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August 9, 2025
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No. 317
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In This Week’s Issue
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF YORK

Prince Andrew’s and Sarah Ferguson’s transgressions run far deeper than Jeffrey Epstein—and may well spell the end of the monarchy …

DR. FEELBAD

How a New York physician to the stars was allegedly defrauded by his own staff and sued them, in a bizarre case of reverse malpractice …

A PRE-EXISTING ENGAGEMENT

Cazzie David marvels at the rise of the helicopter bride: the trend among Gen Z women to leave nothing about their proposals to chance …

POETIC JUSTICE

Despite a lawsuit following her publication of Trump’s crude birthday poem for Epstein, Wall Street Journal editor Emma Tucker isn’t backing down—and her conservative boss Rupert Murdoch is standing by her …

MAYOR LEAGUES

A historian—and native—of New York, Jonathan Mahler assures AIR MAIL’s Jim Kelly that Zohran Mamdani’s rise isn’t nearly as surprising, or alarming, as people think …

THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED

In the 90s, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy were the “It couple”—and, in some ways, they still are. A new documentary series explores America’s enduring obsession …

APOCALYPSE NOW

AIR MAIL’s Ash Carter talks to Thomas Chatterton Williams about George Floyd, cancel culture, and liberals’ current predicament amid an ever more polarized political landscape …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

The Sydney Sweeney conundrum … the Japanese woman who survived both atomic bombs … the friendship that built the Gilded Age … a next-gen Hugh Grant … Chad Michael Murray, back for Freakier Friday, shares his favorite things … Cast your vote in this week’s Attention-Whore Index Poll!

But First …
Issue No. 317

The View from Here Prince Andrew’s and Sarah Ferguson’s closeness with Jeffrey Epstein barely scratches the surface of their alleged corruption

By Andrew Lownie
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
3
Anatomy of a Scandal

The Doctor Will Sue You Now Dr. Douglas Schottenstein manages pain for a living, but even he wasn’t equipped to allegedly be defrauded of hundreds of thousands of dollars by his own employees

By Matthew Herskowitz
Read On
Hot on the Presses

The Lady’s Not for Turning Emma Tucker, the first woman to lead The Wall Street Journal, has taken on Donald Trump—by publishing his intimate letter to Jeffrey Epstein—and she isn’t backing down

By Michael Savage
Photo Illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Marriage, Gen Z–Style

The Age of the D.I.Y. Proposal Popping the question has officially lost its romance, with brides deciding exactly when, how, and with what ring their grooms will get down on one knee

By Cazzie David
Read On
Air Supply

We Know What You Did Last Summer

Send your kids back to school flaunting an evolution in taste and intellect with AIR SUPPLY’s guide to classic co-ed life
Shop
Photo: MGM/Photofest (Warren Beatty in All Fall Down)
Guest Edit

Clark Chung’s Favorite Things The founder of the November 19 Shop, on New York City’s Lower East Side, likes a Rolex Day-Date with a green dial, Dries Van Noten sequined shorts, and more

Shop
Inside Story

The Price of Being a Kennedy The show-runner and producer of a new documentary series ask, Why is the world still obsessed with John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy?

By Jon Adler and Rebecca Gitlitz
Read On
T.G.I.S.

The Attention-Whore Index Marjorie Taylor Greene laments, Alan Dershowitz sues, and Sydney Sweeney enflames

By George Kalogerakis
Read On
Best
WATCH The Yogurt Shop Murders On the night of December 6, 1991, in Austin, Texas, four teenage-girl employees were murdered… Ride Brompton When you ride a motorcycle, the prospect of switching to a folding bike stirs up a lot of feelings. But mostly embarrassment… spritz Prada I don’t generally get my news from my 12-year-old son, but if it concerns a fragrance, he’s my source. Even before… decorate Carey Lowell Ceramics The ceramist Carey Lowell has a deep need for decoration and an enduring love of architecture… dine Happier x Caviar Kaspia Caviar Kaspia has entered its wellness era. The Parisian power-lunch spot has teamed up with… LOOK Oriol Maspons Ibiza The newly released hardcover of Oriol Maspons Ibiza, from Idea—a hip bookseller and publisher out of Dover Street Market… WATCH The Yogurt Shop Murders On the night of December 6, 1991, in Austin, Texas, four teenage-girl employees were murdered… Ride Brompton When you ride a motorcycle, the prospect of switching to a folding bike stirs up a lot of feelings. But mostly embarrassment… spritz Prada I don’t generally get my news from my 12-year-old son, but if it concerns a fragrance, he’s my source. Even before… decorate Carey Lowell Ceramics The ceramist Carey Lowell has a deep need for decoration and an enduring love of architecture… dine Happier x Caviar Kaspia Caviar Kaspia has entered its wellness era. The Parisian power-lunch spot has teamed up with… LOOK Oriol Maspons Ibiza The newly released hardcover of Oriol Maspons Ibiza, from Idea—a hip bookseller and publisher out of Dover Street Market…
Assets and Liabilities

Grab ‘Em by the Pants! Sydney Sweeney is a master of self-promotion—but is allying herself with the Republican Party a social-media storm too far?

By Daniel Boffey
Read On
Small Talk

The Bureau of Unbelievable Statistics Who better to be Trump’s data czar than the disgraced former congressman George Santos?

By Andy Borowitz
Read On
Modern Times

The End of Women? When American Vogue published a photo of an A.I.-generated supermodel, the backlash was swift. Are even the world’s most beautiful women not beautiful enough?

By Caitlin Moran
Photo illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Into Thin Air

The Flight of the 747 Today, Boeing 747s are even rarer than blue whales, with carriers having retired them in favor of newer models. For aviation geeks, the planes evoke the glory days of flying

By Iain Macauley
Read On
Eight Questions

Hex and the City Jonathan Mahler reveals how the late 1980s in the city foreshadowed this year’s mayoral race—and the Trump presidency

By Jim Kelly
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP
Read On
Small Talk
“I’m having a good day because a sales clerk told me to.”
“I’m having a good day because a sales clerk told me to.”
The Culture Wars

A Pragmatic Progressive’s Lament Thomas Chatterton Williams, an originator of the Harper’s “Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” on free speech, protests, and liberalism

By Ash Carter
Read On
Books
Tom Scocca On

Stan and Gus: Art, Ardor, and the Friendship That Built the Gilded Age

by Henry Wiencek
Read On
Listen

Love in the Time of Content Creators On this week’s podcast, Cazzie David tells us how Gen Z has taken all the fun out of wedding proposals

Read On
Miracle Woman

When Lightning Struck Twice In 1945, Ayano Hirashima survived the bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Eighty years later, she recounts the terrifying ordeal and its aftermath

By Richard Lloyd Parry
Read On
Open Book

Back from the Dead Jim Marshall’s Grateful Dead photos, capturing the calm and chaos of the 1960s rock ’n’ roll scene, are collected in a new coffee-table book

9
The Grateful Dead’s lead singer, Jerry Garcia, during a rehearsal at a recording studio in San Rafael, California, 1977.
Ron “Pigpen” McKernan at the Artists Liberation Front’s Free Fair in the Panhandle, a public park in San Francisco, 1966.
Top, the Grateful Dead near the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver, 1966; above, Garcia, his second wife, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, and their dog Lady at the band’s house, at 710 Ashbury Street, in San Francisco, 1967.
Mickey Hart at the entrance of the Fillmore Auditorium, 1968.
Bill Graham outside the Fillmore Auditorium, 1966.
Al Kooper, Mountain Girl, Garcia, and Jack Casady backstage at the Matrix, a nightclub in San Francisco, 1969.
Top, the Grateful Dead’s last free concert, on Haight Street in San Francisco, 1968; above, Bill Kreutzmann at the Sky River Rock Festival, in Sultan, Washington, 1968.
Pigpen and Mountain Girl’s daughter Sunshine Kesey, at 710 Ashbury Street, 1967.
Garcia’s shirt hanging in the dressing room of the Fillmore Auditorium, 1966.
Read On
A Bigger Splash

Wet Hot American Summer The backyard swimming pool moves the spirit unlike any other status symbol. And this summer, it’s more fetishized than ever

By Steve Garbarino
Read On
Highlight
Left, Jerome Robbins, circa 1955; right, Tiler Peck in The Barre Project (Blake Works II), a dance by Peck and William Forsythe, performed at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, in London, 2023.

A Match Made in Dance Heaven

The Joyce Theater is Manhattan’s downtown, contemporary counterpoint to all the uptown tutus. But in late summer, when the city’s Swan Queens have flown upstate or migrated overseas, the Art Deco jewel box presents a ballet festival. Next Tuesday through Sunday, the Joyce Ballet Festival will focus for the first time on a single choreographer—Jerome Robbins. The guest curator is Tiler Peck, a senior ballerina of famed musicality at New York City Ballet, where the works of Robbins and George Balanchine symbiotically coexist. READ ON

Read On
Small Talk
“Write what you know. No more romance novels about beef bourguignon.”
“Write what you know. No more romance novels about beef bourguignon.”
Close-up

Corey Mylchreest With starring roles in the romantic comedy My Oxford Year and the Julie Delpy–led political thriller, Hostage, the 27-year-old actor is spearheading the revival of Cool Britannia

By Victoria Herman
Read On
Theater With a View

Chekhov Meets Morocco (But Not in the Casbah) Actors Gillian Anderson and Samuel West performed The Cherry Orchard on a sparkling mountainside in Tangier

By Kevin Sessums
Read On
Elements of Style

The New Queens (and Kings) of Couture For a younger generation of buyers, haute couture is not about belonging to the Establishment—it’s about mythologizing oneself

By Chloe Russell Kent
Read On
Fashion Plates

Biting the Brand That Feeds Situated in the company’s New York flagship, Le Café Louis Vuitton isn’t just a department-store refueling station—it’s a thing of beauty

By Ashley Baker
Read On
The Perfect Ending

Chad Michael Murray

The Freaky Friday actor answers 37 of life’s most pressing questions
Read On
Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

Creative Director

Angela Panichi

Managing Editor

Chris Garrett

Deputy Managing Editor

Julia Vitale

Deputy Editors

Ashley Baker Ash Carter Nathan King George Pendle

Chief Technology Officer

John Tornow

Communications and Film + TV Development

Harrison Vail

Books Editor

Jim Kelly

Arts Intel Report Editor

Laura Jacobs

Senior Editor

Elena Clavarino

Investigations Editor

Clara Molot

Photo Director

Ann Schneider

Copy Editor

Adam Nadler

Research & Legal Editor

Matt Kapp

Production Editor

H. Scott Jolley

Junior Editors

Carolina de Armas Jeanne Malle Paulina Prosnitz

Associate Editors

Victoria Herman Lucy Horowitz

Art Director

Paloma Huerre

Senior Photo Editor

Emine Gözde Sevim

Deputy Art Director

Zoé Gillette

International Editor

Isabelle Harvie-Watt

Columnists

Dana Brown Cazzie David Lisa Henricksson
Walter Isaacson Pico Iyer Rachel Johnson
John Lahr Jonathan Margolis Linda Wells
James Wolcott

Writers at Large

Lili Anolik Bridget Arsenault Johanna Berkman Joseph Bullmore Spike Carter Vassi Chamberlain William D. Cohan Rich Cohen Matthew Gurewitsch Michael Hainey Stuart Heritage George Kalogerakis Sam Kashner James Kirchick Alexander Lobrano Alexandra Marshall Daphne Merkin Sam Wasson

Contributing Artists

Monica Ahanonu Barry Blitt André Carrilho Pip Carter Paul Davis David Downton Andrea Ferolla Josh Gosfield Cathy Graham Eric Hanson Angelica Hicks Hilary Knight Danielle Kosann Michael Lindsay-Hogg Ross MacDonald Joe McKendry James McMullan Donald Robertson Charles Dare Scheips Grant Shaffer Ed Sorel Ralph Steadman

Contributing Photographers

Jonathan Becker Justin Bishop Alex Board James Emmerman Marcos Fecchino Daniel Paik Art Streiber Sharon Suh Justin Weiner

Architectural Consultant

Basil Walter

Head of Audience Development

Rachel LeSage

Audience Growth Manager

Merritt Johnson

Cartoon Editor

Bob Mankoff

Music Supervisor

Randall Poster

Technology

Brooks Oakley Justin Rubaloff

Interns

Jimmy Lux Fox Hannah Gross Charlie St. John

OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

Bill Keenan and Emily Davis

General Manager, Retail & Brand Partnerships

Anjali Lewis

Business Development Director

Catherine Scott

European Sales Director

Selim Mataraci

Financial & Business Operations

Marc Leyer

Chief Strategy Adviser

Adam Mendelsohn

Chief Merchant

Jennifer Noyes

Shop Editor

Jessica Iredale

E-Commerce Manager

Isaac Metlitsky

In Memoriam

Peter Bogdanovich Duncan Hannah Jane Larkworthy Douglas McGrath Richard David Story André Leon Talley David Yaffe

Issue No. 317
August 9, 2025
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Issue No. 317
August 9, 2025
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