The daily gossip: Legal analyst predicts R. Kelly will never 'walk free again,' Vanessa Hudgens found love on Zoom, and more

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1. R. Kelly won't 'ever walk free again,' legal analyst predicts
2. Vanessa Hudgens met her boyfriend in a Zoom meditation group
3. Lori Loughlin is returning to acting
4. Bachelorette Clare Crawley and Dale Moss split again
5. No really, what is 'No Time to Die' supposed to mean?

published 28 September 2021

1. R. Kelly won't 'ever walk free again,' legal analyst predicts

R. Kelly was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking on Monday, leading one legal analyst to predict the rapper could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Kelly is set to be sentenced in May, and he could receive between 10 years and life in prison. He's also still facing other charges, including multiple counts of sexual abuse in Chicago and prostitution and solicitation charges in Minnesota. Given this, ABC Chief Legal Analyst Dan Abrams predicted Tuesday on Good Morning America that Kelly will spend the rest of his life in prison, both as a result of his Monday conviction and because of the additional charges. "Regardless of what this sentence is, I don't expect him to ever walk free again," Abrams said. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him.

Vanessa Hudgens and her boyfriend, Pittsburg Pirates player Cole Tucker, found love in a hopeless place … called Zoom. The former High School Musical star turned My Little Pony: A New Generation voice actor met her new boyfriend in a Zoom meditation group, she told Today. "I think that I just saw him, and I was with my girlfriend and I was like, 'Who is that?''' Hudgens recounted, admitting she wasn't able to stay very mindful due to her ogling. After the meditation, "I followed him on Instagram and then I actually just did a deep dive, and two days later, he DM'ed me." The couple has been Instagram official since Valentine's Day, with Hudgens even suffering through a couple of Pirates games this season because that's what you do for true love.

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For the first time since the college admissions scandal, Lori Loughlin is headed back to TV. The Full House star will appear in the second season premiere of When Hope Calls, reprising the character she played on the Hallmark Channel's When Calls the Heart, Deadline reports. The actress was one of a number of parents arrested in the nationwide college admissions cheating scheme in 2019, and prosecutors said she and her husband paid $500,000 in bribes to get their daughters into school by having them falsely designated as crew team recruits. Loughlin had become a major star for the Hallmark Channel prior to the scandal, but the wholesome network's parent company in March 2019 announced that in light of her arrest, it was "no longer working" with her, and she was written out of Hallmark's When Calls the Heart. When Hope Calls is a spin-off of that show, though the second season will air on the GAC Family network.

Clare Crawley and Dale Moss have reportedly broken up again, according to Page Six. Clare had prematurely ended her 2020 season of The Bachelorette out of her commitment to Dale, only for the former taco costume model to break off their engagement in January over Instagram. "This was not what I expected or hoped for," Clare wrote at the time, though the two eventually reconciled despite the forest of red flags. Then on Monday, a source told Page Six that "Dale and Clare have split again. This time it's for good. It didn't end well." While literally everyone in the entire world saw this coming (maaaaybe getting engaged after only 12 days of knowing someone isn't the most prudent action in the world), it's very sad for Clare! Still, good riddance to that guy.

When you say a James Bond title enough times, it starts to lose all meaning ("Octopussy, Octopussy, Octopussy…"). And since No Time to Die has been "coming soon to theaters" for about 18 months now, you might be forgiven for not having interrogated, exactly, what it means to have "no time to die." Producer Barbara Broccoli explained that "we wanted a title that wouldn't give away anything but would be understandable, and after you see the movie, have a deeper resonance, because that's often what [author Ian] Fleming titles are all about." On Tuesday, The Telegraph further speculated that there's "clearly a meta irony" because it's Daniel Craig's "final outing as 007" and "the title, then, is a message: Bond, you ain't done yet." Though as one fan pointed out, "If you've got NO TIME TO DIE, it's almost like you'll have to DIE ANOTHER DAY, but TOMORROW NEVER DIES. And YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, so you'll have to LIVE AND LET DIE."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.