The daily gossip: Celebrities delight over Joe Biden's pick of a running mate, Britney Spears really, really loves the beach, and more

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1. Celebrities delight over Joe Biden's pick of a running mate
2. Britney Spears really, really loves the beach
3. Serena Williams can simultaneously parent and win a tennis match
4. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are new homeowners
5. Stevie Nicks says the pandemic 'is a real American Horror Story'

published 12 August 2020

1. Celebrities delight over Joe Biden's pick of a running mate

Presumed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden selected California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate on Tuesday afternoon, and celebrities were excited, jittery, and, uh, "very horny" about the ticket. "YES," exclaimed Taylor Swift in response to the news, while Maya Rudolph, who famously nailed her Harris impersonation on Saturday Night Live, got a glimpse of her busy future and gasped, "Oh s--t, ruh-roh." Others were also quite thrilled — "love to see and support it!" tweeted LeBron James — but none expressed their love of the ticket quite as rapturously as Katie Holmes, who posted a sexy bathroom selfie with the hashtag "#BidenHarris2020." Sure, why not!

Beaches: they get a thumbs up (and a lot of exclamation points!!!) from Britney Spears. The singer posted a picture of herself at the seaside with her boyfriend, Sam Asghari, and rhapsodized in the caption about how "going to the beach is always so much fun!!!!!" While few would disagree, Spears elaborated at length: "I feel so small next to this vast body of water ... it takes me back to when I was 6 years old ... the moment I would decide to get up and run to the beach ... but it's so intimidating because I know my feet are about to touch something so beautiful." Spears likened beach-going to "a spiritual experience," observing that "it's funny how little things can touch your soul so freaking much." Indeed.

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Serena Williams was back on the tennis court Tuesday for her first match since the coronavirus shutdown, and proved there is nothing she cannot do. Williams attributed her victory to being "calm for once in my career," as the crowd was relatively empty save for her team, husband Alexis Ohanian, and their daughter, Alexis Olympia. Williams didn't look at her family during the match, but her ears picked up her daughter's cough. "I know my baby's cough," she said in a press conference. "I didn't look over there but I kind of flashed my husband a look like make sure she's chewing her grapes because she shouldn't be coughing while she's eating grapes. That's the new mom in me and it's good."

What would Oprah get as a housewarming gift for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex? She may be racking her brain for ideas as Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and Archie have left Tyler Perry's Beverly Hills mansion and moved into their new house in Santa Barbara, California — one town over from Oprah's Montecito home. The Sussexes moved in July, People reports, and have "have settled into the quiet privacy of their community." They are hoping to raise Archie in Santa Barbara, to have "as normal a life as possible." You know, the kind of normal where Oprah, Rob Lowe, and Ellen DeGeneres are your neighbors.

Stevie Nicks says the coronavirus' grasp on the U.S. "is a real American Horror Story." The singer urged fans on Facebook to take the pandemic seriously, likening the U.S. to the post-nuclear apocalypse plotline of American Horror Story: Apocalypse, in which she starred in 2018. "I felt the gravity of it even then," she wrote. In the show, when characters ventured out, they "wore their hazmat suits and black gas masks~ no questions asked." But in real life, "A lot of people still aren't taking the wearing of a simple mask seriously." She concluded that the state of the U.S. "is not a mini-series, it is a tragedy."

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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.