2025's Pop Culture, Entertainment, Fashion, and Beauty Recap

EDITOR’S NOTE

Happy Sunday. It seems like just yesterday we were collectively trying — and failing — to nail Parker Posey’s White Lotus accent (to “Piper, no” avail). But like Belinda and the $5 million in her bank account, 2025 is sailing off into the sunset, taking with it: emotional support Labubus, Etsy witches, the most wildly random celeb couples, and at least 6,7 questionable internet trends (sorry, had to). We can’t think of a better way to recap all the madness than to give you a look at our group chat — which covers the year’s good, bad, and deeply bewildering cultural moments. We may never know what Ariana Grande whispered to Cynthia Erivo at the end of Wicked 2.0, but we do know we’ve been changed for good by this wonderfully weird year.

— Melissa Goldberg / Senior Editor / Washington, DC

JAMIE FELDMAN, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE WRITER: I need to start by coming clean. I began the year saying I would never, under any circumstances, wear a “sneakerina.” But I’m now the owner of a pair. I blame Jennifer Lawrence. 

MELISSA GOLDBERG, SENIOR EDITOR: In fairness, they’ve had an evolution. I remember when I first saw the headline “Behold, the Ballet Sneaker” — and they were essentially a chunkier, strappier version of my grandma’s shoes. But this year, they ditched the fugly platform soles and embraced a slimmer, sleeker silhouette. So, I get it. One thing my feelings haven’t changed on? The latest “innovations” from Kim Kardashian’s Skims.

JAMIE: Like the shapewear for your face? That she modeled for everyone on a private plane? So relatable.

MELISSA: There was also the merkin, which against all odds and logic, sold out almost immediately. I know this was the year of “Full Bush in a Bikini,” but, respectfully, no. 

JAMIE: It felt tailor-made for millennials who regret getting laser hair removal.

MELISSA: That reminds me, we must take a moment for the Saddest Millennial Thing™ to happen this year: The death of Forever 21’s US stores. I hadn’t been in one for at least a decade, but those highlighter-yellow bags and twinkly floors will always live rent-free in my mind.

JAMIE: I feel like it would’ve actually been really helpful this year, when we collectively decided to go all in on animal prints. 

MELISSA: The wildest part was that Fran Fine-approved leopard spots were almost basic. You had cow and snake print, zebra and tiger stripes, and cosplaying as…Bambi? I’m not sure where we go from here, but my money is on porcupine spikes. 

JAMIE: Compared to this year’s most unexpected style stars — namely, newborns, Captain Jack Sparrow, and Aladdin — that might actually be an improvement.

MELISSA: We can all agree that the year’s most memorable beauty moment was that Kylie Jenner comment, yes? 

JAMIE: It felt like the official start to Hollywood’s Plastic Surgery Transparency Era™. Patron Saint of Momagers Kris Jenner joined in. As did Khloé Kardashian, Kristin Cavallari, and Barbara Corcoran?

MELISSA: The most delightful reveal, though, was from Simone Biles. Not only did she drop the fact she had three plastic surgeries in an otherwise innocuous TikTok, but she also encouraged people to “guess,” and did a whole Q&A after. 

JAMIE: Maybe she was just bored now that her outrageous Texas mansion was finally finished? Regardless, give her another gold. 

MELISSA: I mean, I can imagine a world where knowing she had “310, high-profile, extra-filled, silicone” implants would be helpful info. It’s like showing celeb haircuts to your stylist — but on the next level.

JAMIE: Which is precisely what 99% of the population did after seeing Leslie Bibb’s “C*nty Little Bob.” 

MELISSA: I think that was the moment 2025 became The Year of the Bob. That is, until this fall, when the ’90s pixie became the chop du jour — something I have no doubt will lead to many regrets. While I firmly believe there’s a bob for everyone, the same can’t be said of a pixie.

JAMIE: What I’m about to say is undoubtedly more controversial, but that’s how I feel about bangs. There is a bang for everyone.

MELISSA: How are we defining bangs? Are we including low-maintenance and nearly nonexistent waterfall bangs? Then sure, absolutely. But if we’re only talking about styles like the very questionable jellyfish bangs, not so much.

JAMIE: All I know is no bangs have taken up as much mental real estate as Nicole Kidman’s revenge bangs. 

MELISSA: If anything could inspire me to get bangs, it’d be those. They were life-giving.

JAMIE: Speaking of Nicole Kidman… 

MELISSA: Pour one out for the most shocking celeb breakup in recent history. 

JAMIE: She and Keith Urban just seemed to match each other’s freak so perfectly, for so long. 

MELISSA: Equally shocking (albeit, in a very different way) was Lily Allen’s scorched-earth divorce album, seemingly about her soon-to-be-ex husband David Harbour. Duane Reade bags will never be the same.

JAMIE: Even if you hadn’t thought about her since “Smile,” you could not look away. 

MELISSA: But for every split, you also had a Mad Libs pairing of people, starting with Jennifer Aniston and her “hot hypnotist” — which is somehow both wildly random and the most Hollywood thing to ever happen. 

JAMIE: You can’t tell me that doesn’t not sound like a Friends plotline.

MELISSA: Right? And that’s just the beginning of celeb couples you literally couldn’t make up. There was Billy Ray Cyrus and Elizabeth Hurley, Sydney Sweeney and Scooter Braun, JoJo Siwa and Chris Hughes…

JAMIE: …Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson.

MELISSA: But did they actually date? “Intimate week” aside, that story has changed so many times, I don’t know what to believe.

JAMIE: And we haven’t even touched on the randomness that is Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry. After the whirlwind hometown date and the deeply uncomfortable video of Trudeau looking at Perry the same way we look at cake, they kind of fell off the face of the Earth. That is, until those PDA-packed yacht pics — topped only by that Saturday night hard launch. 

MELISSA: On the topic of celebs who have had a year: Taylor Alison Swift. Seriously, what didn’t she do?

JAMIE: Well, she didn’t release Reputation (Taylor’s Version), I’ll tell you that much.  

MELISSA: True. But she made up for it with everything else. She released The Life of a Showgirl, yapped on a certain podcast, dropped a docuseries, and did more interviews than she’s ever done. And oh, right — that whole engagement thing. 

JAMIE: I’m not sure what’s more iconic: announcing the news in a collaborative Instagram post on a Tuesday afternoon or that caption.

MELISSA: I still laugh whenever I think of this X post.

JAMIE: Fingers crossed their wedding is nowhere near as, shall we say, over-the-top as Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos’s.

MELISSA: One of the details that’ll haunt me until I die is, yes, the Microsoft Clipart-like invitations. But also, at the reception, fancy Italian slippers were handed out to the men, while the women got…slippers from Amazon. 

JAMIE: When you rent out all of Venice, I guess you have to cut corners somewhere.

JAMIE: First things first, Blue Origin’s all-women space trip. 

MELISSA: No matter your feelings, I think we can all agree it was a great day to be on the internet.

JAMIE: Between Gayle King’s look of sheer terror (the only relatable part of the whole journey) and Katy Perry’s postflight behavior, it was incredible content — second only to the Coldplay Kiss-Cam Debacle.

MELISSA: Don’t forget the real-life Conclave. Apologies to Pope Francis, but the timing was *chef’s kiss*. The movie was basically a crash course in a process more secretive than a Kardashian pregnancy.

JAMIE: It’s almost like it was…sent from a higher power.

MELISSA: Not since Fleabag’s Hot Priest has the internet gone so hard for a cassocked king. There were J-pop-style fancams of favorite cardinals, betting pools hotter than March Madness, the anointment of Pope Crave as the definitive papal-meme account, and so many cinematic comparisons. 

JAMIE: There’s no way it didn’t come up at the World’s Most Exclusive Sleepover. Like, is this f*cking play about us?

MELISSA: Right? The only thing that felt as ripped from a screenplay was the Louvre heist. Between the questionable security measures, the even-more-questionable alleged password, the Lizzie McGuiresque getaway, and how extremely French the whole thing was, it’s no wonder the chronically online had a field day. 

JAMIE: One thing that had a much better year than the Louvre was appointment TV. After years of streamers dropping entire seasons of shows all at once, it felt like Hollywood execs finally got the hint that appointment TV is one of the few things that make life worth living. 

MELISSA: That was true even of shows that required a bigger commitment than a Love Is Blind proposal. Case in point: The Traitors and Love Island, the second of which exploded into a full-blown cultural obsession, inspiring Super Bowl-level watch parties, endless mamacita memes, and a deep appreciation for Amaya Papaya’s viral one-liners.

JAMIE: Not to mention the chokehold that The Summer I Turned Pretty had on millennial women everywhere.

MELISSA: And, lest we forget, Heated Rivalry — aka 2025’s Horniest Show™.

JAMIE: It was like overnight, the entire internet suddenly knew everything — and nothing — about Canadian hockey.

MELISSA: Even And Just Like That… finally seemed to find its footing — though two seasons too late. 

JAMIE: Sometimes you just need to leave already perfect things alone, which is why I’m dreading The Devil Wears Prada 2. As soon as I saw that shoe in the trailer, I lost all hope. 

MELISSA: Honestly, I feel like half the movie has been spoiled, given how many outfits have flooded my feeds. But at least the plot is still largely a mystery. Does Andy write a Substack called Stuff Miranda Taught Me? Are Miranda’s twins running a Call Her Daddy-coded podcast empire?

JAMIE: Guess we’ll have to watch to find out. 

MELISSA: See you next year to unpack it all.

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