday after a short hearing and said she would issue an order later that day or over the weekend.
Meanwhile, the National Guard troops — from communities not too far from Portland — were training on the Oregon Coast in anticipation of deployment.
Thursday’s arrest of Sortor, however, likely means more federal law enforcement presence in Portland.
In an X post, which reposted a video from the protest and a photo of Sortor being detained, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said there would be an immediate increase in federal resources to the city with enhanced Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement resources.
“This violence will end under @POTUS Trump,” McLaughlin wrote.
J.K. Rowling wants you to know that “Harry Potter” actors “have every right” to disagree with her about trans rights — but she’s taking the kid gloves off.
“Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is,” Rowling wrote on X as she alluded to the alleged harm to women’s rights Watson has caused with her support of the trans community. “Her ‘public bathroom’ is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door,” the author added. “Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool?”
Rowling has long argued that only those who are assigned female at birth should be recognized as women. Rather than acknowledging trans people and identity, Rowling referenced only “ideology” and “an activist movement” in her post.
The author specifically called out Watson and fellow “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe for what she sees as their continued public critiques of her anti-trans politics and “assum[ing] the role of de facto spokespeople for the world [Rowling] created.”
Rowling’s lengthy post came in response to Watson saying in a recent episode of “On Purpose With Jay Shetty” that their opposing views on trans rights do not mean she can’t or doesn’t “treasure” Rowling as a person.
“I will never believe that one negates the other and that my experience of that person, I don’t get to keep and cherish,” Watson said. “I think it’s my deepest wish that I hope people who don’t agree with my opinion will love me, and I hope I can keep loving people who I don’t necessarily share the same opinion with.”
In her X post, Rowling said that when she was receiving threats of violence because of her transphobic comments in the past, Watson wrote her a letter that “contained the single sentence ‘I’m so sorry for what you’re going through’ (she has my phone number)” while speaking out against her publicly. Rowling also noted that Watson’s latest comments come at a time when “full-throated condemnation of [the author] is no longer quite as fashionable as it was,” with anti-trans activists and politicians gaining ground in their attacks on trans rights.
“Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public — but I have the same right, and I’ve finally decided to exercise it,” Rowling said.
When a door slammed shut in the childhood home of Andry Hernández Romero, he wasn’t just startled. He winced, recoiling from the noise.
Nearly a month had passed since Hernández Romero, a 32-year-old makeup artist, and 251 other Venezuelans were released from a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison.
In a Zoom interview in August from Venezuela, Hernández Romero listed the ways in which the trauma of the ordeal still manifests itself.
“When doors are slammed — did you notice [my reaction] when the door made noise just now?” he said. “I can’t stand keys. Being touched when I’m asleep. If I see an officer with cuffs in their hand, I get scared and nervous.”
Trump administration officials accused the Venezuelan men of being members of the transnational gang Tren de Aragua and a national security threat, though many, including Hernández Romero, had no criminal histories in the U.S. or Venezuela.
While he was confined, with no access to his attorneys or the news, Hernández Romero had no idea he had become a poster child for the movement to free the prisoners.
“Before I was Andry the makeup artist, Andry the stylist, Andry the designer,” he said. “I was somewhat recognized, but not as directly. Right now, if you type my name into Google, TikTok, YouTube — any platform — my entire life shows up.”
Days after he was sent to El Salvador on March 15, CBS News published a leaked deportation manifest with his name on it. His lawyer Lindsay Toczylowski, who co-founded the Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center, denounced his removal on “The Rachel Maddow Show” and a “60 Minutes” expose.
In the “60 Minutes” episode, Time photojournalist Philip Holsinger recounted hearing a man at the prison cry for his mother, saying, “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a stylist,” while prison guards slapped him and shaved his head.
Outrage grew. On social media, users declared him disappeared, asking, “Is Andry Hernández Romero alive?”
Congressional Democrats traveled to El Salvador to push for information about the detainees and came back empty-handed.
“Let’s get real for a moment,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said in an April 9 video on X. The video cut to a glamour shot of Hernández Romero peering from behind three smoldering makeup brushes.
“When was the last time you saw a gay makeup artist in a transnational gang?” Torres said.
Hernández Romero walks through a market in his hometown of Capacho Nuevo.
Hernández Romero shows the crown tattoos that U.S. authorities claimed linked him to the Tren de Aragua gang.
Hernández Romero fled Venezuela after facing persecution for his sexuality and political views, according to his lawyers.
He entered the U.S. legally at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Aug. 29, 2024, after obtaining an appointment through CBP One, the asylum application process used in the Biden administration. The elation of getting through lasted just a few minutes, he said.
Hernández Romero spent six months at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. He had passed a “credible fear” interview — the first step in the asylum process — but immigration officials had lasered in on two of his nine tattoos: a crown on each wrist with “Mom” and “Dad” in English.
Immigrant detainees are given blue, orange or red uniforms, depending on their classification level. A guard once explained that detainees wearing orange, like him, could be criminals. Hernández Romero said he replied, “Is being a gay a crime? Or is doing makeup a crime?”
When his deportation flight landed in El Salvador, he saw tanks and officials dressed in all black, carrying big guns.
A Salvadoran man got off first — Kilmar Abrego García, whose case became a focus of controversy after federal officials acknowledged he had been wrongly deported.
Eight Venezuelan women got off next, but Salvadoran officials rejected them and they were led back onto the plane. Hernández Romero said the remaining Venezuelans felt relieved, thinking they too would be rejected.
Instead, they ended up in prison.
Hernández Romero does the makeup for Gabriela Mora, the fiancee of his fellow prisoner Carlos Uzcátegui, hours before their civil wedding in the town of Lobatera.
“I saw myself hit, I saw myself carried by two officials with my head toward the ground, receiving blows and kicks,” Hernández Romero said. “After that reality kind of strikes me: I was in a cell in El Salvador, in a maximum-security prison with nine other people and asking myself, ‘What am I doing here?’”
As a stylist, he said, having his hair shaved off was particularly devastating. Even worse were the accompanying blows and homophobic insults.
He remembers the photographer snapping shots of him and feeling the sting of his privacy being violated. Now, he understands their significance: “It’s thanks to those photos that we are now back in our homes.”
At the prison, guards taunted them, Hernández Romero said, telling them, “You all are going to die here.”
Hernández Romero befriended Carlos Uzcátegui, 32, who was held in the cell across the hall. Prisoners weren’t allowed to talk with people outside their cells, but the pair quietly got to know each other whenever the guards were distracted.
Uzcátegui said he was also detained for having a crown tattoo and for another depicting three stars, one for each of his younger sisters.
A prisoner is moved by a guard at the Terrorist Confinement Center, a high-security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26. (Alex Brandon, Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
As prisoners looks on, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center on March 26. (Alex Brandon, Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Hernández Romero said he noticed that some of the guards would stare at him when he showered. He told reporters that guards took him to a small, windowless room known as “La Isla,” or “The Island,” after noticing him bathing with a bucket outside of designated hours. There, he said, he was beaten by three guards wearing masks and forced to perform oral sex on one of them, according to NPR and other outlets.
Hernández Romero no longer wishes to talk about the details of the alleged abuse. His lawyers are looking into available legal options.
“Perhaps those people will escape earthly justice, the justice of man, but when it comes to the justice of our Father God, no one escapes,” he said. “Life is a restaurant — no one leaves without paying.”
Uzcátegui said guards once pulled out his toenails and denied him medication despite a high fever. He had already showered, but as his fever worsened he took a second shower, which wasn’t allowed.
He said guards pushed him down, kicked him repeatedly in the stomach, then left him in “La Isla” for three days.
In July, rumors began circulating in the prison that the Venezuelans might be released, but the detainees didn’t believe the talk until the pastor who gave their daily sermon appeared uncharacteristically emotional. He told them: “The miracle is done. Tomorrow is a new day for you all.”
Uzcátegui remained unconvinced. That night, he couldn’t sleep because of the noise of people moving around the prison. He said usually that meant that guards would enter their cell block early in the morning to beat them.
Hernández Romero noticed his friend was restless. “We’re leaving today,” he said.
“I don’t believe it,” Uzcátegui replied. “It’s always the same.”
Hernández Romero knew they had spent 125 days imprisoned because when any detainee went for a medical consult, they would unobtrusively note the calendar in the room and report back to the group. The detainees would then mark the day on their metal bed frames using soap.
On July 18, buses arrived at the prison at 3 a.m. to take the Venezuelans to the airport. Officials called out Hernández Romero and Arturo Suárez-Trejo, a singer whose case had also drawn public attention, for individual photos. Hernández Romero said they were puzzled but obliged.
Migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown arrive at Simon Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on July 18.
(Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)
When their flight touched down, an official told them: “Welcome to Venezuela.” Walking down the plane steps, Hernández Romero felt the Caribbean breeze on his face and thanked God.
A few days later, he was back in his hometown, Capacho Nuevo, hugging his parents and brother in the center of a swarm of journalists and supporters chanting his name.
“I left home with a suitcase full of dreams, with dreams of helping my people, of helping my family, but unfortunately, that suitcase of dreams turned into a suitcase of nightmares,” he told reporters there.
Hernández Romero said he wants to see his name cleared. For him, justice would mean “that the people who kidnapped us and unfairly blamed us should pay.”
President Trump had invoked an 18th century wartime law to quickly remove many of the Venezuelans to El Salvador in March. In a 2-1 decision on Sept. 2, a panel of judges from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the administration acted unlawfully, saying there has been “no invasion or predatory incursion.”
Trump administration officials have told a federal judge that they would facilitate the return of Venezuelans to the U.S. if they wish to continue the asylum proceedings that were dismissed after they were sent to El Salvador. If there’s another chance to fulfill his dreams, Hernández Romero said he’s “not closed off to anything.”
Uzcátegui sees it differently. After everything he went through, he said, he probably would not go back.
Now he suffers from nightmares that it’s happening again. “Despite everything, you end up feeling like it’s not true that we’re out of there,” he said. “You wake up thinking you’re still there.”
Carlos Uzcátegui exchanges vows with Gabriela Mora during their wedding in August as Hernández Romero, right, in cap, looks on.
As he restarts his career, Hernández Romero is redeveloping a client list as a makeup artist. Last month, he worked a particularly special wedding: Uzcátegui’s. He did makeup for his friend’s bride, Gabriela Mora.
“He lived the same things I did in there,” Uzcátegui said. “It was like knowing that we are finally free — that despite all the things we talked about that we never thought would happen, that friendship remains. We’re like family.”
Amanda Knox, who became an international headline in 2007, when, as an American student spending a year in Perugia, Italy, she was (wrongly) accused of the murder and sexual assault of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, is now the subject, and executive producer, of “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox,” an eight-part docudrama premiering Wednesday on Hulu. (Her boyfriend of one week, Raffaele Sollecito, also wrongly accused, does not seem to have garnered similar attention, which might tell you something about misogyny in the prurient press, and its audience.)
The “Twisted Tale” in the title — odd for a story of murder, rape and false imprisonment — suggests that we’re about to see something sort of delightful, like “The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack” or “The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants,” an impression underscored by a prologue in the style of “Amélie,” the whimsical French film the couple was elsewhere watching on the night of the murder; it ties the victim, the accused and her prosecutor/persecutor together in a sort of fairy tale. Like the very long end-title “any similarity” disclaimer, concluding “The series includes Amanda Knox’s perspective on events related to the murder of Meredith Kercher,” it allows the series to be something less than true: a tale.
People tell themselves stories to live, to haul out that Joan Didion quote once again, which unavoidably requires making up stories about other people. These events involved a lot of people, only one of whom is an executive producer of this series, based on her memoir, “Waiting To Be Heard.” (Knox co-wrote the finale, as well.) One assumes that some of those other people might see this project as exploitation, or object to how they’ve been represented, though any dissenting voices will be drowned by a publicity machine that will market this as a true story, disclaimer aside. In light of the series, Knox has been recently profiled in the New York Times, alongside star Grace Van Patten, and in the Hollywood Reporter, alongside fellow executive producer and scandal survivor Monica Lewinsky, who encouraged her to make the series.
These are qualities — faults? — “Twisted Tale” shares with every docudrama ever, a problematic genre much beloved by filmmakers and actors; still, as frequently as such projects arise, especially in the age of true crime, we wouldn’t still be talking about “Citizen Kane” today if it simply had been “Citizen Hearst.” We should at least keep in mind as responsible viewers and citizens that what we’re seeing here, however factual in its crucial points, scrupulous in its details, and engaging in its philosophy, and however faithfully the actors embody their real-life models, it’s unavoidably an impression of the truth, built out with imagined scenes and conversations and made to play upon your feelings. It isn’t journalism. And to be clear, when I speak of these characters below, I’m referring only to how they’re portrayed in the series, not to the people whose names they share.
Francesco Acquaroli as Giuliano Mignini and Roberta Mattei as Monica Napoleoni, the investigators on the case, in “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.”
(Andrea Miconi / Disney)
Created by K.J. Steinberg (“This Is Us”), the series is well-acted, well-written, impressively mounted, tonally contradictory, chronologically disjointed, overlong, stressful, exhausting, interesting both for its subject and stagecraft, and briefly inspirational, as Amanda (Van Patten) — arrested, jailed, convicted, acquitted, re-convicted and definitely re-acquitted — becomes a voice in the innocence movement (“My freedom mattered and I was going to make the most of it as long as I had it”) and returns to Italy, a wife and mother, for something like closure.
Echoing the 2016 Netflix documentary “Amanda Knox,” which tells the story (up to that point) in a streamlined but thought-provoking 90 minutes, there has been some care to represent different points of view, with episodes dedicated to Raffaele and prosecutor cum investigator Giuliano Mignini (Francesco Acquaroli), also introduced “Amélie”-style. (As to Kercher, we hear only that “she likes to sunbathe and dance and read mystery novels” — though anything more would be presumptuous.) Raffaele, the superhero-loving son of a troubled mother, made himself into a “protector.” Mignini, who lost a brother to “lawlessness,” sees his work as heaven-sent — though he was also inspired by Gino Cervi as Georges Simenon’s detective hero in the 1960s TV series “Le inchieste del commissario Maigret.” (He adopts that character’s pipe and hat.) “I made a vow to God,” he says, narrating, “no matter the disapproval or dissent, deviant, ritual murders would not go unpunished on my watch.”
On the basis of Amanda being a loud American, and a self-described weirdo, whose response to news of the murder struck some as insufficiently emotional; from bits and pieces of supposed physical evidence, later discounted; and from Mignini’s own notions — including his feeling regarding the body, that “only a woman would cover a woman with a blanket” — the police quickly assemble an elaborate, completely imagined theory based on a sex game gone wrong. (That Knox was in possession of a vibrator and some condoms and brought men to the apartment she shared with Kercher and two Italian girls seemingly branded her, in 2007, as a pervert.)
Subjected to an extremely long interrogation without adequate representation in a language she imperfectly understands, and in which she has trouble making herself understood — detective superintendent Monica Napoleoni (Roberta Mattei) is the angry Javert — Knox signs a false confession that also implicates her sometimes boss, Patrick Lumumba (Souleymane Seye Ndiaye). She quickly recants, to little avail. (Knox has not been acquitted of slandering Lumumba.) That the actual killer is arrested, and convicted, merely causes the police to rewrite their story a little, while still focusing on Amanda and Raffaele. The press runs leaks and accusations from the authorities; and a fascinated public eats it up, spitting out opinions onto social media.
Director Michael Uppendahl employs a variety of styles to get the story told. Some scenes are so natural as to seem improvised; others employ heavy tactics — an assaultive sound design, flash cuts — to evoke the pressure Amanda is under, from both the self-satisfied authorities and a hectoring press. (Paparazzi is an Italian word, after all.) Stirring music underlies her final statement to the court; a letter sent by Amanda to Mignini is lit from within, like the deadly glass of milk in Hitchcock’s “Notorious.” While not inappropriate to a story in which fictions swamp facts, these zigs and zags can pull you out of the story rather than drawing you deeper in.
As Amanda, Van Patten (of the Van Patten acting/directing dynasty — Dick, Joyce, Tim, Vincent, with Grace’s sister Anna playing Amanda’s younger sister) is quite remarkable, switching between English and an ever-improving Italian. Acquaroli, quietly astonishing, brings humanity and the merest touch of weary humor to his stubborn policeman. Sharon Horgan plays Amanda’s intense, demanding mother, with John Hoogenakker as her more subdued father. In a scene pulled straight from the “Amanda Knox” documentary, a reporter asks him when there’ll be a film: “The longer you wait the less her story is going to be worth.” “We do not think of our daughter as a hot property,” he replies.
This article contains many spoilers for Season 3 of Netflix’s “Squid Game.”
“Squid Game” is a twisty, twisted thriller, with ordinary, financially stressed people playing children’s games to the death for the amusement of the hidden wealthy. Beneath that surface, creator, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk has been embedding sociopolitical commentary amid the shock and awe of protagonist Gi-hun’s (Lee Jung-jae) personal roller-coaster ride; the characters’ desperation as the saga ends forces those messages to poke through the slick, candy-colored exterior.
“It was a result of elevation of the themes and stories,” said Hwang of those ideas becoming more clearly voiced. They “became more upfront and intense just as a natural course of the story unfolding.”
The global phenomenon, still Netflix’s most-watched non-English show ever (its first two seasons are No. 1 and 2 on the streamer’s all-time list, with nearly 600 million views to date, according to Netflix), ends on its own terms with the release of its third and final season Friday. And what an arc everyman Gi-hun will have completed. How better to represent Hwang’s themes of end-stage, winners-and-losers capitalism, with its warping, destructive power, and how the ill-intentioned can exploit democracy’s flaws, than to depict an ordinary person buffeted by the unseen hand of pain for profit?
“You can say this is a story of those who have become losers of the game, and also those of us who are shaken to our core because of the chaotic political landscape,” said Hwang, who with Lee, spoke via an interpreter on a video call earlier this month from New York. “I wanted to focus in Season 3 on how in this world, where incessant greed is always fueled, it’s like a jungle — the strong eating the weak, where people climb higher by stepping on other people’s heads.”
Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun in final season of Netflix’s “Squid Game.”
(No Ju-han / Netflix)
Gi-hun’s hands become bloodied in the competition in Season 3, Hwang said. “That’s the first time he kills someone [in the games]. This person who symbolized goodness, the original sin is now on him because of what society has done to him,” he said. “How does he pick himself up from that? That’s the heart of Season 3. In a way, we’re all put in this situation due to the capitalist society and chaotic political situation. Gi-hun symbolizes what all of us go through these days.”
When we meet him in Season 1, Gi-hun is down and out, an inveterate gambler. Through Season 1’s horrific gantlet of murderous kids’ games, his exterior is scraped away with a rusty edge until all that’s left is a flawed but good man. Gi-hun is someone who sees what he believes with clarity, while becoming the suddenly rich champion of the games.
But after he reaches that peak, Season 2 plunges him back down the roller coaster as he becomes obsessed with vengeance against the elite voyeurs who fund the game and the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who oversees it. Righteous anger carries Gi-hun to the brink of his goal of destroying the games, only to see it all brutally dashed. Season 3 finds him a broken man, near catatonic with guilt. Without him to guide the less bloodthirsty players, the games will enter a fearsome phase of all-out mayhem, from which unexpectedly emerges a chance at redemption for the battered protagonist.
“All of those changes within Gi-hun are depicted in such minute detail” in Hwang’s writing, said Lee, “so nuanced and with so many layers. You’ll see Gi-hun have a change of heart. Sometimes his beliefs will be shaken. But despite all of that, he will continue to struggle to find hope and his will.
“All of those changes within Gi-hun are depicted in such minute detail, so nuanced and with so many layers,” Lee Jung-jae said of his character and Hwang Dong-hyuk’s writing.
(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)
“All I can say is, I’m a very lucky man. You don’t come by characters like Gi-hun every day. It’s been a true honor,” he adds.
Lee’s public appearances in support of “Squid Game” have provided an almost comic contrast with Gi-hun. He’s movie-star handsome, elegant, always sharply dressed. On the show, especially as Gi-hun deteriorates in Season 3, he’s wrecked.
“Jung-jae went on this extremely harsh diet for over a year so he could really portray, externally, the pain and the brokenness, to really express how famished and barren he is, both mentally and physically,” Hwang said.
Gi-hun isn’t the only person the games destroy. Another hallmark of the show is its deft development of characters into fan favorites, coupled with its “Game of Thrones”-like willingness to unceremoniously kill them. Viewers will be sharpening their pitchforks when trans commando Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), a.k.a. Player 120, dies ignominiously in Season 3. Hwang is already braced for the backlash.
“It’s not me who did it! It was 333,” he exclaimed, blaming the murderer.
Hwang said when he watched the first assembly edit of that death, “I wrote and directed and everything, I knew it’s coming, but it was still painful. It was like, ‘Oh, come on, come on.’ ”
“For some characters, I would see them go and I’d feel really sad … I would think, ‘Director Hwang is such a cruel man,’” Lee said.
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1.Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon) in Season 3 of “Squid Game.” “I wrote and directed and everything, I knew it’s coming, but it was still painful,” Hwang Dong-hyuk said.2.Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), a pregnant contestant in the games, was another casualty.(No Ju-han / Netflix)
When Hwang asks what death in particular made him feel that way, Lee doesn’t hesitate to cite another beloved character, pregnant contestant Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), calling that Season 3 death “heartbreaking.”
Lee’s sensitive, evolving turn as Gi-hun — deeply human amid the madness, paranoia and murder set in bright green and pink surroundings — has made the character the ideal litmus test for Hwang’s critique of an economic system designed to produce titanic winners and losers who face annihilation. He’s a living symbol of Hwang’s themes.
“I feel like Director Hwang is truly an artist,” Lee said. “I mean something akin to a concept artist. Because when he creates his visuals, not only are they extremely pleasing to the eye; he focuses on the meaning behind them. He [stacks] images on top of one another, almost as if building a Lego castle. Each little block has meaning: each dialogue, each editing flow and [each use of] the musical score.”
As Season 3 reaches a boil, some of Hwang’s symbolism becomes less subtle. In one game, contestants clutch keys suspiciously resembling crucifixes as one player leads others with fervor, for better or worse. One character’s moment of triumph occurs before a painted rainbow (rainbow flags are also associated with the LGBTQ+ community in Korea). And Hwang’s nuanced critique of democracy comes to the fore.
“I feel like Director Hwang is truly an artist,” said Lee Jung-jae of the show’s creator. “I mean something akin to a concept artist. Because when he creates his visuals, not only are they extremely pleasing to the eye; he focuses on the meaning behind them.
(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)
Unlike Season 1, in which contestants had one chance to vote to end the games, in Seasons 2 and 3, votes are taken after each contest; as more players die, the pot swells larger and larger. With only a score or so of participants left, a vote to quit means all would leave alive, and with substantial cash. Voting to continue means, explicitly, they will kill to become obscenely wealthy.
“In the past, at the time of elections, despite our differences, we all came together; there was more tolerance through the process of conflict,” Hwang said. “I don’t think that is anymore the case. Rather, elections [have only driven] societies into greater divides. I wanted to explore those themes in Seasons 2 and 3; that’s why I included the voting in each round.”
Hwang loudly calls out the flaw of democracy that allows the barest of majorities to subject all to nightmarish policies — even more nightmarish for those who voted against them. The ruthless winners keep reminding the others in Season 3 it was a “free and democratic vote.”
“That is not to say that I have a different answer,” he said. “I wanted to raise the question because I believe it is time for us to try to find the answer. In Season 1, I looked at the flaws of the economic system that creates so many losers due to this unlimited competition. In Season 2, I depicted the failure of the political system.
“Coming into Season 3, because the economic system has failed us, politics have failed us, it seems like we have no hope,” Hwang added. “What hope do we have as a human race when we can no longer control our own greed? I wanted to explore that. And in particular, I wanted to [pose] that question to myself.”
And what has he found? Does he still believe in humanity?
“Well, I don’t have the answer,” Hwang said. “But I have to admit, honestly, I think I’ve become more cynical, working on ‘Squid Game.’”
NEWARK, N.J. — U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges accusing her of assaulting and interfering with immigration officers outside a New Jersey detention center during a congressional oversight visit at the facility.
“They will not intimidate me. They will not stop me from doing my job,” she said outside the courthouse in Newark after the brief hearing.
McIver, a Democrat, was charged by interim U.S. Atty. Alina Habba, a Republican appointed by President Trump, following the May 9 visit to Newark’s Delaney Hall. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses the privately owned, 1,000-bed facility as a detention center.
This month she was indicted on three counts of assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering with federal officials. Two of the counts carry a maximum sentence of up to eight years in prison. The third is a misdemeanor with a maximum punishment of one year in prison.
During Wednesday’s hearing, McIver stood and told U.S. District Judge Jamel Semper: “Your honor, I plead not guilty.” The judge set a Nov. 10 trial date.
Outside the courthouse, McIver warned that anyone who pushes back against the Trump administration will find themselves in a similar position.
McIver’s lawyer, former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Paul Fishman, said McIver pleaded not guilty because she is not guilty. He said federal agents created a risky situation at Delaney Hall.
A message seeking comment Wednesday was left with Habba’s office.
Among those at McIver’s side Wednesday were her family and elected officials, including Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was outside the detention center with McIver and other legislators on May 9.
Baraka was also arrested on a trespassing charge that was later dropped and is suing Habba over what he called a malicious prosecution.
Baraka accused the Trump administration of using law enforcement as “an appendage of their ideology to begin to hammer us.”
The indictment of McIver is the latest development in a legal-political drama that has seen the Trump administration take Democratic officials from New Jersey’s largest city to court amid the president’s ongoing immigration crackdown and Democrats’ efforts to respond. The prosecution is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption.
A nearly two-minute video clip released by the Department of Homeland Security shows McIver at the facility inside a chain-link fence just before Baraka’s arrest on other side of the barrier, where other people were protesting. McIver and uniformed officials go through the gate, and she joins others shouting that they should circle the mayor.
The video shows McIver in a tightly packed group of people and officers. At one point her left elbow and then her right elbow push into an officer wearing a dark face covering and an olive green uniform emblazoned with the word “Police.”
It is not clear from police bodycam video if the contact was intentional, incidental or the result of jostling in the chaotic scene.
The complaint alleges that she “slammed” her forearm into an agent and then tried to restrain the agent by grabbing him.
The indictment also says she placed her arms around the mayor to try to stop his arrest and says again that she slammed her forearm into and grabbed an agent.
Democrats including New Jersey Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, who were with McIver at the detention center that day, have criticized the arrest and disputed the charges.
Members of Congress are legally authorized to go into federal immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even without notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill spelling out that authority.
McIver, 39, first came to Congress in September in a special election after the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. left a vacancy in the 10th District. She was then elected to a full term in November.
A Newark native, she was president of the Newark City Council from 2022 to 2024 and worked in the city’s public schools before that.
PARIS — A Paris court on Friday found the ringleader and seven other people guilty of the robbery of Kim Kardashian at her residence in the French capital in 2016. But none of them will face prison time.
The court acquitted two of the 10 defendants. The sentences read out by the court president ranged from prison terms to fines.
Aomar Aït Khedache, 69, the ringleader, got the stiffest sentence, eight years imprisonment but five of those are suspended. Three others who were accused of the most serious charges got seven years, five of them suspended.
With time already served in pretrial detention, none of those found guilty will go to prison. The trial was heard by a three-judge panel and six jurors.
The chief judge, David De Pas, said the ages of the defendants — the oldest is 79 and some others are in their 60s and 70s — weighed on the court’s decision not to impose harsher sentences that would have sent them to jail. He said the nine years between the robbery and the trial was also taken into account in the sentencing.
Still, he said that Kardashian had been traumatized by the robbery in her hotel.
“You caused harm,” he said. “You caused fear.”
Kardashian, who wasn’t present for the verdict, issued a statement after the ruling was announced.
“I am deeply grateful to the French authorities for pursuing justice in this case,” she said. “The crime was the most terrifying experience of my life, leaving a lasting impact on me and my family. While I’ll never forget what happened, I believe in the power of growth and accountability and pray for healing for all. I remain committed to advocating for justice, and promoting a fair legal system.”
Khedache arrived at court walking with a stick, his face hidden from cameras. His DNA, found on the bands used to bind Kardashian, was a key breakthrough that helped crack open the case.
Wiretaps captured him giving orders, recruiting accomplices and arranging to sell the diamonds in Belgium. A diamond-encrusted cross, dropped during the escape, was the only piece of jewelry ever recovered.
The crime took place on the night of Oct. 2, 2016, during Paris Fashion Week. The robbers, dressed as police, forced their way into the glamorous Hôtel de Pourtalès, bound Kardashian with zip ties and escaped with her jewelry — a theft that would force celebrities to rethink how they live and protect themselves.
The accused became known in France as “les papys braqueurs,” or the grandpa robbers. Some arrived in court in orthopedic shoes and one leaned on a cane. But prosecutors warned observers not to be fooled.
The defendants faced charges including armed robbery, kidnapping and gang association.
Forgiveness
Khedache had said he was only a foot soldier. He blamed a mysterious “X” or “Ben” — someone prosecutors say never existed.
His lawyer pleaded for clemency, pointing to one of the trial’s most visceral moments — Kardashian’s earlier courtroom encounter with the man accused of orchestrating her ordeal. Though she wasn’t present Friday, her words — and the memory of that moment — still echoed.
“She looked at him when she came, she listened to the letter he had written to her, and then she forgave him,” lawyer Frank Berton told the Associated Press.
Kardashian, typically shielded by security and spectacle, had locked eyes with Khedache as the letter was read aloud.
“I do appreciate the letter, I forgive you,” she said. “But it doesn’t change the feelings and the trauma and the fact that my life was forever changed.” A tabloid crime had become something raw and human.
Khedache on Friday asked for “a thousand pardons,” communicated via a written note in court. Other defendants also used their final words to express remorse.
Paris was once a sanctuary for Kardashian
Kardashian’s testimony earlier this month was the emotional high point. In a packed courtroom, she recounted how she was thrown onto a bed, zip-tied and had a gun pressed to her on the night of the robbery.
“I absolutely did think I was going to die,” she said. “I have babies. I have to make it home. They can take everything. I just have to make it home.”
She was dragged into a marble bathroom and told to stay silent. When the robbers fled, she freed herself by scraping the tape on her wrists off against the sink, then hid with her friend, shaking and barefoot.
She said that Paris had once been her sanctuary — a city she would wander at 3 a.m., window shopping, stopping for hot chocolate. That illusion was shattered.
Privacy became luxury
The robbery echoed far beyond the City of Light. It forced a recalibration of celebrity behavior in the age of Instagram. For years, Kardashian had curated her life like a showroom: geo-tagged, diamond-lit, public by design. But this was the moment the showroom turned into a crime scene. In her words, “People were watching … They knew where I was.”
Afterward, she stopped posting her location in real time. She stripped her social media feed of lavish gifts and vanished from Paris for years. Other stars followed suit. Privacy became luxury.
Even by the standards of France’s famously deliberate legal system, the case took years to reach trial.
Leicester and Adamson write for the Associated Press. Catherine Gaschka contributed to this report.
