In the lead-up to the 2026 Super Bowl, it was announced that the far-right political group Turning Point USA was putting together its own halftime show as an alternative to Bad Bunny’s.
On Sunday, the US leader attended a Super Bowl watch party in Palm Beach, Florida, with footage from the event appearing to show that the screens were still airing the regular Super Bowl broadcast at the time of Bad Bunny’s set.
Following Sunday’s Super Bowl, Trump was widely panned for his response to Bad Bunny’s halftime performance, which he described as “one of the worst EVER!” on his own social media platform, Truth Social.
Despite this, the performance – which served as a colourful and vibrant celebration of Puerto Rican culture – has been well-received, with Bad Bunny subsequently occupying the top seven spots on Spotify’s global chart at the time of writing.
It led to feverish speculation that it would be the first salvo in a concerted attempt by senior Labour figures to unseat Starmer ahead of May’s elections in Scotland, Wales and across England.
Indeed, Sarwar himself made it clear that he wanted to see the PM replaced by someone more popular to at least give Scottish Labour half a chance as they try to defeat the SNP.
Specifically, he said Downing Street’s disastrous handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal meant Starmer had to go.
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“The distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change,” the Scottish Labour leader said.
“We cannot allow the failures at the heart of Downing Street to mean the failures continue here in Scotland, because the election in May is not without consequence for the lives of Scots,” he declared.
But Sarwar’s battle cry went unheeded, with sources close to Welsh first minister Eluned Morgan denying suggestions that she would also be calling for Starmer to quit.
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Significantly, it appeared that the Scottish Labour leader had little support from even his own countrymen and women.
One Scottish MP told HuffPost UK: “Who does Anas want to be prime minister? Does he even know? If he’s doing this with no idea of the end game, then frankly what’s the fucking point?
“The first rule of politics is never demand someone’s resignation unless you know you’re going to get it.”
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Sarwar’s assault also had the unintended consequence of reigniting a seemingly extinct fighting spirit within Starmer’s Downing Street operation.
Cabinet ministers, previously reluctant to make clear their support for the PM, were strong-armed into going on social media and doing just that.
In what was clearly a co-ordinated operation, every member of the cabinet, as well as junior ministers, Labour mayors and potential leadership contenders, took to X to say now was not the time for the PM to go.
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Whether their sentiments were sincere or not, it was an impressive display of raw political power, marginalising Sarwar while gaining buy-in from ministers whose backing for Starmer’s leadership has rarely been full-throated.
The PM was then greeted with loud roars of approval and enthusiastic applause when he attended a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday evening.
Starmer told the MPs and peers present: “I have had my detractors every step along the way, and I’ve got them now. Detractors that don’t want a Labour government at all, and certainly not one to succeed.
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“But I’ll tell you this, after having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country, or to plunge us into chaos, as others have done.”
Far from fatally undermining Starmer, Sarwar’s act of sedition seems to have, remarkably, bolstered the prime minister at a time when he appeared to be at his lowest ebb.
He is far from out of the woods, of course, and it is still more likely than not that he will be forced out of No.10 by the summer.
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But after days of unremittingly awful headlines, and against all the odds, Sarwar’s cack-handed attempts to unseat him have left Starmer stronger than he has been in months.
WASHINGTON — Jeffery Epstein’s former accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell sat for a video deposition with members of Congress on Monday but refused to talk.
Appearing from the prison camp where she’s serving a 20-year sentence, Maxwell invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself — and indicated she would only speak if President Donald Trump lets her out of prison.
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“Ms Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump,” Maxwell’s attorney, David Markus, said in an opening statement he posted on social media.
Democrats expressed outrage that Maxwell appeared to be advertising favorable testimony in exchange for a pardon or commutation of her prison sentence. Trump has suggested he’s open to the idea.
“She is campaigning over and over again to get that pardon from President Trump, and this president has not ruled it out, and so that is why she’s continuing to not cooperate with our investigation,” Representative Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) told reporters. “The reality is that she is a monster. She should be behind bars.”
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Maxwell was sentenced to 240 months in prison in 2022 for helping Epstein recruit, groom and eventually abuse girls as young as 14. When she was first charged in 2020, a year after Epstein died in prison while facing sex trafficking charges, Trump, a former friend of Epstein’s, said he wished her well.
Last year, the Bureau of Prisons transferred Maxwell to a minimum-security prison camp, contrary to protocols for a sex offender, after she sat for a transcribed interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. In that interview, Maxwell said she never witnessed inappropriate behavior by Trump or by former President Bill Clinton, who also socialized with Epstein and traveled on his private jet.
Bill and Hillary Clinton will sit for depositions with the House Oversight Committee later this month. The committee’s chair, Representative James Comer (R-Ky.), said he was disappointed that Maxwell invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to speak as a witness against herself.
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“We had many questions to ask about the crimes she and Epstein committed, as well as questions about potential co-conspirators,” Comer said.
Through her attorney, Maxwell again volunteered that Trump and Clinton did nothing wrong.
“Only she can provide the complete account. Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters,” Markus said. “For example, both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation.”
Cabinet ministers have pledged their support for Keir Starmer as the prime minister fights for his political survival.
In a clearly co-cordinated operation, a succession of senior government ministers took to social media to make clear they do not want the PM to resign.
The UK’s former ambassador to Washington is facing a police investigation over allegations he passed market sensitive information to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein when he was business secretary between 2008 and 2010.
Sarwar said: “The distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change.”
The incendiary move led to speculation that cabinet ministers could resign in order to force the PM out.
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But one after another, they posted messages on X making clear they believe he should stay in his post.
Rebuilding Britain takes time. But thanks to the decisions we’ve made NHS waiting lists are falling. Inflation is falling. Interest rates are falling. The conditions for the economy to grow are there.
With Keir as our Prime Minister we are turning the country around.
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I respect @anassarwar but he is wrong. Keir led our party to a General Election victory 18 months ago and he is the right person for the job in difficult circumstances. The public want us to fix the country’s problems, not fixate on ourselves.
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I respect @anassarwar but he is wrong. Keir led our party to a General Election victory 18 months ago and he is the right person for the job in difficult circumstances. The public want us to fix the country’s problems, not fixate on ourselves.
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Keir turned around the Labour Party after one of our worst defeats in 2019. He won a huge mandate at the last general election and is leading a government that is delivering on our promise of change to the British public. Nothing should distract from that.
— Emma Reynolds for Wycombe 🌹 (@EmmaforWycombe) February 9, 2026
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Keir Starmer is a good, decent man with public service running through his veins. He came into politics for all the right reasons. He’s defied the naysayers many time and he’ll do so again. He’s changing and renewing our country and has restored it’s reputation across the world.
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Angela Rayner, who was forced to resign as deputy PM last year and is seen as a frontrunner to replace Starmer if he goes, also called on Labour MPs to back him.
I urge all my colleagues to come together, remember our values and put them into practice as a team. The Prime Minister has my full support in leading us to that end. 3/3
Keir Starmer has spent his career serving our country. Being the Prime Minister is the hardest job in politics – there are no easy days but our country needs stability.
Integrity, duty and resilience are the foundations of serious leadership.
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Keir Starmer has spent his career serving our country. Being the Prime Minister is the hardest job in politics – there are no easy days but our country needs stability.
Integrity, duty and resilience are the foundations of serious leadership.
“What’s your name?” Catherine O’Hara asked me, leaning forward in the booth. “What’s your story?”
I was standing in a swanky restaurant in New York City wearing a black dress short enough to satisfy management, my hands clasped behind my back in case a manager appeared. I had just broken the most important rule of the job: Never acknowledge a celebrity.
Three months earlier, I had dropped off my resume anywhere I could in hopes of securing a job that would supplement what my $35-a-week publishing intern stipend wouldn’t get me, which was, of course, everything but my subway fare.
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I was hungry in every sense of the word. By the end of the day, I was offered three serving jobs and took them all. One was at this legendary restaurant continuously full of rock stars, Oscar-winning actors and models.
During my interview, the manager had ignored my flimsy (both in substance and content) resume and assessed my body instead. My waist. My chest. My legs. He said they had a place for me as a cocktail server in the private lounge where the windows were tinted, the tables were low and loungy, and the only clientele allowed in were ultra-wealthy patrons and celebrities.
The manager told me to show up later that night for my first training shift and emphasised that the dress code was all black, dresses only, hemlines not to exceed the end of my fingertips when my arms were hanging by my sides.
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“We prefer the skirt to graze your first knuckles,” he said, making a fist and pointing to the ridged top of his hand to make his point.
I was 22, fresh out of college, and ready to do whatever it took to become a writer. If I can make it here… I thought.
When I walked in for my first shift, I was surprised to see a friend from college working at the host stand. Back in Colorado, he’d been a boisterous theater kid — lanky with bright blue eyes and flamboyant energy. Now he looked hollowed out — dark under the eyes, less “youthfully thin” and more underfed. He seemed tired and nervous, and his eyes flicked around as if we might get in trouble for hugging.
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Courtesy of Sammi LaBue
The author celebrating her first story being accepted for publication in 2011 — a year before she decided to move to New York City.
The server I was assigned to shadow approached the host stand to retrieve me. She was gorgeous, waifish, and in place of the air of sadness my college acquaintance had, she’d built a bitter bubble of sarcasm around herself.
She walked me quickly through the labyrinthine back-of-house, dodging catcalls from her co-workers and managers deftly. She listed off rules as I struggled to keep up. Three of them stuck out.
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1. We were required to try everything on the menu, which perked me up as a hungry, broke person used to only eating family meal slop before a shift.
2. We were a “pooled house,” which meant the managers gathered and then divvied up our tips (after shaving a cut).
3. We were not allowed — under any circumstances — to reveal that we recognised a celebrity. We were to treat everyone as an anonymous guest. Asking for an autograph, a photo, or even announcing that you were a fan of anyone famous would result in immediate termination.
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Perhaps this last rule sounds easy enough to follow, but during my first training shift, Jay-Z, Adam Sandler and Mariah Carey were among our guests.
I lasted one month at this restaurant. Long enough to eat my way through the menu and gather enough celebrity run-in anecdotes to last a lifetime. My cocktail party stories suddenly involved run-ins with Bill Belichick, Jon Bon Jovi, Jonah Hill and Josh Hartnett, among many, many others. But not even these exciting encounters could make up for the depleting atmosphere of working in a place where every staff member was a hopeful singer, model, actor or artist.
After my first shift, I witnessed the server who was training me earn over $1,000 in tips — then walk out the door with only $220 after management’s cut. When I asked about the tip breakdown, my manager was finishing a line of cocaine in his windowless basement office. His explanation made little sense, but he laughed at my confusion, and I left his office feeling dejected and violated.
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However, what really convinced me that I couldn’t survive there long was when I realised that my co-workers all seemed to be struggling with disordered eating. Years earlier, after my dad had died suddenly of a heart attack, I’d developed my own eating disorder — a coping mechanism that came with consequences. I’d slowly healed in college, partly thanks to a tight circle of wonderful friends. Now, without them and being surrounded by behaviours that I instantly recognised as potentially damaging, I felt my anxiety rising in a new — though disturbingly familiar — way.
During my work shifts, my trainer-server and I worked through the restaurant’s menu, each night picking something new for me to try, and we’d sit on the back staircase (there was no break room) while she explained the dish to me. No matter what it was — tuna on crispy rice, a black truffle pizza, half a roast chicken on a mountain of garlic mashed potatoes — she refused to have a bite.
“No way. I’m trying to be an actress,” she told me. “I wouldn’t even eat a cucumber here. They put sesame oil on everything.”
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She joked about it — “I don’t eat, really. None of us do.”
Though I wasn’t attempting to make it as an actress, I still began to leave food on the plate, uneasy about doing so, but also worried she might have a point. She was putting her goals first. Hunger as discipline. Emptiness as a badge of ambition. Maybe fed girls didn’t make it in NYC.
Courtesy of Sammi LaBue
The author right after she moved to New York City in 2012.
By the time I walked in for my last training shift on a Sunday night, I was thinner, my spirit was beaten down, and I was worried about the road I seemed to be headed back down.
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I was also still broke. I’d trained for seven shifts at $10 an hour, and I was relieved when my trainer asked me to take this shift alone. The managers were nowhere to be found, as usual, and she wanted to meet up with her boyfriend — a musician who was always cheating on her. The restaurant was slow, she told me I now knew what I was doing, and, best of all, she would let me take all of the tips I made home.
At nearly 9 o’clock, three women walked in: two women I’d never seen before and the one and only Catherine O’Hara. I froze. My mind flashed to O’Hara’s squiggly sideburns in “Beetlejuice.” Her iconic “Kevin!” in “Home Alone.” The dozens and dozens of times my sister and I had watched “Best in Show.” All of the characters she’d played that shaped my sense of humour. My sense of joy. How could I possibly serve her without telling her I loved her?
They sat in a window booth with Catherine in the centre. When I went to greet her party, her friends enthusiastically interrupted to tell me they were taking her out for her birthday. She shook her head sheepishly, embarrassed and amused.
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“We’ve been friends forever,” she told me. “They don’t let me get away with anything.”
As a writer, I try to avoid cliches, but reader, her eyes truly sparkled with life and kindness.
Soon, they were my only table. I folded napkins a short distance away from them and watched the three friends enjoy each other’s company — and one of everything from the starter section, plus a burger, the tuna and the chicken. They shared a bottle of wine and giggled like girls.
Over the course of their meal, I realised that in just a few weeks, the restaurant I stood in had distorted what success should look like, but no one could extinguish the aura of true success that radiated off Catherine. She had “it” — that thing I’d come to NYC to prove I had, too, and “it” wasn’t thinness or ambition at all costs, or even talent, though of course she had that, too. It was her sense of self — how she held herself and confidently, yet humbly, moved through the world — that no one could rival… or take away from her.
By the time I dropped the chocolate soufflé off, their table held the last lit candle in the restaurant.
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I placed the dessert in front of Catherine, and then I took a breath.
“I’m not supposed to bother our famous diners,” I said, “but I just have to tell you how much your acting means to me and my sister. ‘Best in Show’ is our favourite movie, and your character is my favourite.”
“Me?” she said, genuinely incredulous. “Your favourite!”
“I’m sorry to bother you. I just had to say something. Happy birthday.” I quickly turned away, mortified.
“It was her sense of self — how she held herself and confidently, yet humbly, moved through the world — that no one could rival… or take away from her.”
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“Wait,” she called after me, “What’s your name? What’s your story?”
She insisted that I join them in their booth and asked what kind of artist I was.
“Every server in this city has an interesting story,” she said, gesturing her spoon toward me, her mouth full of birthday soufflé, and the trio’s attention now fully, yet comfortably, on me.
I told her all about my dream to be an author and about the short story I was working on.
“What if one of the characters dies?” she riffed, delighted.
Were we collaborating? I could hardly breathe.
I was glad to have refused their offer of a bite of soufflé because the manager suddenly appeared from his basement lair, and I immediately popped out of the booth.
“I’ll just grab you the check,” I said, with my arms behind my back again, in an attempt to look professional. She winked at me as I walked away.
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She paid the bill herself, though her friends tried, and though my tip out didn’t reflect it, she left me 100% on their $400 bill and a note that read, “I know your day will come. Keep writing.”
The manager wouldn’t let me keep the receipt, but I didn’t need it.
Catherine had given me something invaluable that night. Her kindness has always stayed with me. She showed me a different way to be an artist — to be a person. She chose passion, curiosity, individuality and humility in an industry that often made that feel impossible.
I never went back to the restaurant again after that night. I left before the thinness of the place convinced me I had to disappear to deserve a future. There were plenty of other workplace cultures ahead of me that would also try to normalise self-erasure as ambition, but years later, when I sat down to write this essay just days after Catherine O’Hara’s death, I could still clearly conjure that moment with her. Thanks to her, I still try to follow my appetite, to seek fullness and to believe, even on my hungriest days, that my day will come.
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Sammi LaBue is the founder of Fledgling Writing Workshops (“Best Writing Workshops,” Timeout NY) and basically obsessed with the feeling of having an idea and writing it down. Her latest project is a recently finished memoir written in collaboration with her mom titled “Bad Apples.” Some of her other essays can be found in BuzzFeed, Slate, Literary Hub, The Sun, Glamour and more. To follow her writing journey and find opportunities to write with her flow, visit fledgling.substack.com.
As I settled in for the 17-hour flight from Australia to the United States, I turned to the vacant seat between my wife and me and smiled. While other passengers might have thought it was a stroke of luck, they didn’t know this was deliberate. It was the result of my seat selection obsession.
The ritual starts the moment I book a flight: I check legroom measurements and read seat reviews, then study the airline’s seat map to predict which seats will stay open. There are rules: I go for an aisle seat on the right side of the aircraft, and on wide-body planes with a 3-3-3 configuration, I pick one in the middle section.
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Even after I’ve locked in my seat, I can’t stop. In the days leading up to departure, I’m refreshing the “Manage My Booking” page, monitoring which seats fill up, debating whether to switch to 12D or stick with 11D.
Turns out, plenty of travelers have their own versions of this routine. Some travelers insist on the same side of the plane every time. Others will only sit in odd-numbered rows. A few refresh seat maps obsessively, fixated on bathroom proximity or meal service order.
Performance psychology specialist Sam Wones said this quirk runs deeper than seat preference. “It reflects a need for control in environments where individuals feel they lack it,” he explained. “Ritualistic actions like seat-map checking can reduce anxiety about the unknown.”
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When everything about air travel feels chaotic, securing a specific seat sends a signal to your nervous system that something is manageable.
These rituals can be remarkably specific. Georgia Hopkins, a freelance travel writer, only sits in odd-numbered rows: 11A ideally, or 13A/15A if that’s taken. Rows 12 or 14 simply don’t exist in her world. “I can’t do even numbers. If not 11, I have to sit in an odd-numbered row,” she said. She also insists on a window seat as far forward as possible, so she boards earlier, exits faster and is served first.
Row 25. Always row 25. Amanda Kendle is so committed to this specific row that she will not change it, even if a better option opens up. Not because it has extra legroom or is closer to the exit, but because it is her lucky number.
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“Some part of my anxious flyer mentality tells me if I change my seat, the plane will crash and my original seat would have been safer,” she explained. When traveling with her teenage daughter, who insists on a window seat, Kendle still claims row 25; she just takes the middle instead of the aisle. Her flexibility still operates within strict boundaries.
wera Rodsawang via Getty Images
Your plane seat preference might reveal a lot about you, according to travelers and experts.
These rituals feel personal, even irrational. Chris Lipp, a social psychologist at Tulane University who studies power dynamics, said they expose how confident we feel in public spaces.
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“People who feel more powerful are less sensitive to sitting next to someone,” Lipp explained. “They’re comfortable with less interpersonal space, less worried about others encroaching on their space, and less vigilant because they don’t feel threatened by others.”
The dreaded middle seat, which most people avoid, illustrates this power dynamic. Lipp notes that powerful people can tolerate it. They will claim both armrests without hesitation, exuding a confidence that likely extends beyond the cabin. Anxious travellers either guard the armrest like a border wall or avoid it completely to prevent any contact.
Seat location also reflects travellers’ approach to control and efficiency, Wones says. Front-of-plane passengers want to disembark quickly and avoid feeling trapped, valuing efficiency and a faster process. Back-of-plane flyers operate differently. They’re more relaxed about waiting, less concerned with being first off the aircraft and often actively avoid the chaos of the front rows. Neither preference is inherently better, but they reflect different tolerances for waiting.
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Beyond front vs. back, another choice reveals personality: window or aisle. Wones said introverts gravitate toward window seats for privacy and control, while extroverts prefer aisle seats for mobility and easier interaction.
Lisa Burns, founder of The Travel Photography Club, understands this completely. On a flight from Tokyo to Helsinki over the Arctic Circle, she ended up in an aisle seat with the window passenger asleep, shutter closed. “All I could imagine were icebergs and glaciers below,” she said. “I had to practice deep breathing because it took so much self-control not to lean across and look out the window.” For a travel photographer, being trapped on the aisle meant missing exactly what she needed to see.
I’m firmly in the aisle camp, though my reasons are less about interaction and more about autonomy. I can move whenever I want without performing a gymnastics routine to climb over a sleeping passenger or getting the side-eye when I’m up and down for the third time in an hour. On a long flight, this freedom matters. Maybe it makes me someone who needs to feel in charge of something, even if it’s just bathroom breaks. Or perhaps I just drink too much water.
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My right-side preference has a practical foundation. Analysis of Air Canada and American Airlines seat data shows passengers disproportionately choose the left side, which means the right side offers better odds of an empty seat beside me.
Wones said that once you unconsciously favour one side, your brain locks onto it. “Some people unconsciously favour one side due to how their brain processes spatial awareness or comfort,” he explained. Maybe it felt slightly better once, or you had a good flight on that side. The reason doesn’t matter. Once the pattern exists, you stick with it, even when both sides are identical. It becomes less about logic and more about what feels right.
If you’re reading this thinking, who obsesses over seats?, that reaction itself reveals something, according to Wones. Strategic planners are highly conscientious and prefer control. Acceptors are more adaptable, with lower anxiety and a higher tolerance for uncertainty.
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When my wife catches me refreshing the seat map days before a flight, she thinks I’m ridiculous. She’s probably right. But 17 hours squeezed into economy with an empty seat next to us? That’s when ridiculous becomes genius.
You really know you’ve made it as an A-list music star when the NFL invites you to perform during the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
In the past few years alone, massive names as varied as The Weeknd, Jennifer Lopez, Usher, Kendrick Lamar and, of course, Rihanna have all wowed with their performances – but there have been a fair few shocking moments along the way.
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This year, the honour falls to music superstar Bad Bunny, fresh from his Album Of The Year win at the 2026 Grammys, and the world is sure to be watching to see what he pulls out of the bag on one of the world’s most-watched music events.
Indeed, as history has proved time and time again, the Super Bowl Halftime Show hasn’t always been just about the music – with plenty of shocking and headline-grabbing moments taking place at the annual sports event.
As we get ready for what could easily become one of the year’s biggest nights in music, here are 18 more of the biggest Super Bowl shockers from years gone by…
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18. Blackout Bowl (2013)
Jamie Squire via Getty Images
This shocking moment didn’t come during Beyoncé’s Halftime Show but shortly after it, with the football game that followed (snooze…) having to suspend play for a full 34 minutes due to a power outage.
Evidently, the power of the Queen Bey is so strong, it can even plunge an entire stadium into darkness. Bow down, bitches indeed.
Usher’s jam-packed set included powerful vocals, surprise A-list guests and impressive choreo.
Looking back, though, we think this impromptu shirtless moment is probably what we think of most when we reflect on the Burn singer’s Super Bowl appearance…
She’s not always the first person you think of when it comes to great live performers, but Katy Perry proved a massive point when she really brought it at the Super Bowl.
Over the course of her Halftime Show, Katy entered atop a giant lion, floated through the air while singing Firework, introduced Missy Elliott and convincingly rocked out to I Kissed A Girl with Lenny Kravitz.
And yet… the next day all anyone seemed to want to talk about was the “Left Shark” incident, when one of her dancers lost their way in the middle of a routine, while dressed as a shark.
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It’s a pity, really, because Katy’s was one of the most impressive and elaborate Super Bowl shows of the 2010s.
If nothing else, the 2022 Halftime Show will be remembered for the epic level of stars that took part, with singer Mary J Blige and rappers Kendrick Lamar, Eminem and 50 Cent among those sharing the stage in a celebration of hip-hop music throughout the years.
There were some big headline-grabbing moments, too – not least when 50 Cent recreated his upside down entrance from his In Da Club music video, and Eminem made a show of solidarity by taking the knee in the middle of the performance.
Diana Ross’ Super Bowl performance was jam-packed with hits, dating back from the music legend’s days in the Supremes right through to her solo success.
Arguably the most iconic moment of the lot came right at the end, though, when she left the field in a helicopter. There’s travelling in style, and then there’s this…
Nobody would question that Prince is one of the greatest live performers in pop history, but he really cemented this at the 2007 Super Bowl. As well as covering tracks by Queen, Foo Fighters and Bob Dylan, he effortlessly performed his own songs Let’s Go Crazy and Baby I’m A Star.
He closed the show with a version of his signature hit, Purple Rain, made all the more significant by the literal downpour that accompanied it – the real shocker being that Prince still managed to retain his cool throughout. What a man.
Before it was so commonplace for huge musicians to perform at the Halftime Show, organisers used to think a little more outside the box. That’s why in 1991, they handed over the reins to the Walt Disney Company.
Disney’s show is not one that’s looked back on particularly fondly, with a wave of local child performers sharing the stage with the company’s iconic characters (as well as New Kids On The Block, for some reason), while also somehow shoehorning in a tribute to those fighting in the Gulf war, and a message from then-president George Bush.
Fortunately for everyone involved, this was also the year Whitney Houston blew everyone away with her rendition of the National Anthem, which is what most of us remember about the Super Bowl that year.
Known for making a statement in some way or another whenever she performs live, we were curious to see how Lady Gaga would kick things off when given the massive platform of the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
And really, what better way is there to make an entrance than a pre-recorded patriotic tune sung from the top of a stadium, before leaping off it to perform your hits on the field below?
After a great run of successive mega-stars performing at the Super Bowl , beginning with Madonna and ending with Lady Gaga, the stakes were high when it was announced that Justin Timberlake would be taking the stage for the first time since 2004.
Regrettably, his performance didn’t quite live up to expectations, with many criticising his unusual fashion choices, as well as the decision not to invite Janet Jackson to perform with him following their ill-fated performance more than a decade earlier (more on that later, unsurprisingly).
In 2020, the NFL lined up two legendary artists to share top billing with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira teaming up for the Halftime Show.
The pair’s performance was packed full of memorable moments, with Shakira showing off her famous belly-dancing skills, crowd-surfing and paid homage to both her Colombian and Lebanese heritage.
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Meanwhile, J-Lo sneaked in a cameo appearance from her teenager Emme, and turned her hit Let’s Get Loud into a unifying (and surprisingly effective) protest anthem.
However, some more conservative critics took issue with the star when she showed off some of the pole-dancing skills she’d honed while making the film Hustlers. There’s clearly just no pleasing some people…
Given that The Weeknd’s Halftime Show performance came pretty much slap-bang in the middle of the pandemic, there was a big question mark over exactly how he would be able to pull it all off.
True to form, he managed just fine.
Embodying the “lounge lizard” character that he took on while promoting his After Hours album, the singer put an unusually eerie spin on the Super Bowl Halftime Show, at one point getting lost in a creepy maze before heading out onto the pitch, where he was met by an army of identically-dressed backing dancers in facial bandages.
Kendrick Lamar during a memorable moment in his 2025 Super Bowl routine
via Associated Press
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It’s tough to know quite where to start with Kendrick Lamar’s performance from 2025.
One of the best showman of his generation, it says something that above all of that, what we best remember Kendrick holding court at the centre of it all.
Having been away from the stage for a number of years, the world was waiting with baited breath for Rihanna’s Super Bowl performance, which she’d previously teased would include a mysterious surprise guest.
What no one could have anticipated, though, was that Rih was talking about her unborn child, not least because she’d welcomed her son RZA only a few months earlier.
Reports claimed that the chart-topping star even managed to conceal her pregnancy from almost everyone involved in putting the performance together – which made it almost using the Super Bowl Halftime Performance as her way of announcing to the world she had another baby on the way all the more surprising.
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She has since welcomed a second son, Riot, with her partner, fellow musician A$AP Rocky.
It had been one of the worst kept secrets in music, but we still did a little squeal when the other two members of Destiny’s Child popped up during Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance (and what a pop up it was, we could happily watch Michelle Williams finding her feet after shooting up from the floor for a good two hours without getting bored).
The trio whizzed through Bootylicious and Independent Women before joining Beyoncé for Single Ladies, complete with the video’s original choreo.
Madonna was the main event during the 2012 Halftime Show, but it was M.I.A. who wound up generating the most headlines.
Upon finding out that her pre-recorded vocals would be cutting out the word “shit” as she appeared during Give Me All Your Luvin’, the British rapper decided to take matters into her own hands, or rather fingers, by flipping off the camera at the end of her part of the performance.
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Although the incident only lasted a split second, it had big repercussions for M.I.A., who wound up facing a lawsuit for millions of dollars from the NFL over the unplanned incident.
Beyoncé had already begun addressing social issues, specifically feminism, on her self-titled album at the end of 2013, but she cranked things up a good few notches when she kicked off the Lemonade era.
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This stage of her career began with a guest spot during Coldplay’s Super Bowl show, where her first ever live performance of Formation wound up creating a buzz thanks to its allusions to Malcolm X, the Black Panthers and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Beyoncé’s fans lapped it up, and her empowering Super Bowl performance built anticipation for when Lemonade arrived a few months later, following similar themes.
“Play at the Super Bowl,” they told Janet Jackson. “Invite Justin Timberlake along,” they told Janet Jackson. “This will give your career a massive boost,” they told Janet Jackson.
The story goes that Justin went to tear off the front of Janet’s outfit at the end of their performance, but also wound up ripping her lace bra too, exposing her breast, which was covered by a nipple shield.
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Although the so-called “wardrobe malfunction” didn’t even last a full second, it had the power to bring Janet’s career to a temporary halt, and while she’s certainly enjoyed success since, we can’t help but wonder how far the talented and unique star could have gone had this scandal not defined her for so many years.
In more recent years, Janet and Justin’s Super Bowl performance has been used as an example of gender double standards in the entertainment industry.
Janet had her performance at the 2004 Grammys – which took place just seven days after the Super Bowl – unceremoniously dropped in the fallout. Justin, meanwhile, not only performed during the show but took home Album Of The Year, even cracking a joke about the Super Bowl during his acceptance speech.
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Jeff Kravitz via Getty Images
In early 2018, Justin disclosed that he and Janet were on good terms despite the scandal, but sadly those “good terms” didn’t extend to an invitation to join him on stage, which is unfortunate, because that would certainly have livened up what was ultimately a fairly poorly-received performance.
Three years later, Justin publicly apologised to both Janet and his ex-girlfriend Britney Spears, stating (in a since-deleted Instagram post): “I care for and respect these women and I know I failed”.
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He added: “The industry is flawed. It sets men, especially white men, up for success. It’s designed this way. As a man in a privileged position I have to be vocal about this. Because of my ignorance, I didn’t recognise it for all that it was while it was happening in my own life but I do not want to ever benefit from others being pulled down again.”
There’s a seemingly endless array of quippy terms to describe rising travel trends and preferences.
One particularly interesting term is “inheritourism”, which really gets to the heart of why different individuals travel the way that they do and how family plays a role.
Below, travel experts break down the meaning of “inheritourism”, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of this holiday phenomenon.
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What is ‘inheritourism’?
“Inheritourism reflects how travel preferences are passed down across generations,” said Jess Petitt, senior vice president or strategy, insights and full service brands at Hilton.
“Many people inherit travel preferences from their parents, with family experiences often shaping how people travel well into adulthood.”
A 2026 travel report from Hilton identified “inheritourism” as a notable trend for the new year – with 66% of travellers surveyed by the hotel brand saying that their parents have influenced their choice of accommodations, 60% saying they guided their choice of loyalty programs and 73% saying they shaped their general travel style.
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“I think inheritourism shows up most clearly in how people define what ‘comfortable’ travel looks like,” said travel blogger Esther Susag. “Many travellers inherit not just destinations, but entire travel styles from their parents. For example, I often notice that people who grew up only doing cruises or all-inclusive resorts tend to gravitate back to those formats as adults.”
Travellers accustomed to the ease of having everything in one place might be more hesitant to go off the beaten path with independent accommodations, hidden gem destinations or locations that require more planning or cultural navigation.
“That same pattern extends into how people pay for travel,” Susag said. “I’ve noticed that travellers whose parents used travel credit cards and understood points and miles tend to feel much more comfortable navigating loyalty programs and booking elevated experiences. On the other hand, people who grew up saving for years for one big trip and paying mostly in cash or with a single credit card often carry that same cautious mindset forward and are hesitant to open multiple cards or experiment with points strategies.”
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She added that many parents remain deeply involved in their adult children’s travel decisions, often financing trips with their own loyalty points or preferred brands. Multigenerational travel is increasingly popular, thus exposing new generations to the same kinds of choices.
“Over time, that becomes their baseline for what travel ‘should’ look like,” Susag said. “As travel has become more expensive and more intentional, people are less willing to experiment and more likely to stick with what they know works. That often means repeating the travel patterns they grew up with, whether that’s specific destinations, hotel brands or trip formats.”
Flashpop via Getty Images
It’s only natural that people who grew up vacationing in a certain way as children would adopt similar travel behaviors as adults.
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It’s only natural that people who grew up travelling in a certain way as children would adopt similar preferences. Katy Nastro, a spokesperson and travel expert for the flight alert service Going, pointed to the cliché “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.
“I personally grew up going to warm beach destinations to escape the New York winter every February,” Nastro said. “I wholeheartedly believe that the desire for a warmer weather destination during the month of February versus a cold weather trip is not just a preference but is now a personality trait inherited from my family travels as a child.”
She believes the same pattern is evident in the families attracted to “the magic of Disney” with Disney theme parks vacations over multiple generations. Our early memories can inform what we find meaningful and rewarding as we grow up.
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“My family chooses the mountains over the beach always, because it’s where I grew up vacationing – and if you ask me, it’s just better,” Petitt said. “Those experiences are also what I’m excited to share with my kids, building on those memories. If we never visit a beach as a family, that would be OK by me.”
Family travel habits strongly influence people’s choices – but is that a good thing?
“Any travel is beneficial in my opinion,” Nastro said. “And in theory, inheritourism can create generational travel because people are inclined to continue the tradition of travel to a certain place, hotel, etc. The only downside may be that this perpetuates a blinder affect where people don’t tend to branch away from what they know, and thus never really explore beyond their comfort zone.”
She added that inheritourism might lead people to miss out on good deals if they can’t look beyond the specific brands or locations they’ve “inherited”.
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“Travellers may avoid less popular destinations or more immersive experiences because they feel less predictable or convenient,” Susag said. “That said, awareness is growing, and many people are starting to challenge those habits once they realise there are other ways to travel that still feel safe and rewarding.”
Overall, she sees a mix of downsides and benefits to the influence of inheritourism today.
“On the positive side, inheritourism makes travel more accessible and lowers the barrier to entry for a lot of people,” Susag said. “It also encourages multigenerational travel and shared experiences, which can be incredibly meaningful.”
Inheritourism can serve as “a foundation, rather than a fixed path,” she emphasised. Travellers can carry forward meaningful traditions but also cultivate their own.
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“People tend to start by recreating the trips and habits they grew up with, then adapt them as their confidence grows and their priorities shift,” Susag said. “Whether that means exploring less traditional destinations, traveling more independently or becoming more intentional about how they spend on travel, many travellers eventually build on what they inherited rather than abandoning it altogether.”
As in other areas of life, parents tend to set the norms and serve as trusted sources for young adults as they make decisions.
“In a world of digital overwhelm and an abundance of choice, travellers are looking to their inner circle to inform their travel decisions,” Petitt said.
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“When seeking an experience beyond what is familiar, inherited preferences and trusted travel habits serve as a starting point for discovering something new. The key is balance – while inheritourism offers comfort and confidence, the greatest benefit comes when those familiar influences open the door to exploration, rather than limit it.”
Whether it happens on your postprandial fart walk, right in the middle of yoga class or while you’re sleeping, everyone — even the poshest among us — farts.
According to Dr. Satish Rao,professor of Medicine at Augusta University’s Medical College of Georgia, the average person farts seven to 24 times a day.
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“It’s a normal physiological phenomenon,” he said, explaining flatulence as the byproduct of fermentation in the colon.
That fermentation creates gas, which is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen and more. One surprisingly smelly fact is that more than 99% of farts are odourless, but a foul smell comes from trace sulphur compounds. Unfortunately, our noses are extremely good at detecting sulphur, even in microscopic amounts.
Once that gas is formed, Rao said there are only two options for it to escape. “Some gas will move from the lining of the colon to the bloodstream, then get exhaled by the breath,” he said. “But the other pathway out is the fart. The gas will find its way out eventually, and if you produce a lot of gas too quickly, it won’t be absorbed, but will automatically push its way out through the anus.”
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In general, a few farts a day are nothing to worry about, said Dr. Cait Welsh, postdoctoral researcher from Monash University and the Hudson Institute of Medical Research. “Most of the time, the release of gas is a healthy sign that digestion and gut microbiota are happy and functioning well.”
While you produce gas all day long, you’re more likely to let ’em rip during sleep, when your anal sphincter relaxes and gas escapes more easily.
Which People Are The Gassiest?
It might be hard to think of King Charles or the Pope as real toot machines, but Rao is positive that anyone who eats food, especially carbohydrates, is going to fart at least some time during each day. And some of us are certainly more, um, productive than others, said Dr. Folasade P. May, associate professor of Medicine at University of California Los Angeles.
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“People who chew a lot of gum, drink carbonated drinks or eat too quickly may swallow more air, for example, which can cause flatulence,” she said. “Other people have gut bacteria that produce more gas. Diet, how fast you digest, and medications can also change how much gas you make and pass.”
If you’re thinking that President Donald Trump is making you fart more, you might be right. (Fun fact: An old Australian slang word for a fart is a “trump.”) Stress or anxiety, about the current political climate or matters closer to home, can have an impact on how much someone farts, May said.
“Especially in people with irritable bowel syndrome or other functional gut disorders, stress can change how fast we eat and digest, making flatulence seem worse,” May explained.
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Stress can increase your flatulence, according to gastro doctors.
Foods That Can Up Your Fart Count
Dr. Ed Giles, a pediatric gastroenterologist and associate professor of pediatrics at Monash University, noted that the most well-known foods to cause gas are the so-called FODMAP foods, an acronym for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols.
The key term for these carbohydrates, Giles said, is “fermentable.” That means the foods have an ability to produce gas. “They feed the bacteria in the gut and the bacteria produce the gas, including methane, which smells,” he said.
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May outlined some of the worst FODMAP culprits: beans, lentils, onions, garlic, crucifers like broccoli and cabbage, and some whole grains and fruits. “If you’re lactose intolerant, consuming dairy can also increase gas production,” she said.
When To Be Concerned
Gas is concerning when it’s painful, disruptive or different from your normal pattern. If you’re regularly releasing gas more than 23 or 24 times a day and it’s causing problems, it’s worth investigating. However, some people may experience more flatulence than that and it’s still considered normal; it all depends on your diet and your personal health factors.
“The most important thing is that if excessive flatulence is persistent or accompanied by pain, weight loss, diarrhea or blood in the stool, it’s worth consulting a clinician for evaluation,” May said. “If gas is persistent or accompanied by these other warning signs, a clinician can help sort out causes.”
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Some of the conditions a health care professional will want to rule out include celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, lactose or other food intolerances, pancreatic enzyme insufficiency and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Connective tissue disorders like Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and other diseases like multiple sclerosis also come with increased flatulence.
You might be asked to keep a food journal and, yes, even count the number of farts you produce each day. Luckily, there are now several apps to help you do this, including Gaslog, FlareCare, Gutly and Vitalis. These apps aren’t medical diagnostic tools, but might help you spot patterns in how your diet and lifestyle contribute to gas symptoms.
And just keep in mind that everyone — every single one of us — has experienced an ill-timed fart, and lived to tell the tale. So unless your gas comes with pain or surprises, you’re probably just doing what everyone else is doing, too.
Susannah turned to her husband, Ron, mouth agape. He looked down, his cheeks reddening.
“It was right after college. I was experimenting,” he mumbled, twisting in his seat. “No big deal.”
As a couples therapist, I am always looking for how to mend the frayed edges of a relationship, but Susannah and Ron were different: they had come to my office to end their marriage.
I practice what I call breakup therapy — a short-term treatment I developed for couples who want to end their relationships without bitterness.
The premise is counterintuitive: instead of looking forward toward separate futures, we look backward at the relationship itself. It’s structured to look at the beginning, middle and end of their time together with exercises that focus on both their gratitude as well as their resentment.
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The work culminates with the couple crafting a shared narrative about their union and literally writing it down – a story of what worked and ultimately what did not. Then, I ask them to sign it. In this way, they resolve the many unanswered, and often unasked, questions that can trap couples in recriminations and keep them from moving on.
The idea was born from my own bitter divorce. After my split, I was plagued by questions that repeated on an endless loop in my brain: “What was I thinking?”; “Why didn’t I see that red flag?”; “What is wrong with me – I’m a therapist and I should have seen what was happening.”
Then, one day, my therapist asked me a different question: who was I when I decided to marry? Suddenly, my internal feedback loop stopped.
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“You’re asking me who I was, not why I married him?” I said, skeptically.
“Yes, I am,” she answered. “Marriages can be as much about identity as they are about a union. What were you trying to solve — or avoid — by marrying him?”
The question unlocked something for me. I’d been full of anger at myself, but I hadn’t really taken responsibility for my own actions. With her help, I crafted a story that I could hold onto about what function the marriage had served for me. Truly owning my choices helped me have more compassion for myself and less anger. The most startling realisation? When I had created a story that hung together, the nagging questions ended for good.
I have seen this same process unfold for many couples. But often, in the course of these sessions, new things surface.
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“Susannah?” I said, surprised to hear the hurt in her voice. “This feels like a big deal for you. Why is that?”
Ron and Susannah had not been the most willing subjects for breakup therapy. During our first session, Ron blurted out: “You’re like a medical examiner doing autopsies on dead relationships! Your scalpel hurts. I don’t think you know what it feels like to be humiliated.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I answered softly. “I have a teenager.”
Ron was not mollified.
“This feels stupid,” he said on another occasion. “She’s done, I accept that. What is there to say? This feels like horseshit.”
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“See what I’m working with here?” Susannah said, throwing up her hands and shifting away from Ron on the couch. “I knew he wouldn’t take this seriously.”
“No, he’s right,” I said. “If it’s really true that you fully accept and understand her decision, Ron, then this is horseshit. But is that true?”
His silence was all the answer I needed.
Over the next few sessions, we went over how they’d fallen in love (“It just made sense, we fit”); the birth of their three children (“The unit held us together”); the unraveling of their connection (“We were ships in the night for as long as I can remember, but then one day I woke up and just wanted more from life”).
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We mapped the patterns their marriage had fallen into over the course of three houses, two cross-country moves and their children’s exodus from home. It was a saga spanning decades.
Then, in our fourth session, Ron mentioned the sex tape.
“Something about this is landing hard on you,” I said to Susannah, her mouth still ajar. “Why?”
“Yeah, why?” Ron echoed.
Susannah paused and looked out the window.
“It’s that you … you tried something that – I don’t know – was out there … bold and different.”
A tear welled in a corner of her eye.
“It’s not you. You’re not brave! Or, at least you haven’t been with me, not in all these years together.”
Then she began to cry. Ron and I looked at one another.
“Susannah?” Instantly, I regretted breaking the silence.
“All this time, I decided you just couldn’t try new things,” she managed after a while. “I gave up.”
Ron put up his palms. “What is happening?” he said, exasperated.
“But if you can do that …” she continued. “What was it? Did I just not ask? Did I build my life around a lie?” She looked lost. “Was it that you never really loved me enough?”
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She turned back to Ron and banged her fist on the couch.
“I did ask! I asked you to look at porn together when we stopped having sex, to take classes with me, to go on that whale-watching tour. … You just ignored me!”
This time, I held my tongue.
“Is that a thing?” she went on, turning to me. “That you can reach the end of a relationship and not even have known what was possible?”
“I made that tape 30 years ago,” Ron blurted out. “She’s upset over something I did when I was a totally different person!”
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This was the impasse that I had expected, that arrives in most of my breakup therapy work – the moment when two people realise that as well as they think they know each other, there are things they don’t know or have lost track of. It’s my job to help them hold that bitter realisation. Then it’s my job to help them arrive at forgiveness or some kind of reconciliation – if not with each other, then with what happened to them.
“It was 30 years ago, Ron,” I said. “But you aren’t a different person. You’re the same person, and she’s wondering why you couldn’t have been that with her.”
I turned to Susannah and said, “You have a right to be hurt, but were you truly honest with him? Did you give him the space and the safety and the encouragement to be that person? Do you think you both can forgive each other for what you weren’t?”
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It was three weeks before they appeared again in my office, having canceled two sessions in between appointments.
“I was stirred and moved by what happened here last time,” Susannah began. “When we left, I thought: Maybe there’s enough left between us?”
Ron’s eyes were downcast.
“But I realised I can’t,” she said. “I just can’t open up that part of me with him anymore. I want … I need this divorce.”
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I nodded. “Ron? How do you feel?”
“I can see where we are … I’m not fighting it.” His voice broke. “I’m just really sad.”
Often it requires some kind of shock to break through the built-up layers of anger, resentment and disappointment in a couple in order to illuminate the cracks in their relationship – something true that has been avoided or left unsaid. In this case, it was the surprise of an ancient transgressive act that lay bare how little they knew each other and how misaligned they’d become.
Susannah moved closer to Ron on the couch and laced her fingers with his.
“You guys seem calmer – closer. Tell me what you are feeling,” I said.
I knew something about that calm after the storm. After my own divorce, we had maintained an uneasy truce for years, until one long car ride after dropping our daughter at camp. As we rode in silence, I suddenly remembered my therapist’s question: Who was I when I decided to get married? For the next two hours, we talked over that question and everything else, and together realised how lonely we had been — two Israelis who, instead of understanding why we had both chosen to leave, had clung to each other and to a shared language. Before long, we were laughing as we had not laughed since the early days of our marriage.
“So, where do we go from here?” Ron asked me in their last session.
“Well, in my experience, when a marriage ends, a different relationship can sometimes be created,” I said. “That’s up to you guys. All endings are sad, but not all endings have to leave you broken. There’s an opportunity here to get to know each other in a different way. And …” I leaned forward to make eye contact with each of them “… to know yourselves better.”
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After they left, I sat quietly in my chair for a while. I allowed myself to remember that moment in my therapist’s office when I realised that I had been using my marriage to escape a question I had been avoiding and what a relief it had been to finally face it.
When a sex tape from decades ago unlocks two people’s grief, it’s not so much about the end of the road as it is about the roads never taken – the versions of a marriage they never tried. It is a sad moment, but also a generative one.
They’d come to me to bury their marriage. What they found instead was a way to know each other – maybe for the first time in years – even as they said goodbye.
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Note: Names and some details have been changed to protect the identities of the individuals appearing in this essay.
Sarah Gundle, Psy.D., is a psychologist in private practice and an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center. She is currently writing a book about breakups. You can find her on Instagram @dear_dr_sarah.