Do the Stars of Friends Really Still Earn $20 MILLION A YEAR? An Investigation.

This week in Celebrity Intelligence: a president tells a king his mother fancied him and handles it with more grace than most people manage at a dinner party. A woman the internet spent a decade trying to cancel has five films out this year and is currently People's World's Most Beautiful. The price of red carpet beauty. The negativity after a celebrity breakup. And the number everyone has been quoting about the Friends cast's earnings is almost certainly wrong. But the real number is still very enviable. Welcome to this week’s Celebrity Intelligence, which is a study in the difference between what famous looks like from the outside, and what it actually costs and earns on the inside.

The Smart Gossip section is free for all, while the bigger stories; The Surprisingly Funny King Charles, Why Female Celebrities Don’t Want To Live With Men and how Anne Hathaway Turned Around The Hate, and the Friends investigation, are for paid subscribers. If you’d like to subscribe please click here, it’s just $5.99 a month and you get two months free if you subscribe for a year.

And if you have any celebrity tips or story ideas you’d like me to investigate, please reply to the email. Enjoy!

In an interview with E! News at the Beverage Forum on April 28, Ian Somerhalder said that he and wife Nikki Reed spent years digging out of a significant financial hole caused by a bad business deal. “We sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything,” he said. The debt reportedly reached eight figures after he made personal guarantees to a bank for a clean energy company that he did not name. Somerhalder was previously hospitalized multiple times during the period of financial stress and credited his wife’s negotiation skills to turning this around.

Celebrity Intelligence Takeaway: The gap between what celebrity looks like and what it sometimes costs is a subject almost no one in the industry discusses honestly. Somerhalder is doing something useful here: making clear that famous and solvency are not always in the same sentence, and that being famous doesn’t equal an automatic “happily ever after": and that the recovery was brutal.

Helena Bonham Carter exited The White Lotus Season 4 just one week into production in the south of France, with HBO confirming that "the character which Mike White created for Helena Bonham Carter did not align once on set." The role was scrapped entirely rather than handed over, and Laura Dern has now joined the cast in a new part written specifically for her. Rumors of a backstage clash with co-star Sandra Bernhard circulated briefly, though Bonham Carter's representatives denied the two actresses had ever met. Season 4 is filming on the French Riviera, with much of the action centered on the Cannes Film Festival. 

The Celebrity Intelligence Takeaway

This is a story about the loyalty economy, and Mike White just gave a masterclass in it. He didn't reach for a casting director but called his oldest creative partner. White and Dern co-created Enlightened together and have collaborated repeatedly across film and television. If you have not seen this show it is one of my all time favorites, it’s so uncomfortable and Dern’s portrayal of Amy Jellicoe character is masterful in that she makes you feel sympathy for someone so abrasive and irritating. Dern even has an existing history with White Lotus itself, having voiced the unseen estranged wife of Michael Imperioli's character in Season 2, recording the cameo into her phone with White simply telling her to go to town. From anonymous voice on a phone call to full series regular in two seasons is a quiet but telling arc. White has said on record that Dern is "completely fearless about being unpleasant" — which is precisely the casting brief White Lotus runs on. The deeper intelligence here is that in a town built on transactional relationships, the people who thrive in a crisis are the ones who built something real long before there was a crisis to manage.

Everyone thinks that stars just turn up looking fashion perfect but in a candid TikTok Olympic champion Simone Biles revealed that a recent red carpet appearance (likely the Laureus World Sports Awards in Madrid) cost her a whopping $23,000 in styling, hair, and makeup. “I’ve been spiraling since then,” she also noted that she couldn’t even wear a cheaper dress because the internet “will be on my ass tearing me apart.” The dress, incidentally, had to be returned after the event.

Celebrity Intelligence Takeaway: Biles’ video is an honest acknowledgement of the economics of fame that often goes unsaid. The performance of effortless glamour conceals a brutal cost structure that most fans never see. What makes it resonate is that she’s not complaining about being rich. She’s pointing out that celebrity is, in large part, an extremely expensive, thankless performance with no intermission, that should not be attempted or expected to be replicated in real life.

Nearly 18 months after his split from Sabrina Carpenter, Barry Keoghan appeared on Benny Blanco’s “Friends Keep Secrets” podcast  and addressed the swirling cheating rumors for the first time. “There was a narrative out there that was never really sort of even spoken on, a narrative that’s not true, and I never confirmed or said anything about it. And I just disappeared,” He also said: “Why is it cool to hop on and beat someone up?”

Celebrity Intelligence Takeaway: Keoghan’s instinct to go silent rather than fight back publicly is a deeply underrated PR move that almost nobody in celebrity has the discipline to execute. In cases like this a celebrity’s PR works with authoritative outlets to make sure that these rumors do not gain steam in legitimate reporting. But the internet loves a grey area and a story without a denial, but it also has a short memory so his reemergence, quiet and measured, on a podcast hosted by someone perceived as neutral, worked well for this sensitive talented soul.

Brooks Nader has dated her share of high-profile men, but sources say this time is different.

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model and The Surreal Life alum has been quietly but unmistakably falling for British actor Taron Egerton, and a source close to Nader tells Celebrity Intelligence the relationship has real weight to it. “Brooks and Taron are head over heels in love,” the source says. “It’s really serious. This is the first guy in years that she’s serious about. All the other celebrity guys she’s gotten with have just been fun and games. She’s totally in love with him already.”

The two were introduced through their social circles at the Bel-Air Hotel, with talent manager Cade Hudson believed to have made the connection. From there, things moved quickly.

What’s the appeal? According to the source, Egerton hits a very specific note that Nader finds irresistible. “She loves him because he’s got the comedy and humor of a gay man but is straight — a perfect combination. Probably because he’s British.” The insider adds that Nader has already traveled to Australia, where Egerton is currently filming, just to be with him. “She loves him because he is smart, funny, and intelligent, and really talented. It’s just a really great fit. She’s really optimistic and excited about this one.”

For Egerton, the timing coincides with a significant career moment — his profile has never been higher following a series of prestige projects that have cemented him as one of the more respected actors of his generation. For Nader, who has methodically expanded her brand well beyond the swimsuit world, landing a relationship with a man of Egerton’s caliber and credibility is not insignificant.

Celebrity Intelligence Takeaway: Nader has long understood the association-marketing value of the men she’s linked to, each relationship landing her in a slightly different cultural conversation. But the sourcing here suggests something more private and less performative is driving this one, which is actually the more interesting story. A woman known for working a room being described as already in love, flying to Australia mid-production, caring about wit and intelligence over clout, that’s a different character beat than we’ve seen from her public narrative. Watch for whether she lets this one play out quietly or whether the rollout escalates. The restraint, if it holds, will say something.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Kris Jenner is pushing back on reports that she has been left unhappy with the results of her facelift, calling the stories “disappointing” and insisting they “couldn’t be further from the truth.” She addressed the rumors directly during an appearance on daughter Khloé’s podcast, adding that the claims “drive her crazy.”

Celebrity Intelligence Takeaway: Firstly, of course the genius of Kris Jenner monetizes her comments on a family platform. Secondly, a principle worth stating plainly: commenting on a celebrity’s plastic surgery, positively or negatively, is off limits unless they’ve opened the door themselves. It’s their body, their choice, and their business and a complex health decision. What makes Kris Jenner a genuine exception to that rule is that she has always opened the door herself. In a culture where cosmetic work is still whispered about and denied by most public figures, Kris has been almost uniquely candid about what she’s had done, and that transparency has done more to normalize the conversation around cosmetic procedures than internet doctor’s speculation ever could. She deserves real credit for that. Which is why there’s something a little sad about this moment. She almost certainly feels compelled to speak out not just for herself but to defend her surgeon, because negative press about a celebrity’s results has real professional consequences for the doctor involved. 

Queer Eye's Tan France, whose silver hair has become as much a signature as his sartorial commentary, debuted a dark brown look telling fans it was for a role and "not a midlife crisis," The role is in Deli Boys, a scripted series in which France plays a straight gang leader, described by The Advocate as a version of him "the world has never seen."

Celebrity Intelligence Takeaway: I’m not going to force this. I just love a good before and after… The silver hair is so associated with his identity that fans treated the change as a minor emergency and I wanted you to enjoy it too.

In Elle’s interview with Billie Eilish she shut down speculation that she and her brother Finneas had fallen out after he didn’t tour with her on the Hit Me Hard and Soft tour. “Finneas and I have never and will never have a falling-out, ever in our lives,” she said. “It’s sibling s–t. There’s nothing else in the world like sibling relationships.”  She also said she might never make music again if he was gone from her life.

Celebrity Intelligence Takeaway: People project conflict onto successful creative partnerships because people find it hard to believe that proximity to power can coexist with genuine love. The Eilish-Finneas model is an argument for keeping your most important collaborator in the family, literally.

Two dating declarations are running simultaneously through celebrity culture right now, and together they say something more interesting than either does on its own. Love Island and Traitors breakout and newbie Dancing With The Stars cast member Maura Higgins doesn’t want anyone in her space. Charlize Theron has essentially proposed a new model for romantic life altogether: buy the house down the street. And they are, it turns out, far from alone.