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June 6, 2026
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No. 360
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In This Week’s Issue
THE GREAT BRITISH FLIP-FLOP

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi fled Trump for the calm of the Cotswolds—but their attempts to flip a $30 million farmhouse there have been beset by floods of sewage and planning battles …

MATCH-MAKER

The FIFA World Cup is here, and if you don’t know who to support, AIR MAIL has identified the tribes most suited to your neuroses, from wellness empresses to downtown dowagers …

TO LIVE AND DIE ONLINE

Hilde Helphenstein mocked the art world as “Jerry Gogosian.” But a series of mental-health struggles culminating in her death at just 40 suggest she had become trapped by her alter ego …

SICILIAN STANDOFF

As Dua Lipa and Callum Turner celebrate their wedding in Palermo this weekend, locals are weighing the benefits of global attention against the irritation of becoming a celebrity backdrop …

BABY GOT BACKERS

As surrogacy costs soar and waitlists grow, private equity is betting that would-be parents will pay almost any price for a child—even $600,000 …

BLUE SKIN IN THE GAME

The actress Q’orianka Kilcher says James Cameron used her likeness to create Avatar’s blue-skinned heroine without her consent. The case could have huge implications in Hollywood …

WHITE NOISE

Long overshadowed by Pinot Noir, Oregon Chardonnay is having a moment. In his newest “Last Vice” column, Jay McInerney explores the growing buzz around Willamette Valley’s unlikely gem …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Luxury packages to see the World Cup are topping seven figures … Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes’s son is rising … the favorite Parisian hangout of Mick Jagger, Serge Gainsbourg, and Salvador Dalí is reborn … Sting takes on the Metropolitan Opera … and an ode to the WAGs of World Cups past …

But First …
Issue No. 360

The View from Here Which World Cup team are you? A guide for the FIFA arriviste

By George Pendle
Illustrations by Eric Hanson
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
Art and Artifice

The Rise and Fall of the Art World’s Gadfly As “Jerry Gogosian,” Hilde Lynn Helphenstein found fame skewering the industry online. But after making her, the Internet destroyed her

By Elena Clavarino
Read On
Games

The Weekly Waffle

A positively addictive word game to go with your morning coffee
Small Talk
“Of all the things to be allergic to … coconuts.”
“Of all the things to be allergic to … coconuts.”
Cotswolds Confidential

Flipping ’Ell! Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi’s attempt to flip a $30 million Cotswolds farmhouse has been thwarted by floods, planning battles, an anemic property market—and the Romans

By Ashley Baker
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP
Read On
Marriage, Pop Star–Style

An Offer They’d Like to Refuse Dua Lipa and Callum Turner’s Sicilian wedding celebrations are bringing pop stars, private jets, and security cordons to Palermo—but some locals are fingering their knives

By Angela Giuffrida
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP
Read On
Air Supply

School’s Out. So Are We

A summer-break guide for grown-ups. Things for getting away, staying out, answering fewer e-mails, and treating September as a problem for a future version of yourself
Shop
Arthur Elgort/Condé Nast/Getty Images (Evangelista)
Guest Edit

Antoni Porowski’s Favorite Things The television host and professional explorer selects the essentials for a summer spent eating well, packing smartly, and saying yes to detours

Shop
seeing double

The True Face of Avatar? A rousing tale of Indigenous resistance to corporate greed, James Cameron’s science-fiction franchise has grossed billions. Now it’s Cameron who stands accused of Native exploitation

By Petala Ironcloud
Read On
Best
look Mirage Under the Sun, Vol. 2, Ferrari drifts between past and present and “between the roar of engines and the silence after ignition,”… visit Current Rothko On a Tuesday afternoon in New York City—77 degrees Fahrenheit with a slight overcast—the day resembles Mark Rothko’s No. 11.… read 1873 Liaquat Ahamed won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for Lords of Finance, his account of how four central bankers helped bring about… watch Summer Lovers Summer Lovers (1982) is the cinematic embodiment of the song “Summer Nights,” from Grease (1978), which makes sense considering… dine Gigi’s Those who give New York restaurants less than favorable reviews often sound like a broken record (“too expensive,” “too loud,”… read The Daffodil Days Helen Bain writes like John Constable painted: each minute detail is observed and rendered, creating a complete and magnificent… look Mirage Under the Sun, Vol. 2, Ferrari drifts between past and present and “between the roar of engines and the silence after ignition,”… visit Current Rothko On a Tuesday afternoon in New York City—77 degrees Fahrenheit with a slight overcast—the day resembles Mark Rothko’s No. 11.… read 1873 Liaquat Ahamed won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for Lords of Finance, his account of how four central bankers helped bring about… watch Summer Lovers Summer Lovers (1982) is the cinematic embodiment of the song “Summer Nights,” from Grease (1978), which makes sense considering… dine Gigi’s Those who give New York restaurants less than favorable reviews often sound like a broken record (“too expensive,” “too loud,”… read The Daffodil Days Helen Bain writes like John Constable painted: each minute detail is observed and rendered, creating a complete and magnificent…
The Last Vice

The New Capital of Chardonnay Long known for its Pinot Noirs, Oregon’s Willamette Valley is unexpectedly producing some of the world’s finest Chardonnays. Our columnist charts the white-wine revolution out West

By Jay McInerney
Read On
Labor costs

The Womb Boom Once merely expensive, surrogacy has become a luxury arms race, with private equity snapping up clinics, agencies, and egg banks. Can a new $600,000 white-glove service really be worth it?

By Mark Ellwood
Read On
Net Worth

Golden Balls Ticket prices for this year’s World Cup are already sky-high. But some luxury packages—complete with police escorts, cigar rollers, and Tibetan singing bowls—can turn a trip to the game into a seven-figure spectacle

By Jeanne Malle
Photo illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Goal Diggers

WAGs Just Want to Have Fun Victoria Beckham, Shakira, Georgina Rodríguez … In time for the World Cup, a look at the wives and girlfriends of soccer players who have long stolen the spotlight from the beautiful game

Text by Carolina de Armas
Photo research by Ann Schneider
11
Victoria Beckham stepping into the Los Angeles spotlight as David Beckham is unveiled as the newest L.A. Galaxy signing, 2007.
Top, Beckham at the L.A. Galaxy signing; above, Lionel Messi hugging Antonela Roccuzzo after winning a match, Fort Lauderdale, 2025.
Gerard Piqué and Shakira after the Spanish King’s Cup final, Barcelona, 2015.
Helena Seger watching Zlatan Ibrahimović play in Doha, 2013.
Sergio Ramos and Pilar Rubio after a match at the Parc des Princes stadium, Paris, 2022.
Beckham before the start of a European Soccer Championship match, Lisbon, 2004.
Top, Sofia Balbi photographing Luis Suárez during the FIFA World Cup, Al Wakrah, Qatar, 2022; Georgina Rodríguez photographing Cristiano Ronaldo during the European Championship, Dortmund, Germany, 2024.
Sara Carbonero, the ex-wife of Iker Casillas, reporting pitchside at the FIFA World Cup final, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2010.
Roccuzzo celebrating Messi’s FIFA World Cup win, Lusail, Qatar, 2022.
Abbey Clancy watching Peter Crouch during the FIFA World Cup, Frankfurt, 2006.
Nigerian supporters taunt Piqué with a Shakira poster during the FIFA Confederations Cup, Fortaleza, Brazil, 2013.
Read On
Small Talk
“Relax—all the restaurants in Midtown look kinda sketchy.”
“Relax—all the restaurants in Midtown look kinda sketchy.”
The filth and the fury

“We’d Just Never Seen Anything Like It” In the summer of 1976, the Sex Pistols played two sparsely attended shows in Manchester. Among the few who did turn up were future members of Buzzcocks, the Fall, the Smiths, and Joy Division

By Phil Tinline
Read On
Books
Romesh Ratnesar On

Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran

by Yeganeh Torbati and
Bozorgmehr Sharafedin
Read On
Close-up

Joe Anders The 22-year-old son of Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes is carving out a film career on his own terms, with a Netflix screenplay under his belt and a new role alongside Amy Adams and Javier Bardem

By Maggie Turner
Read On
Around the World in Culture
In Theaters
As wedding season kicks off, the Paris Theater, in New York, hosts a film journey through the many stages of marriage—and divorce… In Los Angeles
Featuring L.A. artists like Catherine Opie and Noah Davis, an exhibition spotlights the 21st century’s very own Light and Space movement… In London
Ralph Fiennes portrays the Victorian stage actor and manager Henry Irving in the West End premiere of David Hare’s Grace Pervades… In New York
IX XI, a new documentary directed by Sean Wilsey, weaves together the recollections of 12 unrelated New Yorkers about the events of 9/11… On Apple TV
Patrick Wilson and Amy Adams star in a series that nods to the 1991 thriller directed by Scorsese and produced by Spielberg… In New York
With works by Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Cattelan, the Guggenheim Museum examines the history and legacy of Pop art…
Highlight

Bigger, Better, Starrier

Twelve years after its brief run on Broadway, Sting brings The Last Ship, his autobiographical passion project, to the Metropolitan Opera House
Read On
View With a Room

Encore for Le Bus Serge Gainsbourg sang about it, Salvador Dalí arrived with a panther, and Mick Jagger celebrated his birthday there. Now Paris’s legendary nightclub Bus Palladium has a second act as a hotel

By Alexander Lobrano
Read On
Klaus Kremmerz’s Sketchbook
Sunset boulevard.
Was Founded By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

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John Tornow

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In Memoriam

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

Issue No. 360
June 6, 2026
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Issue No. 360
June 6, 2026
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