The documentary filmmaker Ivy Meeropol had never heard the name "E. Jean Carroll" when she read the writer's now-famous essay accusing Donald Trump of assault. Meeropol remembers where she was when she saw the piece had been published in New York Magazine. That feature was an excerpt from Carroll's book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, and it described an incident in the mid-1990s in which she said Trump attacked her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman.

I remember the essay's publication, too. Except I knew just who E. Jean was. I grew up reading her and had worked with her at ELLE magazine. She was its advice columnist. I was fresh out of college and dumbfounded to be in her orbit. She was, and remains, one of the most iconic advice columnists of all time. Plus, a towering wit and a hilarious interlocutor. I was walking out of an appointment when I saw a barrage of texts. Had I seen the article? I devoured it in one sour gulp, awed that E. Jean had found the words to describe something so violating without compromising even one iota of her usual flair and humor.

After the article—and her book—came out in 2019, Trump would claim the assault she described could not have happened because E. Jean was not his type. She took him to court over that comment and several others, claiming that his disparagement of her amounted to defamation. Juries agreed. In 2025, a federal appeals court later upheld the $83.3 million judgment against him. It was and remains one of the few times the legal system has managed to impose a real and personal penalty on Donald Trump.

Back in 2019, Meeropol was astounded and impressed. She reached out to E. Jean long before the trial started, hoping to convince her to participate in a film. She succeeded, and the result is the documentary Ask E. Jean, so named after her brilliant and longstanding ELLE column. It's now playing in select theaters nationwide, premiering in May 2026—the same month that news broke that the Justice Department would open a criminal investigation into its subject, exploring whether E. Jean had lied under oath about how she was financing her case against the president. The film has continued to expand to new theaters in the weeks since.

The timing is "suspicious," Meeropol tells Marie Claire. And also frightening and shocking and, in a sense, validating. This film—and its message—matters.

At the beginning of their collaboration, Meeropol remembers E. Jean telling her that one of the things that most hurt her was that Trump had reduced her entire life to three minutes in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. So Meeropol made sure the film is more expansive. It's a recounting of her singular life and career. Her trailblazing work. And of course, her ultimate triumph.

Below, Meeropol tells Marie Claire how she convinced E. Jean to agree to a documentary, the challenge of getting the project off the ground, and how she nailed its tone.

Marie Claire: Let’s start with the obvious: How did this story end up on your radar and why did you decide to make a documentary about it?

Ivy Meeropol: I read the excerpt in New York Magazine from [E. Jean’s book,] What Do We Need Men For? And somehow, I didn't really know who E. Jean was, but I was really struck by how she told that story. It wasn't just about the assault in Bergdorf Goodman. It was about her voice and her writing. I just found it so galvanizing. She has the most distinct voice, and she's hilarious and a vivid storyteller. I was horrified and kind of entertained at the same time. I felt like, God, I really needed that, and who is this person? So that was the hook.

It took a little while to persuade her to even speak with me. A mutual friend actually said to her, “Ivy Meeropol is trying to get to you. You should consider her. You should look at her work.” So E. Jean watched the film I made about Roy Cohn, because that had really just come out the same year. And then she watched my first film, Heir to an Execution, which is so personal [about the execution of my grandparents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg]. So it's almost like she got to know me a little bit through that, and then she decided she would speak with me. After that, in true E. Jean fashion, she jumped into it.

MC: You mention the style of her writing, which is so funny and so enraging. Early in the film, there is that moment where E. Jean remembers telling her friend what happened. She says she thought her friend would laugh. You see it almost dawning on her how other people are going to see this story.

IM: Yes, and that's such an important point, because you almost can't say you're laughing without having people say, "Oh, well then you must've been having a good time." It’s a dangerous thing to admit that you were laughing and only to admit it, but to say, "This is totally normal. This is how a lot of women cope."

MC: Totally, but also I think there’s now a pressure on women to tell the worst stories in the worst possible way to make it clear how bad things have gotten. It's almost like we lose a certain kind of right of authorship because the only thing that breaks through is total despair and heartbreak. You obviously decided that you wanted to keep humor in this story, and E. Jean made that same decision. How much did you grapple with the tone of the film?

IM: You're putting your finger on what made the edit and the actual construction of this film so challenging. It was like, Okay, how are we laughing now and then we're crying here or horrified here or enraged? But we had to do that because that's the truth. She's just a brilliant writer. When I started to spend time with her, we were just laughing all the time. She makes me laugh. I sometimes make her laugh. I felt like we needed to see the whole picture.

And why not? I mean, it's not like we've stopped laughing because we've had horror in our lives. That's E. Jean's bigger message in a lot of ways too. She's like, "I'm never supposed to have had fun again?" There isn't one right way to be a victim.

MC: At the same time, the film really makes clear that E. Jean had to put a lot of thought into how she presented herself. She has a hairdresser. She needs to wear the right clothes. Why did you want to include those scenes of her preparing for the trial?

IM: We're not supposed to care about our looks, but everyone cares. And not only that, it was essential for her. The team had to make sure that the jury saw who she was because they were getting all this input from Trump saying, "She's not my type, and she's older." And how do we imagine that she was attractive to him? So she kept showing pictures of her looking incredibly gorgeous. Her clothes became armor.

I could never have predicted, of course, what exactly she would say about it or that it would be so powerful to hear her say, "I had to look fuckable." It's just so E. Jean. When the film screens, you can hear the gasps in the audience. There's uneasy laughter; sometimes cheering. It's real, and it's powerful.

MC: You could have made the film only focused on the trial, but you really told this full story of E. Jean's life and career. I grew up reading her writing, but I had no idea she had a talk show. I didn't know she was on Oprah. How did you decide how to frame her in the documentary and how much to include of her life before the trial?

IM: I really wanted to show that she was ahead of her time and that she really was a self-made woman. She had all these very traditional female roles: cheerleader, sorority sister, beauty queen. She married young, moved to Montana. But the minute she had an opportunity, she was working. She had this dream. She leaves her marriage. She goes to New York. She becomes one of the first female editors at these male-dominated magazines and a gonzo journalist.

I wanted to show that she was someone who was pushing the boundaries for women in that time period and still was subject to this incredible degree of sexism. To me, she was representative. Through her whole experience, we're able to understand this trajectory of feminism. How far we've come, but also where it stops and where it's almost worse than ever, from the exploitation of women and children's bodies to rape culture becoming normalized.

MC: In a way, this story is ongoing. You couldn't have anticipated that the Department of Justice would be opening an investigation into E. Jean. How did you respond to that news?

IM: When I first heard it, I was shocked. I mean, I shouldn't be, but I was. I was worried. I was worried about her. But I do feel like it's even more important that we're releasing this, because he's calling her a liar again—again. This film is the antidote to those accusations. I would like to find one person who comes out of watching this film and doesn't believe her. We use the actual depositions; he's under oath, and she is honest. So yes, I am glad the film is here to meet this moment.

MC: It's expensive to make and release a documentary. We know that so many companies are afraid of running afoul of this administration. Did you find that people were afraid of the story that you were telling?

IM: Well, those dynamics definitely affected how long it took to come together. Look, I had really hoped that I would be able to go to a streamer and get a budget and really just focus on the creative and the hard work of making a film like this. That didn't happen. I don't know if it was fear at that point, because I don't know if he'd fully established himself as this vengeful, erratic, dangerous person. But I do think there was a feeling that people were kind of burnt out on Trump and burnt out on MeToo. I heard a lot, "Its moment is over. It had its moment." But to me this wasn't even a MeToo story. This was a singular story about E. Jean. There was hesitation. I was confronted with it over and over while we were making the film, as we tried to find people who would support us. And when we were locking the picture, there were people who wanted their names off for various reasons—personal, political, a partner or a husband or a wife telling them, "I don't like this. I'm nervous about it."

It had an effect on those of us who stayed put. But it also made us feel even more like, "This is even more important." It just becomes more and more important.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Content warning: This article references sexual assault.

When cult psychology expert Christine Marie arrived in Short Creek, Utah with her videographer husband Tolga Katas, they had one objective: To bring down a sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) headed up by Samuel Bateman, whom they believed was sexually abusing children. Bateman had taken up the mantle from the imprisoned Warren Jeffs and declared himself a prophet, coercing more than 20 women and children to marry him.

Marie and Katas ingratiated themselves into the community under the guise of making a documentary—not entirely false, though the filmmakers's focus was to gather incriminating evidence rather than create propaganda on behalf of Bateman. By the end, they had successfully partnered with the FBI to bring Bateman to justice, and a 2025 trial put him and a few of his most devout followers behind bars.

The footage from Marie and Katas's time in Bateman's circle has become the April 2026 Netflix docuseries Trust Me: The False Prophet and features firsthand accounts from a few of the women who survived and escaped Bateman's polygamous sect. Ahead is a breakdown of where the key players of the true-crime docuseries are now.

Christine Marie and Tolga Katas

Even after successfully bringing down Bateman's enterprise and releasing this documentary, Marie and Katas don't feel like their work in the FLDS community is complete. They still live in Short Creek near the FLDS sect.

Marie does feel some closure, though, as she was able to accept Bateman's fate as a proxy for her own false prophet. “It was so validating for me to make sure that these girls and women were safe. Even the women who still believe in him are a hundred times safer with him not in the house,” she told Tudum. “He could never rape another girl again. There was a sense of closure for me.”

Julia Johnson

Julia had a front-row seat to the Bateman religious movement as the wife of Moroni Johnson, one of Bateman's biggest supporters, and mother to five of Bateman's wives (including Moretta). She played a pivotal role in bringing Bateman to justice when she began confiding in filmmakers Marie and Katas about what really happened behind closed doors in the Bateman compound, which helped aid the FBI investigation.

Following Bateman's arrest and the fallout in the FLDS community, Julia separated from her husband Moroni, who is currently serving time in jail for his involvement in the movement. Based on her appearances in the docuseries, she has not left the FLDS movement altogether, and two of her daughters remain followers of Bateman.

Moretta Johnson and Naomi “Nomz” Bistline

Two of Bateman's former wives and devout followers, Moretta Johnson and Naomi “Nomz” Bistline, served jail time for their roles in kidnapping the underage wives from a group home and shielding them from law enforcement. While in jail, both women found the isolation to be liberating, as they questioned the supreme authority and obedience that they had been taught. They ultimately became the only two adult wives to testify against Bateman in court.

Following their release, Moretta was reunited with her mother, Julia. “Her words are, ‘Prison set me free.’ It helped her get into a thought process of her own," Julia says in the documentary of her daughter's change of heart after a year of incarceration. According to Tudum, Moretta has entirely moved on from this chapter of her life: She left the community, got married, and started her own family.

Moretta also remains close to Nomz, who still lives in Short Creek but is hoping to start over. Trust Me: The False Prophet ends with images of her studying psychology in college in an effort to understand what happened to her. In this era of freedom, she's also exploring other hobbies like writing, art, fashion, and especially music. “Music helps me process things,” she told Tudum. “It helps me let it out.”

This experience has made Nomz question her faith, as she wonders how God could have let this happen to her. “I question everything now,” she said. But it's also brought her closer to Christine, whom she no longer views as Judas after realizing Christine's motivations. “The parallels of our stories were so similar," she told Tudum. "Since then, we’ve been really close friends. She’s a godmother to me, and Tolga’s a godfather. They’re the best people in my life sometimes.”

Samuel Bateman

In April 2024, Bateman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport a minor for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to kidnap. At the conclusion of his trial in 2025, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison, where he remains today.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that his power over the women in his community has gone away. “For whatever reason, the prison he’s in allows him to make as many calls as he wants,” docuseries director Dretzin told Tudum. “So he is in daily contact with his wives, which in some ways allows him to still have too much power because he’s now been ‘martyred.’ ”

Marie believes that cutting off this access is crucial for these women to begin thinking for themselves again—just like Moretta and Nomz did. “Once they break from him and from the other people who believe in him, then they can say, ‘Wait, maybe I'm not so certain. Maybe he did make all this up so that he could get money, power, and sex—like every other cult leader.’ ”

Moroni Johnson and brothers Torrance Bistline and LaDell Bistline

Bateman's most devout male followers, Moroni Johnson and brothers Torrance Bistline and LaDell Bistline, who all aided in handing over their wives and daughters for the "cause," are all currently serving time in jail. Johnson served three years of house arrest before beginning his 25-year sentence, while Torrance and LaDell are imprisoned for 35 years and life, respectively.

The documentary BTS: The Return had a high bar to reach from the outset: How do you show a new side of the world’s biggest musical group? While their Netflix pop-doc debut may be the first time passive listeners become more familiar with the group, for many members of BTS’s dedicated (at times overprotective) fan base, ARMY, it follows their 11 HYBE-produced docs, long-running variety shows, and countless livestreams on the fan platform Weverse. It's no easy feat to present fans of the most-documented band of all time with something unique.

Still, the seven-piece is at an unprecedented moment in their career. The group has been on hiatus for four years; after all the members completed their mandatory military service last year, they moved to L.A. for two months to work on what would become their comeback album, ARIRANG. The matured boy group faced a crossroads at a moment when they were also at their most visible: Where does “a global emotional support system, a cultural juggernaut…[and] a multibillion-dollar economic ecosystem” go from here?

BTS: The Return follows that journey, while introducing both new fans and old to the K-pop phenomenon at their most personal and experimental. Produced by Martha and Marc and Sofia producer Jane Cha Cutler and helmed by The Greatest Night in Pop director Bao Nguyen, the film captures RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook in both domestic settings in L.A. and the studio, continuing through to their comeback preparations upon their return to Seoul. Throughout, viewers are placed in the band's POV, as they get candid about the pressures of the album's fast-tracked release schedule and debate with their label on making their music relatable and accessible to a global audience.

Though BTS has already filmed over 100 hours of content since their debut in 2013, Nguyen and Cha Cutler’s documentary marks the first time the group has worked with a production team outside their label/management HYBE. Nguyen tells Marie Claire how essential it was to establish a vulnerable trust with the members, in a private interview at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, hours before the band’s highly anticipated performance at BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG. “It's important: that relationship that we have to build together, and the trust that they instill in me and our team to tell the story…I always say I'm not trying to make films about people. I'm trying to make films with people.”

With BTS: The Return out on Netflix now, Nguyen and Cha Cutler chat with Marie Claire about being a fly-on-the-wall in the band’s recording sessions, bringing their relationship with fans to the screen, and how they’ve reacted to the film.

Marie Claire: What was your first reaction when you heard about the opportunity to make this documentary?

Bao Nguyen: I had originally talked to some people at the label previously during their SoFi [shows in 2021] and had this idea of it being this sort of Homeric myth, like The Odyssey. That didn't work out, but when they came back, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is the craziest opportunity. I was surprised and honored that they had reached out about it. To be honest, I was super busy with other projects, but I was like, We’ve got to find a way to make this work. It worked out perfectly because it's such a specific moment in their next chapter.

Jane Cha Cutler: I had actually talked to HYBE America soon after [the members] went into military service, and tried to stake my flag in the ground, like, "I really want to do the documentary when they come back." So I would just check in every so often. And then it turned out great because Bao and I knew each other from working together and developing together.

MC: How long did it take for you to establish that comfort with the group where they were able to be super vulnerable on camera?

BN: I think because they are used to being on camera and have had many documentary crews with them, they were easier than a lot of other film participants and previous projects I've worked on. But at the same time, you're letting these strangers into your world that's really intimate, that's really personal. So it was over time that they opened up, in terms of what they were going to talk about.

At the beginning, I like to have a process where I'm not intervening at all. I'm just a fly on the wall and observing, not trying to interrupt the creative process in any way. But as they're getting used to our faces and our presence there, then I'm possibly asking questions that are slightly deeper.

We didn't [want to do] sit-down interviews because we wanted to be in the present moment of the story. But [one day] we were driving to the beach with Jin. I was hoping to capture him being driven to the beach and looking out at the Westside [of L.A.], but then he started talking to us. [The members] had so much on their minds that they wanted to get off their chests, and these car rides became confessionals for them. I knew when they started opening up voluntarily, then we had gained their trust, and they would let us into the room. That scene with Jungkook and Jin [saying goodbye before Jin returned to Korea] was really interesting too because it's the youngest member and the oldest member. I thought that was really special to see how they interacted with each other at that moment.

MC: You mention being a fly on the wall, but the film includes a lot of very close, intimate shots. How did you capture that while also staying inconspicuous?

BN: We shot mostly on zoom lenses because, especially in the recording studio, they're very small spaces, and I didn't want to move the camera around to get the shot too much. With moments like on the beach, we would use these zoom lenses as well to be there and capture these close-ups without intruding on this beautiful moment that they were sharing together as a band.

JCC: I also think it helped that half of the movie was shot in L.A., where things are a bit more relaxed generally, but also for them in particular. I feel like they could kick back a little. Even though there was this stress of having to finish the album, it's not their home. There was a little bit of an ah, okay [feeling], not as much chaos around.

MC: Media coverage about K-pop groups tends to focus on how passionate the fans are—there’s that cliche image of a bunch of screaming girls—but this film only includes brief nods to BTS’s ARMY. How did you decide when to mention the fans and when to leave them out?

BN: For me, it's always looking at POV and whose perspective each scene is from. In the moment where [the members are] doing a Weverse live, they're very front-facing, so you can see how the fans interact with them. Starting the film at that moment was really important for me, because it's this anchor that most people, and obviously ARMY, recognize. We show the interaction with the fans, and then we cut to Jungkook's hand holding the camera, seen through our own lens. It shows that this film is about something intimate and behind the scenes of what the fans are interacting with publicly. And I know that the livestream was recorded and dissected by the fans. ARMY freeze-framed it and showed our boom operator's foot, and I was like, 'Oh, no.'

For me, that's when the group's personal lives and the story of the film collide with the fan reaction. And another moment was when V was at Dodger Stadium. But for the most part, they were there recording the album with themselves, with each other. So it was important for me to keep that perspective on our story. They talk about how much they owe to the fans and how much they're inspired to create something great because they don't want to let the fans down. I thought having their intimate conversations about what they were doing in relation to the fans was different than necessarily cutting back to fan reaction all the time.

JCC: For that question of, like, ‘Why didn't you show K-pop fans as like the screaming group of girls?’ I think that's because the members don't look at their fan base that way. They don't think of ARMY that way. There are moments like during the Weverse live, when the comment, "Miss you husband," comes up and RM replies, "Miss you wife." That's the playful interaction. But then it's more serious or a touching emotional moment when they're watching the old videos of themselves, and they see the Busan concert, and it's like, "Oh, I miss them." I think that's a beautiful thing. That's a genuine reaction to their fans, whom they love.

MC: I found it interesting that, after the documentary focuses on the behind-the-scenes, day-to-day lives of the members, it ends with just a preview of this massive, global cultural event comeback performance for Netflix. Was that a decision from the beginning to save those big rockstar moments for the film’s conclusion?

BN: I wanted the film to ramp up. The L.A. chapter and them recording is very unique and different from their image in Korea, right? You recognize these images of them in photo shoots and being huge celebrities coming back to Korea at the airport, but these quieter moments where they're interacting with each other at the dinner table or riffing on the direction of the songs and albums. I think that progression was really important. For audiences that don't understand the scale of BTS, we had to show that, but we knew we weren't going to have this big concert scene. How do you negotiate showing the scale, but it has to be in relation to what the story of the film is? That's why the [Yet to Come] screening scene where they could reminisce was really important, because you're seeing them react in real time to the fans and what they miss.

MC: How has the band reacted to the film?

BN: I haven't seen them since they've seen it, but we've gotten messages where everyone's like, "They love it. It's so different. They're really grateful for us." That warms our hearts. I mentioned earlier that I like making films not about people, but with people, and this felt like they were part of this journey with us. It's hard seeing yourself onscreen even if you're used to it. So them being generous with their time and them showing us gratitude for making this film means a lot to me.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Netflix's new docuseries Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model has renewed the public's fascination with one of the most divisive reality hits of all time. Since 2020—a mere two years after the modeling competition went off the air—critics and former fans have re-examined ANTM and its influence on pop culture. The wave in critique has also prompted the show's alumni to speak out about their time on the competition, and the exploitative practices that were left off camera.

In Reality Check, several of the show's most notable contestants and judges reflect on ANTM and give new details on what happened behind-the-scenes. Beyond all the tea—from Miss J, Jay Manuel, and Nigel Barker's firing to Tyra Banks's remorse to the "We were all rooting for you!" moment—the doc also reveals the surprising turns that many of the key players' lives took after ANTM's cameras stopped rolling.

Below, read on for our breakdown of where some of America's Next Top Model's biggest stars are now, from the off-screen responses to Reality Check, to the next ANTM docuseries that's set to come out.

Where Are the Judges From 'America's Next Top Model' Now

Tyra Banks

Instagram: @tyrabanks

Position: Host, Judge, Creator, and Executive Producer

After ANTM was cancelled in 2018, Banks's biggest entertainment gigs have included starring in the Lifetime sequel Life Size 2, hosting Dancing With the Stars from 2020 to 2023, and guest appearances on shows like Insecure, I Love That For You, and Bel-Air.

Since 2023, Banks has lived in Sydney, Australia with her partner, Louis Bélanger-Martin, and her son, York Banks Asla. There, she founded the ice-cream company SMiZE and Dream, which went viral for its "hot ice cream."

At the end of Reality Check, Banks revealed that she's working on bringing back America's Next Top Model for Cycle 25.

Miss J. Alexander

Instagram: @miss_jalexander

Position: Runway Coach, Judge

After leaving ANTM in 2012, Miss J (who uses both he/his and she/her pronouns) made occasional guest appearances on other reality shows and continued to teach design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

On Reality Check, Alexander opened up about his recovery journey after suffering a stroke in 2022. In an interview with Tudum, he described his condition as "Fine. Healing and dealing. I’m good at what I did—do and did—which is teaching models how to inky slink down the runway."

Jay Manuel

Instagram: @mrjaymanuel

Position: Creative Director, Judge

Two years after leaving ANTM, Manuel founded his own line, Jay Manuel Beauty, in partnership with his longtime friend Iman. He focused on the company after its founding, pulling back on his career as a red-carpet fashion correspondent. In 2020, he released The Wig, The Bitch & The Meltdown, a satirical novel inspired by his time on the reality series.

Speaking to Tudum, Manuel addressed whether he and Banks have reconnected since filming Reality Check. "We shot this a year ago. Do you think my phone rang? No. And I don’t think it’s going to," he said.

Nigel Barker

Instagram: @nigelbarker

Position: Photographer, Judge

After ANTM, Barker went on to work on other reality competition series, including the short-lived model competition The Face, the international spin-off Holland's Next Top Model, and the web series Top Photographer. He has also directed the documentary films A Sealed Fate? and Haiti: Hunger and Hope.

Janice Dickinson

Instagram: @janicedickinson

Position: Judge

Legendary supermodel Janice Dickinson doesn't appear in the Netflix docuseries, but her time on ANTM—and her harsh judging style—are highlighted in the first episode. In a Tudum interview, director Daniel Sivan confirms that Dickinson wasn't able to sit for an interview because she "was tied up on another documentary."

The upcoming E! docuseries, Dirty Rotten Scandals, is confirmed to include two back-to-back episodes on ANTM, along with other episodes on the scandals behind reality shows like The Dr. Phil Show and The Price Is Right. Per Variety, Dickinson is set to appear in the March 11 episodes, alongside Cycle 2 winner Yoanna House, Cycle 8 winner Jaslene González, and Cycle 17 winner Lisa D’Amato.

Where Are the Contestants of 'America's Next Top Model' Now

Ebony Haith

Instagram: @ebonyehaith

Season: Cycle 1

Known For: Being a proud lesbian on an early reality TV hit; her iconic reaction GIFs; fighting back against racist microaggressions about her hair, skin texture, and personality

23 years after ANTM's first season, the Harlem-born model describes herself as a writer, health coach, model, actress, and aerobic instructor in her Instagram bio. Speaking to Tudum, she also spoke about how her outlook has changed since her season aired. "It’s beautiful to be seen as an artist, then a woman, then a Black woman…I have matured and understand that my authentic self is more than enough," she said.

Shandi Sullivan

Instagram: @shandithecatlady

Season: Cycle 2, second runner-up

Known For: Her on-camera cheating scandal, which she alleges was actually a sexual assault

Over 20 years after her time on ANTM, Sullivan (who uses both she/her and they/them pronouns) is now a full-time cat sitter and a co-host on the horror film podcast "Urn Fulla Popcorn." In 2024, she took part in a photo shoot recreating her ANTM colosseum portrait for the image's 20th anniversary. She said at the time that the anniversary shoot was her first time modeling in 10 years.

YaYa DaCosta

Instagram: @yayadacosta

Season: Cycle 3 runner-up

Known For: Her iconic tarantula shoot; clashing with the judges

Though DaCosta didn't appear on Reality Check, the actress and doula surprised fans when she broke her silence on ANTM in a 2025 Instagram Reel, and revealed that she had "fully forgiven" Banks.

After her time on the series, DaCosta transitioned to acting and starred in series and films like 2006's Take the Lead, ABC's Ugly Betty, 2013's The Butler, 2015's Whitney, NBC's Chicago Med, and Netflix's The Lincoln Lawyer.

Keenyah Hill

Instagram: @keenyah.hill

Season: Cycle 4 runner-up

Known For: Her ANTM storyline focusing on weight and eating habits; stopping a photo shoot because a male model was aggressively hitting on her

Hill now works as a pose coach and model mentor. She channeled her post-ANTM experience as a commercial model into Find Your Light, her business offering developmental courses, posing workshops, and portfolio photo shoots.

Speaking to Tudum, she said of her work: "Society is finally in a space to embrace body positivity. I’m just here to hold their hand on their path and help them shine."

Tiffany Richardson

Instagram: N/A

Season: Cycle 3 and Cycle 4 contestant

Known For: Being the impetus for the "I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you!" scene

After her elimination (which spurred one of the internet's most enduring memes), Richardson chose not to pursue modeling. In a 2017 BuzzFeed profile, Richardson revealed that she now works at a group home assisting people with mental disabilities while raising her son, Chaddrick, and daughter, Chaz, in Miami. Unfortunately, tragedy later struck the former model's family; in 2023, Chaddrick was fatally shot during an "alleged failed robbery," according to The Sun.

Though she didn't appear on Reality Check, Page Six reported Richardson shared a response to the docuseries on Instagram. (Richardson's account and the post have since been deleted.) Per Page Six, she called Banks a "lying ass bitch," writing, "You know how you treated me the whole time off and on camera, YOU WAS A BULLY!!! You treated me like s–t and said the nastiest things about me and my son."

Joanie Sprague

Instagram: @joaniesprague

Season: Cycle 6 contestant

Known For: Undergoing intense dental work during her makeover

Sprague has transitioned to a surprising field following her post-ANTM modeling career. She's now a full-time carpenter and content creator, focused on DIY and home improvement. The self-proclaimed "handyma'am" tells Tudum that she's following her "passion for getting more women into the trades."

In an Instagram post reflecting on the series, Sprague wrote, "Twenty years later, I choose to be grateful. I am still here, doing great things. I don't hold any grudges, even though I could."

Where Are the Winners of 'America's Next Top Model' Now?

Eva Marcille

Instagram: @evamarcille

Season: Cycle 3 winner

Known For: Braving her fears during the tarantula shoot; her moniker "Eva the Diva"

Marcille is mentioned in Reality Check as one of ANTM's most successful alums. While she hasn't commented on the docuseries, she's known as one of Banks's most loyal supporters among ANTM alumni.

Like DaCosta, Marcille pivoted to acting, having appeared on soap operas like The Young and the Restless and beloved Black TV shows including Everybody Hates Chris, The Game, and House of Payne. She was also a cast member on The Real Housewives of Atlanta from 2017 to 2020.

Danielle "Dani" Evans

Instagram: @danievans1

Season: Cycle 6 winner

Known For: Being forced to close her tooth gap so she wouldn't get eliminated

In Reality Check, Evabs opens up about her early days post-ANTM, living in a model's apartment with Chanel Iman and failing to book most jobs because she was labeled as a "reality star." Dani also alleges that 15 years after her season, Evans admitted that she knew Dani would face discrimination because of her time on the series. In 2013, Evans published the book The Skinny on Getting In: An Inside Peek Into the Fashion World for the Aspiring Model.

In 2017, Evans founded the hat brand Monrowe, which releases small-batch collections that "honor craftsmanship over excess." Per Tudum, after leaving the modeling industry, she "began writing a memoir, and describes being on a 'journey of awakening, both spiritually and emotionally.'"

Whitney Thompson

Instagram: @whitneyantm

Season: Cycle 10 winner

Known For: Being ANTM's first-ever plus-size model to win

Upon becoming ANTM's first-ever plus-size winner, Thompson discovered that her new agency didn't even have a plus-size division at the time. Still, she went on to model for companies including Forever 21, Saks Fifth Avenue, Torrid, and Converse, and became an ambassador for the National Eating Disorders Association. Per Tudum, she retired after booking Italian Vogue because she wanted to "go out on top."

Nowadays, the former model (who now goes by Whitney Lee Thompson Forrester) runs Pink Pelican, an ice cream parlor and fudge shop in Panama City, Florida. She also has a blog where she writes about motherhood and traveling the world.

There’s only one thing more chilling than a series about a toe-curling crime: a series about a toe-curling crime that actually happened. Knowing that the horrific events playing out on your screen were part of someone’s real-life story ups the viewing stakes considerably.

Whether you remember the cases happening in real time or you’re just hearing about them, true crime series and documentaries have an uncanny way of heightening our senses. We feel the pinpricks of fear on behalf of the victims, the rush of adrenaline as police race to catch the perpetrators, and the pangs of doubt in complex cases, as well as the inevitable stabs of sympathy and rage on behalf of the victims’ families and loved ones.

The best true crime series and documentaries of 2026 will evoke all of the above and more as they examine some of the biggest cases in history from every possible angle. Whether these real-life capers are your comfort shows (no judgment!) or you’re a newbie to the genre, our top picks are sure to reel you in. A word of advice? You might want to leave the night light on as you work your way through this list of docuseries, dramatized shows about real-life cases, and feature-length docs coming soon on streamers like Netflix and HBO Max. (Psst—if you're looking for even more great true crime to consume, check out our book and podcast suggestions as well.)

The Best True Crime of 2026 to Watch Now

'Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart'

Release date: January 21 on Netflix

24 years after being taken from her Salt Lake City home by a man wielding a knife, an adult Elizabeth Smart is sharing, in her own words, the personal hell she endured as a 14-year-old girl being held captive against her will. Through archival footage and never-before-seen materials, she also shares the lengths she and her family have gone to find peace following her harrowing nine-month ordeal.

WATCH IT

'The Hillside Strangler'

Release date: January 18 on MGM+

Years before the Night Stalker was terrorizing the streets of L.A. and providing the blueprint for Mia Goth’s feisty Maxxxine, there was the Hillside Strangler, or rather, the Hillside Stranglers: two nightmarish cousins named Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr., who kidnapped and tortured 10 young women between October 1977 and February 1978. Buono Jr. died in prison in 2002, but Bianchi is interviewed on-camera for the first time in this new, four-part docuseries—and he claims he’s innocent.

WATCH IT ON MGM+

'Handsome Devil: Charming Killer'

Release date: January 20 on Paramount+

Paramount+’s Handsome Devil holds a mirror up to our society’s dark obsession with vanity. Its subject? Wade Wilson (a.k.a. the Deadpool Killer), a convicted Florida murderer with Joker-like tattoos on his face, whose courtroom photos gained him legions of female fans around the world despite his heinous crimes.

WATCH IT

'The Investigation of Lucy Letby'

Release date: February 4 on Netflix

Was former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby a sinister serial killer or a victim of unfortunate circumstances? That’s the question at the heart of this Netflix documentary, which explores the untimely deaths of seven babies under her care. Showcasing new footage from Lucy’s arrest and an interview with the mother of one of the victims, it examines the doubt that has been cast on Letby’s seven murder convictions and seven attempted murder convictions in the wake of her 2023 case.

WATCH IT

'Murder in Glitterball City'

Release date: February 19 on HBO Max

This two-part HBO doc bookends a toxic relationship between two men with the murder of an unsuspecting guest in their home in a seemingly quaint area of Louisville, Kentucky. When both men blame each other for the killing that occurs during a one-night stand gone wrong, which one is really to blame?

WATCH IT

'Lost Women of Alaska'

Release date: February 25 on ID and HBO Max

Octavia Spencer takes another crack at crime with her newest Lost Women installment, the franchise for which kicked off in 2023 with Lost Women of Highway 20. This time around, the Oscar winner is delving into the 2018 and 2019 murders of Alaskans Veronica Abouchuk and Kathleen Jo Henry. As Spencer said in a press release: "Lost Women of Alaska confronts the devastating intersection of race and systemic failures that perpetuate violence against Indigenous women."

WATCH IT

'Twisted Yoga'

Release date: March 13 on Apple TV

Romanian yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru promised lectures on consciousness and sexuality in his yoga schools. Instead, his students claim they were subject to human trafficking, kidnapping, and rape. While Bivolaru, who denies all charges, remains in police custody awaiting trial, his alleged victims are speaking out about the horrors they say they endured at Bivolaru’s hands.

WATCH IT

'The Predator of Seville'

Release date: March 27 on Netflix

In a foreign country, Gabrielle Vega found herself in a terrifying position: drugged and raped by her travel guide, Manuel “Manu White” Blanco. When she came forward with her story four years later, she opened a floodgate of accusations against the man who fooled exchange students into believing he was a friendly face.

WATCH IT

'The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson'

Release date: April 3 on Netflix

Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson was a star in the world of cycling before she was murdered by Kaitlin Armstrong, the jealous girlfriend of Wilson’s ex. More than simply regurgitating her final days, Truth and Tragedy celebrates her life through the eyes of those who loved her most.

WATCH IT

'Should I Marry a Murderer?'

Release date: April 29 on Netflix

What would you do if you found out your fiancé was a murderer? That’s the dilemma at the center of this Netflix documentary about the death of 63-year-old cyclist Tony Parsons, who was struck by drunk driver Alexander "Sandy" McKellar and removed from the scene of the crime to die. When McKellar confesses his crimes to his future bride-to-be, Caroline Muirhead, she’s forced to choose between her loyalty to the love of her life and her moral compass.

WATCH IT

'The Crash'

Release date: May 15 on Netflix

Mackenzie Shirilla was convicted of double murder after crashing her car into the side of a brick building at 100 MPH and killing her two passengers. But what really happened that fateful day? Here, she publicly tells her story for the first time.

“It was extraordinary, after months of research…to finally sit down and put to Mackenzie all the questions everybody else has been asking," producer Angharad Scott told Tudum. As for whether she was a loving girlfriend with a medical issue that clouded her judgement at the worst possible time or a jilted lover on a kamikaze mission to destroy her would-be ex, director Gareth Johnson says: “We’ve given the audience everything they need to come to their own conclusions about what happened.”

WATCH IT

'The Yogurt Shop Murders'

Release date: May 22 on HBO

One month after The Yogurt Shop Murders debuted on HBO in August 2025, the Texas cold case that inspired it was reopened with new under-fingernail DNA evidence. HBO released a follow-up finale episode in May, revealing the perpetrator of the 34-year-old crimes against teenage yogurt shop employees Eliza Thompson, Jennifer Harbison, Harbison’s 15-year-old sister Sarah, and 13-year-old Amy Ayers, who were bound, sexually assaulted, shot, and set on fire in a local yogurt shop.

WATCH IT

'The Murder of Rachel Nickell'

Release date: June 4 on Netflix

23-year-old British model Rachel Nickell’s life ended on July 15, 1992, when she was publicly attacked in London’s Wimbledon Common while out for an afternoon stroll with her 2-year-old son and her dog. With her toddler as the only witness to the sexual assault and brutal stabbing that she endured, Nickell's case, which is examined in this new Netflix documentary, took 16 years to solve and involved a wrongful conviction before the dark truth was finally brought to light.

WATCH IT

'The Witness'

Release date: June 4 on Netflix

This dramatized version of Nickell’s murder explores the fallout that occurred when 2-year-old Alex witnessed his mother being violently stabbed to death 49 times in the park. Told from the perspective of both Alex and his father, André Hanscombe, the series consulted both men for its retelling, which focuses on their lives post-tragedy.

WATCH IT

'Maternal Instinct'

Release date: June 12 on Netflix

Maternal Instinct purposely avoids presenting the perspective of its main subject, Taylor Parker. In 2020, Parker faked her own pregnancy, then killed her pregnant friend Reagan Simmons-Hancock, cutting her unborn baby from her womb in an effort to maintain her lie. Explained director Jessica Dimmock, who focused her documentary on Parker's victims: “To give her any extra time to spin and lie just did not feel like the film I wanted to make. I wanted to hear from all of the people whose lives she damaged and broke forever, and not give her any more room to talk.”

WATCH IT

The Best True Crime Coming Soon in 2026

'Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story'

Release date: TBA on Netflix

If you binged Monster: The Ed Gein Story at lightning speeds, get the popcorn ready: Netflix has confirmed a fourth installment of Ryan Murphy's true-crime anthology is due out in 2026. The streaming service has also announced that Ella Beatty (Feud: Capote vs. The Swans) is poised to play the series’s first female "monster" when she steps into the shoes of Lizzie Borden, the famous prime suspect in the gruesome axe murders of her father and stepmother, Andrew and Abby Borden. The Ed Gein Story stars Charlie Hunnam and Vicky Krieps will return in new roles, along with frequent Ryan Murphy players like Rebecca Hall, Billie Lourd, and Sarah Paulson, as well as Jessica Barden, rounding out the cast.

Not-so-fun fact for the movie buffs out there: Documentary films are fully eligible for the Best Picture trophy at the Academy Awards, but have yet to secure a single nomination in the category in the Oscars’s 98-year history. Sure, they’re eligible for two other doc-specific categories, but their absence from the night’s biggest slot might be the Academy’s most egregious and enduring snub. After all, nonfiction films have taken home the top awards at other prestigious events throughout the decades, including at the Cannes, Venice, and Berlin film festivals.

There’s also the fact, of course, that documentaries can be just as gripping and powerful as narrative features and require just as much artistry—if not more so—to tell a real-life story.

Luckily for us true-story truthers, just like last year, 2026 promises to bring a packed slate of deeply moving, thought-provoking, and entertaining documentary films and docuseries, many of which we’ve lined up below as our most anticipated of the year, from eye-opening looks at Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and the war in Gaza to a Billie Eilish concert film directed by James Cameron (yes, really). We'll be updating this list throughout the year with even more films sure to educate, entertain, and, just maybe, snag an Oscar nomination.

The Best Documentaries of 2026 (So Far)

'Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart'

Release date: January 21

In the more than two decades after Elizabeth Smart’s infamous abduction at the age of 14, when she was held for nine months by a couple in Utah and California, her story has been told in a variety of true-crime TV specials, documentaries, and dramatizations. The latest doc about her, from Netflix, retells the horrific story and features new interviews with Smart, her family, and investigators, allowing Smart not only to reclaim agency over her own story but also to share an optimistic look at her healing journey and full life since then.

WATCH IT

'Natchez'

Release date: January 30

The economy of the small town of Natchez, Mississippi, is largely centered around a tourism industry focused on revisiting the Antebellum South. This film, which won the Best Documentary Feature award at last year’s Tribeca Festival, dives into the implications of that practice, following locals as they grapple with what it means to keep such a horrific period of the past alive in the present.

WATCH IT

'The Investigation of Lucy Letby'

Release date: February 4

The story of Lucy Letby rocked the U.K. and the entire world in the late 2010s as the neonatal nurse was found guilty on several counts of murder and attempted murder of infants she was supposed to be caring for. This Netflix true-crime doc recounts the story, offering never-before-seen footage of Letby’s investigation, arrest, and questioning.

WATCH IT

'Queen of Chess'

Release date: February 6

Call it The Queen’s Gambit IRL. This Netflix film tells the incredible story of Judit Polgár, who emerged in the late ‘80s as a 12-year-old Hungarian chess prodigy. The doc explores how she spent the 13 years of her career working toward a goal of beating the highest-ranked man in chess—all while shattering long-held beliefs about what girls and women could accomplish in the sport.

WATCH IT

'Beam Me Up, Sulu'

Release date: February 17

In the 1960s, Star Trek broke new ground with its dedication to diversity and inclusion on TV screens across the country. 20 years later, a Trekkie made a long-shot ask to George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu in the show, to star in his Star Trek-themed student film. Takei agreed, and after being lost for 40 years, the footage has finally been recovered and appears in this new doc, which charts the still-reverberating impact of Star Trek’s positive representation of a truly diverse team working together in harmony.

WATCH IT

'The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs & Who Has Control'

Release date: March 6

This inspiring doc unpacks the years-long battle it took to get the first prescription drug for female hypoactive sexual desire disorder approved by the FDA. The charge was led by Cindy Eckert, who refused to back down until Addyi—often referred to as “female Viagra”—was finally made available in 2015.

WATCH IT

'Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere'

Release date: March 11

Prolific BBC filmmaker Louis Theroux made his Netflix debut this year with this investigation into the (very) dark underbelly of the so-called “manosphere,” the realm of extreme hypermasculinity, misogyny, and racism that, very disturbingly, is increasingly gaining cultural traction.

WATCH IT

'Keep Quiet and Forgive'

Release date: March 23

Years after being assaulted within her Amish community, a woman named Lizzie stepped up to lead a movement of other Amish and Mennonite survivors who demanded justice in place of their communities’s traditional secrecy and silence around sexual abuse. Their powerful fight is documented in this film, which arrived on PBS this spring after making the festival rounds last year.

WATCH IT

'The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist'

Release date: March 27

Daniel Roher, who directed the Oscar-winning 2022 documentary Navalny, returns to co-direct this film, following his journey to understand the impacts of the artificial intelligence boom on his future children’s lives. Though much chatter about AI tends toward the extremes of either apocalyptic or revolutionary, The AI Doc lands somewhere more in the middle, while still promising audiences a “wake-up call” about the technology.

WATCH IT

'Marc by Sofia'

Release date: March 27 in theaters

Sofia Coppola’s first-ever documentary feature is focused on her longtime friend and collaborator, Marc Jacobs. It primarily tracks the making of the fashion designer’s Spring 2024 collection, while also offering flashbacks into the early days of his career and the two icons’s extremely chic friendship.

WATCH IT

'A Gorilla Story: Told By David Attenborough'

Release date: April 17

In 1978, the naturalist David Attenborough traveled to Rwanda for his Life on Earth series, which highlighted his playful interactions with a young gorilla named Pablo and raised awareness of the mountain gorilla’s dwindling population and need for protection. Half a century later, this documentary film, narrated by Attenborough, returns to Rwanda to catch up with Pablo’s descendants and chart the incredible results of those conservation efforts.

WATCH IT

The Best Documentaries Coming Soon in 2026

'Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)'

Release date: May 8 in theaters

Billie Eilish has already starred in a (fascinating) documentary about her creative process and life on the road, 2021’s The World’s a Little Blurry. She’s back on the big screen this spring for a more traditional 3D concert film, but in a less-traditional twist, she’s joined as co-director by none other than James Cameron. I’ll say it: Billie could do Titanic, but Leonardo DiCaprio could never do “Birds of a Feather.”

WATCH THE TRAILER

'American Doctor'

Release date: TBA

This powerful film centers on three doctors of different backgrounds who travel from the U.S. to Gaza to lend their much-needed medical expertise amid the ongoing war. In addition to offering lifesaving care, the Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian trio also shed light in interviews on wartime horrors that have been concealed from outside journalists and speak out publicly about the terrible situation they’ve witnessed up close.

'Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That' the Weight of the World)'

Release date: TBA on HBO Max

After helming much-lauded films about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and Sly and the Family Stone, award-winning musician and writer Questlove is turning his lens on legendary band Earth, Wind & Fire. The doc is set to open this summer's Tribeca Festival, followed by a wider release via HBO Max, which revealed last fall that it had secured the film for a 2026 debut on its platform, saying it would feature “exclusive access to the band’s archives of visual, audio, and written material” to chronicle its cultural impact and legacy.

'The History of Concrete'

Release date: TBA

Fans of John Wilson’s HBO docuseries, How to With John Wilson, know that his creative projects often take bizarre, unexpected, and hilarious turns, and this full-length feature is no exception. It follows the filmmaker’s journey making a wide-ranging documentary about concrete, using the techniques he learned at a workshop about making Hallmark movies.

'Oz'

Release date: TBA

Another 2026 doc with no firm release date—but with plenty of excitement surrounding it—is an upcoming film that delves into the surprisingly messy backstory of the making of The Wizard of Oz in 1939, with Leonardo DiCaprio signed on to produce. According to Variety, the film will include “never-before-seen or heard footage and audio to explore how the beloved classic was forged in crisis during the height of the Hollywood studio era, and why it became and remains one of the most influential films ever made.”

This article contains discussions of sexual assault and suicide. If you, or someone you know, has been a victim of sexual assault or harassment and would like help, visit RAINN.org.

Netflix's latest true-crime documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish follows an intense case of cyberbullying with an unbelievable culprit. In October 2020, 13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her then-boyfriend Owen McKenny began receiving anonymous text messages. The sender seemed to be a fellow preteen who wanted Owen for themselves, but after months of harassment, authorities couldn't find the guilty party in the small town of Beal City, Michigan. It took the FBI getting involved to find the person behind the texts: Lauryn's own mother, Kendra Licari.

Since Unknown Number's premiere on August 29, viewers have flooded social media with their shocked reactions to Kendra's actions. The wildest part of the true-crime film is the inclusion of Kendra herself, first appearing as a concerned parent before it's revealed that she was the one sending the wildly inappropriate texts to children. For anyone still trying to pick their jaws up off the floor, here's a primer on the events of Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, including what we know about Kendra's life after the documentary wrapped.

What happened to Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny in 'Unknown Number'?

By October 2020 in Beal City, Michigan, Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny had been dating for about a year. The couple started receiving anonymous text messages; the sender claimed that Owen was in love with them and was going to break up with Lauryn.

The initial harassment only lasted a few weeks, but in September 2021, it restarted, with the pair receiving 30 to 50 texts a day. The sender called Lauryn by her nickname, "Lo," and mentioned knowledge that only someone close could be privy to, such as specific conversations in their classes. The messages were sent from multiple different numbers and area codes, so the teens could not stop receiving them without changing their numbers, which the families chose not to do.

In the documentary, Lauryn describes losing her confidence due to cruel messages which criticized her looks and her clothes. Many of the texts also included vulgar sexual innuendo toward Owen.

Lauryn began to lose trust in Owen, after receiving texts claiming that the sender was spending time with him. After two years of dating, the pair broke up due to the strain, but the messages worsened after the split. The sender began sending Lauryn threats like "kill yourself now b****" and "his life would be better if you were dead." Meanwhile, when Owen began dating a girl in another town, the sender started texting his new girlfriend's parents, leading to another break-up. Both Lauryn and Owen's parents were afraid for their kids' mental health and the emotional toll of the harassment.

How was Kendra Licari caught in 'Unknown Number'?

Fifteen months after the messages started, school administration got the police involved. The cops investigated several students—including Owen's friend Khloe Wilson, who allegedly had a history of bullying—but no hard evidence came up. In April 2022, the cops brought in the FBI, who tracked down two IP addresses behind all of the anonymous numbers. None of Owen's friends' phone numbers matched with the IPs, but one adult's number did: Lauryn's mom.

Unknown Number shows the body cam footage from August 2022, when officers confronted Kendra at home, got a confession, and informed Lauryn that her mom was behind the texts. In the doc, law enforcement and the school's superintendent lay out all of Kendra's suspicious behavior over the 20-month period. She had allegedly tried to "interject herself in the investigation," checking in with police multiple times. She worked in IT. She helped coach Lauryn's basketball and baseball teams and could've been present at the school to hear details that were included in the messages.

It's also revealed that Kendra had been lying to her family for a long time about her career. Though she'd made it seem like she was still working, she had lost both her jobs over a year prior, which was how she had the time to send so many texts. The Licari family had been going through financial difficulties, even been evicted from one home, but Kendra was the one managing the household's money and had somehow covered up her lack of income. (At one point, Kendra's cousin accuses her of possible insurance fraud.)

Why did Kendra Licari catfish her daughter Lauryn in 'Unknown Number'?

After the doc's big reveal, Kendra gets a chance to defend herself in a talking-head interview. She claims that someone else sent the first messages in October 2020, and that she later continued the texts to help catch whoever it was. (None of the doc's subjects believe this.) Kendra claims that she was in an "awful place mentally" during that period, that everything spiraled, and she didn't know how to stop sending the texts. She also compares her "mistakes" to driving drunk, arguing, "Realistically, a lot of us have probably broken the law at some point or another and not gotten caught."

When asked about the suicide messages, Kendra says she was never worried about Lauryn killing herself, because of the bond they shared. At the end of the film, Kendra says that unresolved trauma from a sexual assault in her past may have led to the harassment.

"As [Lauryn] started getting older, I had things that were suppressed come forward. A lot of it was previous trauma starting to resurface that I didn't know how to handle. When I was 17, I was raped, and as my daughter was hitting those teenage years, I got scared," Kendra says in the film. "I wanted to try to control the outcome of her journey. I was afraid of letting her grow up. I was scared of what could happen to her."

Though no mental health experts are interviewed in the documentary, the school's superintendent and Kendra's cousin do theorize that Kendra could have been suffering from a sort of "cyber Munchausen's" syndrome by proxy, where she was bullying Lauryn so that she would require her mom's love and support, and Kendra could "play the hero." Owen and his mother also allege that Kendra was inappropriately attracted to Owen to the point of obsession, mentioning that Kendra would attend all of Owen's sporting events, even after he and Lauryn broke up. (Kendra does not address the Owen allegations in the film.)

Where is Kendra Licari now after the events of 'Unknown Number'?

Kendra Licari was arrested in December 2022 and charged with five counts, including stalking of a minor and obstruction of justice. She took a deal and pled guilty to two counts of stalking a minor, one for Lauryn and one for Owen. On April 16, 2023, Kendra was sentenced to a minimum of 19 months and a maximum of five years in prison. She was released on parole on August 8, 2024, and will be a parolee until February 2026, per Today.

Kendra, who is now 45, is reportedly living in Michigan. Per The Cut, she is now divorced from Lauryn's father, Shawn Licari, who won full custody of Lauryn. Kendra has not spoken publicly since the documentary's release.

Speaking to Tudum, Unknown Number director Skye Borgman confirmed that Kendra still wants to be part of her daughter's life, but the filmmaker shared her doubts on whether that's possible. "She’s remorseful that she has severely altered her relationship with her daughter in most likely a negative way. I mean, will they have a relationship? Will they get through this? I don’t know," Borgman said. "There will probably be some kind of relationship. Will it be the same? Absolutely not. There’s no way it can be the same."

Where is Lauryn Licari now after the events of 'Unknown Number'?

Lauryn Licari was 13 years old when the events of Unknown Number began; as of the documentary's release, she is now 18. She not spoken publicly about the film since its release. The documentary's ending title card reads, "Lauryn is planning to attend college and study criminology."

According to Borgman, Lauryn's thoughts on her mother's actions changed throughout the documentary's filming. When Lauryn's initial interview took place in the spring of 2023, the teen was adamant that she wanted to reconnect with her mother. Lauryn and Kendra's closeness had even become a concern during the trial, and the judge had banned Kendra from contacting her victims.

While Kendra was incarcerated, the mother and daughter communicated via email; by the time Kendra filmed her scenes following her release, it had been a year and a half since the pair had seen each other in person. In another interview following Kendra's release, Lauryn said that she would see her mother "when the time is right."

"I think I want to trust her now, but I don’t think I can," Lauryn says in the film. "Now that she’s out, I just want her to get the help she needs so then when we see each other, it doesn’t go back to the old ways and how it was before."

Recalling the change in Lauryn's mindset, Borgman explained that by 2024, the teen had started to process her mother’s actions and "wanted to approach the relationship with more caution in our second interview."

The director added of the now 18-year-old, "She is at the beginning of figuring out that she can be the one in charge, that she can make all the decisions for herself and for her relationship with her mother,” Borgman says. “I think that’s going to be a really interesting place for Lauryn to explore."

It’s time to get your hot pants out and press play on "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC—America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders season 2 is officially here. The popular docuseries, which follows veterans and hopefuls through the audition process for making the squad of one of America’s most storied institutions, returns without missing a beat. Like season 1, the new episodes illustrate both the glamour and the ugliness that goes into being one of 36 young women selected to put on the famed uniform, as well as their fight for more pay equity with the football team. (As revealed by the final episode of season 2, released June 18, 2025, the dancers have earned a 400% pay increase.)

Across the seven new episodes that focus on the 2024 season, we get glimpses of fan favorites from season 1—like Victoria, who departed for New York and a chance at The Rockettes, and Reece, who returned as a veteran—but the second season centers its focus on an entirely different cast of cheerleaders. Ahead, we break down the journeys of the most prominent veterans, rookies, and alums this season, including whether we’ll see these faces on the field again.

The Veterans

Chandi Dayle

Chandi is a sixth-year returning veteran and named one of the 1st Group Leaders of the 2024-2025 team. According to her bio on the DCC website, she began dancing at 3-years-old at Ballet Tucson, where she practiced ballet, pointe, tap, jazz, and hip-hop. Chandi continued dancing through summer camps, high school, and college pomlines. She was the captain of the University of Arizona Pomline for the last two years of her college career. A softer and quieter presence, DCC head choreographer Judy reveals that she felt kinship with Chandi because their personalities were similar.

A social media manager and licensed pharmacy technician from Arizona, Chandi admits on season 2 of America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders that she sometimes works up to four jobs (not including her dance career) to make ends meet. During the 2024 training camp and season, Chandi worked at a Pilates studio in the mornings, helped her family’s drug repackaging and mail-order pharmacy business remotely, did administrative work for one of the DCC sponsors, and executed social media work for a pediatric dentistry.

While others on the team were outspoken about the low wages they made, Chandi was not and said that she “saw both sides” of the argument. “We do deserve to get paid a fair amount,” she says in the new season of the Netflix docuseries. “But at the same time, I’m here to dance because I love to dance. I can see both sides, and I support both sides.” She goes on to say she doesn’t have the courage to join her fellow veterans in leading the conversations with HR, indicating that she doesn’t want to rock the boat on this matter.

Chandi’s then-boyfriend Ryan appears on the series, but the cheerleader reveals that they broke up during the season before the team trip to Bahamas. In the finale, her teammates detail an incident in the Bahamas when Chandi brought someone into her room, causing tension among them. At the time, she also struggled with her mental health, largely due to a previous toxic ex-boyfriend who both abused and stalked her following the breakup, which she has spoken out about on social media.

Eventually, she stepped down from a leadership position on the team and, after a mental health break away from the sport, she returned for the final game of the season.

In the season finale, Chandi says that the “DCC isn’t even happy for me anymore…I really just wanted to dance and be happy, and I haven’t been.” While Chandi didn’t write a farewell post to the franchise online like some of her teammates did, she officially hangs up her uniform in the final moments.

Jada Mclean

A Palm Springs native, Jada returned to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders for her fifth season where she was also named one of the 1st Group Leaders alongside Chandi. Jada credits her father for instilling a love for the Cowboys in her, even though he wasn’t always around during her childhood. Meanwhile, her brothers have adopted the Eagles as their team, but Jada says she enjoys the friendly sibling rivalry.

Jada is one of the more outspoken members of the team, leading the charge in conversations surrounding the wage disparity. “We do a damn good job at being cheerleaders. But we’re still fighting to be seen for what we’re worth,” she says in the fifth episode of the docuseries. Along with fellow veteran Megan, Jada spearheads a meeting with HR and legal teams to discuss updates to their contracts. The negotiations seemed to be at a standstill until the post-season, when they received notice that their efforts would be rewarded with a 400% raise.

In the finale and on Instagram, Jada confirmed that she’d be putting down her pom-poms after five seasons with the Cowboys. “Counting out one last time under the AT&T Stadium lights,” she wrote on January 5, 2025. Following her career as a member of the DCC, she’ll likely return to a career as a cosmetics specialist for a dermatology practice, though she also teased that she’d be turning to modeling in a March 2025 post featuring glam shots of the cheerleader.

Along with her teammates, Jada attended DCC member Jessica Bowman’s wedding in May 2025 and was a trophy presenter at the ACM Awards.

Armani Latimer

Armani danced competitively for almost 15 years, according to her official DCC bio. Following high school, she spent three years on the Carolina Girls Dance Team at the University of South Carolina, where she graduated with a B.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Armani made the team during the pandemic, which they nicknamed #bubblesquad.

In season 2, Armani opened up about her alopecia, a medical disorder that affects hair growth, during a hair styling appointment when she was fitted for a new wig. As depicted in the finale, she took the field proudly displaying her bald head during the Cowboys's season to spotlight the condition. The official DCC Instagram account posted the video with the caption, “Confidence takes center stage for Alopecia Awareness.” The Netflix series shows her parents in the stands, wiping away tears. “Super proud. Proud daddy,” her father, Cody, says while recording her performance.

Armani was also part of the negotiation team for the pay bump. Even though she won’t be returning for another season to benefit from the raise, she said that she “loves the fact that I made change for the girls coming up behind me.”

Like Jada, Armani confirmed on the show and social media that she won’t be returning for another season at the Dallas Cowboys. “Though I’m hanging up my boots, the memories, the friendships, and the legacy will forever live in my heart,” she wrote in the caption. “Once a DCC, always a DCC.”

Since the season ended, Armani attended her teammate Jessica Bowman’s wedding and has dipped her toes into influencing, with sponsored posts for Vaseline and a local Dallas moving company.

Megan McElaney

Fourth-year veteran and California native Megan began dancing when she was 3 and started competing at 8, having trained in ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, contemporary, hip-hop, and musical theatre. In college, she danced on the San Diego State University Dance Team, becoming captain during her junior and senior years.

During season 2 of the docuseries, Megan joined Jada and Armani in vocalizing their fight for higher wages. “I’d say that DCC is the most stable dance job that there is, but still, you’re gonna need two jobs as a dancer,” she stated plainly. Of the three, Megan is the only one who will be returning to the team to cash in on the 400% raise—something she called “life changing.”

During the offseason, Megan bought a house in Texas with her boyfriend and fellow Californian Alex, and also attended Jessica Bowman’s wedding. In December, she shared that her cat Chloe died at age 14.

The Rookie Candidates

Charly Barby

After falling victim to Kelli’s brutal final cuts in the first season of the series, Charly has a lot to celebrate in the 2024 season: She officially made the roster as a rookie. Like many of her teammates, the native Californian started dancing when she was just 2-years-old and “began taking dance very seriously” when she was 8, per her DCC bio. After making the team in 2024, she posted a photo of herself pointing at her image in the Cowboys Cheerleaders locker room before the first game of the season. In the caption, she wrote, “As I look up at my name & photo in the iconic Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders locker room I cannot help but be proud of where I am today. What a journey. My heart is overfilled with love!!”

During the second season of the Netflix series and via an Instagram post in December 2024, Charly revealed that she had been diagnosed with pulmonary embolism in her left lung in May of that year. Detailing the diagnosis and treatment, Charly wrote, “I believe that I initially started with a DVT clot, however it was too late to tell since it had already been in my lung. I am very lucky to have not had surgery. I have been on blood thinners for 6 months and counting & am continuing to learn more as well as be tested for other underlying conditions on top of Factor V Leiden. However today I feel better & healthier than ever before!!”

Since making a full recovery and joining the team, Charly has continued to post moments from her rookie year throughout the season, as well as sponsored posts for companies like Revolve and Tresemme.

Madie Krueger

The youngest member of the team, Madie, hails from La Porte, Texas, a small town outside of Houston. Like her peers, Madie has been dancing since a young age and trained with a studio affiliated with Dance Masters of America, exposing her to choreographers and instructors from across the country. She also performed in ballet, which helped train her in dance performance.

While Madie’s teammates are juggling full-time jobs, she attends college at Texas Woman’s College in nearby Denton—a schedule that keeps her hyper-focused. Madie knew that if she made DCC, she wouldn’t have the typical college experience, but her dreams of making the team superseded any of those expectations. Still, the adjustment was difficult. “I had a really bad night at practice one night because I was so stressed with chemistry. Judy called me out for not knowing a dance, so the next day I didn’t pay attention in school and was watching the DCC videos in class,” she recounts. “Hearing ‘tic-tic-boom’ and trying to learn quantum theories is crossing my brain.”

College, coupled with her DCC duties, marks the first time she’s been away from her family and boyfriend for an extended period, and Madie admits in the show that she felt lonely at times. The differences in their current lifestyles caused some friction in her relationship, as depicted on the show, but they’re still going strong. In January, they brought home a puppy named Kipp.

Madie has chronicled her rookie year on Instagram, from their annual service day to their trip to the Bahamas to the holiday games.

Dayton Bramhall

Dayton faced extra pressure as the daughter of a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and current staff member, Shelly. Dancing since she was a child, Dayton opened up about a toxic relationship and disordered eating that kept her away from dance for five years. Dayton also appeared on the former CMT reality show Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team, which chronicled the team, where she was cut dramatically without her mother’s knowledge. Unfortunately, history repeated itself when Dayton got cut during training camp.

Despite the heartbreak, Dayton is still passionate about dancing. She celebrated International Dance Day in April and regularly posts professional dance photos. Dayton remains close to her family and recently attended her friend’s wedding.

The Alums

Victoria Kalina

Following her departure from the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders after four seasons, Victoria announced she had her sights set on another iconic franchise: The Rockettes. Season 2 checks in with Victoria during her early days in New York, as her mother moves her into the city and she poses with fans in Times Square. Her mom leaves after a tearful goodbye, knowing that her daughter will grow up and learn to be on her own thousands of miles away.

Victoria regularly posts dance videos and throwback photos from her time with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. A joking post read, “What GameDays have been looking like in NYC” alongside a video of her doing the Thunder choreography at a youth dance clinic.

In April 2025, Victoria revealed that this year is a “not now” for The Rockettes, but she’s still loving her life in N.Y.C. “I can’t wait to continue to push this next year and continue to see what other spectacular things unravel in this magical city,” she wrote, indicating that her Rockettes dream is still something she’s chasing.

This article contains discussions of sexual assault, abuse, and suicide. If you, or someone you know, has been a victim of sexual assault or harassment and would like help, visit RAINN.org.

Not all true crime is created equal, and the real story behind British serial killers Fred and Rose West is one of the most depraved in recent memory. The married couple was responsible for the deaths of at least 12 young women and girls from the 1960s to the 1990s, including multiple of their own children and step-children. A new Netflix limited docuseries that premiered on May 15, Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story, recounts the horrors committed by “two of the U.K.’s most prolific murderers” via recently discovered police reports and first-person accounts, and resurfaces the story of the deadly duo to new audiences.

The investigation into Fred and Rose’s crimes finally came to an end after one child’s assault was reported in May 1992, and their other children were placed in foster care, where they spoke about a disturbing “family joke” that they could end up like their missing sister Heather. Considering the true crime case is a lot to unpack, ahead, we’re breaking down the legal proceedings and providing an update on where Fred and Rose West are now. Please proceed with caution, as the details are upsetting.

How did Fred and Rose West get caught?

The Wests repeatedly assaulted their 13-year-old daughter Louise in May 1992, a fact that she confided in a close friend a few weeks later. Louise’s friend’s mom anonymously tipped off the police, which led to a search warrant for the West’s home for an alleged tape of Louise’s rape by Fred. Louise was instructed to make a statement where she detailed her parents’ behavior, after which she and her siblings were placed in foster care.

This search warrant kicked off a more thorough police investigation. Fred was arrested for rape and sodomy, while Rose was listed as an accomplice and charged with child cruelty, inciting her husband to engage in sex with their daughter, and obstructing the police.

During the investigation, Fred’s step-daughter, Anna Marie, provided her own statement about the abuse she had endured and alerted the police to three missing persons: her mother Rena and half-sisters Charmaine and Heather. But in 1993, Anna Marie and Louise declined to testify in court out of fear that Rose might retaliate against their siblings, allowing all of these initial charges to be dropped.

Still, the police looked into Heather’s sudden disappearance and obtained another search warrant to look for her remains on the family’s property at 25 Cromwell Street in winter 1994. After repeatedly denying being involved in her death and lying about what happened, Fred eventually confessed to murdering Heather, and the police found her body buried in the garden along with three other bodies. Fred admitted to nine killings, including Charmaine, Rena, and “others to be identified.” He initially claimed that Rose was not involved, but the investigators believed otherwise. He later changed his tune during the pretrial when she seemed repulsed by him.

Where is Fred West now?

After confessing to murdering his daughter Heather, Fred was arrested in February 1994. Rose followed shortly after that, with an arrest in April 1994. The couple appeared in a magistrates's court in Gloucester in June of that year, where Fred was formally charged with 12 murders and Rose with nine. In court, Rose allegedly visibly winced at Fred’s touch, which, along with her refusal to reply to his letters and her public stance of innocence, reportedly drove him into a depression in prison.

Fred died by suicide via asphyxiation while in police custody in January 1995. He left a suicide note addressed to Rose and two of their children, Stephen and Mae, though the contents read like a love letter to Rose.

Where is Rose West now?

Following Fred’s death, Rose stood trial alone from October to November 1995 and was convicted of all 10 murder charges. The presiding Justice sentenced her to life imprisonment, and in 1997, the Home Secretary increased this to a “whole life order,” which removes any possibility for parole or conditional release. Now 71, she is still in jail at HM Prison New Hall in West Yorkshire.

What happened during Rose West’s trial?

During pretrial proceedings, Rose pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of murder. However, the judge allowed the prosecution to utilize testimony related to the sexual assault of three women, which helped to establish a pattern of behavior. Prosecution also invited a wide array of witnesses—from relatives, like Rose’s mother, to sexual partners—to testify to Rose’s aggressive behavior.

Rose herself also took the stand against her attorney’s suggestion, telling the court of the abuse she had endured as a child at the hands of her father. Accounts of her appearance reveal that her demeanor varied greatly between upbeat and sullen during her testimony.

Her conviction eventually came at the hands of the final witness, Janet Leach, who was assigned to Fred as his appropriate adult due to his illiteracy. Leach stated that Fred confided in her, divulging that he and Rose had made a pact for him to take the fall for all of their crimes. In his secret confession to Leach, he referred to a few of the murders as “some of Rose's mistakes,” and pinpointed the deaths of Charmaine and Shirley Robinson on Rose.

How many total victims did Fred and Rose West have?

While the couple is connected to at least 12 deaths, they likely had more victims. In recorded interviews before his death, Fred made allusions towards more murders, and he told Leach that he and Rose had killed at least 20 more people, though investigators have not been able to confirm their identities.

Where are Fred and Rose West’s children now?

The surviving children who witnessed and experienced abuse and violence have tried to move on from their difficult childhood. According to the Daily Mail, the siblings no longer speak to each other, even though some reportedly live within minutes of each other. “Too much has gone on,” the eldest son, Stephen, told the site. “It’s probably too painful for us.”

Media attention, including the release of the Netflix documentary, stirs up difficult emotions for the family. “It’s the children who live with the pain of what happened on a daily basis,” Anna Maria’s husband, Philip, said to the Daily Mail. “It's the siblings who live with the misery and pain of what went on in that house.”

Of the 10 children who lived at 25 Cromwell St.—which the media dubbed the “House of Horrors”—only seven are still alive. Heather and Charmaine were killed by their parents; Barry died of an overdose in 2020 at age 40. Four siblings are believed to have assumed new identities and moved to other parts of the country.

Investigation Discovery's true crime docuseries The Bakersfield 3: A Tale of Murder and Motherhood premieres Sunday, May 11 and streams on Max.

The series, based on a 2022 feature in Marie Claire titled Of Murder and Motherhood, traces the stories of three mothers in Bakersfield, California, united by parallel tragedies.

In the space of weeks in 2018, Diane "Di" Byrne's son James Kulstad, 38, was shot to death; Cheryl Holsonbake's son Micah Holsonbake, 34, went missing and was later confirmed to have been murdered; and Jane Parrent's daughter Baylee Parrent Despot went missing. To this day, Baylee has still never been found.

The three mothers soon came to believe that their children's fates were connected—dubbing them the Bakersfield 3—and forged an unbreakable bond with one another through the most horrific circumstances.

But, in the words of local crime reporter Olivia LaVoice, Di, Cheryl, and Jane were not just grieving mothers, "these are mothers that are in the middle of a full-blown investigation."

Together, the women did everything in their power to raise awareness of the intertwined cases, bring about justice for their kids, and help with similar cases happening in their local area.

All three episodes of this fascinating, tragic saga air May 11. Below, we take a look at the biggest takeaways to expect from episode 1, titled "One Mystery—or Three?"

Bakersfield Is a "Sleepy Little 'Burb"

The Bakersfield 3's parents bring attention to the incongruity of these horrible things happening to their kids in this "sleepy little 'burb," as Micah's dad Lance puts it.

"You can make an argument about Bakersfield being a terrible place," Lance says in the documentary. "You can make a good argument for Bakersfield being a very nice place."

Meanwhile, Lance's wife Cheryl explains about the murders and disappearances, "This is not happening in the 'bad part of town' under the cover of night. These are people doing this stuff in their garages around the corner from people who are just normal families."

Micah Holsonbake Had a Bright Future

The series begins by taking a closer look at Micah's life and death, told through the eyes of his parents Cheryl and Lance, and of his close friends.

Micah worked as a stockbroker, which his father took as evidence that he was doing okay. "I never worried about Micah," Lance said. "I always thought that he'd be alright. Micah will be alright. He's resourceful. He's independent. I always thought he'd be fine."

But when Micah stopped answering phone calls for days on end in the spring of 2018, his parents and friends knew that something was seriously wrong.

Cheryl was eventually able to file a missing persons report for Micah. After that, she said, "We had so many phone calls because you know he knew everybody."

A friend of his reinforced the idea of his popularity, explaining, "Micah's motto is 'I only go where I'm the show.'"

James Kulstad Wanted Out of Bakersfield

James Kulstad had moved to San Diego years before he was murdered—he loved it there, especially the surfing. But after being hit by a car in 2007, he became addicted to opioids, leading him down a dark path. Eventually, in the summer before he was shot, he moved back in with his mom Di in Bakersfield, but his priority was always to get back to San Diego. Tragically, he never got to.

Baylee Despot's Story Is Still a Mystery

Seven years on from when she first disappeared, Baylee has still never been found.

In the documentary, her mom Jane takes the viewer with her to put up flyers about her missing daughter. Every time she puts one up, she says the prayer: "One more day to find Baylee, one more day not to go crazy."

Jane will never give up until she knows what happened to her daughter, but the search has been grueling. "I have nowhere to look for Baylee, but I have everywhere to look for her," she says.

Di Byrne Was the First to Make the Connection Between James and Micah's Cases

After learning that Micah was missing, Di called Cheryl and told her that James had been killed, and that he had known Micah. The two men had met working at Wells Fargo, and had spent some time together.

Di ended up bringing Cheryl and Lance with her to see James' detective, Sgt. Garrett, who agreed that there could be a link between their cases.

And then, Micah's brother found out through someone in his circle that his family needed to speak to Baylee to find Micah.

How the Moms Came Together

When Baylee stopped answering her phone (and posting on Snapchat), her friends and family became worried. Eventually, Jane filed a missing persons report and began making somewhere between 5 and 10k flyers to post around the county.

That's how Lance found and messaged her.

All three moms spoke on the phone after that, and all three were convinced that their children's cases were connected.

At this point, they also got the crime reporter Olivia LaVoice involved, who has been following the case ever since, even hosting a podcast about the case.

How the "Bakersfield 3" Came to Be

Di's ex-husband Will came up with the name the "Bakersfield 3," which the group then used to help with their investigation.

Will then set up two Facebook pages to create community and discussion around the case, which brought James, Micah and Baylee's stories in front of more eyes.

Who Is Behind It All?

Episode 1 teases some of the theories about what could have happened to the Bakersfield 3, put forward by the families as well as Sgt. Garrett and Olivia LaVoice.

It's at this point in the episode that Jane reveals that Baylee had sadly been sex trafficked at some point before her disappearance. "She just met the wrong people who took advantage," Jane explained. "Because Baylee was a little naive still at that time."

Other players also explain that the county surrounding Bakersfield has the highest rate of murder in the state of California, in part because of its location on the freeway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Drugs are put forth as a factor, and possible suspect groups such as the Hell's Angels or Mexican cartels are mentioned, too.

Cheryl tells the cameras, "Somebody's got a hold on Rosedale," a neighborhood that all three families have had ties to.

Meanwhile, Di speaks about how hard it has been to get information out of people, because of a general "snitches get stitches" attitude. People, she says, are "fearful for their lives."

What to Expect From Episodes 2 and 3

Episode 2, "The Boogieman of Bakersfield," follows the families as the county discovers body parts belonging to Micah, seemingly confirming that the three cases are in fact connected.

We see how Micah, Baylee and James became involved with "dangerous local characters," including the man Baylee was living with when she disappeared, Matthew Queen.

Episode 3, "Fights Like a Mother," shows the police's search for Micah's killer, a course-changing arrest, and a dramatic press conference that could tear the mothers apart.

This article contains discussions of sexual harassment and abuse towards children. For support, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at (800) 656-4673, or visit rainn.org.

In the new docuseries Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, the unregulated world of child influencers gets a harrowing spotlight courtesy of Netflix. The new true-crime series features the former collaborators of YouTube star Piper Rockelle, who rose to fame and amassed millions of views from her challenge videos featuring her "Squad" of friends. While the performers appeared to be happy-go-lucky kids on-screen, the children allege that they faced verbal, emotional, and sexual abuse from Piper's momager, Tiffany Smith, who ran her daughter's empire. In the words of one of the former members, Claire RockSmith, "Tiffany took our innocence and just destroyed it."

Since Bad Influence premiered on Netflix on April 9, 2025, viewers have wondered whether the documentary's subjects are still following their dreams of stardom. Read on to see where the former Squad members from Bad Influence are today, including how they've reacted to the Netflix docuseries' release.

Claire RockSmith

Joined The Squad: In 2020, at age 12

Current age: 16

Claire RockSmith is Piper Rockvile's cousin by marriage, as her mom, Ashley RockSmith, is married to Piper's aunt, Patience RockSmith. According to the doc, both Claire and her younger sister, Reese, were fans of Piper's content first, as they were living in Georgia during the initial years of the Squad. In 2020, the RockSmith family moved from Georgia to Las Vegas, and the sisters became official members of the Squad when they went to L.A. to visit Piper.

In the doc, Claire accuses Tiffany of sexually harassing her. She also recalls standing up to Tiffany in 2021, after which Tiffany yelled and cursed at both Claire and another Squad member, Elliana. Ashley witnessed the fight and pulled Claire out of the Squad in June 2021. After leaving, Claire faced a hate campaign from Piper's fans; Ashley alleges that Tiffany was behind some accounts. Claire and 10 other former Squad members brought a lawsuit against Tiffany and her boyfriend, Hunter, who edited and creative-directed the Squad's videos.

Today, Claire is a YouTuber and actress, who is still friends with former Squad member Sophie Fergi. On the day of Bad Influence's premiere, Claire shared an emotional TikTok in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, captioned, "I am a survivor."

"To all of those who are afraid to speak out, don’t want to break apart their family, who are justifying it because it is family, minimizing it, who don’t want to be told that they’re lying, who don’t even realize it yet, who don’t know what to do, who don’t know who to tell or where to start, who are being told to forget about it, who are being told that’s not what’s going on, who are being manipulated, and who is still actively going through it, I see you," she wrote. "I just know that you are going to be ok and you are going to heal from this. You are not alone. I am so sorry for everyone who has experienced this and I love you all."

Corinne Joy

Joined the Squad: In 2018, at age 11

Current age: 17

Corrine Joy met Piper in 2017 when she auditioned to be her backup dancer on the short-lived reality show Dance Twins (which has seemingly been scrubbed from the internet). Per Corrine and her mother Steevy Areeco, Piper and Corrine became fast friends, and Corrine was an original member of The Squad, which formed in 2018.

The then 12-year-old was eventually one of the first Squad members to leave in 2019, after she told Steevy about some of Tiffany's escalating inappropriate behavior. Corrine alleges that she was "blacklisted" from her former friends after leaving; she immediately started losing a large amount of views, which also eventually happened to other members of the Squad when they left. In 2022, Corrine was named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit against Tiffany.

Corrine currently has over a million followers on TikTok, and according to her bio, she's training to become a professional wrestler.

Jentzen Ramirez

Joined the Squad: In 2019, at age 13 or 14

Current age: 18

Jentzen Ramirez does not appear in the documentary, but his mother, Johna Ramirez, does. According to her, Tiffany would always make up reasons for the Squad's parents not to be present while they were filming. When Johna pushed back against one of Tiffany's video concepts (a traumatizing prank where a kid was "arrested" by the police), she teamed up with another mother, Jenn Bryant, to have their sons Walker and Jentzen leave the Squad.

However, per the doc, Jentzen's father spoke with Tiffany and eventually decided to have Jentzen rejoin the Squad, despite Johna's objection. Johna claims that since then, Tiffany has driven a wedge between her and Jentzen. When Johna divorced her husband and tried to get custody of Jentzen to "protect him" from the Squad, Tiffany allegedly encouraged the teen to emancipate and stay in the Squad with the support of his father.

Today, Jentzen is still active on YouTube, with 2.85 million subscribers, and on TikTok, where he's amassed 2.9 million followers. He appears to have stepped back from making content with Piper, though he still collaborates with former Squad member Elliana Walmsley, 17. It is unknown whether Jentzen and Johna have reconciled.

Reese RockSmith

Joined the Squad: In 2020, at age 8 or 9

Current age: 13

Reese RockSmith, Piper's cousin by marriage and Claire's little sister, was the youngest member of the Squad. During her brief appearances in the series, Reese accuses Tiffany of sexually harassing her and touching her inappropriately.

Reese is now 13-years-old. She still has Instagram and TikTok accounts managed by her family, but she doesn't post often. On the day of Bad Influence's release, she posted a TikTok for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

"Thank you to everyone who has been there for me over these past couple of years, and thank you guys for all of the love and support," she wrote in the caption. "I don’t know what I’d do without you guys. Thank you."

Sawyer Sharbino

Joined the Squad: In 2018, at age 13

Current age: 19

Sawyer Sharbino joined YouTube when he was 8 or 9 and started making videos with Piper in 2018. In the doc, he says he handed over his channel login to Tiffany's boyfriend Hunter, who helped manage the Squad. Sawyer's mother, Angela Sharbino, claims that Sawyer was never paid for being in Piper's videos. His personal YouTube channel brought in an income of "up to $50,000 a month." In the doc, Sawyer describes filming as "work," saying, "Maybe one out of 50 videos you film you actually enjoyed and were yourself in."

In February 2021, Sawyer left the Squad and subsequently faced a hate campaign from Piper's fans. Sawyer alleges that Tiffany and Hunter used several tactics to tank the views on his account, including mass-reporting his videos and embedding them on adult websites. He also joined the 2022 lawsuit.

Today, Sawyer is a singer and influencer with over a million followers on his Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok accounts. He released his debut EP, manipulate, in late 2023. On the day of Bad Influence's release, Sawyer posted an Instagram clip with Sophie Fergi and Walker Bryant, with text reading, "Let it all go."

Sophie Fergi

Joined the Squad: In 2018, at age 11

Current age: 17

Sophie met Piper when they were both cast members on the Brat web series Mani. The kids became best friends and YouTube collaborators, and Sophie eventually became one of The Squad's most popular original members.

Upon moving to L.A. in 2019, Sophie and her mother, Heather Nichole, moved in with Piper, Tiffany, and Hunter, even though Sophie says in the doc that she was uncomfortable living with Tiffany. According to Sophie, The Squad members worked over 12 hours a day, filming 10 to 15 videos, every day of the week. Sophie also accuses Tiffany of discussing sexual acts with the then 12-year-old, and of unlocking her room when she was asleep and touching her inappropriately.

According to Sophie and Heather, Tiffany's abusive behavior continued to escalate, but they did not leave because of their love for Piper. After an explosive argument in September 2020, Tiffany demanded that Heather give up parental rights to Sophie in order for Sophie to remain in The Squad, and that was the final straw. Once they left, Tiffany allegedly ordered all the kids, including Piper and Sophie's boyfriend Jentzen, to cut off contact. Both Sophie and Heather also allege that Tiffany would message with fans under Piper's name, influencing them to start hate campaigns on her.

Today, Sophie has 2 million followers on Instagram and over 6 million on TikTok. She also co-hosts the podcast "Girl Talk." On the day following Bad Influence's release, she posted a Reel thanking fans for supporting her during the doc's release. She wrote in the caption, "I never knew if I would ever be able to talk on the situation and I am so proud of everyone who spoke up, little Sophie would be so happy to know that her story got out."

This article contains discussions of sexual harassment and abuse towards children. For support, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at (800) 656-4673, or visit rainn.org.

Netflix's new true-crime docuseries Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing unveils the hidden manipulation behind one of the Internet's most successful child influencers. Piper Rockelle, a now 17-year-old social media personality, grew up on the internet, as she and her momager, Tiffany Smith, amassed millions of followers and millions of dollars through their viral content, which featured other dedicated kid collaborators known as Piper's Squad.

Despite playing the parts of happy teenagers doing challenges and falling in love in videos, behind the scenes, the Squad was allegedly exploited and harassed by the adults in charge, leading to a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. Now that Bad Influence has arrived on Netflix, highlighting the kids' ordeal, many viewers wonder what Piper has been up to since the docuseries' events. Read on to learn about Piper Rockelle and Tiffany Smith and where they are now after Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing.

Who is Piper Rockelle?

Piper Rockelle was born in Georgia in August 2007 to her then-26-year-old single mother, Tiffany Smith. Tiffany homeschooled Piper and began enrolling her in pageants at 3-years-old. At 8, Piper began posting social media content. She started out on Musical.ly, the short-form video app that eventually became TikTok. Within a few years, she also had successful accounts on YouTube and Instagram, with Tiffany managing her social media empire.

In 2017, Piper and Tiffany moved to L.A. as their success propelled them to more opportunities. At this time, Tiffany began working closely with Hunter Hill, a video editor and creative director. He was introduced on-camera as Piper's older brother, but, in reality, he was Tiffany's younger boyfriend. As is common with influencers, Piper began collaborating frequently with other YouTubers around her age. From 2017 to 2020, Tiffany formalized the frequent collabs into a content creation group called The Squad, which racked millions of views off their challenge and prank content.

Outside of social media, Piper pursued acting in the web series Mani and Chicken Girls, and she has released music since 2019. The influencer also appeared on the short-lived reality show Dance Twins, which appears to have been scrubbed from the internet. By 2022, Piper had 10 million YouTube subscribers and earned up to $625,000 per month from her channel, according to The Los Angeles Times.

What happened to Piper Rockelle's Squad?

From 2017 to 2020, Piper Rockelle's Squad featured nearly a dozen members. Some key members included Sophie Fergi, Hayden Haas, Symonne Harrison, Corinne Joy, Gavin Magnus, Jentzen Ramirez, Claire RockSmith, and Sawyer Sharbino.

According to Bad Influence, The Squad allegedly filmed multiple videos per day produced by Tiffany and Hunter, in which the kids participated in viral challenges, performed dances, and did over-the-top pranks. One of the content's consistent themes was dating and relationships, where the teens would be matched up in couples and staged romantic scenarios, including kissing.

In the docuseries, several former members of The Squad allege that they were manipulated and exploited by Tiffany and Hunter, including being pulled into uncomfortable sexual situations both on and off camera. Their parents also allege that they were not allowed to be around their kids during filming, and they only heard about the incidents after the fact. Eventually, several Squad families distanced themselves from Tiffany, at which point they were allegedly iced out by the rest of The Squad and retaliated against by Tiffany and Hunter.

Did Piper Rockelle's mother, Tiffany Smith, go to jail?

In January 2022, 11 former members of The Squad filed a lawsuit against Tiffany and Hunter, accusing them of "emotional, verbal, physical, and at times, sexual abuse." According to PEOPLE, the teens "also allege[d] they were unpaid for their contributions though it's unclear if they were ever promised payment." When the kids left The Squad, the complaint claims, Tiffany and Hunter allegedly "conspired to 'intentionally interfere with and sabotage' their 'individual YouTube channels' by using bots and false reporting/flagging to drive down their views 'thereby significantly diminishing' their own revenue."

The lawsuit also included several instances of "inappropriate, offensive and abusive treatment" mentioned in the documentary, including Tiffany asking the teens about their sex life, "shouting obscene and sexually graphic phrases" at them, making comments about their genitalia, and "encouraging" them to be "sexy" and "sexually aggressive" in videos. It also included the claim that Tiffany allegedly mailed "Piper's soiled training bras and panties" to a man who liked to "sniff" them.

Each former Squad member involved in the claim asked for around $2 million in damages (over $22 million total) from the defendants, including Tiffany and Hunter as individuals and Piper Rockwell Inc.

Speaking to NBC News, Ashley Anne-Rock Smith, mother of two plaintiffs, explained, "I just want peace back with my kids. I want all predators who hurt young kids to be brought to justice. I also hope we move the needle on these platforms that are allowing this."

Tiffany has steadfastly denied all allegations made by former members of The Squad since the initial lawsuit was filed. According to NBC News, she also countersued for $30 million in July 2022, claiming that the teens's mothers were trying to extort her, but she dropped her case the following October. Trial proceedings for the case began in April 2023.

In October 2024, the lawsuit was settled "without any admission of liability or the validity or lack thereof of any claims or defenses," per PEOPLE. The $1.85 million settlement was meant to be split among the 11 defendants.

Tiffany addressed the settlement in a statement to PEOPLE before the release of Bad Influence. "Obviously, we didn’t do anything that was alleged, but sadly, money is a big motivator for certain personalities in this world," she told the outlet. "We made the decision to put this behind us because honestly, prolonged litigation would be even more harmful and painful to everyone involved."

Speaking to Tudum, Bad Influence co-director Kief Davidson said of the fallout, "I think that, so far, Tiffany has gotten off the hook. She’s a very smart businesswoman in a lot of ways and knows how to work the system. I just hope at the end of the day that this documentary becomes a real conversation piece for families and their kids to at least know what to look out for. And there are ways to do this safely. [If kids and parents continue to do this,] we have to find a way to put safeguards in place."

Where is Piper Rockelle now?

Though Tiffany faced online backlash after the suit was filed, Piper's social media empire has largely gone unaffected. In February 2022, YouTube revealed that it had demonetized the Piper Rockwell channel and removed it from its Partner Program after Insider reached out to request comment on the allegations against Tiffany.

Piper is now 17-years-old and still works as a social media influencer. At the time of Bad Influence's April 2025 premiere, she has 6 million Instagram followers, 12.1 million YouTube subscribers, and 14.9 million TikTok followers. She is also involved with the subscription-style creator platform Brand Army, and she has recently received backlash for collaborating with adult creators at the influencer collective Bop House. Piper is still seemingly managed and directed by Tiffany and Hunter.

In a March 2025 statement to PEOPLE, Piper describes the legal ordeal as "extremely painful and, honestly, hard to understand. Not just because of the people making ridiculous claims about me and my family—but also how the media has been."

"It's been incredibly hard because the media and social media have been relentless and so hurtful, without understanding or even trying to understand the truth," she included. "It's become impossible to even look at my phone or do normal, day-to-day things. It's been so incredibly painful. Thank goodness for my family. And thank goodness this is finally behind us."

Netflix's new true-crime documentary Con Man follows a story that initially feels like a dream: A 45-year-old man is contacted out of the blue by his biological mother, and they share an instant bond. However, renowned British pastry chef Graham Hornigold's miraculous reunion slowly turned into a nightmare, with his mother, known only as Dionne, leaving him on the hook for £300,000 ($388,000) in debt from five-star hotels, pricey dinners, and expensive cars.

The film from Nick Green unfolds this heartbreaking con of familial love turned misery, with Hornigold, his loved ones, and Dionne's other victims telling their stories. With the doc landing on Netflix on March 25, here's what to know about Graham Hornigold and where the chef is following the events of Con Mum.

Who is Graham Hornigold?

Graham Hornigold, 50, is a former Michelin-starred pastry chef and renowned pastry consultant based in the U.K. After starting his food career at age fourteen, Hornigold worked his way up to becoming executive pastry chef at The Lanesborough Hotel, Hyde Park Corner, at age 28, and winning UK Pastry Chef of the Year in 2007. He later served as the executive pastry chef for Hakkasan restaurant group from 2011 to 2017, supervising "120 pastry chefs working in twenty different kitchens", per his Great British Chefs bio.

Since leaving Hakkasan, Hornigold has run his own pastry consultancy, while making appearances on famed cooking shows including Masterchef: The Professionals and Junior Bake Off. He has spent the past several years developing and founding the gourmet doughnut brand Longboys, which currently has three locations in London.

We learn in Con Mum that Graham had a rough upbringing. The chef was born on a British army base in West Germany, and was "fostered at the age of two for two years," per the doc. He then moved in with his father and stepmother in the town of St. Albans, 20 miles northwest of London. Graham, who describes his father as abusive, never knew his biological mother... until he was contacted out of the blue in 2020, by an Asian woman in her 80s named Dionne. Dionne knew facts about the chef that only his biological mother would know, so after months of emails, he agreed to meet her. In Con Mum, Graham describes feeling an "instantaneous" mother-child bond upon meeting Dionne, saying, "It felt like I was somebody's baby."

What happened to Graham Hornigold in 'Con Mum'?

When she met Graham, Dionne, who is only identified by her first name in the documentary, claimed that he was taken away from her after his birth. She also told him that she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and only had six months to live, which was the impetus for her to search for her son.

Dionne also claimed that she was a multilingual businesswoman with several global enterprises, including fruit farms in Indonesia and Malaysia. She added that she was also wealthy as the "illegitimate child of the former sultan of Brunei." As they spent time together, Graham saw her extravagant lifestyle as a regular patron of five-star hotels like The Dorchester, which is owned by the Brunei royal family.

Per the doc, Dionne also started buying Graham and his partner Heather Kaniuk extravagant gifts, including designer handbags and luxury clothing. At one point, she took him to a Rolls-Royce dealership to buy him a car, where the "head sales honcho" told Graham that Dionne had previously bought two Phantoms from him. She ended up buying him a £75,000 ($97K) Land Rover, and got Heather a car as well "so she didn't feel left out."

Two months after Graham first met Dionne, and immediately after Heather gave birth to their son, Dionne told Graham that she'd had a health scare. Graham, not wanting Dionne to be in a hotel alone, moved her into his and Heather's home. Two months later, Graham and Dionne traveled to Switzerland, to do the alleged paperwork necessary to have Graham inherit her wealth, according to her. Once there, the pair attended an after-hours meeting with the manager of a private bank in Zurich where clients are required to have a minimum of 20 million euros ($21.6 million) to open an account. Graham said in the doc that this meeting is what made him believe that Dionne was legit, and that he'd "won the jackpot."

Even before they went to Switzerland, Dionne had begun asking Graham to help pay some of her bills, because "she had difficulty transferring money because of COVID." Heather discovered later that Graham had set up credit cards in his own name to help pay for her lavish lifestyle. Dionne ended up extending her and Graham's four-day trip to Switzerland to ultimately be two months, with Graham covering the bills throughout and not telling Heather, who was back at home with their newborn. Dionne later followed Graham back to England, and convinced him to stay there as Heather and their son traveled to New Zealand to visit her family.

Eventually, Graham cut ties with Dionne after discovering that she was faking her terminal disease, using red food coloring as blood, and that her medicine wasn't for cancer, but for diabetes. In the aftermath, Heather did more research on Dionne and discovered that the woman, who was originally from Singapore, had a criminal record going back to the 1980s, and multiple marriage certificates citing different dates of birth and parental names. All in all, Graham was left on the hook for around £300,000 ($388,000) total, including £200,000 in car payments.

When Heather went to the police, they told her that Dionne wouldn't be held liable for the fraud. In an interview with The Guardian, Graham explained, "Essentially they call it a bad business decision, because you know where the money is going and who to."

Is Dionne really Graham Hornigold's mother?

The end of Con Mum reveals, via a DNA test, that there was a 99.9 percent certainty that Dionne was really his birth mother. Dionne—who has gone by many names, including Dionne Marie Hannah and Theresa Haton Mahmud—declined to speak to Netflix for the documentary. Though she will likely not be held liable for the fraud against Graham, as she is his biological family, Con Mum also features some of her other victims, including start-up founders Junyan and Markus and medical rep Peng, whom she left on the hook for tens of thousands of pounds. Dionne also attempted to get money from Graham's friend Juan, but he refused to give her any. As of Con Mum's release, Dionne "has never faced criminal charges for the allegations made in this documentary," per the film.

Graham cut ties with Dionne in 2021, and he has only spoken to her once since. In the doc, Graham reveals that Dionne called him out of the blue, over a year after the last time he saw her. During the call, she said she loved him and apologized, adding, "I’ve done what I’ve done, son. I cannot change, son." Despite the DNA test, Graham no longer considers Dionne his mother. As for her grandiose claims of being an entrepreneur and the daughter of former royalty, according to Graham, "We’ll never know." (According to one of Dionne's victims, Peng, Brunei's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has no record of Dionne being related to the royal family.)

Speaking to The Guardian, Graham admits to being "blinded", not by Dionne's "wealth," but "by the fact that my mum had come into my life and she was going to be leaving again." He added that his need for maternal love "was my downfall. If you don’t receive it when you’re a kid, you have this wound you carry around … Can you honestly tell me the bond between you and your mother you haven’t seen in 45 years and who is dying wouldn’t be stronger than anything else?"

Today, Graham says that he sought mental health treatment after the ordeal, and that he did the documentary partly to encourage people with similar trauma to seek help. "I’ve done the head work, sorted out the inner demons," he told the outlet. He also explained of his mindset during the tumultuous year, "One minute you’ve got everything; the next you’ve got nothing, and on the spin of a knife you’re deciding whether you’re going to stay alive or not. And if you don’t seek help, you’ll keep attracting this cycle."

Are Graham Hornigold and Heather Kaniuk still together?

At the time when he first met Dionne, Hornigold was happily coupled with his then-partner Heather Kaniuk, a fellow award-winning pastry chef. According to the doc, Graham and Heather met at work and were colleagues before eventually beginning a romantic relationship. They later started a pastry consultancy together, and in 2020, they found out that they were expecting a child together.

Though Dionne and Heather initially got along, Heather eventually recognized that the manipulative scammer was trying to drive a wedge between herself and Graham. In addition to those two months that she was left alone with her and Graham's newborn, Heather says in the doc, "That sense of ‘I’ve just become a mum’ was robbed from me, because there’s Dionne." When she tried to warn Graham about Dionne before the scam was uncovered, he did not believe her, since he thought he needed to be there for his mother's final days.

Unfortunately, the saga ended with Graham and Heather going their separate ways. Heather and their son have permanently relocated to New Zealand; they have not returned to England since 2021. In the Guardian interview, Graham revealed that he stays in touch with his son through video-chatting, and that he plans to visit New Zealand as soon as he can afford to with his ongoing debt. He said, "I won’t let it affect him, in the sense that he won’t see his dad. I’m going to be a big part of his life."

Nowadays, you can’t blink without a brand-new true crime story premiering on your streamer of choice. The true crime boom doesn’t show any sign of slowing down in 2025, but amid the high-profile serial killer stories, audiences can look forward to learning about some lesser-known criminal cases.

Whether you prefer to learn about scammers or historical murders, true crime has something for everyone in the new year, whether they be star-studded Netflix shows or incisive new documentaries slated to play at prestigious film festivals. To prepare you for a new year of the genre, here are the best true crime documentaries and scripted series of 2025, including what’s coming soon and on the horizon. (If you’re looking for something to binge now, check out our round-up of the best true-crime docs and shows of 2024.)

'Lockerbie: A Search for Truth'

Release date: January 2 on Peacock

Jim Swire’s 2021 true-crime book and memoir was adapted for the screen (and it's a total tearjerker). Colin Firth plays Swire as he sets out to discover the truth behind a bombing aboard a transatlantic flight, just over 30 minutes after takeoff, that killed his daughter and 242 other passengers, as well as 16 crew members. The December 1988 incident that took place over Lockerbie, Scotland remains the largest terrorist in U.K. history.

WATCH IT ON PEACOCK

'Sons of Ecstasy'

Release date: January 9 on HBO Max

If mob stories are your thing, you'll want to check out Sons of Ecstasy. The documentary marks the first time members of the notorious New York crime family the Gravanos are telling their side of the story about their involvement in the ecstasy drug trade at the peak of its popularity in the '90s. They share inside accounts of what went on and how the trade culminated into a dangerous rivalry between them and Shaun Attwood, an English stockbroker, another major ecstasy kingpin.

WATCH IT ON HBO MAX

'An Update on Our Family'

Release date: January 15 on HBO Max

Family vloggers Myka and James Stauffer's shocking, controversial story, in which they re-homed their adopted son on the autism spectrum, was one that many of us couldn't look away from in 2024. The incident then became the catalyst to question the ethics behind YouTubers/TikTokers who make (often monetized) content featuring their children. All that and more, including just how unregulated this booming online industry is, is the focus of this three-part HBO doc.

WATCH IT ON HBO MAX

'Scam Goddess'

Release date: January 15 on Hulu

With Laci Mosley’s sense of humor and dedication to finding the wildest stories about scammers, we’ll tune into anything she produces. Based on her podcast and book of the same name, this Freeform series looks into bonkers cases of cons and frauds, from a man posing as a prince to a fake Silicon Valley tech star.

WATCH IT ON HULU

'Apple Cider Vinegar'

Release date: February 6 on Netflix

In 2022, there was an era where streamers really wanted you to care about scammer stories, whether they be “SoHo grifter” Anna Delvey or Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. Netflix is betting you’re still riveted enough by pesky con artists to tune into Apple Cider Vinegar, their latest entry into the scammer subgenre. Kaitlyn Dever stars here as Australian wellness influencer Belle Gibson, who falsely claimed to have cured herself of cancer using alternative medicine.

WATCH IT ON NETFLIX

'American Murder: Gabby Petito'

Release date: February 17 on Netflix

The tragic story of travel vlogger Gabby Petito took social media by storm as it unfolded in real time in 2021. At the time, her followers and family started to suspect something was wrong when her and fiancé Brian Christopher Laundrie’s coverage of their four-month-long stint living and road-tripping out of a van wasn’t going as planned. If you followed along to the rampant coverage of this domestic abuse case, little new information is presented in this three-parter, though it does offer added context and serves as a harrowing warning.

WATCH IT ON NETFLIX

'Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke'

Release date: February 27 on Hulu

Devil in the Family is another recent docuseries about the ethics of parent-child vlogging—and how much can be left offscreen of sunny YouTube videos. In the case of mother Ruby Franke, who ran a channel called 8 Passengers about her six children, her, and her husband in Utah, she took to extremist forms of punishment and eventually child abuse when she brought parenting counselor Jodi Hildebrandt into their home. This three-part miniseries details the case and sees the eldest children, Shari and Chad, speak out for the first time, along with their father and Ruby’s ex-husband.

WATCH IT ON HULU

'Toxic Town'

Release date: February 27 on Netflix

There’s plenty of true crime across the pond, too. Doctor Who alum Jodie Whittaker leads the cast of Netflix’s Toxic Town. The series dramatizes the Corby toxic waste case, in which the Corby Borough Council was found guilty of allowing toxic atmospheric waste from a nearby steel manufacturer to impact local townspeople, leading to more than 30 cases of birth defects. The show’s star-studded British cast also includes The White Lotus’s Aimee Lou Wood and Bridgerton’s Claudia Jessie.

WATCH IT ON NETFLIX

'Good American Family'

Release date: March 19 on Hulu

The case of Natalia Grace is one of the most mindboggling in recent memory, considering it sounds like it’s stripped from the horror movie Orphan. In reality, the now-21-year-old was in fact a child adopted from Ukraine, but her mental and physical health concerns led her adoptive mother, Kristine Barnett, to suspect she was older than she said she was, resulting in child abuse and abandonment. Hulu’s Good American Family dramatizes the story, with Ellen Pompeo as Barnett, in her first leading role since Grey’s Anatomy, and newcomer Imogen Faith Reid playing Natalia Grace.

WATCH IT ON HULU

'Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer'

Release date: March 31 on Netflix

For her latest subject, the renowned documentarian Liz Garbus (What Happened, Miss Simone?, I'll Be Gone in the Dark) pieced together an exhaustive look at the Gilgo Beach serial killings. The three-episode docuseries follows Lost Girls, a feature Garbus made about the case in 2020 before the killer was caught and arrested. With her knowledge and sensitive lens, Garbus pointedly centers the story on the victims’s families and their stories.

WATCH IT ON NETFLIX

'Spy High'

Release date: April 8 on Prime Video

Some of the most gripping documentaries make us believe something entirely different about their subjects by the end. That’s the case of Spy High, which first presents Blake Robbins as an obnoxious suburbanite cliche but comes to empathize with his story. In 2010, then-high-schooler Robbins was accused in 2010 by his Philadelphia area school of selling drugs—all because of a video the administration surveilled of him at home from his district-possessed laptop. With its wild cast of characters and sweeping ethical questions, it’s an entertaining look at private information and the surveillance state (and another reminder to cover your webcam).

WATCH IT ON PRIME VIDEO

'Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing'

Release date: April 9 on Netflix

Can’t get enough of the harrowing, true stories about influencers? Watch (and be devastated by) Bad Influence. This Netflix three-parter focuses on Piper Rockelle and her YouTuber circle The Squad, who began making videos at 8-years-old. The entire operation amassed millions and was allegedly orchestrated by Piper’s mom, Tiffany, in an abusive environment.

WATCH IT ON NETFLIX

'The Mortician'

Release date: June 1

Across three episodes, this truly unsettling HBO docuseries charts the goings-on at the family-run Lamb Funeral Home in California circa the 1980s. In 1987, it was discovered that the members of the family who were running the home at the time had been performing mass cremations, mutilating and stealing from corpses, calling for hits on competitors, and embezzling from prepaid funeral accounts—resulting in an initial batch of 41 criminal counts for the trio.

WATCH IT ON HBO MAX

'Smoke'

Release date: June 27

Taron Egerton and Jurnee Smollett lead this Apple TV+ miniseries inspired by true events. They play an arson investigator and a rising detective who team up to try to solve a series of arson cases in the Pacific Northwest. If you’re dying to learn more about the case, a podcast about it was released in 2021.

WATCH IT ON APPLE TV+

'One Night in Idaho: The College Murders'

Release date: July 11

This four-part Amazon Prime docuseries delves into the horrific and mysterious killings of four college students in Idaho in 2022. Unlike many other true crime shows, however, this one places a heavy focus not on the perpetrator, but on the victims and their families—even featuring the first public interviews from two of the victims’s parents—making for an especially heart-wrenching take on the genre.

WATCH IT ON AMAZON PRIME

'Amy Bradley Is Missing'

Release date: July 16 on Netflix

Amy Bradley went missing from a cruise ship at the age of 23 in 1998 and still has never been found. After this three-episode Netflix docuseries resurfaced the tragic case, it sparked renewed global interest in solving the mystery and even dredged up hundreds of new leads in the case, including three that investigators have described as “very significant.”

WATCH IT ON NETFLIX

'The Yogurt Shop Murders'

Release date: August 3 on HBO

The "yogurt shop murders” is the name given to the long-unsolved 1991 brutal homicides of four teenage girls in a frozen yogurt shop in Austin. HBO’s four-episode series—with counts Emma Stone and her husband Dave McCary among its executive producers—is more concerned with hearing from the families and friends of the four girls about their grieving processes and exploring the concept of memory rather than solving the case. However, it just so happened to premiere only a month before Austin police announced they'd finally found a match for DNA evidence gathered at the scene, naming as the perpetrator a serial killer who died in 1999.

WATCH IT ON HBO MAX

'The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox'

Release date: August 20

Based on Amanda Knox’s own memoir—and with Knox listed as an executive producer—this Hulu series dramatizes the story of her wrongful conviction for the murder of her roommate while studying abroad in Italy. Grace Van Patten stars in the titular role, playing up the quirkiness that bewildered the Italian police and the public alike throughout Knox’s frustrating trial and imprisonment.

WATCH IT ON HULU

'Blood & Myth'

Release date: September 4 on Hulu

Hulu adapted the popular audiobook Midnight Son into this documentary. It recounts the tale of Teddy Kyle Smith, an actor who went on a bloody crime spree in the remote Northern Alaska village where he grew up. He then claimed he’d been guided by sinister beings all too familiar to his Native community, pitting folklore against the U.S. justice system.

WATCH IT ON HULU

'Murdaugh: Death in the Family'

Release date: October 15 on Hulu

This ripped-from-the-headlines Hulu series dramatizes the shocking story of Alex Murdaugh, who was found guilty in 2023 of killing his wife and son in 2021. Jason Clarke plays Murdaugh, while Patricia Arquette and Johnny Berchtold play Maggie and Paul, and, because the series is technically based on Mandy Matney’s "Murdaugh Murders Podcast" tracking the then-unfolding investigation, Brittany Snow appears as Matney herself.

WATCH IT ON HULU

'The Perfect Neighbor'

Release date: October 17 on Netflix

Under Florida’s “stand your ground” law, residents can use deadly force in self-defense without initially trying to retreat from the situation. That law played a role in an unexpected criminal case in which a local “Karen’s” dispute with her neighbor unexpectedly turned deadly. In The Perfect Neighbor, director Geeta Gandbhir uses police body cam footage to question how lax state gun laws can turn neighbors into life-threatening forces and whether justice will be served.

WATCH IT ON NETFLIX

'Don't Date Brandon'

Release date: October 28 on Paramount+

Paramount+ is putting out this three-part true crime series, in which a woman connects with her boyfriend’s ex-wife and soon realizes that he’s not as perfect as he seems. When the duo start a podcast talking openly about the red flags they'd missed about him, even more of Brandon’s romantic victims begin coming forward to share their own experiences.

WATCH THE TRAILER

'Death By Lightning'

Release date: November 6 on Netflix

Contrary to how it might feel these days, deranged political intrigue is nothing new in America. Case in point: Mike Makowsky’s upcoming Netflix historical drama Death By Lightning, which follows lesser-known U.S. president James A. Garfield (Michael Shannon) and his eventual assassin, his admirer-turned-adversary Charles Guiteau (Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen). Here’s hoping Macfadyen brings peak “Tom Wambsgans throwing water bottles” energy to his performance!

WATCH THE TRAILER

'Predators'

Release date: In theaters Sept. 19

True crime is enticing, but at what point does our fascination with headline-making perpetrators and their victims’s stories cross the line into exploitation? In an attempt to answer that question, David Osit’s documentary Predators casts an eye back to one of the genre’s earlier entries: NBC’s early aughts reality TV hit To Catch A Predator. In each episode, child predators were lured to a film set, interviewed, and eventually arrested. By examining the series’s legacy, Osit asks viewers to consider their relationship to the contemporary true crime boom and how we can avoid being complicit in the pain that lesser entries into the genre can bring upon real people.

WATCH THE TRAILER

From buzzy superhero stories to the return of Paddington, 2025 has been filled with exciting new movie releases. But here’s some advice: Don’t count out real-life stories in the meantime. Documentaries can be just as gripping as fictional movies, and this year's slate of nonfiction releases has been no exception.

In 2025, documentary fans have been spoiled for choice, from exciting new music docs with exclusive footage of iconic bands and subgenres to timely films that provide intimate looks at modern topics, including inmate abuse and the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. There’s even a tearjerker about hummingbirds! Below, we’re rounding up the best documentaries of 2025 so far, as well as the films that are on the horizon. (If you want even more recommendations, check out our lists of the best true crime documentaries and docuseries of 2025 and the best documentaries of 2024.)

'Avicii – I'm Tim'

Release date: December 31 on Netflix

This music doc is said to be the most personal and closest examination yet of who Tim Bergling, the Swedish artist behind his star EDM persona Avicii, was throughout his life before his death by suicide in 2018. Featuring home footage and clips from his private archive, Avicii – I'm Tim, which was made with his family and closest friends and colleagues involved, paints a never-before-seen portrait of the hitmaker and his inner world.

WATCH IT

'Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever'

Release date: January 1 on Netflix

Filmmaker Chris Smith has released several buzzy documentaries in the past few years, from Netflix titles like Fyre and the true-crime hit The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann to HBO’s 100 Foot Wave. His latest rattled viewers, as well. Don’t Die’s subject is Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur who has committed his life's work to defy aging through questionable and controversial practices, including plasma transfusions.

WATCH IT

'Every Little Thing'

Release date: January 10

In the hills of L.A.’s Beverly Hills, Terry Masear spends her days tending to injured hummingbirds. Masear knows that her winged charges aren’t on Earth for long, but the joy she takes in caring for her home’s little cast of characters soon moves past typical cute animal content into something more profound. Weaving together tales of Masear’s avian rehab with her history of overcoming an abusive rural upbringing and finding her place within L.A., Every Little Thing is a lovely reminder that everyday resilience and magic can be found in your own backyard, even amid hardships and loss.

WATCH IT

'SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night'

Release date: January 16 on Peacock

Saturday Night Live celebrates its whopping 50th anniversary in 2025, and the NBC late-night staple pulled out all the stops to celebrate. In addition to running various specials, the iconic comedy sketch show released a four-part docuseries about the untold stories behind all your favorite skits and infamous moments. If you at all have a soft spot for any number of the memorable casts, this will warm your heart and fill you with laughter.

WATCH IT

'No Other Land'

Release date: January 31

Although No Other Land officially became an Academy Award-winning documentary during the 2025 Oscars, the searing documentary on the occupation of Palestinian villages in the West Bank struggled to find wide distribution in the U.S. Thankfully, one of the most important films in recent years is now available to stream.

WATCH IT

'Becoming Led Zeppelin'

Release date: February 7

Rock music lovers, this one's for you. As its title suggests, Becoming Led Zeppelin isn’t your typical career-spanning music documentary. Instead, it uses a “hybrid docu-concert” format to track the iconic British band’s rise to fame in the 1960s. The biggest draw? The film’s bounty of never-before-seen early concert footage and recordings was released for fans to watch in IMAX.

WATCH IT

'Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius)'

Release date: February 13 on Hulu

Questlove's follow-up to the 2021 Oscar-winning doc Summer of Soul is another examination of a cultural phenomenon. Another music doc where the title hints at the film's scope, Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) reintroduces the genre-bending musician Sly Stone, not by charting his rise and fall, but by examining whether his later career struggles were the effect of the burdens the culture places on Black trailblazers.

WATCH IT

'One on One: John and Yoko'

Release date: April 11 in theaters; November 14 on HBO Max

Beatlemania has never really gone away, but it's set to ramp up over the next few years. First up is this documentary, centered on the first 18 months of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's life together in N.Y.C. While chronicling the pair's adventures in 1972 Greenwich Village, the doc also looks back at a turbulent era in American history through the lens of 1970s television. The film's highlight is newly-restored footage of the duo's titular benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden, with the concert audio remixed by their son, musician Sean Ono Lennon.

WATCH IT

'Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey'

Release date: April 21 on Netflix

My Octopus Teacher filmmaker Pippa Ehrlich returned this year with her follow-up to the Oscar-winning doc: a new project about one of the "most poached and trafficked animals on the planet." The film follows Kulu, a baby pangolin (a.k.a. scaly mammals native to Africa and Asia), and the man who "finds new purpose" when he rescues Kulu "in a sting operation in South Africa." According to the description, the man "embarks on a heartfelt mission to rehabilitate and prepare the vulnerable animal for a life of freedom in the wild."

WATCH IT

'Titan: The OceanGate Disaster'

Release date: June 11 on Netflix

It seems we're in an age where monoculture news events are immediately turned into documentary features. (Consider the many Luigi Mangione docs already in the works.) This year, Netflix and filmmaker Mark Monroe were quick to explore the 2023 Titan submersible incident, in which a tourist expedition to the Titanic wreck notoriously went missing and left the world waiting four days for news of the vessel. In addition to the doomed expedition, the film examines the "price of ambition," regarding OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.

WATCH IT

'Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore'

Release date: June 20

In 1987, Marlee Matlin shot into the spotlight when she became the first Deaf actor to win an Academy Award at just 21-years-old for her performance in Children of a Lesser God. Her win, in turn, helped give Weeds and Grey’s Anatomy star Shoshannah Stern the confidence to pursue an acting career as a Deaf woman. Now, Stern is bringing things full circle in her directorial debut, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, in which the two women trace Matlin’s career and how navigating Hollywood has (and hasn’t) changed for the Deaf community.

WATCH IT

'My Mom Jayne'

Release date: June 27 on HBO Max

When Mariska Hargitay was 3-years-old, she was in a car accident that claimed the life of her mother, classic Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield. In her feature directorial debut, the Law & Order: SVU star reconciles the public image of her mother—the sex symbol known as Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde"—with the woman behind the persona, via archival footage and intimate conversations with Hargitay's siblings.

WATCH IT

'Orwell: 2+2=5'

Release date: October 3

Nine years after Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro explored modern-day racism via a survey of James Baldwin's life and career, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker is back with a prescient dive into another literary legend. The new documentary links the anti-totalitarian beliefs that inspired Orwell's writing, including the novels Animal Farm and 1984, to the recent historical events. Also, like Samuel L. Jackson in Negro, Damian Lewis gives stirring performances of Orwell's prose throughout the examination of the author's life.

WATCH THE TRAILER

'The Alabama Solution'

Release date: October 10 on HBO Max

Alabama is home to one of the deadliest, most overcrowded, and most understaffed prison systems in America, but very few know what happens inside its walls. In this jaw-dropping doc, Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman compile six years of contraband cellphone footage, captured by a group of inmate activists, to illuminate horrific abuse and brutality in one Alabama prison.

WATCH IT

'The Perfect Neighbor'

Release date: October 17 on Netflix

In 2023, Ocala, Florida resident Ajike "A.J." Owens, 35, was fatally shot by her 60-year-old neighbor during a dispute, with the subsequent case renewing discourse around the state's controversial "stand your ground" laws. This Sundance Award-winning doc examines the tragic incident and its aftermath as an intimate case study—told through body-cam footage and CCTV—of how these laws are unevenly upheld in a society that has not yet fully reckoned with systemic racism.

WATCH IT

'Heightened Scrutiny'

Release date: TBA; Premiered at Sundance

In 2024, a whopping 669 anti-trans bills threatening trans people’s basic access to healthcare, legal protections, and more were introduced in the United States, more than any other year on record. Now, director Sam Feder—who previously made the groundbreaking 2020 Netflix LGBTQ+ documentary Disclosure—takes on this precarious moment for trans rights in his new film Heightened Scrutiny. The doc follows ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio as he contends with not only political scapegoating but also biased media narratives in his mission to protect transgender Americans’ freedoms.

WATCH THE TRAILER

'Twiggy'

Release date: March 7 in the U.K., TBD in the U.S.

You could recognize those big eyes and eyelashes anywhere, but do you know her story? After telling the story of British fashion designer Mary Quant, filmmaker Sadie Frost's latest subject is another mod icon: Twiggy. The fashion documentary is a full-fledged look at her life, going from a working-class background to becoming an internationally renowned model to quitting her career in the industry at age 22 in pursuit of other opportunities, as well as the lesser-known setbacks she faced along the way.

WATCH THE TRAILER

Whether it's acting, cooking, writing or giving speeches at the United Nations, Meghan Markle has shown off plenty of her talents through the years. But in the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's new Netflix docuseries, Polo, the California-based royal revealed yet another skill that blew fans away.

In the final episode of the five-part show, which premiered on Tuesday, Dec. 10, the duchess greeted Prince Harry and Argentine polo player Alfonso Cambiaso after a match. "She's fluent in Spanish," the Duke of Sussex said to his teammate, prompting Markle to carry on a conversation with the athlete in the language.

"I lived there about 20 years ago, in Palermo Viejo. Las Cañitas, too," the duchess said, referring to her time interning at the U.S. embassy in Argentina.

Cambiaso replied, "That's great, that's where the polo fields were." The Duchess of Sussex went on to say that she loves the country's national day on May 25, which is celebrated with events like concerts and parades.

"Do you speak Spanish, no?" Cambiaso then asked the Duke of Sussex, dressed in his polo uniform. Markle jokingly replied "yes," placing an arm on her husband's shoulder as he bursted out laughing.

"He knows I don't!" Prince Harry replied, adding, "a little, a little."

The interaction was filmed when the duchess—dressed in a chic ivory halter dress by Heidi Merrick—cheered Harry on during the April 2024 Royal Salute Polo Challenge in Wellington, Florida. While the royal couple served as executive producers on the project, they only made a brief appearance in the last episode, preferring to keep the focus on the world of the sport and other players.

The duchess, however can be seen sitting in the trunk of a car as she watched the game with close friend Serena Williams. The royal then presented Prince Harry and his teammates with a trophy after they won the match.

Per Netflix, "the series will pull back the curtain on the sport, known primarily for its aesthetic and social scene, capturing the full story of what it takes to compete at its highest level."

Netflix's new dating docuseries The Later Daters follows six singles who prove that dating can be sexy and heart-fluttering at any age. Executive produced by Michelle Obama and the filmmakers behind Love on the Spectrum and Queer Eye, the show centers on men and women, between the ages of 56 to 70, as they search for the next love of their life with the help of dating coach Logan Ury. Over eight episodes, the members of the Later Daters cast bravely bare their souls on camera and find what they need in the coming years, be it love, friendship, or self-growth.

Since the reality series premiered on November 29, viewers have searched for updates on the lovely seniors. Read on to learn what the stars of The Later Daters are up to now, including which couples from the series are still together.

Anise

62-year-old Anise joined The Later Daters after almost 20 years of being single, though she did have some recent dating experience. At the start, she admitted that she doesn't often get to a second or third date with men, possibly because she was too quick to judge. Logan's advice for her is to not diminish her accomplishments, including earning a doctorate, and to let down her emotional walls.

After a set of dates that ranged from pretty nice to disastrous, producers asked Anise's daughter Dyanna to pick her fourth date. She chose Willie, a 55-year-old government K-9 specialist who had been divorced twice and single for seven years. Anise and Willie were smitten at first sight, as they shared their love of travel and adventure. They got deeper on their second date, discussing topics like embracing change during a hike before sharing a kiss.

Fast-forward two months, and Anise and Willie are still happily seeing each other. During the break in filming, Anise met Willie's mom, and he says that the women "lit up" around each other. They can't stop smiling at each other during their final testimonial, even prompting a producer to say, "Y'all so cute."

So, are Anise and Willie still together? In an interview with PEOPLE, Anise revealed that the couple's relationship continued for six months after filming, but sadly the pair were not meant to be.

"We realized we don't have enough in common to build anything on, but we're still friendly," she told the outlet. "He lives really far from me. When it came down to the direction he was trying to go and what I was trying to do, it just did not match up."

Despite the sad news, it seems Anise has already moved on and is thriving, as she took a trip to Iceland earlier this fall. She also told PEOPLE that she currently has "two or three [suitors] who are submitting applications [for her Mr. Right]."

Suzanne

63-year-old Suzanne was optimistic about her chances at the start of Later Daters, as she jumped back into the dating game after over 30 years. The bubbly Georgia Bulldogs fan had to move past some of her old-fashioned dating rules, like playing hard-to-get and waiting for a date to call her first. Suzanne also had to figure out what type of companionship she was looking for in the next stage of her life.

Of the three men she met on the show, two of her suitors got a second date. She shared plenty of laughs and flirty banter with Avery, a 59-year-old financial advisor who had been divorced for 10 years. For their second date, Avery went with Suzanne to a Bulldogs game, even though he was a fan of their rivals, the Alabama Crimson Tide. However, Suzanne decided to cool things off with Avery, out of fear that they were moving too fast.

Though Suzanne enjoyed her two dates with Jeff, she couldn't stop thinking about Avery. The pair reconnected in the Later Daters finale, and after the two-month jump, Suzanne and Avery were still together and on cloud nine. He seemed to have met her kids, calling them "incredible," and they described their relationship as "one day at a time, every day better."

As for their current status, Suzanne revealed to PEOPLE that she and Avery only dated briefly post-filming, but the door isn't fully closed on their connection.

"We are really, really good friends. I talk with him a lot. I'm still interested in seeing him," she told the outlet. "I would not say that we're an item. I think he's probably dating other people, and I'm seeing some other people too."

In addition to continuing her dating journey, Suzanne has spent the past year traveling and enjoying time with her family, including a lovely trip to Italy with her children. Per her Instagram, Avery may even have some notable competition for her heart, as Suzanne's recently gone public with her crush on The Golden Bachelorette cast member Pascal. (I would watch Suzanne as the next Bachelor Nation lead in a heartbeat.)

Nate

Before starting his Later Daters journey, 56-year-old Nate had been single for over 12 years following his separation from his wife. He had built a life for himself in his extra-clean man cave, and he was open about his issues with trust and vulnerability. However, as he went on dates, it became clear that he was ready to quickly write off women who didn't meet his high standards. (He even went out with Anise, but they didn't work out because of age and lifestyle differences.)

In the Later Daters finale, Nate went on the only second date he went on in the show. After sharing that he was interested in Lisa and Michelle, he decided to see Michelle again, since they were more "aligned" at similar stages of life. Unfortunately, though the date went well, things took a turn when Nate learned that Michelle doesn't keep a perfectly tidy house.

After the two-month fast-forward, Nate shared that once he decided to be just friends with Michelle, he got back into contact with Lisa. However, Lisa had already started a new relationship, so Nate ended the process single. Still, he told Jackie that he had learned to be upfront about his military injuries, and to "be open to each person."

As for the near future, he has one idea: to get a LifeAlert.

Following the show's release, Nate is still enjoying life in Atlanta and going to games for his favorite team, the Atlanta Falcons. (He even met Suzanne at a recent game!) He revealed to PEOPLE that he has recently put dating on the back burner, telling the outlet, "If something comes natural and very organic and I just can't deny it, then okay, so be it."

Pam

70-year-old Pam had been single for 15 years before The Later Daters came along, and she was encouraged to start dating again by her granddaughter Zoë, so Pam wouldn't be alone after Zoë got married and moved out of their rural home. Pam had a lot of interesting stories from her past, and Logan advised her to live in the present and think about what she wants in her future.

Pam got off to a rough start in her dating process but after receiving a helpful tip—"it's better to be interested more than interesting"—she hit it off with her next two dates and even gave one of the men a kiss at the end of the night. In the finale, she did meet up with Dwight again, but rather than a second date, the new friends had decided to work together on his Atlanta tourism business.

Though she didn't find love, Pam said that her time on The Later Daters had made her less pessimistic, and ready to meet someone in the future. According to The Cinemaholic, Pam is still living in Atlanta, traveling, and enjoying her life with her family.

Lori

When she joined The Later Daters after 15 years single, 57-year-old Lori (a.k.a. "Rich Auntie Lori") decided to prioritize her dating life after establishing two busy careers as a student engagement coach and celebrity correspondent. She said that, though she went out a lot, she tended to be in the friend zone. Logan advised her to show her softer side on dates, rather than always being in control.

Lori's blind dates showed that Atlanta could be a small world, as she had already connected with her first suitor on Plenty of Fish. Her other date (with a man who turned out to go to the same church) went well, but when he showed up at her birthday party, it became clear that he couldn't match her personality and extroversion.

Throughout the show, Lori mentioned that she had a crush on a friend named Felton. However, when they finally go on a date in the finale, Felton admits that he doesn't have romantic feelings towards her, and the two decide to remain friends. Lori ended the show optimistic that she wouldn't be single for long, as she aimed to be married within the next few years.

As seen on her Instagram, Lori has remained busy with work since The Later Daters concluded filming, and has racked up accolades for her education and correspondent work. According to PEOPLE, she and Felton have become best friends in the months since filming. As for her romantic life, Lori says she's "single as a dollar bill."

Greg

61-year-old Greg had a shorter journey on The Later Daters than the rest of the cast, arriving on the show in episode 6 ready to date after 12 years single. The father of two was optimistic about finding a partner for the rest of his life, though he had become frustrated with dating apps. Logan advised him to be open and lower his expectations regarding physical attraction, as not everyone looks like his celebrity crushes Penelope Cruz and Jennifer Aniston.

Greg really enjoyed his first date with Kelly, but was hesitant to explore that connection further since she lived over an hour away in metro Atlanta. After speaking with Logan, Greg realized he was too quick to dismiss that connection, but, unfortunately, Kelly was already in the early stages of seeing someone else when he reconnected with her. Still, Greg left the show ready to try online dating again, complete with a refreshed profile courtesy of Logan.

Greg has not publicly commented on his dating life since filming, as he does not seem to have a social media presence. However, some surprising news has come courtesy of his co-star Anise. Per her Instagram, upon meeting Greg at an ATL Plus Magazine party celebrating the show, she learned that Greg is now engaged!

Queen Camilla is lending her voice to a topic that, just a few decades ago, would have been considered taboo for a member of the Royal Family to touch. But in her new documentary, Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors, the royal is sharing some sober statistics she's learned while campaigning against domestic violence.

The ITV documentary, which aired on Nov. 11, follows Camilla in her first year as Queen while she carries out her work with domestic abuse charities like SafeLives, of which she serves as patron.

In the emotional program, The Queen spoke with Diana Parkes, a woman whose daughter, Joanna Simpson, was killed by her estranged husband in a 2010 murder that shocked the U.K.

"My reaction, I'm afraid, was to cry," Queen Camilla said when speaking of her first meeting with Parkes in 2016. "I looked around and there was a lot of police and hard-nosed journalists sitting around—there wasn't a dry eye in the place."

During the documentary, startling facts about domestic abuse in the U.K. are revealed, and The Queen admitted that just "by scratching the surface, you get a terrible shock."

However, the royal continued that it was important to see "more people discussing it, talking about it."

Royal correspondents Chris Ship and Sarah Hewson spoke about the documentary in the Sun's Royal Exclusive show, with Hewson noting that the audience at a Buckingham Palace screening was so shocked by what they saw that you could "hear a pin drop."

Speaking about the first time Queen Camilla met Parkes, Ship said The Queen "heard the whole story" about Simpson's brutal death, adding Her Majesty "was openly crying in that room."

Ship continued that their meeting was a bit of a lightbulb moment when it came to Camilla focusing on domestic violence work, telling the Sun, "you can see how she was just so moved by that, I think that was the moment she thought: 'I’ve got this platform and I’m going to do something about it.'"

While media coverage of The King and Queen's trips to Australia and Samoa was mainly focused on their public meet-and-greets and the republican sentiments that preceded the trip, Ship pointed out that Camilla quietly carried out engagements with domestic violence charities, too.

"It doesn’t always get a lot of coverage but in Australia and in Samoa recently, she went to the charities that help women trying to flee abusive relationships," the reporter said.

"It's not just a professional connection of ‘I’m the Queen, I’m the patron of this charity,’ she has a real personal connection with the women and the survivors and you can see that," Ship added.

If you or someone you know is experiencing relationship abuse in any form, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline for free, confidential support 24/7/365. Text START to 88788, call 1-800-799-SAFE(7233) or chat online at TheHotline.org.

In August 2022, Amanda Zurawski, who was pregnant with a baby girl after months of fertility treatments, learned her water had broken prematurely at 18 weeks. Her pregnancy was no longer viable. Abortion was the standard treatment of care, but because the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade less than two months prior in June 2022, Texas, where Zurawski lives, had banned abortion except in cases where the procedure is necessary to save the patient’s life. (The law contains language that critics argue is incredibly vague.) So Zurawski, then 35, wasn’t able to receive an abortion until she went into septic shock and was therefore in danger of losing her life; that was three days after she learned her baby would not survive.

After the harrowing experience of losing her baby, a girl she named Willow, and nearly losing her own life, Zurawski also learned that she may never be able to get pregnant again. If she had been able to receive an abortion earlier, her fertility might not have been compromised.

In March 2023, Zurawski joined forces with the Center for Reproductive Rights and four other plaintiffs to sue the state of Texas and urge the state to clarify the conditions in which an abortion can be provided legally. Zurawski v. Texas was the first case brought on behalf of women denied abortions since the fall of Roe.

Since they filed the case, the plaintiffs now total 22, 20 of whom were denied abortion care. Among them are Samantha Casiano, who was forced to carry a fetus who had no chance of survival, and Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB/GYN who learned her fetus had no chance of survival and left the state to terminate the pregnancy when her doctors said they could not perform an abortion due to the state’s laws.

Zurawski has told her story dozens of times since they first filed the lawsuit—on the stage at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, to newspapers and magazines, and in advertisements for pro-choice candidates. Now, she, Casiano, and Dennard are at the center of the urgent documentary Zurawski v. Texas, which chronicles the case led by the indefatigable lawyer Molly Duane.

Directed by Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, and executive produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, as well as Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, with support from Bumble Inc., Zurawski v. Texas tells the story of what really happens when draconian post-Dobbs anti-abortion laws are enacted.

Ahead, Zurawski, now 37, and Chelsea Clinton share what they hope the film—which is available to stream for free through the election— teaches people about abortion care, the type of resilience and camaraderie that can be found in the darkest of times, and what’s at stake when abortion is on the ballot.

Marie Claire: Amanda, how did this documentary come about? What was your first reaction to Maisie and Abbie saying, "We want to film this time in your life?"

Amanda Zurawski: The filmmakers actually worked with The Center for Reproductive Rights in 2016 on a movie called Jackson. I had already been working with the Center for several months preparing for filing the lawsuit, and then days before we filed, my team said, "Hey, there are these filmmakers that are interested in making a documentary.” They explained to me how much trust they had in them and the partnership that they had built before. I had built such a partnership and a relationship with the Center at that point that when they said, "We trust that this will be a compassionate, and compelling, and educational project," it did not take much convincing for me.

I then had a Zoom call with Maisie and Abbie just to get to know them and understand what they wanted to do. Right away, we were like, "Yes, this is a partnership that we trust, and they're clearly coming at it from the right perspective." It was a big of a leap of faith, but I think it was the right decision.

MC: Chelsea, what about this specific case made you and your mother want to get involved as producers?

Chelsea Clinton: When the draft of the Dobbs decision leaked—which was not surprising and yet still wrenching—in early May, my mom and I immediately started a conversation. Well, we didn't really start. We continued a conversation that we've been having for years: What can we do, in this moment, to use our platform to support every part of the ecosystem that we need now?

We wanted to support patients, providers, the patients and the providers who will become the plaintiffs, and the lawyers. And also we wanted to engage narratively to help more people understand that the picture of abortion in this country, that is often not only articulated but shouted by those who oppose abortion rights, actually has no remote semblance of what abortion looks like in this country.

We spoke to our partners at Hidden Light, our production team, to say, "We want to talk to anyone and everyone who is working on stories that will inform Americans about the catastrophic consequences that we know these bans will bring to real women's lives, to families' lives, to communities' lives."

Amanda's the first lead plaintiff in more than 50 years [to sue for abortion access]. We thought that her story and the story of her fellow plaintiffs was just so powerful, urgent, and necessary, and we have been honored to be part of this project.

MC: There were so many moments of camaraderie among the plaintiffs in this film. Amanda, there's a moment where you meet Samantha in her car, and you're just so warm. You can tell that that meant so much to her. There's another moment where Molly is telling you about Kate Cox [a woman who filed a temporary restraining order to receive an emergency abortion in the state of Texas and was denied]. The first thing you said was, "Give her my number." I'm curious what the experience was like of meeting all of these other women who had been through something similar to what you had been through. What kind of community have you built?

AZ: We are unfortunately part of this unique club that none of us want to be a part of. But once you're part of it, you realize that the folks in it are very special. That's anyone who's been through loss and denial of care, and then you add the additional layer of filing this lawsuit together.

At first, I will be honest, I think we all kind of kept our distance, because we were quite nervous. Being plaintiffs, we knew text messages can be subpoenaed, emails can be subpoenaed. We were just a little nervous on how and when and whether we could communicate. We also were, and still are, on very different paths in our family-building journeys. Some were and still have experienced additional loss, some have had babies, some have, in Samantha's case, gotten their reproductive organs removed. We are just in all of these different places, and so we didn't know in the beginning how to really build a bridge.

Fast-forward a year and a half, and I've got text threads, email threads, we're all getting together next Friday. We have Halloween parties, we have Christmas parties, so we have really built this very special and unique bond. Having that support system really is huge in the healing piece of all of this, because knowing that you're not alone, and knowing that there are others who see you, they understand you, they're there for you, it really goes a long way.

MC: You do so many interviews, you've been to the State of the Union, you were on the DNC stage, your name and your story are out there. So many of your plaintiffs have similar situations where they're telling their stories publicly. How are you dealing with having to continually put yourself out there?

AZ: I don't think there were any of us that had any sort of aspirations to live this loud, political life. Now, many of us are leaning in because we feel like we don't have a choice but to fight back. If this is the way that we can fight back, we're going to take the opportunity.

For me, it's been quite healing and quite empowering to be able to use this horrible thing that happened to me—this sadness and this grief—and turn it into action.

If nothing else, we have already seen the tides turn. We have seen positivity, just in the fact that people across the country are talking about this and they're talking about it differently. People are using the word abortion. We're talking about IVF. That to me is very encouraging.

Also, on a very personal level, the more you talk about the thing that happened to you, the less control it has over you. Now, would I have chosen to process this grief on a national stage? Probably not, but that's the hand that life dealt me. I feel very empowered to tell my story, which is really the story of so many folks in this country, and hopefully give the confidence to others to speak up and share their stories as well.

MC: Chelsea, what do you think a documentary like this has the power to do?

CC: One of the things that has been incredibly powerful for me to hear from Amanda, Samantha, and Austin—the three women who, as I always say, are American heroes who we never should have been asked to be heroes—is that every time they speak out, whether at a panel after the film, or in interviews, or certainly when Amanda spoke at the DNC, they always hear from at least one other patient who has said, "Thank you for giving me the courage to now talk to my family, to talk to my community."

On a public level, we certainly hope to change hearts and minds through just informing people around what abortion is, and that it is healthcare. And that it's not ethically or morally an entanglement for anyone to think that what happened to Amanda is just unconscionable and unacceptable and should be illegal. If anything, we need to invert the argument. We've seen in places where people have been able to vote directly on abortion since the fall of Roe and the Dobbs decision—in historically blue, red, and purple states—people have voted fairly overwhelmingly in favor of enabling women to access the healthcare that we need; enabling us to have the freedom of choice over our bodies, and our reproductive lives, and how we choose to expand our families.

Sometimes people in conversations like this think, "Well, we just have to change people's hearts, because everyone knows what abortion is in our country. Everyone knows that the vast majority of abortions happen in the first 10 weeks, and the overwhelming majority of those that happen between 10 and 20 weeks are medically necessary.”

But what we found through this film is that everyone doesn't know that. A lot of people who've had miscarriages and received care for their miscarriage management didn't realize that what they then had was an abortion.

We are educating people that abortion is healthcare and the medical reasons why some women would choose to terminate a pregnancy.

MC: There are some strong male allies in the story, like Amanda, your husband Josh. Abortion affects their lives too. What is your message to men and non-birthing people about why abortion access affects them?

AZ: The male voice is crucial in this work. For a while, we didn't see a lot of men standing up, because they felt that this was not their business. This was a woman's decision, a woman's issue, and it really seems like they needed some sort of permission structure to start speaking out regardless of how they felt.

Men are seeing other men speak up. When you talk to them, they're seeing how this impacts men. It impacts their wives, their sisters, their moms, their aunts, and they care very deeply about that. Then they take a step back and they realize, Okay, when it impacts my family, that impacts me. Now, suddenly, this isn't a women's issue, this is a family issue. This is a basic human rights issue.

I say this all the time: I have yet to have someone say to me, "Oh, yeah, what's going on in Texas, what happened to you is perfectly reasonable. This should be happening." It's just connecting the dots for them. And then with men, specifically, giving them that permission structure to speak out and to be not just an ally but an advocate. I think especially as we get closer and closer to the election, and we see more men standing up, it's this domino effect.

Some of the toughest work, but also the most important work, is happening where we don't see it. It's happening in people's living rooms during Sunday night football. It's happening at the gym, it's happening on the basketball court. Men are having these conversations. They might be doing it in their own community where we don't hear about it on a national stage, but I think that's the most important conversation you can be having. Because when you hear it from someone you know directly, that's really going to start moving the needle.

MC: We even see it within your own family. Your mom says, "This is now a single issue election for me." What is your message to people who aren't already paying attention to the fight for abortion access?

AZ: These are basic human rights that are being taken away from us. In my lifetime, I have never seen a right that I have be taken away. Certainly, I've seen the fight to gain rights, but I haven't seen something that was already guaranteed to me stripped away. If you think they're going to stop with reproductive care, you need to wake up.

As long as we are allowing people to be in a position of political power who are willing to take our fundamental freedoms away from us, we are not free as a country. We are not a democracy. If you care about your freedoms, and if you care about this country, you need to take action and you need to vote accordingly.

CC: Think about Amanda's call to all of us when you're voting, not just for the presidential election, but in every election, and in this election at every stage of the ballot. Abortion's on the ballot in 10 states. Three of the judges that you see in the documentary, who show no compassion or empathy for Amanda, nor, I would argue, a fundamental understanding of the US Constitution, or our other founding documents… they're up for reelection in just a handful of days. [Ed note: Constituents in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota, Nevada, Colorado, Maryland, and New York will have the ability to vote on proposals and propositions regarding abortion access this year. The Texas judges who sided with the state in Zurawski v. Texas and are up for reelection are Justice Jimmy Blacklock, Justice Jane Bland, Justice John Devine.]

MC: On Tuesday, if Trump wins the presidency, many fear he will enact a federal abortion ban [though he has said he would veto a ban and supports states’ right to set laws on abortion access]. How can people who care about these issues keep fighting and working against an oppositional federal government?

AZ: I think that's a really important question, because I think a lot of people don't realize that regardless of what happens Tuesday at the top of the ticket, with all of these ballot measures, there will still be a fight. I'm very hopeful that [this] week, we'll have a day of celebration, but then we also must remain vigilant.

The way that they're trying to take away our rights is terrifying, and they're taking all of these back roads to do it. That's how we got here in the first place. We know that the anti-choice movement is calculated, they are smart, and they're organized, and they're relentless, and we need to be all of those things, but more so.

CC: That's Amanda's reality right now in Texas. How could I choose to be anything but urgently engaged and optimistic that we can have a different future for all of us, and especially [for] the more than one-third of American women who are reproductive age, living under very strict abortion bans?

Amanda's getting up every day and doing what she can do. How could any of the rest of us feel anything but an obligation to do the same? There still will be so much work to do for women and families on Wednesday.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

When Prince William rolls up his sleeves, he means business—though not without a cheeky attempt to dodge a few kitchen duties. In his new documentary, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, the Prince of Wales proved he's not afraid of a little humor while taking on a challenge that's deeply personal: ending homelessness in the U.K.

Viewers get an intimate look at William's commitment to tackling the homelessness crisis in the two-part series, currently airing on ITV in the U.K. and on Disney+ beginning Friday, Nov. 1. Returning to The Passage, the London charity he first visited with his late mother Princess Diana when he was just 11, William helped serve clients during a Christmas dinner.

However, his playful attempt to dodge work by suggesting he'd rather "have a natter" with visitors backfired hilariously, with one worker quickly calling out his "escape" attempt.

"You've got enough hands in here anyway, don't you?" William, who wore a white apron over his green sweater, remarked during one scene. "I might go over there and have a natter."

When the Prince of Wales attempted to sneak away for a chat, he was met with a knowing, "Oh, you're trying to escape the work, I'm watching you!" from a fellow kitchen worker. After lots of laughs he suggested he'd pitch in with drinks or ketchup duty during the event.

The prince's Homewards initiative, launched last year, targets six key areas across the U.K., aiming to transform the landscape of homelessness in just five years. He admitted that it's an ambitious goal—and one his charitable mother would have called "mad."

In the docuseries, he shared several unseen photos of himself with Princess Diana while they visited The Passage in 1993, including some from a similar Christmas event. The Prince of Wales currently serves as the charity's royal patron, and he spoke about how his mother's work inspired his passion to end homelessness.

"When I was very small, my mother started talking about homelessness, much like I do with my children now on the school run," he said, explaining that he has started conversations with his own kids Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6, about those less fortunate.

At the end of the day, Prince William said he saw tackling homelessness as an integral part of his role as the future King. "I feel, with my position and my platform, I should be delivering change," he said. "I've spent enough time learning and listening to what people have been through that I feel almost guilty every time I leave that I'm not doing more to help."

Prince William is no stranger to coming up with lofty ideas; after all, he launched the Earthshot Prize to try and solve the world's environmental issues. But in his new documentary, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, the royal lays out his plan to end the homelessness crisis in the U.K. once and for all. It's an initiative that he admits might sound a little bit crazy, even to his famously charitable late mother, Princess Diana.

"She’d think I was mad," Prince William revealed in the two-part documentary. And while the Prince of Wales knows his goal is lofty, he said that it was his mom who inspired the idea.

"My mother introduced me to homelessness a long time ago and it's had a deep resonation with me, because of the connection I felt," he shared in one of the episodes.

The documentary—which will premiere on Disney+ Nov. 1 and on ITV in the U.K. on Oct. 30 and 31—follows William through the first year of Homewards, his five-year program "that aims to show it is possible to end homelessness," per Disney+.

In the program, Prince William shared rare unseen photos of himself with Princess Diana while visiting homelessness charity The Passage, an experience he said felt daunting as an 11-year-old boy. "I’d never been to anything like that before. And I was a bit anxious as to what to expect," the Prince of Wales said.

However, he went on to enjoy the visits with his mom and brother Prince Harry. "I remember having some good conversations—just playing chess and chatting," he said. "That’s when it dawned on me that there are other people out there who don't have the same life as you do."

William noted that Princess Diana's work with the homeless inspired him to want to carry on her mission of helping others.

The father of three—who now serves as royal patron of The Passage as well as homelessness charity Centrepoint—said he's gone on to teach his kids Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6, about those less fortunate.

"When I was very small, my mother started talking about homelessness, much like I do with my children now on the school run," William said in the docuseries, adding that it was "important" for him to make sure his children were "not just living in their own little worlds."

Prince William: We Can End Homelessness will premiere on Disney+ worldwide on Friday, Nov. 1.

HBO's latest true crime docuseries Breath of Fire is another saga of a spiritual community accused of cult-like behaviors. Based on Hayley Phelan's Vanity Fair article "The Second Coming of Guru Jagat," the four-part series—which premiered on October 23, 2024, and airs new episodes every Wednesday—centers on Guru Jagat, a practitioner of kundalini yoga who doc directors Hayley Pappas and Smiley Stevens have dubbed "the Elizabeth Holmes of Yoga." Throughout the 2010s, Jagat built her L.A.-based studio into an international empire that boasted several locations, adjacent e-commerce businesses, and celebrity followers including Kate Hudson, Alicia Keys, Orlando Bloom, and Russell Brand. She also allegedly fostered a cult-like, abusive environment within the organization, and eventually platformed right-wing, anti-vax, and QAnon conspiracies by the onset of the COVID pandemic.

The well-rounded cult docuseries also explores the legacy of Jagat's controversial mentor, Yogi Bhajan, the complicated culture of modern spirituality, and the "dangers of self-proclaimed gurus," per the doc's description. At the center of it all is Guru Jagat, the charismatic and controversial leader whose public profile has altered from guru girlboss to alleged cult leader, in the wake of her untimely death. Read on for a brief primer on everything to know about Guru Jagat.

She was an internationally known kundalini yoga guru.

Guru Jagat, real name Katie Griggs, was born in Colorado in 1979. According to Vanity Fair, Griggs dreamed of acting or performing onstage as a kid, and she "drifted in her early 20s, dropping out of school due to partying, then eventually getting a degree from Antioch College in Ohio." Eventually, the one-time YouTube astrologer founded the RA MA Institute for Applied Yogic Sciences and Technology, an L.A.-based studio established in 2013 that focused on spreading the practice of kundalini yoga. According to the outlet, kundalini is "characterized by intense breath work, repetitive poses, and alternative lifestyle choices, such as wearing white and eating mostly vegetarian."

The first episode of the HBO docuseries introduces some elements of Jagat's practice, including "breath of fire," an energizing breath work that one doc subject describes as a feeling similar to "taking poppers." As stated in the doc, Jagat would end her sessions with a 45-minute talk that sometimes included a "prosperity meditation," where the attendants would credit their successes, such as getting a dream job or a dream house to the yoga practice.

By the late 2010s, Jagat became a popular yoga guru and business owner thanks in part to her active Instagram presence. She hosted online classes through a subscription service, where 20,000 subscribers paid at least $19 monthly. She also started several other ventures out of RA MA, including two clothing lines: a streetwear brand and a line of "ethereal white dresses." The physical RA MA studio also expanded into multiple locations including Venice (the L.A. flagship); New York; Boulder, Colorado; and Mallorca, Spain.

Guru Jagat presented herself as a direct disciple of the controversial spiritual teacher Yogi Bhajan. She claimed that she was able to meet him in the final years of his life and that she received her spiritual name from him. However, this claim has been questioned because Bhajan died in 2004, and Guru Jagat did not start going by that name until 2013. Before then, she ran a website called Kundalini Katie, and at various points, she went by the monikers Athena Day and Katie Day, per the doc.

She's a student of Yogi Bhajan, the spiritual leader who founded Yogi Tea.

Yogi Bhajan, real name, Harbhajan Singh Khalsa, is a spiritual guru who's credited with popularizing kundalini yoga. The former customs inspector immigrated from India to the United States in the late 1960s, when, as Amanda Montell points out in Breath of Fire, "people were feeling, existentially, high and dry." He established the 3HO Foundation in L.A. and gathered hundreds of followers who lived by his teachings. Critics have accused Bhajan of inventing kundalini by pulling from other spiritual practices and Sikh teachings.

Bhajan was also a businessman who ran multiple multimillion-dollar businesses, including Yogi Tea and a private security firm. According to the doc, Bhajan's teachings were similar to the prosperity gospel, a belief that a higher power rewards the faithful with financial wealth. Over the years, his followers created businesses for "shoes, body scrubs, granola bars, essential oils," and more, per the doc. Cameron Healy, the founder of Kettle Foods, reportedly became involved in kundalini yoga in the early 1970s, investing in a successful bakery called The Golden Temple, before eventually founding the eventual kettle-chip brand in 1978.

Bhajan faced accusations of "rape, sexual misconduct, and financial malfeasance" before and after his death, per Vanity Fair. In 2020, after his former employee and lover Pamela Dyson released a memoir including several new allegations, Guru Jagat expressed support for Bhajan and promoted a video that "sought to discredit Dyson and defend Bhajan." Her stance led to a backlash that prompted her fall from grace.

Guru Jagat was accused of running a toxic workplace.

In mid-2020, Jagat's former employees Becky Lovell and Nicole Norton started the anonymous Instagram page @ramawrong, which posted evidence of Jagat instilling a culture of abuse among her employees. Per Vanity Fair, "Jagat could be abusive, irrational, and was prone to lying; she spent money like water and often came up short when it was time to pay her employees—many of whom, despite being full-time staffers with 'director' in their titles, made far below minimum wage and were asked to file as independent contractors, depriving them of benefits like health care." Anonymous employees also told Vanity Fair that Jagat allegedly supported QAnon conspiracy theories, with some accusing her husband Teg Nam—real name Austin Dunbar, a former student who was almost two decades younger—of "radicalizing" her.

Guru Jagat died in August 2021 under mysterious circumstances.

As reported by Vanity Fair, Guru Jagat died in August 2021 at the age of 41. The RA MA Institute said at the time that she had died of a pulmonary embolism following ankle surgery. Though the outlet confirmed her cause of death via her death certificate, several rumors were swirling at the time regarding what led to her death, ranging from her facing COVID complications after refusing to get vaccinated and holding maskless classes during the pandemic, to her faking her death in the wake of growing criticism against her.

Prince William is sharing his ultimate philanthropic goal while promoting an upcoming documentary highlighting the issue of homelessness.

On Saturday, Oct. 5, the Prince and Princess of Wales shared a preview clip of the new film, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, on the couple's official X, formerly known as Twitter, account as well as the couple's official Instagram account.

"I think it’s really important that we can try and change and tackle the narrative around homelessness," Prince William said while facing the camera, and after he was asked by someone off-camera where his "passion with this particular issue comes from" and why he has decided to focus on the topic of homelessness.

"People live with it," the Prince of Wales continued. "We see it every day in our lives. That's something I want to challenge."

According to the same post, the documentary will be available on both ITV and ITVX in the near future.

In the United States, a record-high 653,104 people experienced homelessness on a single night in January 2023—a more than 12 percent increase over the previous year, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

An estimated 1 in 182 people in England experienced homelessness in 2023, according to one comprehensive analysis of official homelessness figures from Shelter England.

In an effort to change the conversation around and end the sigma of homelessness, Prince William has said that he speaks to his three children—Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis—about the issue.

“On the school run, we talk about what we see,” William told The Sunday Times back in 2023. “When we were in London, driving backwards and forwards, we regularly used to see people sitting outside supermarkets, and we’d talk about it. I’d say to the children, ‘Why are they there? What’s going on?’

:I think it’s in all our interests, it’s the right thing to do, to expose the children, at the right stage, in the right dialogue, so they have an understanding," he continued. "They [will] grow up knowing that actually, do you know what, some of us are very fortunate, some of us need a little bit of a helping hand, some of us need to do a bit more where we can to help others improve their lives.”

While Prince William is showcasing his advocacy—said to be inspired by his lat mother Princess Diana's passion for combatting homelessness—on camera, those who have worked with the Prince of Wales in the past say he does "an awful lot where there aren't cameras."

“That’s what he enjoys the most, because he’s meeting real people, hearing real stories," Mick Clarke, chief executive of homeless charity The Passage, told The Sunday Times in a 2023 interview.

"It’s what has formulated his plans. When he comes here, nothing’s sugarcoated, nothing is sanitized," Clarke continued at the time. "People on the streets are very good about knowing whether someone is authentic or not within a second. He is very authentic.”

30 years after their murder trials became a true-crime sensation, a new Netflix documentary will feature the Menendez brothers telling their story in their own words. The documentary, titled The Menendez Brothers and premiering on October 7, will include interviews from both Erik and Lyle Menendez as well as others involved in the brothers' trials, which ended with the pair sentenced to life in prison for the murders of their mother and father, José and Kitty Menendez.

Erik and Lyle Menendez, both currently incarcerated at Donovan Correctional Facility in California, were interviewed via phone about the well-publicized trial, with clips from their recorded calls included in the documentary's trailer that debuted on September 23, 2024. "Everyone asks why we killed our parents,” says Lyle, in the film's trailer. “Maybe now people can understand the truth.”

Eric adds, "What happened that night is very well known but so much hasn’t been told."

The film's description reads, "In 1996, Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted for the murders of their parents in what became one of the most famous criminal cases of the late 20th century. For the first time in 30 years, and in their own words, both brothers revisit the trial that shocked the nation. Through extensive audio interviews with Lyle and Erik, lawyers involved in the trial, journalists who covered it, jurors, family, and other informed observers, acclaimed Argentinian director Alejandro Hartmann (Carmel: Who Killed Maria Marta?, The Photographer: Murder in Pinamar) offers new insight and a fresh perspective on a case that people only think they know."

Ahead of the documentary's release, L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón announced Oct. 3 that his office is reviewing the Menendez case, per New York Times. According to the outlet, the brothers' claims of sexual abuse are "among the aspects his office was reviewing." The D.A. also remarked that his office was "divided" over whether Lyle and Erik Menendez should spend the rest of their lives in prison.

“We have a moral and ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us,” Gascón said.

The new documentary will debut just weeks after Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story premiered on September 19 to rapid popularity and instant controversy. Created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the limited series dramatizes the events before, during, and after the murders. The new show is the latest entertainment project delving into the trial, one of the most well-known cases of the true-crime genre. It has also revived the case in the public eye, with D.A. Gascón acknowledging that his office received many calls about the case following its release.

On the day of Monsters' release, Erik Menendez released a statement lambasting Netflix and Murphy, which claimed that the series is a "dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding [the brothers'] crime."

"I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show," Erik wrote in the statement. "I can only believe they were done so on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent."

A new documentary is offering some additional insight into how the late Queen Elizabeth really felt about former president Donald Trump.

In the latest film to document the former Queen of England's life and legacy, The Cowboy and the Queen, close former friend Monty Roberts claimed Queen Elizabeth "didn't like" the current Republican nominee for president.

In the film, as reported by People, Roberts watches "news clips of Trump." The former friend of the matriarch then turns to his wife, Pat, and says: "The Queen didn't like him."

In an interview with the publication, Roberts confirmed his remarks, telling the outlet: “The Queen said that.”

This is not the first time those who were close to the late Queen of England claimed she was not a fan of Trump. According to Craig Brown, author of A Voyage Around the Queen, Queen Elizabeth thought the former president was "very rude."

"A few weeks after President Trump's visit, for instance, she confided in one lunch guest that she found him 'very rude': she particularly disliked the way he couldn't stop looking over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting," Brown wrote, according to an excerpt published in the Daily Mail.

Queen Elizabeth hosted then-President Trump twice during her reign— once in July 2018 and again in June 2019. The two also met face-to-face at the NATO 70th anniversary reception at Buckingham Palace in December 2019.

Brown also claimed that Queen Elizabeth questioned Trump's marriage to his wife, Melania Trump.

"She also believed President Trump 'must have some sort of arrangement' with his wife Melania," he wrote, "or else why would she have remained married to him?"

During his July 2018 visit to the U.K., Trump reportedly kept the monarch waiting for more than 10 minutes. However, the former president later claimed that he was actually early for their meeting.

"I was about 15 minutes early and I'm waiting with my wife and that's fine," he told the crowd at a Philadelphia rally. "Hey, it's the Queen, right? We can wait. But I'm a little early." He continued, "And I didn't know this—it was supposed to last 15 minutes but it lasted like an hour because we got along. And she liked our first lady and our first lady liked her."

Just as Prince William announced a documentary of his own earlier this week—his about eradicating homelessness—Prince Harry, too, will take part in a forthcoming documentary, his about the phone hacking scandal that he took to court, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Hugh Grant will also participate in the ITV documentary Tabloids on Trial, which focuses “on ongoing legal battles and involvement in the phone hacking scandal,” the outlet writes. 

Harry alleged that he was targeted by journalists and private investigators working for News Group Newspapers (NGN) titles The Sun and the now-defunct News of the World, which closed back in 2011. That same year, news broke that some of Britain’s biggest celebrities—like Harry and Grant—were allegedly victims of a scandal in which “the media’s top newspapers were tapping landlines and fitting properties with listening devices in the name of journalism,” The Hollywood Reporter writes. “NGN has denied any illegal activity took place at The Sun.”

In December, Justice Timothy Fancourt ruled in Harry’s favor against Mirror Group Newspapers in a 386-page decision handed down in the High Court. He said that phone hacking–which, for Harry, went all the way back as far as 2003—was “widespread and habitual” at The Daily Mirror, and that executives there had covered it up.

“Our mission continues,” Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said in a statement on behalf of Harry outside court after the victory, per Hello. “I believe in the positive change it will bring for all of us. It is the very reason why I started this, and why I will continue to see it through to the end.” 

According to The Daily Beast, Harry settled for a “substantial sum” earlier this year after receiving a $160,000 award for The Daily Mirror’s hacking by its journalists between 2006 to 2011. ITV’s Chris Ship, per The Daily Beast, said that in the documentary Harry would explain why he “is fighting to expose what he says are the illegal activities of Britain’s tabloid newspapers.”

In addition to Harry and Grant, former soccer player Paul Gascoigne and singer Charlotte Church will also be featured in the upcoming documentary, and ITV News’ Rebecca Barry will sit down with Harry—who, in The Hollywood Reporter’s words, “has broken from royal tradition with the immense legal action”—for Harry’s first major interview since the legal action commenced.

Tabloids on Trial—which “hears about his mission to continue his fight to expose the illegal tactics of Britain’s tabloid press, and explore what those in charge at Fleet Street really knew as this scandal unfolded,” according to a press release from ITV—will air on the network on Thursday, July 25.

Prince William is apparently taking a page out of his estranged brother Prince Harry's book and stepping in front of the camera for a new documentary.

In a post shared on the official Kensington Palace facebook page, the Prince of Wales announced both a Saatchi Gallery exhibition and an ITV docuseries highlighting his Homewards program—a royal initiative dedicated to ending homelessness.

According to People, the two-part ITV television series aptly titled Prince William: We Can End Homelessness will air on both ITV1 and ITVX this fall, and will follow Prince William "as he launches Homewards across the U.K., capturing the stories of individuals currently facing homelessness and those with lived experience."

The series will only chronicle the first year of the prince's five-year initiative, focusing on six locations where Prince William, advocates and project leaders are aiming to combat homelessness: Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Lambeth, Newport, Northern Ireland, and Sheffield.

"We’re celebrating the first year of @homewardsuk!" the prince wrote in the caption accompanying the Instagram announcement. "Coming soon: A @saatchi_gallery exhibition. An @itv documentary. As we work to demonstrate that it is possible to end homelessness, #Homewards is also about changing the narrative, improving the understanding of what it means to be homeless."

Prince William's goal of ending homelessness is said to be one of the many lasting impacts of his late mother, Princess Diana. As People points out, from a young age the royal made it a point to bring both of her sons along when she visited homeless shelters, incorporating her boys in her many initiatives to better serve the less fortunate.

Like his mom, Prince William is also a patron of Centrepoint, a homeless charity, which only speaks to how influential his mother's work was and continues to be as her sons carry the torch.

“Over the past year we have spent time following Prince William and The Royal Foundation through the first year of the Homewards program," Leo Burley, who is directing the series, said in a statement obtained by People. "We’ve heard some incredibly moving stories from people across the country facing homelessness."

"The documentary paints a picture of homelessness across the UK today, working with many people who never expected to experience life without a place to call home," Burley added. "Everyone we’ve filmed with has welcomed the spotlight that Prince William and Homewards are placing on the UK’s homelessness crisis.”

Of course, the Prince of Wales is not the only member of the royal family to step in front of a camera for a tell-all documentary.

Most recently, his brother, Prince Harry, released a revealing the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, which famously (or infamously, depending on which side of the so-called royal feud you fall on) document4ed the royal couple as they navigated royal protocols, endless tabloid scrutiny, family rifts and their move to the United States.

In Netflix's sensational sports docuseries America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, viewers get a behind-the-scenes look at the world-famous NFL dance team. Created by Cheer and Last Chance U's Greg Whiteley, the series follows elite dancers from all over the U.S. as they prepare for pre-season auditions and the playoffs, and open up about their lives and day-to-day experiences being a part of the franchise.

Since the show landed on the streaming giant on June 20, 2024, countless viewers have become obsessed with the world of DCC, from the high-octane routines ("Thunderstruck" is now stuck in all of our heads) to the unspoken intricacies of the million-dollar organization.

Of course, many newly minted fans were hopeful the show—and one of 2024's best documentaries—would return to follow the team for another season. Read on for everything we know about America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders season 2 so far.

Has 'America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' been renewed for season 2?

Cue the high kicks! On November 11, 2024, Netflix announced that America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders will return for a second season. According to Tudum, America's Sweethearts season 2 "will chronicle the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders from nerve-wracking auditions and grueling training camp all the way through the high-energy NFL 2024–25 season." (Last year, unfortunately, didn't go well for the team.)

Ahead of the official announcement, both Whiteley and the Dallas Cowboys franchise showed excitement for a possible second season. Following the series' premiere, the Cowboys's official website released a statement mentioning hopes for season 2. It read, "While plans are currently undetermined for a second season, the Dallas Cowboys are excited to see the response from the world in the early stages of the show's release in anticipation of hopefully signing on for more seasons."

Meanwhile, in a June 2024 interview with Variety, the showrunner shared that he'd "love" more time with the team, as he felt the filmmakers were "just starting to hit their stride" when filming ended.

"Our last two or three weeks of filming, we were just starting to hit our stride," he told the outlet. "Part of it is the stakes are higher when you’re at a place like The Star, where it is the most financially lucrative, valuable sports franchise in all the world. They have plenty at stake and that breeds a certain culture that’s very buttoned down and can sometimes bump up against a documentary film crew trying to pierce that."

He continued, "I felt like we were just starting to get there as we were wrapping up, and I’d love to have more time to see if we can get deeper and deeper with more and more of the team."

Thankfully, we can officially get out the poms, since season 2 is confirmed.

When will 'America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' season 2 hit Netflix?

Time to start warming up! Variety has revealed that America's Sweethearts' highly anticipated second season will return for seven new episodes on June 18, 2025. The DCC cheerleaders will return to Netflix one year after their viral debut. (Hopefully, this means America's Sweethearts will become one of our yearly watches.)

Which cast members will return for 'America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' season 2?

The final moments of America's Sweethearts season 1 saw all the active Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders featured on the show confirm whether they planned to audition for the next season. Many of the doc's subjects promised they would return, including 2023 rookies Reece Allman and Anna Kate Sundvold. Fans following the stars of America's Sweethearts over the past few months know that some of our favorite cheerleaders are guaranteed to return. (More on that below.)

However, not everyone will be back. Victoria Kalina, a fourth-year veteran, decided not to return for a fifth year. Instead, she recently moved to N.Y.C. Kelcey Wetterberg also retired after her fifth year. It's possible she could return as an alumnus of the team, though—similar to how Anna Kate's sister, Caroline Sundvold, shared her experience in the doc of what life is like after being a DCC.

Were any of the 'America's Sweethearts' stars on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' 2024 team?

By the time America's Sweethearts landed on Netflix, DCC director Kelli Finglass and head choreographer Judy Trammell were already hard at work on the audition cycle for this year's team. According to the DDC website, the bosses held the first rehearsal of this year's training camp on the same day the docuseries arrived on Netflix. On June 26, the team's official Instagram revealed the 2024 rookie candidates. The announcement included two familiar faces: Charly Barby and Kelly Villares. The two didn't make the squad in the docuseries, but they have made it to training camp for the second year in a row, receiving their second shot at joining the team.

The team also shared a reel featuring many of the veteran candidate auditions, as they all incorporated a similar move into their solo routines. In this clip, it's confirmed that both Reece and Anna Kate also participated in training camp, though they were doing double duty by promoting the series at the same time.

By the time of season 2's renewal, spoiler-prone fans need to head to their favorite stars's Instagrams to know whether or not they made the official team. Based on the 2024 roster, it's guaranteed that Reece, Anna Kate, Charly, Kelly, and Sophy Laufer will all return in America's Sweethearts season 2.

Is there a trailer for 'America's Sweethearts' stars on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' season 2?

Cue AC/DC! Netflix revealed the trailer for season 2 on June 4, 2025, which follows the dancers from DCC's 2024 auditions through training camp and the regular season. In addition to returning faces like Reece and Kelly, the clip also introduces some new faces, including a new DCC legacy à la Victoria. The trailer also highlights DCC veteran Armani Latimer, who lives with alopecia and performed without her wig for the first time last December.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are an American institution, and now, Netflix superstars. The renowned NFL cheer team is the center of the new hit docuseries America's Sweethearts: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, which hit streaming on June 20 and has become one of the most popular and best documentaries of the year. Created by Greg Whiteley (of Cheer and Last Chance U fame), the seven-episode show chronicles the team's 2023 season from auditions to playoffs, documenting the epic highs and lows of NFL cheerleading as the year's hopefuls try out for the world-famous organization.

Since the series premiered, countless viewers have been searching for updates on the captivating dancers. Read on to learn what some of the fan-favorites from America's Sweethearts are up to now, including who returned to training camp ahead of this year's football season.

The Veteran Candidates

Kelcey Wetterberg

Kelcey is a pediatric nurse from Omaha, Nebraska, who returned for her fifth year as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader in 2023. Per her DCC bio, she started dancing at the age of 3 and began competing by 8, as part of Nebraska Dance Company and Millard West Dance Team. In 2017, she became a gold medalist with the United States National Jazz Team. She also spent two years on the Arizona State University dance team, before becoming the Choreography Captain for the University of Nebraska's Scarlets dance team. She graduated from the school's Medical Center with a degree in Nursing in 2019, the same year she joined DCC.

In 2023, after making it onto the team for her fifth year, Kelcey was named as one of DCC's team captains, a.k.a. a 1st Group Leader. She worked as a nurse during the day and attended DCC practices at night, often leaving the house at 7 a.m. and getting back home at midnight. She said in the docuseries that though her routine was "exhausting," she still "cherished" her time on the team.

Per her Instagram, Kelcey is currently in the midst of wedding planning, after getting engaged to her fiancé Nate Crnkovich during the docuseries' filming. Last year, the dancer shared the pictures from the surprise proposal, along with a sweet caption.

"What a surprise!!! Nate, you are the man of my dreams! You make life so bright and full of love," she wrote. "Our love story has brought so much happiness and growth to my life, & now we get to write a new chapter! I’ll love you forever, I can’t wait to be your wife!!!!!"

Nate replied, saying, "I love you future Mrs. Crnkovich 😉"

Victoria Kalina

Victoria grew up with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders all her life; her mother Tina Kalina was a DCC in the '80s, and Victoria has known the team's director Kelli Finglass since she was born. Growing up in Coppell, Texas, Victoria began dancing at age 2 and competed with Top Hat Dance Centre, later becoming a teacher at the studio in high school, per her DCC bio. When she was 18, she first auditioned for the team in a process chronicled on the CMT show Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team, which ran for 16 seasons from 2006 to 2021. Though she was cut from training camp on her first attempt, she returned the next year and made it onto the team at 19.

At the start of America's Sweethearts, Victoria auditions for her fourth year on the team, and makes it through training camp to join the 2023 roster. As the cameras follow her for the season, we see Victoria's home life living with her mother Tina, with whom she's extremely close. Victoria also recalls her tenure on the team and opens up for the first time about her struggles with depression and disordered eating. "Whenever I get into a bad depression, I turn to bad coping skills, which causes bad eating habits," she explains on the show.

In the final moments of America's Sweethearts, Victoria confirmed that she did not plan to re-audition for her fifth year at DCC. Just days after the docuseries arrived on Netflix, the former cheerleader posted her first-ever YouTube video, where she revealed that she's set to move to New York City to continue her dance journey. She mentioned that she has always admired the Radio City Rockettes, but added that she's "open to any and all opportunities that are out there."

“I might go up there and hate it, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen because I’ve been dreaming of New York City being my home forever," she said. "And I’m so excited to say that is finally happening.”

The Rookie Candidates

Anna Kate Sunvold

Anna Kate grew up in Columbia, Missouri in a very athletic family; her sister Caroline is a retired DCC, while their father Jon “Sunny” Sundvold is a retired professional basketball player who played for several NBA teams. Anna Kate competed nationally as a teen, via her local studio Columbia Performing Arts Centre, and went on to join Texas Christian University's dance team, per her DCC bio. According to her LinkedIn, she graduated summa cum laude from Texas Christian University with a degree in business administration in 2023.

After graduating, Anna Kate relocated to Dallas, where she prepared for her audition with the help of Caroline. (She also lived with Caroline in a studio apartment for several months.) Anna Kate made it through training camp and became an official Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. During her rookie year, she also began her career in the financial planning industry.

Anna Kate is currently part of the 2024 training camp for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, as seen by a group photo shared on the team's official account.

On her Instagram, she's shared that she has recently been traveling and spending time with her fellow cheerleaders, including attending Reece Allman's wedding last April. Anna Kate has also celebrated special occasions with her boyfriend of four years.

Anisha Kurukulasuriya

Anisha, 31, is a pediatric orthodontist, dance instructor, and former dancer for both the NBA's Golden State Warriors and the NFL's San Francisco 49ers. She currently serves as an ambassador for the National Desi Dance League. According to her National Desi Dance League bio, she attended the University of Southern California as an undergrad, where she was a member of the Zeher dance team and won the title of Miss Bollywood America. She was previously a key dancer in Lilly Singh’s World Tour: A Trip To Unicorn Island, and she toured with the renowned dance troupe Mystic India.

Anisha auditioned for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in 2023 and impressed the judges with her Bollyfusion solo, making it into training camp. However, she was eventually cut before the team was finalized. In a sentimental Instagram post, the dancer reflected on her audition and training experience.

"I know I had joked about fighting for my life every day in training camp, but I truly have no regrets about auditioning; it was an extraordinary experience to dance alongside these incredibly talented and compassionate women and I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made along the way through @dccheerleaders," she wrote. "Representing the South Asian community on such a prestigious platform was a true honor, and I hope it opens doors for others in our community to excel in this industry."

Per Anisha's Instagram bio, she splits her time between L.A. and Dallas, and she regularly hosts dance workshops in both cities. She has also taught classes in cities including London, Chicago, and N.Y.C. She doesn't appear to be part of the 2024 DCC training camp.

Charly Barby

Charly grew up in the San Francisco area in Livermore, California, and began dancing ballet when she was 2-years-old. She shared her love of dance in the docuseries, explaining, "Ballet is a great base to have…there’s a right and a wrong to technique, and I always like to get it right.” While attending Arizona State University, Charly danced on the school's dance team and competed nationally. She graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of science in communications and a minor in media analysis in 2023.

Charly stunned the judges with her impressive technique during the 2023 auditions, and easily made it into the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' training camp. However, she was dropped from the team during the final cut. She reflected on her experience in an emotional comment, accompanied by an Instagram reel of her practices throughout the camp. "The amount of hard work, determination and dedication it takes to chase this dream is unlike anything, and I absolutely thrive off of it," she wrote, later signing off, "I’ll see you next year ;)"

Over the past year, Charly has shared many dance and travel posts on Instagram, including a birthday trip to Hawaii and a solo trip to N.Y.C., where she met up with her fellow rookie candidate Kelly Villares. On June 26, 2024, the official DCC Instagram account revealed that Charly is currently part of the training camp for the 2024 team.

Kelly Villares

Kelly is a Weehawken, New Jersey, native who has dreamed of becoming a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader for most of her life. In interviews with her parents, Lina Londono and Onel Villares, the now-divorced couple shares that Kelly has loved dance since she could walk and that they stayed married throughout her childhood partly so they could afford her lessons. Kelly trained at Studio L Dance Company in New Jersey and competed nationally on the studio's award-winning team, per her Instagram. In 2023, she graduated from Rutgers University, where she was a co-captain of the school's dance team, and soon after traveled to Dallas to audition for the team.

On America's Sweethearts, she shows off her 20 years of dance experience with a lyrical-jazz solo to Céline Dion's "Ashes," and she makes it into training camp. Kelly even gets a makeover as part of the training, where she dyes her hair brunette after several years as a blonde. However, in episode 3, Kelly gets cut from training camp, due to her lack of experience with the DCC's choreography and style of dance.

Now at 22, Kelly is currently taking part in her second year of training camp, as a rookie candidate for DCC's 2024 team. On June 26, 2024, the franchise's official Instagram shared a photo of Kelly from her latest audition for the team, along with this year's set of potential rookies. The dancer shared her excitement for this year's training camp in a comment on the post.

"I am so privileged and honored to be back in Training Camp," she wrote. "Grateful is an understatement!! Thank you for this opportunity 🥹🤍"

The New Jersey native has also shared updates from her life post-show on Instagram. She appears to have spent the months training for this year's auditions and spending time with the friends she made during the 2023 training camp. Last April, she joined Charly Barby, Anna Kate Sundvold, Camille Sturdivant, and other familiar faces in Florida to celebrate Reece Allman's wedding.

Reece Allman

Reece was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, where she began dancing at the age of 3, per her DCC bio. She attended a School of the Arts for grade school and competed in pageants as a teen, winning Miss Florida Outstanding Teen in 2017. For college, she attended the University of Alabama, where she received a degree in dance after being a member of the school's dance team for four years. She is also a devout Christian, who says in the docuseries that she believes her dancing abilities are a gift from God.

Allman was an instant star as soon as she appeared on America's Sweethearts, thanks in part to her skilled Latin ballroom-inspired tryout solo. She tried out for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in 2023 after graduating from college, and once she got through training camp, she became an official rookie on the team. She relocated to Dallas alongside her then-fiancé Will Allman, who she met when they were students at Bama (and who was her "first-ever boyfriend.")

In April 2024, Reece and Will were married in a gorgeous ceremony in Jacksonville. Per a wedding Reel shared on Reece's Instagram, the bride even performed a DCC dance routine at the reception. Many of the friends Reece met in the docuseries attended the wedding as well.

In another post, Will wrote of the occasion, "Married the woman of my dreams in front of 250 of my best friends and family. A perfect day that will never be forgotten. Thank you to all of you who were able to come celebrate Reece and I!"

Reece recently auditioned for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' 2024 team, per an Instagram Reel shared by the franchise's official account. She's currently part of the 2024 training camp.

The Alums

Caroline Sunvold

Caroline, 28, is a dancer and former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, who performed on the team for five years before retiring after the 2022 season. The Columbia, Missouri native discovered her love of dance as a toddler and has trained for most of her life. She graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a bachelor’s in business administration with a minor in finance in 2018. Just months later, she passed training camp and became a DCC rookie, eventually earning titles for both Rookie of the Year in 2018 and Veteran of the Year in 2022.

When America's Sweethearts began filming in the summer of 2023, Caroline was still recovering from foot and hip reconstruction surgeries, the latter of which she had put off to complete her final DCC season. After she helped coach her sister Anna Kate in preparation for the 2023 audition, Caroline attended alumni events and reflected on the next stage of her life after being a DCC (and the emotional crash that comes with so much change).

Caroline currently works as an account manager for a Dallas-area medical device company, per her LinkedIn. She also recently received a certificate in mastering sales from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. On the personal front, the dancer has also shared snapshots of her recent travels to Tulum, Mexico and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on her Instagram.

Social media, the dance community, and alleged coercive control intersect in Netflix's latest cult documentary, Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult. In February 2022, the Wilking family went viral on Instagram after they posted an emotional livestream claiming that famed TikTok dancer Miranda Wilking, now known as Miranda Derrick, was under the control of an alleged cult leader named Robert Shinn. As both news outlets and Internet sleuths began to look into Shinn's past, more and more concerning evidence kept coming up that Miranda, her now-husband James Derrick, and the other dancers employed under the talent incubator 7M Films may allegedly live under complete financial and emotional control, despite the sunny, positive image put forth on social media.

Since the docuseries' release on May 29, countless viewers have been on the lookout for any information regarding where Miranda and other subjects of Dancing for the Devil are now. Below, we've rounded up everything we know about Miranda Derrick's whereabouts and whether she is still allegiant to the alleged cult now, two years after the three-part doc was filmed.

Who is Miranda Derrick (née Wilking)?

Miranda Derrick (neé Wilking) was raised in suburban Michigan, where she and her younger sister, Melanie Wilking, began dancing as children. According to her family's interviews in Dancing for the Devil, in which Melanie, mom Kelly, and dad Dean participated, Miranda moved to Los Angeles to pursue dance professionally after graduating high school. Melanie followed soon after, and the sisters found success on social media, creating the joint profile "The Wilking Sisters."

In 2019, Miranda connected with James "BDash" Derrick over Instagram DM, and the krump dancer collaborated with Miranda and Melanie on videos, before Miranda and BDash began dating. In late 2020, the couple started working with 7M Films, a new management company founded by Shekinah Church pastor Robert Shinn. They also joined Shinn's church and moved into a home that he owned.

In February 2022, Melanie, Kelly, and Dean Wilking took part in an Instagram Live where they shared their allegations that Miranda had become part of a "cult," claiming that she, BDash, and the other dancers in 7M were allegedly under Shinn's control. They said that Miranda Derrick had cut all ties to the family after officially signing with 7M in January 2021, adding that they believed she had been “brainwashed” by the organization.

Following the Instagram Live, several outlets including Rolling Stone and The Cut published exposés on the group and Robert Shinn's alleged history of abuse, including a former lawsuit brought against him by an ex-Shekinah member. Several dancers left 7M in the months prior, and in 2023, a group of dancers and former church members filed a (still ongoing) lawsuit claiming that Shinn and other defendants subjected people “to brainwashing, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, manipulation, and exploitation.”

Is Miranda Derrick still a member of the alleged '7M TikTok Cult'?

As of the docuseries' May 29 release, Miranda Derrick still appears to be a member of 7M Films. Though the company's website does not have an official roster, she and BDash have credited Robert Shinn's son Isaiah for filming several recent videos, many of which match the 7M filming and content style (such as dances to older songs). She also appears to collaborate with other dancers allegedly under 7M Films, including Vik White, RainO, Kendra "KO" Willis, and Ceasare “Tighteyex” Willis.

Are Miranda Derrick and James "BDash" Derrick still together?

Miranda became engaged to James "BDash" Derrick in August 2021, with BDash proposing during a dance video. The couple was later married, though it is unclear when the ceremony was. Earlier this year, the pair shared throwback photos of themselves dressed in wedding attire. As of June 2024, the Derricks are still married and based in Los Angeles.

Has Miranda Derrick responded to 'Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult?'

Several days after Dancing for the Devil premiered, Miranda shared a statement on social media on June 4. According to Glamour, she denied that she belonged to a cult and attributed the tension between her and her family members to be about her faith.

She wrote on her Instagram Stories, "I just wanted to hop on here really quick and first of all say thank you to everybody who’s been so supportive during this time. In the next couple slides I’ve included my statement of this documentary that’s just been released. I can’t go into too much detail because of legal purposes, but I wanted to add my side of the story a little bit."

"I have been getting together with them over the past couple years to make amends, move on and work things out as a family,” she continued. “This documentary has created a further challenge between us as I work to overcome this public attack. No one likes to be portrayed as their brainwashed/not in control of her own life/shell of herself/human trafficked daughter/sister when that just isn’t the truth.”

The dancer posted the statement nearly a week after the docuseries' premiere. Before speaking out, she continued to share content centered on her routines, including one clip featuring her husband BDash, soundtracked by Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso." Comments have also been limited under her posts.

Fans also speculated that Miranda could have subtly shaded the docuseries in a June 1 shared post, where she collaborates with another alleged 7M dancer, Kendra “KO” Willis. Willis captioned the post, "Dancing it out with my sis by my side," which some have seen as a possible indirect criticism of Miranda's sister Melanie.

Miranda's recent statement is not the first time she's denied her involvement in the alleged cult. In May 2022, following her family's Instagram Live, she denied all allegations in a statement to The Cut.

"I am not held against my will and I've never been a hostage," she said. "I go to church and I have faith in God. If one day I wish to pursue my faith elsewhere, I will and feel completely free to do that. As far as my career, my time at 7M Films has been one of the most exciting years ever and if one day I wish to partner with a different management company or start my own company, I will. No one is forcing me to do anything. I am excited to move forward in this incredible walk with God, an amazing marriage and exciting career. I’m also looking forward to moving past all of this and mend my relationship with my family privately."

7M Films have also spoken out about the Wilkings' concerns. In a 2022 statement to The Daily Beast, a representative for 7M Films said, “Miranda Derrick is a successful businesswoman and a loving wife and daughter who cares very much about her family. While the recent portrayals of Dr. Robert Shinn and 7M Films have been wildly offensive and riddled with inaccuracies, those false claims will not deter 7M from supporting Miranda in whichever endeavors she chooses to pursue next.”

What is Miranda Derrick's relationship with her family?

As seen in the documentary, Miranda Derrick eventually reconnected with her family after a period of estrangement, and the Wilking family is still in contact with her today. However, in the doc, Melanie Wilking says that her relationship with her sister feels superficial and admits that she hesitates to include Miranda in major life events, such as her then-upcoming wedding.

On June 2, 2024, Melanie shared her first public statement since filming the documentary, via her Instagram stories. Per Glamour, Melanie (who now does by her husband Austin Ekeler's surname) thanked viewers for the support she and her family have received since Dancing for the Devil premiered on Netflix, while also speaking out on her relationship with Miranda.

“Thankfully, since going public in 2022, we have reunited with my sister, who even attended my wedding,” Melanie wrote. “We believe that one day my sister and the other victims will realize their love for their families and faith was exploited. When that happens, we will be there for them without judgment."

Since then, Melanie opened up to Glamour in an interview, reportedly conducted on June 5 and published on June 6, about reuniting with her sister on her wedding day. She confirmed that Miranda and BDash both attended the ceremony on May 25 (just days before the docuseries dropped), which she called "truly the best day of my life."

She told the outlet that her "interactions were very positive" with her sister, adding, "I'm glad we can share that memory together.”

Miranda, meanwhile, posted pictures from the venue.

Melanie also explained to Glamour that she and her sister have not continued talking since Dancing for the Devil premiered. She said, "Sadly, I did reach out but I have not heard back."

She noted that she does not believe Miranda has actually watched the three-parter, despite her recent statement. "I feel it is very clear that she did not watch it because it’s so much bigger than just our family situation," she explained. "It goes so much deeper into that and if you watch the documentary, you would know that. So it’s very sad to me, it was very sad when I read that. And it’s like, I do not believe that she watched it."

While there continues to be a rift between the Wilkings sisters and Melanie said she's "not too sure" if contact will continue, she also expressed hopefulness. She shared, "I’m hopeful that we will stay in contact. I don’t necessarily know what that looks like. But I’ve never lost hope that we will get our relationship back."

As we all learned from Miranda Priestly’s unforgettable “cerulean monologue” in The Devil Wears Prada, anyone who wears clothes is affected by the decisions of those in the upper echelon of the fashion industry, whether you’re a style expert or couldn’t care less about what’s in your closet. Perhaps because of that universal connection, the genre of fashion documentaries is particularly vast. There are dozens of films and series providing deep dives into every aspect of the industry, from its glitterati—think high-profile designers, magazine editors, supermodels, and photographers—to true crime stories about the industry's less-beautiful, scandal-ridden underbelly.

Here, we’ve rounded up 30 of the best fashion documentaries, covering individual designers, the making of the Met Gala, the move toward sustainability, the inhumane treatment behind fast fashion, and so much more. There’s something for everyone on this list and, best (and most ironically) of all, you can watch them all from the comfort of your couch—no dressing to the nines required.

'Advanced Style' (2014)

Too often, discussions of fashion and style focus only on the youngest generations. This 2017 rights that wrong, by following seven women between the ages of 62 and 95 in New York City who are aging with true style—including by flamboyantly flouting the unwritten rules that typically push aging women into the background of society.

WATCH IT

'Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco' (2017)

Antonio Lopez is often hailed as the most important fashion illustrator of the late 1960s and early ‘70s, and this 2018 film proves why. It features both archival footage of the late artist and the style stars he rubbed elbows with in New York and Paris—from Jessica Lange to Jerry Hall to Pat Cleveland, all of whom he’s credited with “discovering”—as well as new interviews with many of those stars seeking to pay tribute to Lopez, who died of AIDS in the 1980s.

WATCH IT

'Bill Cunningham New York' (2010)

Bill Cunningham started his career in fashion as a hat designer for the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn, and Jackie Kennedy, but his fashion journalism—and especially his candid street-style photography—cemented his place in the industry’s history books. For decades, he documented street style with a sharp eye and engaging style, often riding around New York City on a Schwinn bicycle to find his next subject. Released a few years before his 2016 death, this film turns the camera on Cunningham, following him on his daily rounds and in his at-home studio.

WATCH IT

'Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion' (2024)

This 2024 HBO production documents two major downfalls of the popular chain store Brandy Melville: the environmental disaster in the making that is fast fashion, and the extraordinarily offensive and predatory tactics that the brand’s management allegedly perpetuate. Although neither of the brand's flaws are particularly surprising—considering it is a store that inherently discriminates against a majority of shoppers with its one-size-fits-some approach—it's still a harrowing exposé about one of the most popular brands among today's teens.

WATCH IT

'Calendar Girl' (2020)

There may be many front-facing, household names in the fashion industry, but there are just as many passionate people behind the scenes. Calendar Girl brings to the forefront the charming Ruth Finley, who in the 1940s founded the publication Fashion Calendar, which rounded up every fashion event and runway show. This sweet documentary spotlights her work, and how at 95 she sold the outlet to the CFDA—doubling as a bittersweet look at the evolution of the fashion publishing industry.

WATCH IT

'Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel' (2011)

Before Anna Wintour became a household name, there was Diana Vreeland, a certified fashion legend who was born at the turn of the 20th century, grew up in Paris and New York, and ultimately made a name for herself in the fashion world first as a columnist for Harper’s Bazaar and then as editor-in-chief of Vogue. This documentary charts out her entire fascinating life and career and is a must-watch for any student of fashion history.

WATCH IT

'Diane von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge' (2024)

Even when Diane von Furstenberg emerged as a rising designer in the ‘70s, she led with femininity—and her iconic “wrap dress” has become as much of a symbol for the women’s liberation movement as it is a style game-changer. In this Hulu original documentary, the revolutionary opens up about her storied career more than ever before, diving into everything from her family’s humble beginnings to bringing a kind of feminine strength and ambition to launch her own multi-million dollar company.

WATCH IT

'Dior and I' (2014)

This film depicts the challenges and triumphs of upholding the legacy of an iconic fashion house. Filmed over eight weeks, it follows Raf Simons as he put together his first haute couture collection as creative director of Dior in 2012. Meanwhile, it’s also spliced through with excerpts from Christian Dior’s autobiography, which, in a somewhat eerie but very amazing coincidence, closely mirrored Simons’ work and process, according to director Frédéric Tcheng.

WATCH IT

'Dries' (2017)

This 2017 doc marked the first time that Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten allowed a look inside his creative process and private life. It was filmed over one year, and the result is a majorly inspiring depiction of a true creative force, whose meticulous work has stood the test of time from his debut in the ‘80s to today's red carpets.

WATCH IT

'Every Fiber' (2022)

Another documentary dedicated to the all-important goal of spotlighting sustainability efforts, Every Fiber follows Celeste Malvar-Stewart’s work to create a completely zero-waste couture runway collection. Malvar-Stewart relies on deconstructed denim, plant-based dyes, and fibers collected in precise amounts from local sheep and alpacas to create her textiles—and the gorgeous results must be seen to be believed.

WATCH IT

'Fashion Reimagined' (2022)

Rather than lambasting fast fashion, this 2022 doc presents a solution. It follows Amy Powney—the daughter of two environmental activists and the winner of British Vogue’s Best Young Designer of the Year award in 2017—as she devotes several years to using the cash prize from the award to transform the fashion house Mother of Pearl into an entirely sustainable enterprise.

WATCH IT

'The First Monday in May' (2016)

If you’ve ever spent an entire Monday evening breathlessly refreshing your social media feeds to track every arrival on the Met Gala red carpet, you’ll want to tune into this film. It charts the yearlong planning process behind the 2015 gala and its accompanying exhibit at the Met’s Costume Institute, titled "China: Through the Looking Glass."

WATCH IT

'Fresh Dressed' (2015)

In addition to its heavy-handed influence on so many other genres of music, hip-hop has also sparked an entire culture of fashion and style. The interplay between the music scene and its related fashion trends—and their outsized impact on popular culture as a whole—is the subject of this 2015 film, which features interviews with a wide range of stars crisscrossing both music and fashion, including Kanye West, André Leon Talley, Pharrell Williams, Marc Ecko, and many more.

WATCH IT

'Girl Model' (2011)

More than a decade after its premiere, this harrowing film still holds a 92% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It centers around a model scout who’s conflicted about her work recruiting young Russian girls to model in Japan, but proceeds anyway—ultimately roping 13-year-old Nadya into a financial scheme that points to broader trends of exploitation that occur throughout the global modeling industry.

WATCH IT

'The Gospel According to André' (2017)

André Leon Talley had one of the most powerful voices in fashion. Not only was he the first Black man to serve as the creative director of Vogue, but he also put in stints at several other major fashion mags, worked alongside Andy Warhol at Interview Magazine, helped style the Obamas during their time in the White House, and, of course, was a judge on several cycles of America’s Next Top Model. He used that voice to advocate for more diversity in the industry and to support up-and-coming designers, all of which is documented in this film, which came out several years before his 2022 death.

WATCH IT

'Halston' (2019)

Roy Halston Frowick was one of the most prominent designers of the 1970s, but by the mid-‘80s, he’d all but lost his entire namesake fashion empire. The tragic tale is the subject of this CNN-produced doc, which features archival footage of Jackie Kennedy, Andy Warhol, and Brooke Shields, among other diehard Halston fans.

WATCH IT

'High & Low: John Galliano' (2023)

As the name suggests, this 2023 doc follows the incredible highs and truly despicable lows of the British designer—including the 2011 incident in which he was fired as creative director of Dior after a video surfaced of him drunkenly hurling antisemitic slurs at a group of women. It also documents his journey clawing back into the fashion world’s good graces.

WATCH IT

'Invisible Beauty' (2023)

Bethann Hardison is one of the most important activists in all of fashion: She was one of the first Black models to make it big in the 1970s, and by the early ‘80s, she’d switched gears to devote her powerful voice to expanding opportunities for other Black women in the fashion industry. Co-directed by Hardison herself, this 2023 film is essentially her memoir in film form, tracing her journey from barrier-breaking model to lifelong activist and featuring interviews with fans like Zendaya, Naomi Campbell, Fran Lebowitz, and so many more.

WATCH IT

'Iris' (2014)

If you’re feeling blah about your current clothing options, look no further than this 2014 feature for major colorful inspiration. It documents the life of certified style icon Iris Apfel, then 93, who was known for her delightfully flamboyant wardrobe and believed wholeheartedly in having fun with fashion.

WATCH IT

'Jeremy Scott: The People’s Designer' (2015)

Before he spent a decade as creative director of Moschino, before he made a name for himself with his irreverent, pop culture-tinged, and often rebellious designs, Jeremy Scott was a kid growing up in Missouri, doodling fashion ideas in his notebooks and serving looks for his small-minded classmates. This 2015 doc shows how he got from there to here and is filled with interviews from countless celebrity fans, including Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, and the Hilton sisters, among many others.

WATCH IT

'Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards' (2017)

Before Manolo Blahnik made Carrie Bradshaw’s most beloved heels, the Spanish designer was a young boy who loved lizards and, yes, would make custom footwear for his reptilian pals. This 2017 documentary bridges those two eras, giving a behind-the-scenes look into Blahnik’s early life and his path to becoming one of the most seminal footwear designers of the last half-century.

WATCH IT

'Martin Margiela: In His Own Words' (2019)

After getting his start as a design assistant for Jean Paul Gaultier, Martin Margiela launched his label in the late ‘80s and continued to head up Maison Margiela until he stepped down in 2009, a period that included an overlapping role as creative director of women's wear at Hermès. Despite those high-profile roles, Margiela has never participated in a face-to-face interview nor allowed himself to be photographed. That continues even into the production of this documentary, in which he talks through his highly lauded career—but still never shows his face on screen, allowing only his hands to be captured on camera.

WATCH IT

'McQueen' (2008)

As founder of his eponymous label and, later, chief designer of Givenchy, Alexander McQueen made an indelible impact on modern fashion. After his untimely death in 2010, his work was immortalized in a Met exhibit—and accompanying Met Gala tribute—as well as additional museum exhibits, books, and this 2018 documentary, which was widely acclaimed for its respectful look at the life and career of one of fashion’s brightest stars.

WATCH IT

'Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s' (2013)

Bergdorf Goodman was founded at the turn of the 20th century and has remained a beloved fixture in both fashion and New York City ever since. Put together in honor of its 111th anniversary, this documentary pays tribute to Bergdorf’s and its many famous fans, diving into the store's history and giving a behind-the-scenes look at how exactly the magic happens there.

WATCH IT

'The September Issue' (2009)

For many fashion lovers, the annual September issue of American Vogue serves as a holy text. This 2009 doc gives a peek into how the sausage gets made, following Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour and her staffers for the several months’ worth of work that went into making the September 2007 issue of the magazine. (The 840-paged issue now sells well over its list price on eBay, thanks to its starring role in this film.)

WATCH IT

'The Super Models' (2023)

This 2023 Apple docuseries tells the story of how models went from essentially acting as mannequins for notable fashion designers to becoming icons in their own right—thanks to the collective efforts of Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington. Through interviews with all four supermodels, the series charts their industry-shifting moves in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and their continued influence on fashion.

WATCH IT

'The True Cost' (2015)

Another blistering takedown of the trend of fast fashion, this 2015 film focuses largely on the practice of outsourcing garment production to developing countries, where employees work in horrific conditions for inhumane wages. Beyond the effects on the workers, the film also posits a link between fast fashion and increasing pollution and other environmental damage, which can lead to disease and death in the areas surrounding factories and farms.

WATCH IT

'Unzipped' (1995)

A cult favorite among many fashion lovers, this mid-‘90s classic goes behind the scenes of the creation of Isaac Mizrahi’s 1994 fall collection. It delves into the eclectic influences that guided Mizrahi’s designs that year and the stressful and often chaotic process of putting the whole show together.

WATCH IT

'Valentino: The Last Emperor' (2008)

When Valentino Garavani decided to step down from his fashion house in 2007, nearly 50 years after he launched it, he welcomed in cameras. Documentarian Matt Tyrnauer got access to the iconic Italian designer and his tight inner circle for two years to capture his preparation to walk away from the brand—amounting to 250 hours of footage that was parsed down to its hour-and-a-half runtime. While the film focuses on haute couture as a business, it also illustrates how Garavani leaned on his business and life partner Giancarlo Giammetti as he steps into the next phase of his life and career.

WATCH IT

'Very Ralph' (2019)

Since his humble beginnings in a working-class family in the Bronx in the mid-1900s, Ralph Lauren has built a multibillion-dollar fashion brand—and this 2019 film tells the entire inspiring rags-to-riches story.

WATCH IT

'Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons' (2022)

In recent years, Victoria’s Secret, that old stalwart of the 2000s mall scene, has increasingly fallen out of fashion, as its infamous annual fashion show and widespread advertisements moved slowly to keep up with growing calls for more body and racial diversity in modeling. But this Hulu docuseries paints an even grimmer picture of the company, tracking the connection between former CEO Leslie Wexner and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and delving into how the billionaires’ respective businesses may have overlapped.

WATCH IT

'Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist' (2018)

Vivienne Westwood is credited with helping to kick off the punk movement in the 1970s, and she never shied away from being outspoken in her designs or public statements in the ensuing decades, up through her late 2022 death. Like other biographical docs on this list, this 2018 film relies on archival footage and new interviews to map out Westwood’s rise to lasting fame, from growing up in working-class, postwar Britain to taking high-fashion runways by storm.

WATCH IT

'White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch' (2022)

Abercrombie & Fitch had a strong hold over many tweens and teens in the late ‘90s and early aughts, and this Netflix documentary offers an inside look at sides of the company that many of those shoppers never saw—including the racist and discriminatory policies that its management allegedly operated under for much of its most popular era.

WATCH IT

Netflix's latest true-crime docuseries, Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult, chronicles one of the wildest stories to ever emerge from social media. In 2022, an Instagram Live from dancer Melanie Wilking and her parents went viral as they claimed that they had lost contact with Melanie's sister Miranda Wilking and that she was "no longer in control of her life" after joining a "cult." Two years, several investigations, and a major lawsuit later, the new docuseries lays out the full history of pastor and entrepreneur Robert Shinn, who has allegedly sexually and financially abused and exploited dozens of people through his Santa Ana-based Shekinah Church and his management company 7M Films.

In the three-episode series directed by Derek Doneen, several former 7M and Shekinah Church members share their harrowing experiences with the Shinn and his family's organizations. Since the docuseries was filmed, several dancers and former members have made massive strides in their careers, while concurrently fighting for justice in the legal system. Unfortunately, others in the saga have yet to completely part ways with the alleged abuser. Read on to see where the subjects of the cult documentary Dancing for the Devil are today, including a brief rundown of the ongoing court case against Shinn.

Miranda Derrick (née Wilking)

Miranda Derrick, 27, moved from suburban Michigan to L.A. after high school, to become a professional dancer. She was followed by her younger sister Melanie a year later, and the two found fame on social media, where they shared their dance routines and lifestyle content; their joint TikTok, the Wilking Sisters, amassed over 3 million followers. In 2019, she met James "BDash" Derrick through Instagram and began dating. By August 2021, the two were engaged, with James proposing mid-dance in a shared video.

In 2020, the couple began working with 7M Films, a management and content creation company run by Robert Shinn, who also founded the LA-area Shekinah Church. Per the Netflix doc, Miranda and BDash became members of both the agency and church, even moving into a property owned by Shinn.

Her sister Melanie, meanwhile, expressed how uncomfortable she was with the control Shinn had over the dancers. Per the Wilking family, Miranda began distancing herself from the family in early 2021, even refusing to travel back to Michigan for her grandfather's funeral. The family claims that they lost nearly all contact with Miranda following the incident, and did not see her again until they approached her at a public dance event that December.

In early 2022, Melanie and the sisters' parents did a livestream that quickly went viral, in which they alleged that Miranda was in a "cult" that was controlling her interactions with her family. Miranda has consistently denied the allegations. In a May 2022 statement to The Cut, she said, "I am not held against my will and I've never been a hostage. I go to church and I have faith in God. If one day I wish to pursue my faith elsewhere, I will and feel completely free to do that. As far as my career, my time at 7M Films has been one of the most exciting years ever and if one day I wish to partner with a different management company or start my own company, I will. No one is forcing me to do anything. I am excited to move forward in this incredible walk with God, an amazing marriage and exciting career. I’m also looking forward to moving past all of this and mend my relationship with my family privately."

As of the docuseries' late May 2024 release, Miranda and James Derrick still work with 7M Films and have credited Robert Shinn's son Isaiah for filming several videos. Professionally, the couple has most recently appeared as dancers in Prime Video's 2024 action film Road House, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Miranda and BDash also got married; it is unknown when the wedding was, but Miranda recently shared wedding pictures on Instagram in April 2024.

Miranda is also now in contact with her family and has shared videos spending time with them on social media. However, as of the doc's filming, Melanie claimed that their interactions seemed "superficial" and shared her apprehension that Miranda may have reopened communication only to save face publicly. It's unknown whether Miranda ended up being a bridesmaid in Melanie's wedding after Melanie also shared her reluctance to involve her sister in more of the ceremony.

Melanie Wilking

Melanie Wilking, 25, is the woman who brought 7M Films to the public's attention, when the TikTok of herself and her parents explaining their estrangement from Miranda went viral. She's also a main character of the documentary, with herself and the elder Wilkings opening up about their experience and everything they discovered about the alleged cult. The estrangement especially weighed on Melanie, since she and her sister used to live and work together. They also planned to be the maid-of-honor at each other's weddings, but she claims she wasn't even told about Miranda's marriage until after it happened.

Since the events of Dancing for the Devil, Melanie has remained active on Instagram and TikTok, where over 3.7 million cumulative followers can watch her lifestyle and dancing content. Her parents have also appeared in sweet clips where she teaches them short routines. Melanie also has a lot to celebrate this month, as she recently married her fiancé, NFL player Austin Ekeler. Per PEOPLE, she and Ekeler are based in Las Vegas and Virginia, where Ekeler plays for the Washington Commanders. (Per Miranda's Instagram, she attended the wedding.)

James "BDash" Derrick

James "BDash" Derrick is a krump dancer and influencer who previously competed on shows, including World of Dance and So You Think You Can Dance. He met his wife Miranda Derrick when he slid into her DMs to collaborate on a video. The pair eventually joined 7M Films and Shekinah Church after being connected to Robert Shinn through his son Isaiah, who works with BDash as a choreographer. They got engaged in August 2021 and were married sometime later. In the Wilking family's viral February 2022 clip, they said that they believed BDash was a victim of the alleged cult's manipulation as well as Miranda.

As of the docuseries' release, BDash and Miranda still work with 7M Films, and their respective Instagrams are mostly filled with content of them dancing together.

Kevin “Konkrete” Davis

Kevin "Konkrete" Davis is an Oakland-born krump dancer and musician who has appeared in dance competition TV series, such as America's Best Dance Crew, So You Think You Can Dance, and World of Dance. Before the events of the documentary, he was best known for competing on World of Dance as part of a duo with BDash, who introduced him to Isaiah Shinn and eventually Isaiah's father Robert. In the Netflix doc, Davis claims that most of the money he earned at the time went to 7M and Robert Shinn, with the company allegedly collecting substantial fees and rent and the dancers relying on "mentors" who permitted them to make purchases.

Per the doc, after several outlets published investigations in the wake of the Wilkings' viral livestream, Davis reached a turning point when Shinn attempted to get the dancers to sign NDAs. He and his then-girlfriend Kailea Gray left 7M soon after and, in March 2023, Rolling Stone reported that he had joined a lawsuit against Shinn, 7M, and Shekinah, accusing Shinn of running a "cult" that "required full physical and economic and control [sic] over Shekinah members."

Recently, Davis has danced in several major performances, including Ryan Gosling's "I'm Just Ken" performance at the 2024 Oscars and all 56 nights of Beyoncé's Renaissance Tour. He has released music and regularly appears at dance boot camps and events, including a recent event where he collaborated with BDash again. He lives with his now-wife Gray and their children.

Kailea Gray

Kaliea Gray is a videographer and photographer who appeared in the Netflix doc to share her experience as a former member of 7M. She joined the alleged cult around the same time her then-boyfriend, now-husband Davis, then left alongside him once the investigations into the church began going viral. She now works as a content creator and frequently collaborates with Davis and other dancers, while the couple raises their family.

Aubrey Fisher

Aubrey Fisher is a dancer, actor, and musician. He was introduced to Isaiah Shinn through his friend and frequent collaborator BDash. In the doc, Fisher shares that he was raised in a religious home and considered rejoining a church community when he met Robert Shinn and began attending the pastor's bible study, which often lasted over three hours. When the elder Shinn founded 7M, Fisher joined the management company to access new opportunities, such as brand deals.

As the documentary states, after the investigations into Shinn and 7M came out in 2022, Fisher was part of the group of dancers (including Davis, Gray, and Fisher's then-girlfriend Kylie Douglas) who began comparing notes and realizing they may be in an alleged cult. He soon left the company, and in 2023, he and Douglas joined the lawsuit against Shinn, alongside Davis.

Today, Aubrey regularly releases music and dance content on Instagram and TikTok, while participating in live events.

Kylie Douglas

Kylie Douglas is a Detroit-born dancer, choreographer, and coach who eventually joined 7M after being introduced to 7M through her then-boyfriend, Aubrey Fisher. In the doc, she describes herself as having been "hungry to get invited to everything" when she joined the company, though the only members she knew were Fisher and Miranda Wilking. Douglas claims she was urged to cut off contact with her family after joining 7M. She also recalled an incident where Robert Shinn offered to crack her back and allegedly groped her. Though she thought that Shinn had no ill intention toward her, she recalls seeing the incident differently once the investigations into the pastor came out. She left 7M soon and began speaking out to raise awareness about the alleged cult, and she also filed a police report of sexual assault against Shinn.

Douglas is currently the director of The VoltZ Dance Company, which she founded in 2019. As the head of VoltZ, she trains and coaches junior and teen dancers who compete in the Hip Hop International organization's tournaments; one of the dance teams also participated in the non-televised World of Dance competition in 2023. Aside from being a coach, Douglas regularly shares her own dance content on Instagram and TikTok.

RainO

Nick Raiano, best known by the moniker RainO, was one of the first dancers to join 7M. His parents Lawrence and Migdalia Raiano, who participated in Dancing for the Devil, claim that Shinn initially made RainO distance himself from his family. Per the doc, the dancer eventually reconnected with his family, but they believe the messages he sends to them are "written by another church member."

As of the docuseries' release, Raino has deleted his Instagram and TikTok accounts, though his YouTube account is still live. RainO continues to work with 7M Films and has collaborated with Miranda, James, and Vik White in recent uploads.

Vik White

Vik White, a.k.a. Slavik Pustovoytov, is a Ukraine-born dancer who competed on season 15 of So You Think You Can Dance, and placed 4th as a finalist. White joined 7M after the company's founding and is frequently seen in clips from Dancing for the Devil. While he has not spoken out on the documentary, per his Instagram, White still collaborates with Isaiah Shinn and 7M dancers, including BDash and Miranda Wilking.

White currently has 11.9 followers across Instagram and TikTok, where he primarily posts dance content. He also recently had a breakout role as a member of August Moon, in the hit 2024 Prime Video rom-com The Idea of You.

Melanie Lee and Priscylla Lee

Melanie and Priscylla Lee are former members of Shekinah Church, who joined the alleged cult in 2001, as young women who had recently moved to the U.S. from South Korea. In the docuseries, Melanie recalls her history with Robert Shinn, describing Shekinah as a community that initially felt welcoming and eventually devolved into an environment where Shinn exercised complete control. The sisters claim that Shinn forced them and the other church members to work in several businesses he owned for little to no pay, dictated where they would live within houses he owned, and cultivated an environment where church members would monitor each other and relay any transgressions to Shinn. Per Melanie, she escaped the church after Shinn informed her that she would have to marry someone within the church. At the time, Priscylla refused to leave out of fear, so Melanie left alone.

Priscylla claims that Shinn eventually began assaulting her repeatedly, as he had unrestricted access to her room. In the doc, she describes falling into depression during the years of alleged abuse, and feeling as if she was trapped in a dark room with no way out. She also claims that Robert Shinn's wife Hannah once physically attacked her while Robert stood by. Per Priscylla, she eventually decided that even if leaving the church would condemn her to Hell, as Robert claimed it would, she would rather be damned than stay in the alleged cult. Priscylla finally left Shekinah in 2021, after 23 years.

In the 11 years since she left Shekinah, Melanie, who now goes by Melanie Lee Goldman, rebuilt her life and eventually founded a full-service real-estate advisory agency. She currently serves as CEO of her company, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter, while also expecting a second child.

Meanwhile, Priscylla shares in the doc that she has spent several years rebuilding her life and adjusting to the world after spending so many years under Shinn's alleged control.

As seen in the doc (and mentioned above), Priscylla and Melanie are currently in litigation against Shinn, along with the former 7M members. Per CNN and Rolling Stone, the sisters and several of the dancers are among the co-defendants who filed a cross-complaint against Shinn, after the alleged cult leader sued several former Shekinah members, including the Lee sisters, for defamation and trade libel. In the cross-complaint, the Lees and the dancers accuse the Shinn family and other affiliated individuals of fraud, forced labor, and human trafficking, as well as directly accusing Robert Shinn of sexual battery. Shinn and 7M did not respond to the lawsuit when it was filed. However, in 2022, 7M Films posted a statement to the company's Instagram account denying any business affiliation between 7M and the Shekinah Church.

According to CNN, the civil case is scheduled to go to trial in July 2025 in Los Angeles. No criminal charges have been filed against Shinn, despite Priscylla and Douglas' police reports.

Calamity is ensuing within the royal family at the moment, so naturally it’s the right time to—film a documentary? If you’re Queen Camilla, that seems to be the case; Us Weekly reports that Camilla “appears to be unbothered about the current drama surrounding the royal family and is continuing her day-to-day activities—including making a documentary with True Royalty TV.”

True Royalty TV’s editor-in-chief Nick Bullen confirmed it to the outlet, saying “We are filming with Queen Camilla at the moment. We’re filming with her tomorrow and she’s just getting on with it. She doesn’t seem to be concerned about things.”

He added, of events in the royal family this year like King Charles’ cancer diagnosis and the Princess of Wales’ abdominal surgery, “She certainly isn’t giving anything away to us. She seems very positive when we’re with her.”

Of Kate’s appearance alongside Prince William at Windsor Farm Shop last Saturday (which has been picked apart, as ever, by trolls on the internet), Bullen said that “It was her at the farm shop. It is definitely her. I think they [William and Kate] had to come out and be seen in the way that the King was seen leaving Windsor Castle in the Rolls-Royce. He’s been making sure that he’s very visible throughout the whole thing. William and Kate had to appear. Kate had to be seen, and I think the conspiracies were getting so ridiculous.”

As for the relationship between William and his father, “I think the King and the Prince of Wales are probably closer than they’ve been in a very long time,” Bullen said. “And maybe that’s to do with everything that’s gone on with [Prince] Harry and Meghan [Markle]. Who knows? But I think the King and Prince of Wales are very close at the moment. We know that Camilla gets on incredibly well with Catherine, so I think it’s pretty tight behind the scenes.”

Bullen added of William that he is “someone who can get very angry when things don’t go in his direction” which has likely affected his reaction to fervent speculation about Kate: “I think he will be very, very angry at the conspiracy theories that have been flying around, very angry at the speculation, very angry that the messaging is appearing to get out of control,” he said. “So, I think he will be incredibly frustrated.”

No word yet, by the way, on what the Queen’s documentary is about or when we might expect it; she did launch a podcast in January of this year, timed, interestingly, to debut on the four-year anniversary of Harry and Meghan stepping back as working members of the royal family.

Travis Kelce is expanding his repertoire to include the entertainment business.

According to People, the 3-time Super Bowl champ is set to produce an upcoming documentary about the iconic 1980s artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

First reported by ArtNews, the Kansas City Chiefs' tight end is partnering with his My Dead Friend Zoe  producing partners Ray Maiello and Mike Field to assist in the project, titled King Pleasure.

Basquiat's estate has given Kelce and his producing partners permission to create the film, Deadline reports, including access to the late artist's personal archives in the form of never-before-seen movies, notebooks, photographs, interviews and animations.

"(The estate) granted us such incredible access to their trove of materials and we are excited to collaborate with Quinn who has a dazzling vision for an intimate and emotional portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life," Jordan Wynn, president of Boardwalk Studios, told Deadline.

The film marks the second movie Kelce has produced—the future hall of famer previously partnered with Radiant Media Studios to help produce My Dead Friend Zoe, which will premiere at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival over the weekend, People reports.

In a previous interview with People, Kelce opened up about his desire to dip his toes into the entertainment business.

"I'm definitely interested (in pursuing more acting projects), but that's a whole new craft that I feel like I really got to lock in and focus on (before I do)," Kelce said at the time.

The tight end also shared how his experience hosting Saturday Night Live was "like nothing else that I've ever gone through" and helped spark his interest in the Hollywood lifestyle.

"I just can't thank them enough for giving me that opportunity, because I didn't know I was going to enjoy scripted comedy, or that entire entertainment world as much as I did, until I was on a set," he continued, "and going through the week of preparation and stuff like that."

Of course, if Kelce needs any help on the movie front he doesn't have to look any further than his superstar girlfriend, Taylor Swift.

Swift's movie Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour has grossed over $261 million worldwide, and is officially the highest grossing concert or performance film of all time. In other words, the pop star knows a thing or two about breaking the box office. Literally.

It looks like there's no limit for 2024's ultimate power couple, and we're here for it.

Documentary filmmaking is an important part of our media intake here at Marie Claire. Sure, epic dramas, heart-racing action flicks and thrillers, terrifying horror tales, and laugh-out-loud comedies take up big chunks of our entertainment palette, but it's just as important to take time out of our weekends to learn something new. As with last year's stellar selection, 2024 has shaped up to be a great year for thoughtful, comprehensive docs about our society, from biopics on our most acclaimed public figures (like Jennifer Lopez and Frida Kahlo) to snapshots of everyday life to examinations of structural inequalities and troubled institutions.

Read on for the best documentaries of 2024. (If you're looking for your next true crime binge, read our list of 2024 true crime documentaries and series here.)

'America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders'

This docuseries from the team behind Cheer and Last Chance U follows the legendary Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders throughout their 2023 season. From tryouts to the first game to the playoffs, viewers get an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the women who make up the NFL dance team and all of the highs and lows of their roles.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial'

In this doc, director J.M. Harper explores the criminalization of rap, pointing to the controversial practice of using lyrics as court evidence, from the 2000 conviction of New Orleans rapper Mac to the recent charges against Young Thug. The film, based on Erik Nielson and Andrea L. Dennis's book Rap on Trial, follows Bronx-based rapper Kemba as he speaks to other artists and academics on how the practice is based on the criminalization of Blackness.

WATCH ON PARAMOUNT+

'Black Twitter: A People's History'

Based on Jason Parham's Wired article of the same name, this three-part docuseries speaks with dozens of scholars, critics, and influencers about the social phenomenon best known as Black Twitter. Per the official description, the series "charts the rise, the movements, the voices, and the memes that made Black Twitter an influential and dominant force in nearly every aspect of American political and cultural life."

WATCH ON HULU

'Child Star'

Co-directed by Demi Lovato and Nicola Marsh, this doc follows the former as she has revealing conversations with other former child stars about the reality of growing up in the spotlight and the industry. Among the stars she speaks with are Drew Barrymore, Christina Ricci, Raven-Symoné, Kenan Thompson, and Lovato's former Camp Rock co-star Alyson Stoner.

WATCH ON HULU

'Chimp Crazy'

Four years after Tiger King, producer Eric Goode brings viewers another stranger-than-fiction story about the exotic pet trade. This docuseries follows Tonia Haddix, a former nurse who refers to herself as the "Dolly Parton of chimps," and the wild years-long saga of what happened when her beloved Tonka, a 32-year-old retired Hollywood chimp, went missing.

WATCH ON MAX

'Dahomey'

Directed by French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, this documentary centers on the complex question of repatriation of artifacts that have sat in Western museums for generations, having been stolen from African lands. It follows France's return of 26 objects that the country had looted from the kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin) in 1892.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

'Daughters'

This moving film from directors Natalie Rae and Angela Patton follows the latter's Date with Dad initiative, a 10-week therapeautic program that ends with a father-daughter dance, reuniting incarcerated dads with their young daughters. It features four girls, aged 5 to 15, and their fathers in the lead-up to the big event.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Ennio'

Acclaimed film composer Ennio Morricone—who scored some of the best movies of all time like Cinema Paradiso, Once Upon a Time In America, and The Hateful Eight—is the subject of this reverential doc from director Giuseppe Tornatore. Filmed before the musician died in 2020, the biographical film features Morricone speaking about his life and impressive career, with his contemporaries and admirers chiming in.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

'Faye'

Academy Award-winning actress Faye Dunaway is (finally) the subject of a feature-length doc, in which the Hollywood legend "candidly discusses the triumphs and challenges of her illustrious career," from her iconic roles in classic films in Bonnie & Clyde and Network to the camp favorite Mommie Dearest. "Through those reflections, she courageously explores personal discoveries including her struggles with mental health issues and bipolar disorder, her family history growing up in a small town in Florida, and how the intensity of the characters she played still impacts who she is today," per a press release.

WATCH ON MAX

'Frida'

Directed by Carla Gutiérrez, this wide-ranging documentary about the surrealist painter Frida Kahlo covers over 40 years of her life, incorporating her letters, print interviews, and illustrated diary (as well as vivid animated sequences) to tell her story in her own words and images.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

'Girls State'

In this follow-up to the 2020 Texas-set doc Boys State, directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss document a similar mock government program in Missouri, where 500 teen girls from across the state gather to build their own union. In addition to following the frenzied campaigns for elected positions, the doc also explores the disparity between that year's Missouri Boys State and Girls State programs that take place at the same time.

WATCH ON APPLE TV+

'God Save Texas'

In this trilogy inspired by Lawrence Wright's book God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State, three filmmakers from Texas return to their hometowns to show why the state is a "study in contradictions." Director Richard Linklater takes on the prison system in Huntsville, while Alex Stapleton explores how the oil industry impacts Black and brown communities in Houston, and Iliana Sosa examines the shared culture between the border cities of El Paso and Juáurez, Mexico.

WATCH ON MAX

'The Greatest Love Story Never Told'

This documentary from Jennifer Lopez shares a behind-the-scenes look at the multi-hyphenate's life, as she works on her ninth album and accompanying musical film This is Me... Now: A Love Story. The film also addresses some of the highly-publicized parts of Lopez's life, including her relationship with her then-husband Ben Affleck, and her decision to self-finance her musical.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

'The Greatest Night in Pop'

This music documentary looks at the herculean effort behind the legendary 1985 recording session, where dozens of the world's most popular musicians—including Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Smokey Robinson, Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Loggins, Dionne Warwick, and Huey Lewis—gathered to record the single "We Are the World." The film tracks the charitable project from planning stages to completion, mixing never-before-seen footage with testimonials from several of the stars.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project'

This majestic biographical doc from directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson looks at the life and influence of the famed queer, Black poet Nikki Giovanni. It uses new and archival footage of her public appearances and "visually innovative treatments of her poetry," including readings by actress Taraji P. Henson and the writer herself.

WATCH ON MAX

'I Am: Céline Dion'

This intimate doc on the legendary "Queen of Power Ballads" chronicles the star's battle with Stiff Person Syndrome, a rare autoimmune neurological disorder that led the singer to postpone her career due to painful muscle spasms. According to the film's description, the "raw and honest" doc highlights "the music that has guided [Céline’s] life while also showcasing the resilience of the human spirit."

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

'Look Into My Eyes'

A nuanced, emotional documentary illuminating the lives of seven professional psychics? Yes, please! Per the film's description, it follows "a group of New York City psychics [who] conduct deeply intimate readings for their clients, revealing a kaleidoscope of loneliness, connection, and healing."

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

'Luther: Never Too Much'

This Sundance hit is a long-awaited biography of beloved R&B singer Luther Vandross. Director Dawn Porter gives a comprehensive, illuminating look at the late Grammy winner's career and life, drawn from archival footage and interviews with his closest friends and colleagues.

WATCH IT IN THEATERS

'Patrice: The Movie'

This heartwarming film is a self-proclaimed "documentary rom-com about the next phase of marriage equality: disability." It follows Patrice Jetter, a school crossing guard and Special Olympics athlete, and her fight for the right to marry her loving partner Garry Wickham without being penalized by the federal disability benefits program.

WATCH ON HULU

'Power'

This incisive documentary from director Yance Ford chronicles the history of American policing and criticizes the institution that claims to serve and protect the public. It charts a path from the slave patrols of the 1700s to troops forcibly moving Native Americans in the 1800s to the use of police in strike-breaking as well as the militarization of police departments.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'The Remarkable Life of Ibelin'

This acclaimed documentary out of Sundance takes a posthumous look at the life of Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer who died at the age of 25 after living with a degenerative muscular disease. Though his disability kept him physically isolated, his time spent playing World of Warcraft (which he kept secret from his parents) allowed him to become "an integral and beloved part of a digital community that loudly mourned his passing."

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Ren Faire'

This three-episode docuseries, which has drawn comparisons to a real-life Game of Thrones, centers on the Texas Renaissance Festival, the largest "faire" in the world. When 86-year-old George Coulam (known as King George) decides that he is ready to retire, several of his longtime employees—including an actor, a former elephant trainer, and a kettle-corn kingpin—begin an epic power battle to claim George’s throne, per a press release.

WATCH ON MAX

'Seeking Mavis Beacon'

Mavis Beacon taught a generation of '90s kids to type, but in actuality, the iconic teacher from the famed software program was a marketing concept invented by the co-founder of MySpace. This doc from director Jazmin Jones covers the quest to find the real woman who modeled for Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing while digging into the complicated history and legacy of one of the most well-known Black women in tech.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

'Simone Biles Rising'

The 2024 Olympics saw the triumphant return of gymnast Simone Biles to the international competition, where she won three gold medals and one silver medal. This docuseries follows the legendary athlete during the aftermath of her withdrawal from the 2020 Games, all the way through years of training, the 2024 U.S. Gymnastics Trials, and her performances in Paris.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Spermworld'

This FX/NYT documentary from Ren Faire filmmaker Lance Oppenheim delves into the accessible yet unregulated world of private sperm donors, where hopeful parents search for private donations on Facebook groups and sometimes meet the donors in person.

WATCH ON HULU

'Sugarcane'

This acclaimed National Geographic documentary follows the aftermath of a series of discoveries in 2021 when unmarked graves were found on the grounds of several Native residential schools in Canada. "After years of silence, the forced separation, assimilation, and abuse many children experienced at these segregated boarding schools was brought to light, sparking a national outcry against a system designed to destroy Indigenous communities. Set amidst a groundbreaking investigation, Sugarcane illuminates the beauty of a community breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma and finding the strength to persevere," per the film's description.

WATCH ON HULU

'Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story'

In the late 1970s, Christopher Reeve rose to superstardom, going from a relatively unknown actor to the definitive Man of Steel. Then, after four Superman movies and dozens of other films, the actor was injured in a 1995 horse-riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. This acclaimed doc chronicles Reeve's career, from superhero to disability rights advocate, and includes never-before-seen interviews with his three children.

WATCH ON MAX

'To Kill a Tiger'

Director Nisha Pahuja's Oscar-nominated feature—which racked up dozens of awards—follows Ranjit, a farmer in Jharkhand, India, who seeks justice after his 13-year-old daughter Kiran (a pseudonym) survives a brutal sexual assault. The unflinching doc centers the family's determination in the face of ostracization, and ultimately tells a story of "hope, resilience, and a father’s unwavering love."

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Union'

This searing doc follows the efforts of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), composed of current and former workers in N.Y.C.’s Staten Island, as they organize against tech and commerce behemoths. Directors Brett Story and Stephen Maing offer a wide-ranging look at both the workers' fight and the dynamics within the organization, including intra-union disagreements and concerns about gender and racial dynamics.

RENT ONLINE

'Will & Harper'

Will Ferrell and Harper Steele have known each other for over 30 years, with their creative collaboration on Saturday Night Live leading to a decades-long friendship. In this heartfelt doc, the pair embark on a cross-country road trip soon after Steele comes out as a trans woman.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Jennifer Lopez has no reservations about sharing her love story with Ben Affleck. Whether that's in interviews or her musical autobiographical movie, This Is Me... Now, Lopez has been open about her long road to finding love. So it should come as no surprise that she has an upcoming documentary about her autobiographical movie, The Greatest Love Story Never Told.

But her husband, Ben Affleck, isn't quite so forward with his personal life. In fact, he initially wanted their relationship to be completely offline.

So, how does he feel about a documentary that will discuss every aspect of their rekindling, as well as their initial relationship which ended in 2004?

Lopez said it was "very scary" to share so much of herself with the audience, and "the other scary part was that I was bringing into it my husband, who was kind of the reluctant participant, silent participant and all."

This didn't stop her from continuing down this terrifying route and baring her soul for the camera.

"But I really feel like as an artist, you have to be vulnerable," Lopez explained, "You have to, even when you're playing a role, have to get down to the real parts of yourself to share what it's like to be human. And that is a scary thing to do."

Despite Affleck being "the reluctant participant" in the documentary, it turns out that he was the mastermind of the entire thing, and even arranged the film crew for it.

"It wasn't my idea to photograph every single moment of doing this," Lopez admitted, "To be honest, when we started making the film, it just kind of got more and more bizarre and my husband, who had a front seat to the whole thing really, was the one who was like, 'We should be capturing this,' and he brought on this amazing team and that's kind of how it happened."

Part of the documentary discusses the couple's breakup in 2004, where they remained separated for almost twenty years. During that time, Affleck married Jennifer Garner and had one daughter, Violet. Lopez married Marc Anthony and had two children, Max and Emme.

Affleck asks his wife, in a captivating and raw moment in the documentary, if she's forgiven him for ending their engagement in 2004.

“I think I was angry at you for a long time,” she responds. “But that heartbreak set both of us on a course to figuring ourselves out to being better people. I think I’ve forgiven you all the way. I think I need to forgive myself [for] some things.”

We at MC are serious about true crime. There's a certain thrill in turning to the latest and greatest true crime books, podcasts, and TV shows, to analyze how filmmakers tell these jaw-dropping stories. Thankfully, 2024 saw the release of compelling dramatized series and documentaries that have taken thoughtful deep dives into some of the most sensationalized cases in history, brought to light overlooked cults and scams, and centered resilient stories of survivors.

Prepare your streamer accounts and put on your detective hats: These are the best new true crime documentaries and series from 2024. (For even more to watch, we rounded up 2023's best true-crime documentaries and series last year.)

'American Nightmare'

In 2015, Denise Huskins was accused of faking her own kidnapping, with both law enforcement and the media referring to her alleged hoax as the "Gone Girl case." The three-part docuseries American Nightmare tells the true story of Huskins' traumatizing ordeal, and how the case was more a story of police misconduct than a ripped-from-fiction hoax.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal'

Ashley Madison, the infamous dating site for married people in search of an affair, received the Netflix true-crime treatment in this docuseries. It features interviews with former employees and notable figures caught up in the 2015 hack that exposed over 40 million users' personal information.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Baby Reindeer'

Based on creator and star Richard Gadd's real-life experiences, this Emmy-winning fictionalized miniseries follows Donny Dunn, a bartender and aspiring comedian who befriends Martha (Jessica Gunning), a woman he meets one day at the park. He shares an act of kindness with her, which quickly devolves into stalking and harassment. As Donny tries to navigate the harrowing situation, he's forced to reckon with his traumatic history of abuse and how to move forward.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Bitconned'

In the early days of the crypto boom, three guys from South Florida founded Centra Tech with nothing but Photoshop skills and dreams of a lavish lifestyle. This documentary covers the rise and fall of the three scammers, who raised millions of fundraising dollars before they were outed by a New York Times investigation.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Black Box Diaries'

In this doc, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival to acclaim, journalist Shiori Itō explores her quest for justice in the wake of surviving a sexual assault committed by a high-powered media figure with ties to Japan's prime minister. The powerful doc dives into Japan's archaic laws around sexual violence and how political and cultural systems work to keep victims silent, while also showing Itō's day-to-day ordeals as a survivor facing intense scrutiny.'

SEE IT IN THEATERS

'Breath of Fire'

In the 2010s, the kundalini yoga teacher Guru Jagat, real name Katie Griggs, built a wellness empire and gathered tens of thousands of loyal followers, from average Los Angelenos to celebrities like Alicia Keys and Kate Hudson. However, by 2020, allegations began to rise that Jagat was leading a toxic, cult-like organization while spreading QAnon conspiracy theories. This HBO docuseries unravels the rise and fall of the self-proclaimed guru while examining the long-controversial history of kundalini yoga and its most famous figure, Yogi Bhajan.

WATCH ON MAX

'Crime Nation'

The CW premiered its first-ever true crime show this year, a 10-part series that dives into high-profile investigations from the past few years, and explores "the relationship between the public narrative and official investigations for each case.” Some of the cases on the list so far include the Delphi murders, the Lori Vallow Daybell case, and the Gilgo Beach murders.

WATCH ON THE CW

'Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult'

In early 2022, the family of TikTok dancer Miranda Derrick shocked social media when they claimed that her church-affiliated management company, 7M Films, was controlling her. This docuseries dives into the so-called "TikTok cult," unraveling a history of allegations against 7M Films owner and Shekinah Church pastor Robert Shinn that goes far beyond the dance community.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Daughters of the Cult'

This cult documentary traces the story of the Mormon polygamist cult Ervil LeBaron (known as the "Mormon Manson" due to his control over his followers). Several former members of the cult, including Ervil's daughters, recount their strange upbringing, as well as their father's penchant for blood atonement and ordering hits on his opponents.

WATCH ON HULU

'Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara'

In 2008, a fan of the twin pop duo Tegan and Sara began an online friendship with a Facebook account seemingly belonging to Tegan, who had cultivated a loyal social media following with her sister. Years later, after some strange behavior from the account, the fan contacted the band's manager. This doc unfurls the terrifying catfishing saga and the emotional fallout on the fans contacted by the fake account, as well as the singers themselves.

WATCH ON HULU

'Griselda'

This fictionalized series from the team behind Narcos tells the real story of Griselda Blanco (played by Sofía Vergara), the "Godmother of Cocaine" who ruled the Miami drug scene in the late 1970s and 1980s. The six-episode show starts with Blanco's arrival in the U.S., as a single mom hoping to support her three sons, and ends with the brutal killer facing the consequences of her decades of crime.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Hollywood Con Queen'

Throughout the 2010s, a scammer dubbed the "Con Queen" impersonated several female and male Hollywood executives to "hire" industry contractors for a gig in Jakarta, Indonesia, conning the workers out of thousands of dollars each. Based on Scott Johnson's book Hollywood Con Queen: The Hunt for an Evil Genius, this docuseries chronicles the investigation behind the scams and the eventual reveal of the notorious swindler's identity.

WATCH ON APPLE TV+

'How to Rob a Bank'

In early 1990s Seattle, Scott Scurlock was a charming thrill-seeker who eschewed a regular 9-to-5 and funded his carefree life via crime. He became an infamous bank robber who earned the nickname "Hollywood" due to his prosthetic makeup disguises and his use of heist films as research. This docuseries depicts the thief's life story through found footage, witness interviews, animated sequences, and dramatic reenactments.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter'

In 1974, at the age of 16, Cathy Terkanian had a daughter named Alexis and was pressured to give her up for adoption. Decades later in 2010, Cathy discovered that Alexis, who was renamed Aundria Bowman by her adoptive parents, had mysteriously gone missing in 1989. This two-part docuseries follows Cathy's decade-long search for answers, as she combed through the distressing details of Alexis's life.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'It's Florida, Man'

This eccentric HBO anthology series isn't "true crime" in the traditional sense, but it does depict stranger-than-fiction stories, many of which feature dubious legality. In each Drunk History-esque episode, a real-life Florida Man (or Woman) describes their wildest story, as famous comedians reenact the events. The first six-episode season includes tales involving witchcraft, mutilation by alligators, and pre-meditated cannibalism.

WATCH ON MAX

'The Jinx: Part Two'

This year, HBO finally released a sequel season to its hit 2015 docuseries about Robert Durst's crimes, which ended with his shocking hot mic confession. In the eight years since, the team behind the series discovered "more hidden material," as well as Durst’s prison calls and new interviews, Variety reports.

WATCH ON MAX

'The Lady in the Lake'

In 2019, Laura Lippman published her bestselling crime novel Lady in the Lake, based on two real-life women—one white and one Black—who disappeared in 1960s Baltimore. In the book and Apple TV+'s adaptation, the two murders inspire Maddie (Natalie Portman), a dissatisfied housewife, to leave her family to chase her lifelong dream of becoming a journalist.

WATCH ON APPLE TV+

'Lover, Stalker, Killer'

In 2012, Dave Kroupa, a 35-year-old auto mechanic, dipped his toe into online dating and made connections with two women; by the end of the love triangle, one of their houses had burned down. This twisty 90-minute doc from Netflix covers the unpredictable story, which proves that online dating could be a dumpster fire long before 2024.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'The Man With 1000 Kids'

When families contacted Dutch YouTuber Jonathan Meijer, he would often reassure them that he'd only donated sperm a handful of times. But really, Meijer had been taking advantage of the under-regulated private sperm donation industry for years, including visits to 11 sperm banks in the Netherlands and private donations around the globe. This docuseries pieces together the discord left in Meijer's wake and examines the dangers of and nefarious motives behind fertility fraud.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Manhunt'

This scripted miniseries from Apple covers the aftermath of one of America's historic crimes: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Based on James L. Swanson’s 2006 book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, the seven-episode drama chronicles the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth, immediately after the incident at Ford's Theater.

WATCH ON APPLE TV+

'Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer'

Dr. Ann Burgess, the esteemed criminal profiler and architect of the FBI's "mindhunter" method, finally gets the docuseries treatment in this project executive produced by Dakota and Elle Fanning. Based in part on Burgess's 2021 book A Killer By Design, the series documents the profiler's six-decade career investigating the country's most infamous true-crime cases and her involvement in the anti-rape movement.

WATCH ON HULU

'The Menendez Brothers'

Released on the heels of Ryan Murphy's controversial series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, this documentary rehashes the infamous (and much-chronicled) true-crime case with an important twist: The titular brothers tell their story in their own words. The pair, who were sentenced to life in prison for killing their parents in August 1989, participate in this doc from jail, via extended phone interviews.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Pillowcase Murders'

Between 2016 and 2018, multiple female residents at Dallas-area retirement communities were found dead, with some of their jewelry having gone missing. Though the deaths were initially blamed on natural causes, this docuseries chronicles the victims' children and grandchildren's efforts to have the cases further investigated.

WATCH ON PARAMOUNT+

'Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini'

When loving "supermom" Sherri Papini went missing while on a jog near her California home, the case became national news, as well as her reappearance 22 days later. Fast-forward four years later, and the FBI discovered that Papini had fabricated her entire abduction, basing the false details partly on Gone Girl. This three-part docuseries features home footage and testimonials from Papini's husband, Keith, their loved ones, and the investigators in the case.

WATCH ON HULU

'The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard'

Even those who aren't true-crime buffs know the story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who suffered years of emotional and physical abuse from her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, and who was eventually sentenced for her role in Dee Dee's murder. For this docuseries filmed in the lead-up to her early release from prison, Gypsy Rose shares details of her life in her own words.

WATCH ON LIFETIME

'The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping'

When she was a teenager, filmmaker Katherine Kubler was sent to one of the militaristic, unregulated boarding schools that make up the "troubled teen" industry. Kubler returns to the now-abandoned campus with several other alums to expose the abuses they endured, in this powerful survivor-led docuseries.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV'

Nickelodeon produced many millennials' most-beloved childhood shows (The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, and iCarly, to name a few), but the behind-the-scenes process was more harrowing than any young fan could know. In this ID docuseries, several former crew members and stars of those shows speak out on the dangerous and predatory culture allegedly fostered by series creator Dan Schneider.

WATCH ON MAX

'Say Nothing'

This scripted FX series, based on Patrick Radden Keefe's book of the same name, chronicles The Troubles, the turbulent, decades-long conflict between Catholic republicans and Protestant loyalists throughout Northern Ireland. The skillfully-told series shows how both young nationalists and bystanders alike had to live with the repercussions of the paramilitary war.

WATCH ON HULU

'Surveilled'

Produced and hosted by Ronan Farrow, this harrowing HBO doc investigates the world of digital spyware and the ways that governments covertly spy on citizens. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who first covered the topic in The New Yorker, leads viewers through his investigation of one of these spyware companies, and how its tech can take over any phone.

WATCH ON MAX

'They Called Him Mostly Harmless'

This doc, based on a series of Wired articles, centers on an emaciated male hiker found dead in Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve, who was carrying food and money, but no phone or identification. The film focuses on two sides investigating the hiker: local law enforcement who quickly reach a standstill, and amateur detectives in a Facebook group devoted to solving the case.

WATCH ON MAX

'The Truth About Jim'

This Investigation Discovery docuseries follows Sierra Barter, a young woman trying to understand the trauma left by her abusive stepfather, Jim Mordecai, who she suspects may have been behind some notorious unsolved crimes. While the second half veers into conjecture attempting to link Mordecai to legendary serial killers, the doc is also filled with emotional interviews where Barter's extended family reckons with the aftermath of one man's manipulation and destruction.

WATCH ON MAX

'The Truth vs. Alex Jones'

This HBO original series chronicles the court case between the families of Sandy Hook victims and Alex Jones, the conservative InfoWars host who accused them of staging the tragic school shooting. The doc on the defamation trials shows the troubling effects that Jones' outrage-led business model can have manipulating millions of viewers and destroying lives.

WATCH ON MAX

'Under the Bridge'

In 1997 in Victoria, British Columbia, 14-year-old Reena Virk was brutally beaten to death by a group of her peers. Based on the late Rebecca Godfrey’s book of the same name, Under the Bridge follows the emotional aftermath of the homicide, while putting Reena's (played in the miniseries by Vritika Gupta) humanity and the motivations behind teen bullying at its center as journalist Rebecca (Riley Keough) and cop Cam (Lily Gladstone) investigate the crime.

WATCH ON HULU

'Woman of the Hour'

Directed by Anna Kendrick, this harrowing film is inspired by the serial killer and rapist Rodney Alcala, who roamed the U.S. throughout the 1970s and is believed to have killed over 100 girls and women. Alcala went so unnoticed that he appeared on the popular reality show The Dating Game, where he was chosen over two other contestants for a date with drama teacher Cheryl Bradshaw. In this movie, Kendrick plays a fictionalized version of Bradshaw throughout the night in question, with moments from Alcala's criminal history interwoven throughout.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

'Worst Ex Ever'

While the Netflix docuseries Worst Roommate Ever terrorized viewers with stories of terrifying, sociopathic, and even murderous roommates, this spinoff does the same with past relationships. Per Netflix, the four-episode series is "built around the universal feeling of wondering how much you really know about your partner—brings you more shocking tales of betrayal, violence, and deceit."

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Since its inception in the early aughts, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s romance has always been consistent and constant fodder for headline news. That said, perhaps now more than ever—at least as far as being on their terms, rather than the tabloids’—Affleck and Lopez’s love story is front and center as Lopez prepares to release her new album This Is Me…Now (her first album in a decade) and the accompanying film This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, both of which are out Friday. (The couple attended the L.A. premiere last night for the latter.) 

In doing the press rounds for the album and film, Lopez has said in no uncertain terms that it was Affleck who inspired her creatively as she brought the project to life. Page Six reports that Affleck was “taken aback” when she shared with songwriters the private love letters he wrote to her, which sparked content for her forthcoming record.

Per Variety, Lopez invited musicians into their shared home and gave them access to the love letters, which he called “The Greatest Love Story Never Told.” Ironically, Affleck happened to walk in at that very moment and was surprised to see the vulnerable and personal love letters being passed around.

“I did really find the beauty and the poetry and the irony in the fact that it’s the greatest love story never told,” Affleck said. “If you’re making a record about it, that seems kind of like telling it.”

Lopez previously hinted at the existence of the love letters from a teaser for the film released back in November. In it, she holds a letter dated December 24, 2002, which appeared to be from Affleck. “Life’s tough but you’re sweet,” it read. “Thanks for the gift. Hope you like the flowers. You told me you could never have enough. I believe you.” The letter was signed “B.” (Whether that was an actual letter preserved from 2002, a replica, or fabricated entirely for the production, only Affleck and Lopez know.)

Lopez called This Is Me…Now the most honest thing she’s done: “People think they know things about what happened to me along the way—but they really have no idea, and a lot of times they get it so wrong,” she told Vogue in November 2022. “There’s a part of me that was hiding a side of myself from everyone.” 

Now everything—including love letters Affleck probably never thought would see the light of day—appears out on the table. In addition to the dual release of the album and film on Friday, there will be a documentary about This Is Me…Now: A Love Story released on Amazon Prime on February 27.

“I was like, ‘I don’t write, I don’t do this,’” Lopez said, per People. “He [Affleck] was like, ‘You do, you write, you direct, you produce, you choreograph, you do all the things. Start stepping into that, start owning a little bit of who you are.'"

Céline Dion is releasing a documentary about stiff person syndrome, the rare illness she's sadly been struggling with in recent years.

The superstar hopes the film, which is titled I Am: Céline Dion and will be released on Amazon Prime Video, will work to "raise awareness" of her condition and the ways it affects people's lives.

"This last couple of years has been such a challenge for me, the journey from discovering my condition to learning how to live with and manage it, but not to let it define me," the singer said in a statement.

"As the road to resuming my performing career continues, I have realized how much I have missed it, of being able to see my fans. During this absence, I decided I wanted to document this part of my life, to try to raise awareness of this little-known condition, to help others who share this diagnosis."

In December 2023, Dion's older sister gave an update on her condition, saying in an interview, "She doesn't have control over her muscles. What breaks my heart is that she's always been disciplined. She's always worked hard. Our mother always told her, 'You're going to do it well, you're going to do it properly.'"

In May, the singer reluctantly announced that she was officially canceling her tour until further notice due to her illness.

She told fans at the time, "It’s not fair to you to keep postponing the shows, and even though it breaks my heart, it’s best that we cancel everything now until I’m really ready to be back on stage again. I want you all to know, I’m not giving up… and I can’t wait to see you again!"

The world of fragrance is notoriously elusive. Marketing materials, including print ads and television commercials, focus on emotive, often sensual concepts about how scents are meant to make consumers feel. They’re rife with scenes of people at parties, starlit nights, and women in ball gowns throwing off their heels and running barefoot in the grass. This makes fragrance an undeniably fun aspect of beauty, and brands do, of course, offer information about products’ top, heart, and base notes. However, many people (including me) are still curious about how fragrances are actually made. This includes details like how materials are sourced, how they pair together, and how perfumers are inspired to craft their unique creations. 

Now, the veil is finally being pulled back. The House of Dior just released a film by Matthieu Menu that details the reinvention of the latest incarnation of J’Adore, Dior’s iconic and popular fragrance. The film, entitled Inside the Dream Dior, follows Francis Kurkdjian, the French perfumer who has served as the nose behind iconic creations for brands like Burberry, Narciso Rodriguez, Elie Saab, Elizabeth Arden, and more. Kurkdjian has also created artful museum installations on fragrance, for which he has been honored by the French government for his artistic achievement. He even managed to recreate Marie Antoinette's go-to perfume for the Palace of Versailles!

By watching Inside the Dream Dior, viewers will get a front row seat to the creation of a fragrances, from inspiration to challenges to working with local artisans on sourcing premium materials. It’s already been hailed by critics and beauty enthusiasts alike for its stunning cinematography and valuable insight on the heritage fashion and beauty brand’s creative process. Currently available on Amazon Prime, it runs only a little over an hour, making it a quick, ideal watch for a cozy night in. 

Audience members attending a special screening of the recently-released documentary film Common Ground were seeing double on Monday, Dec. 11. 

Actress Demi Moore and her daughter, Rumer Willis, attended the viewing in Los Angeles, California rocking coordinating outfits that looked as comfy as they were chic.

Moore, 61, donned a beige ribbed sweater, paired with frayed blue jeans and a long black coat, while her daughter Willis, 35, looked flawless in a matching beige sweater, white pants and blue Birkenstock sandals. 

The film Common Ground was released on Sept. 29, and features a variety of celebrities who explore how climate change is responsible for a slew of humanitarian issues and highlights how independent farmers are relying on the techniques of Indigenous peoples to create more sustainable agricultural practices. 

The film includes interviews with Jason Mamoa, Lauren Dern, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover and more Hollywood A-listers, all dedicated to combating the devastating impact of climate change.

The mother-daughter duo were joined by Willis’ boyfriend, Derek Richard Thomas. Willis and Thomas welcomed their first child, daughter Louetta, on April 18. Louetta is Moore and ex-husband Bruce Willis’ first grandchild. Willis and Moore also share daughters Scout, 32, and Tallulah, 29.

“Seeing my father hold my daughter today was something I will treasure for the rest of my life,” Rumer captioned an Instagram photo of Willis holding her daughter back in June. “His sweetness and love for her was so pure and beautiful. Papa I’m so lucky to have you and so is Lou. Thank you for being the silliest, most loving, coolest Daddio a girl could ask for. Best Girl Dad in the game…” 

Willis—who was diagnosed with frontotemporal degeneration, an aggressive form of dementia—is not the only doting grandparent in little Lou’s life. Grandma Moore has shared more than a few touching Instagram post in honor of her granddaughter. 

“Circle of life. Happy Mother’s Day!” Moore posted on Instagram in May, along with a photo of her smiling and holding her granddaughter while dawning a bikini, in honor of Willis’ first Mother’s Day and Moore’s first Mother’s Day as a grandmother. 

“Entering my hot kooky unhinged grandma era,” Moore posted on Instagram back in December, 2022, along with a photo of her lovingly kissing Willis’ pregnant belly and before baby girl Lou entered the world. 

Seasoned mom Moore must have known newly-minted parent Willis needed a night out on the town, and the pair certainly didn’t disappoint with their matching “twinsie” outfits.

True crime has become an inescapable genre of pop culture, and one of the most popular facets of that genre are deep dives into the dark world of cults and their leaders. The voyeuristic appeal of these documentaries make sense, and go with the whole "learning manipulators' methods so you can avoid them" argument for why true crime is important. (You can sub out manipulators for serial killers or scammers for other subgenres.) However, many of the best cult docs are also notable for their focus on the survivors, offering recovery stories of people who have left those groups and are now unlearning years of brainwashing.

From must-watch watercooler hits like Wild Wild Country to buzzy new releases like Escaping Twin Flames, read on for a selection of cult-focused docuseries that are a must-watch.

'Escaping Twin Flames'

Netflix's jaw-dropping doc introduces the world to Jeff and Shaleia Ayan, the leaders of a Facebook group called "Twin Flames Universe" that claims to help people find their eternal soulmate or "twin flame." In the three-part series, former members of the group explain out how the alleged cult leaders preyed on lonely singles' vulnerabilities and fears under the guise of helping them in discover their match, all while setting up a coaching pyramid scheme and encouraging clients to stalk their potential love interests.

Watch on Netflix

'Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God'

This three-part docuseries covers the life and death of Amy Carlson Stroud, who led a quasi-religious group that promised an escape from the “3D” world. Through her live-streamed spiritual sessions and wellness products, the former McDonalds manager and self-proclaimed "Mother God" gathered a group of vulnerable followers who, following her death, remained faithful and enshrined her mummified body in their home. Love Has Won chronicles this harrowing tale of idolatry via archival footage and interviews from the remaining believers.

Watch on Max

'The Vow'

HBO's gripping multi-part docuseries tells the disturbing story of the self-help corporation NXIVM and its leader Keith Raniere, who's now serving a life sentence in prison after being convicted of crimes including sex trafficking. The series shows viewers how Rainere disguised psychological manipulation as motivational self-help, eventually conditioning members into becoming sex slaves. (Starz's Seduced is another biting take on the NXIVM cult, if you are really invested.)

Watch on Max

'The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin'

This five-part doc examines the cult-like Remnant Fellowship Church founded by Gwen Shamblin Lara following the massive success of her Christian weight loss program "The Weigh Down." During Shamblin's tenure as leader of Remnant, the church faced multiple accusations of exploitation and emotional and psychological abuse, including an alleged culture of physical abuse against children. The thorough docuseries also looks into the fate of the church following Shamblin's untimely death in a plane crash, along with her husband Joe Lara, their son-in-law Brandon Hannah, and four other Church leaders.

Watch on Max

'Wild Wild Country'

This six-part doc tells the story of Rajneeshpuram, a commune established in rural Oregon in the 1980s by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his lieutenant Sheela Birnstiel. The extensive series dives deep into the commune from all angles from Rajneesh's followers to law enforcement officials, to the residents of the adjacent tiny town of Antelope, Oregon, who eventually reached a standstill with the "free love" community.

Watch on Netflix

'Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey'

One of the many documentaries that looks into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, this four-part series examines the polygamous cult via its treatment of women, which used forced marriage and family separation as means of psychological control. Jeffs—who was eventually found guilty of two sexual assaults of a child—married 78 women within the community (24 of whom were underage children) before he was eventually sentenced to life in prison.

Watch on Netflix

'Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets'

This jaw-dropping documentary about reality TV alums the Duggar family touches heavily upon the fundamentalist Christian cult to which they belonged, the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP), and its homeschooling curriculum, the Advanced Training Institute. It lays out how parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar were influenced by founder Bill Gothard's teachings, with testimony from their friends and family, including a heartbreaking interview with Jill Duggar Dillard.

Watch on Prime Video

'Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence'

In the fall of 2010, Larry Ray began sleeping over at his daughter's student housing near Sarah Lawrence College, and he soon captivated several of the impressionable students who also lived there. For years after, the previously-incarcerated 50-year-old and these young people lived together in a cramped apartment as Ray demanded money, forced labor, and sometimes sexual acts from them. This three-part doc depicts what went on leading up to Ray's 2022 conviction for 15 federal counts—including extortion, sex trafficking, and racketeering conspiracy.

Watch on Hulu

The Deep End

Teal Swan, the controversial spiritual influencer at the center of this four-part miniseries, has been accused of gathering a hyper-loyal community of followers through cult-like methods. This doc gives an inside look at Swan's personality and her operation, with interviews from her detractors.

Watch on Hulu

'Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults'

Even someone with a cursory knowledge of cults has likely heard of Heaven's Gate, the extreme religious group whose leaders Ti and Do brainwashed followers into believing they could "chemically and biologically transform" into "next-level aliens." This four-part docuseries details the history of the infamous cult and the events leading up to their tragic 1997 mass ritual suicide.

Watch on Max

Every so often, beauty lovers are gifted a special glance behind the curtain from those who’ve shaped the industry. These peeks come more often these days with the invent of social media (we love you, makeup artist content creators), but there remain a certain few who have enough lore to hold our attention for a very, very long time. Take Nars' founder and creative director, François Nars, for example.

Last week, a new film about the life and work of Nars was released. Directed by filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Unknown Beauty: François Nars (which is billed as a document, not a documentary, and features minimal dialogue) explores Nars’ background, muses, influences, and art through the years. According to the film’s description, the photographer aims to take viewers “on a tour” of all that’s shaped him. “The fashion designers and models of ‘70s Paris, the underground of ‘90s New York, and the cinema,” the release reads. While mostly consisting of eye-catching clips from his favorite movies and runway shows, Unknown Beauty also includes mementos from Nars’ childhood in the South of France.

“As long as I can remember, my sensibility was always there when it came to beauty,” Nars, who founded his namesake makeup line in 1994 with 12 lipsticks, says in the trailer. “Whatever you didn’t expect, I liked to do. Whatever could shock, I was there.” While Nars has never been shy about sharing his wisdom—he released a fantastic how-to book, Makeup Your Mind: Express Yourself in 2011—this is perhaps the first time his influences have been cataloged to such a degree.

The movie also features the voices of a number of icons who shaped and continue to inspire Nars, including main narrator Charlotte Rampling, who starred in his makeup brand’s fall 2014 campaign at age 68. Other stars include designers Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui, stylist Patti Wilson, director Fabien Baron, and models and actresses Betty Catroux, Dayle Haddon, Lauren Hutton, Isabella Rossellini, Penelope Tree, and Sylvie Vartan.

“I wanted to do something very different, not your obvious documentary of me sitting on a chair, answering questions and talking about my life,” Nars previously said. “Lisa understood that it had to be a more rebellious documentary because somewhere deep inside, I'm a rebel. I don't like conventional things; I like when you break the mold. I like [to surprise] people in a good way.”

On the heels of the twenty-sixth anniversary of her death in a Parisian car accident at age 36, newly unearthed tapes of Princess Diana’s thoughts on her marriage, family, and mental health have been released, multiple outlets report.

The tapes were recorded for Andrew Morton, the man who would essentially become Diana’s biographer, for his book Diana: Her True Story, released in 1992. The tapes, The Mirror reports, are expected to be released next year as part of a documentary, called Diana: The Rest of Her Story; while it would have been virtually impossible to interview Diana for the book, the tapes were Morton’s way to communicate with the then Princess of Wales secretly. While much of the tapes’ content has been covered already in print and the 2017 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, more details and quotes that haven’t been spoken about before are coming to light. Here are a few of the revelations from the seven hours’ worth of tapes, of which Morton said “I think people will get a very vivid sense of her personality and her character.”

“When the first film came out, people were blown away because they had not heard Diana talk like this before,” said Tom Jennings, the producer of both the 2017 documentary and the forthcoming film. “It’s a style of storytelling that is very difficult to do, but I think it is the closest thing to the truth that you can get, because nothing gets in your way. It is important as part of Diana’s legacy to allow more of those tapes to be heard.”

On how the then Prince Charles handled confrontation—and his desire for a daughter

Prince Charles, 32, married a just-turned-20-years-old Diana Spencer on July 29, 1981, and the marriage was a mismatch essentially from the start. Beyond their age difference, Charles and Diana were simply just too different and barely knew one another, having only seriously interacted a handful of times before their engagement. In the tapes, Diana revealed how Charles had a tendency to shut down in the wake of confrontation: “At [Prince] Harry’s christening, Charles went up to mummy and said ‘We’re so disappointed, we wanted a girl,’ and mummy snapped his head off and said ‘You should realize you are lucky to have a child that’s normal,’” Diana said. “Ever since that day, the shutters have come down. That’s what he does when he gets somebody answering back at him.” Charles and Diana had two children—Prince William, born in 1982, and Harry, born in 1984; they separated in 1992 (the same year Morton’s book was released) and eventually finalized their divorce in 1996 after 15 years of marriage.

On her wedding day

Dubbed the Wedding of the Century, Diana apparently thought the whole thing was outrageous: “It was grown up,” she said on the tapes. “Here’s Diana, a kindergarten teacher. I mean, the whole thing was ridiculous.”

On her strained relationship with her stepmother

Diana’s parents divorced when she was young, and her father remarried socialite Raine Spencer (who Diana infamously called “Acid Raine”), daughter of one of Diana’s favorite romance novelists, Barbara Cartland. Raine married Diana’s father in 1976, when Diana was 15, and of her stepmother Diana said on the tapes “I was so angry. I said, ‘I hate you so much. If you only knew how much we all hated you for what you’ve done. You ruined the house. You spent daddy’s money.’ I have said everything I possibly could. Raine said, ‘You have no idea how much pain your mother put your father through.’”

Diana continued “I said, ‘Pain, Raine? It’s one word you don’t even know how to relate to. In my job, I see people suffer like you never see. You call that pain?’ I said, ‘You’ve got a lot to learn.’ I remember really going for her gullet.” (By the way, after her divorce from Charles, Diana and Raine eventually reconciled before the Princess of Wales died in 1997.)

The trailer for Prince Harry's long-awaited docuseries Heart of Invictus has dropped this week, ahead of the show's Aug. 30 release.

While this series seems very well produced and is packed full of lots of interesting facts about the Duke of Sussex' Invictus Games, which are very close to his heart, one royal commentator is concerned that the series won't be as successful as the Sussexes' previous Netflix series, Harry & Meghan.

"This is likely to be a constructive and interesting documentary. It is, however, difficult to see it attracting a large audience," Richard Fitzwilliams told Newsweek.

"After their failure at Spotify and the inability of their previous Netflix project Live to Lead to appeal to audiences, they need good ratings, but this will also have a special cachet as it is so personal to Harry."

The royal couple's deal with Spotify ended rather abruptly this year, and Live to Lead (which is available to watch on Netflix) flew comfortably under the radar after its late December release.

"Their six-hour marathon documentary, Harry & Meghan, released last December, was Netflix's second-highest ranked documentary ever, but left them open to accusations of overexposure and hypocrisy," Fitzwilliams continued.

"Their biggest challenge is to find a crowd-pleaser that does not involve criticizing the Royal Family."

In Heart of Invictus, Harry paints a picture of why the Invictus Games are so important to him and to the contestants, who are injured, wounded or ill servicemen and women.

In the trailer, the prince says, "The Games doesn't focus on what causes the injury, but really about the recovery and how to be part of a community again."

You can watch the full preview below.

Marie Claire reported recently that Meghan Markle might be looking to become a “one woman show” professionally—and it seems Prince Harry might be striking out on his own with some projects, too.

Page Six reports that Harry is working with Netflix on a documentary about Africa—but that Meghan isn’t involved in the project. “Harry’s potential African journey will inevitably be seen as following in the footsteps of his mother, Princess Diana, who traveled to Africa to campaign against landmines shortly before her death,” the outlet reports. 

It’s not yet known what exactly the documentary will be about, but the ongoing writers’ strike in Hollywood means that Harry can’t move forward with the project yet. Harry has long expressed his deep affection and appreciation for the continent; in fact, it was in an early in their relationship trip to Botswana that Harry and Meghan fell in love.

“Obviously Harry has a lot of roots in Africa, and he feels at home there,” a source says. A Netflix insider confirmed to Page Six that it was one of a number of ideas Harry has been discussing with the streaming service. 

“This is where I feel more like myself than anywhere else in the world,” Harry said of his love of Africa in 2017. “I wish I could spend more time in Africa.”

In addition to this new project, Harry’s documentary Heart of Invictus—about his Invictus Games—will come out next month. The couple are also said to be working on a Great Expectations-inspired series for Netflix together, following the massive success of their Harry & Meghan docuseries last year. 

Meghan is staying plenty busy, however, including rumors continuing to swirl about a possible memoir of her own, in the vein of Harry’s Spare, released earlier this year. If published, royal expert Camilla Tominey said “all hell will break loose,” per OK.

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle first partnered with Netflix early into their new life in California, it was announced that their first project to hit the streaming platform would be Heart of Invictus, a docuseries about Invictus Games contestants. (The Invictus Games are one of the Duke of Sussex' most cherished initiatives, a competition for wounded, ill or injured service members.)

However, another project soon took over, and the docuseries about the Sussexes' own lives, Harry & Meghan, was released this past December.

Then in January 2023, Netflix announced on Twitter that Heart of Invictus was slated for this summer (so, like, ASAP).

The streaming platform wrote, "HEART OF INVICTUS (Summer 2023)

"This new series from Archewell Productions follows a group of extraordinary competitors from around the globe – all service members who have suffered life-changing injuries or illnesses – on their road to competing at the Invictus Games."

But then, a rumor started swirling around on social media that the project had been canceled after all, with one royal gossip account claiming, "Netflix has cancelled 'Heart of Invictus'

"You can thank Meghan Markle, her outrageous demands & turning it into the 'Meghan Fashion show', instead of it being focused on the veterans

"The amount of money that was expensed on Meghan could have been used for the veterans"

They added by way of "evidence," "Someone close to my cousin works at Netflix."

Now, though, we have confirmation that Heart of Invictus really is happening. A representative for Netflix told Newsweek that the information shared in that January tweet was still "correct" and "accurate," and that the doc will indeed be released sometime this summer.

And after that, apparently we can also expect another Netflix project from the Sussexes in the future. "The documentary will feature the couple visiting communities in South Africa, where they will be shown helping build houses and focusing on humanitarian efforts," Express previously claimed. "It is reported that Meghan Markle will also bring awareness to safe birthing practices."

Big things ahead!

In August 2021, millions of TikTok users discovered the social phenomenon of Alabama Rush, a.k.a. the weeklong sorority recruitment process at the University of Alabama. Though the nation's largest Greek system had been the subject of national reporting before, TikTok provided an inside look at the outfits, Rush Bags, and sky-high hopes of dozens of potential new members (PNMs) who documented their experiences throughout the week. With all the hype, it was no surprise when HBO Max and Vice Studios announced that they were making a #BamaRush/#RushTok documentary, just in time for Rush Week 2022 (which was dubbed "season two" on TikTok).

Directed by Rachel Fleit, the newly arrived doc Bama Rush explores several facets of Alabama Rush, including the super-secret machinations of the Greek system and the exclusive society The Machine, as well as the desires for sisterhood, social belonging, and acceptance that propel thousands of young women to take part in Rush each year. In addition to interviewing experts and current Bama sorority members, Fleit followed four young women—Shelby, Isabelle, Holliday, and Makayla—over the course of a year, as they assembled outfits, recommendation letters, and even paid consultants in preparation to rush in August 2022. Though the film timeline ends shortly after Bid Day, viewers can check in with the stars of the doc with the help of social media.

Read on for what each of the stars of Bama Rush have been up to since filming the documentary, including their reactions to the completed film.

Shelby

Shelby Rose, a bright and cheery high school senior from Quincy, Illinois, is one of the PNMs we meet as an incoming freshman. She had competed in pageants for most of her life, and had even founded a nonprofit to help foster children and families in Illinois during her time in high school. Shelby was all about being "classy, cool, and calm" throughout the process, organizing her application documents binder and Google spreadsheets for her outfits. Once Rush arrived, she became an early favorite on TikTok, gaining tens of thousands of followers on the platform.

Once rumors began spreading around campus about the documentary, Shelby chose to stop filming prior to Rush, though we do learn at the end of the film that she got into her top choice, Phi Mu. After the trailer for Bama Rush dropped on May 5, the student posted a TikTok explaining why she left the project, saying that "what they were doing did not align with my morals and values."

"This is something that has made me mentally and physically sick for a very long time," she wrote in the caption. "I am thankful I left when I did and pray for every UA girl in a sorority right now. I always want to spread a positive light in the world."

Shelby recently finished her freshman year at UA, where she is majoring in public relations with a minor in digital content engagement. She also partners with major brands on her TikTok, which has over 64,000 followers.

Holliday

Hailey Holliday, or Holliday as she's referred in the doc, was a freshman at UA when the doc began filming, and was planning to rush a second time in 2022 after being dropped by an unnamed sorority after becoming a pledge the prior year. After making it through Rush, Holliday was kicked out after she was seen wearing the "wrong sticker," a.k.a. wearing a sticker featuring another sorority's letters, which is a major no-no in most sororities' codes of conduct.

After several months of filming the doc, she decided to drop out ahead of Rush after hearing a rumor that she was blacklisted from all Bama sororities. The college student is still a UA student pursuing a law degree, and she is also involved in beauty pageants. After winning Miss Orange Beach 2023, she recently competed in the Miss Alabama pageant.

Makayla

Makayla Miller (not to be confused with Makayla Culpepper, who was part of the 2021 wave of #RushTok) also planned to rush at the start of her sophomore year at UA. The then-freshman initially hired sorority coach Trisha Addicks to help her with the process, but she eventually decided to drop out during Rush Week. 

"I realized that since being a sophomore now, you don't have to be in a sorority to enjoy your life," Makayla said in the doc. "It's just me personally. I don't think I could do it, but I know other girls that love it."

Still at UA, the incoming junior is studying criminology, a career path she was inspired to pursue after her father, who was a police officer, died when she was 13. It seems that Makayla is keeping a low profile after the doc dropped, though her Instagram is public.

Isabelle

High school senior Isabelle Eacrett from Rancho Cucamonga, CA, admitted in the doc that she likely wouldn't be going to the University of Alabama if "it did not blow up on TikTok." She was passionate and "nervited"—a combo of nervous and excited—about rushing throughout her senior year, even working with Rush consultant Sloan Anderson.

"Being in a sorority will help me figure out who I want to be," she said in the film. "I've always needed a thing to be a part of as part of my identity. It's been hard for me to find a sense of self-worth because I don't really know who I am."

Isabelle stayed on with the documentary and filmed throughout Rush Week, which culminated with her getting an offer from her top choice, Alpha Delta Pi. She is currently an advertising major.

Isabelle opened up about her her experience with Bama Rush on TikTok this week, explaining that she wanted to "share her story and to show what it's like to be a girl in 2022." In the documentary, Isabelle opened up about being sexually assaulted two weeks before Rush, and in her social media post, she said she almost decided to drop out of the movie and Rush altogether after her assault.

"I did not know how I was going to pretend to be happy and even make friends in college after being hurt so bad," she said. "And (director) Rachel Fleit told me all I had to do was be myself and she never pressured me to say anything about my story. But I wanted to share it because that was, honestly, during Rush Week all that I could think about. 

Still, Isabelle added, "I made it through and found people that I had amazing, genuine and deep conversations with." She ends by advising any girls who go through Rush to "trust the process" and try to have genuine conversation.

Gracie O'Connor

O'Connor, one of the original #BamaRush influencers who rose to fame in 2021, appears in the documentary as an interviewed expert. She was an active Pi Beta Phi member when she filmed the doc, and she later graduated from UA with two degrees in May 2022. At the time she shared a photo with her fellow senior sorority sisters, captioned, "thank you Jesus for giving me the BEST girls to have by my side these last 4 years.

Since leaving the University of Alabama, Gracie has been documenting her world travels on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Per her bio, she has visited 63 countries and counting. 

When the trailer for Bama Rush was first released, Gracie posted a TikTok video of her reaction to the footage. "I can't believe it, I am literally shaking," she said, before admitting. "Wait, I kind of love it!"

Meghan Markle recently signed with a powerhouse talent agency, and her rumored upcoming projects range from a potential relaunch of her blog, The Tig, to even writing a memoir of her own, a la Spare, penned by her husband, Prince Harry. Harry and Meghan’s partnership with Netflix—which released the docuseries Harry & Meghan last December—is ongoing, and reports The Daily Express, the couple are in talks with the streaming giant to film a documentary in South Africa about humanitarian efforts in that country.

According to sources close to the Sussexes, “the documentary will feature the couple visiting communities in South Africa, where they will be shown helping build houses and focusing on humanitarian efforts,” the outlet reports. “It is reported that Meghan Markle will also bring awareness to safe birthing practices.”

Cameras will apparently follow Harry and Meghan as they visit compounds and share medical education. After Harry & Meghan, their Live to Lead series (which also premiered last December, on New Year’s Eve), and Harry’s upcoming Heart of Invictus series about his Invictus Games, this would be their fourth known project with Netflix.

And it wouldn’t be Harry and Meghan’s first time to South Africa—they visited the country in 2019 on a royal tour, where Meghan revealed in her Spotify podcast, “Archetypes,” that a heater in son Prince Archie’s room caught on fire. He was only four months old at the time.

“In that amount of time that [the nanny] went downstairs, the heater in the nursery caught on fire,” she said. “There was no smoke detector. Someone happened to just smell smoke down the hallway, went in, fire extinguished. He was supposed to be sleeping in there.”

Meghan expressed the stress and fear she felt as she had to continue with her royal duties despite the terrifying incident: “There was this moment where I’m standing on a tree stump and I’m giving this speech to women and girls, and we finish the engagement, we get in the car, and they say there’s been a fire at the residence. What? There’s been a fire in the baby’s room. As a mother you go, ‘Oh my God, what?’ Everyone’s in tears, everyone’s shaken. And what do we have to do? Go out and do another official engagement. I said, ‘This doesn’t make any sense. Can you just tell people what happened?’ And I think the focus ends up being on how it looks instead of how it feels.”

She continued “And part of the humanizing and the breaking through of these labels and these archetypes and these boxes that we’re put into is having some understanding on the human moments behind the scenes that people might not have any awareness of and to give each other a break. Because we did—we had to leave our baby.”

No word yet on any release date for the potential forthcoming Netflix documentary.

As far as we’re concerned, we can never get enough of Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis—and we got to see some never-before-seen images of them with their grandfather, King Charles, in the new BBC documentary Charles R: The Making of a Monarch, which aired last night.

Per The Mirror, two new images of George and Charlotte snuck into the documentary, both showing the King as a proud and doting grandfather. One image showed the King around 2016 playing with Charlotte, who was still just a baby, holding up a toy, seemingly much to her delight—although we can’t see her face full on. (Unbelievably, she turns eight years old tomorrow.) The second new snap featured the King and George at a tea party thought to be taken the same year, with the King pointing out something of interest to George as the latter holds on to a glass of juice. (Don’t worry, Louis made the film, too, but we’d already seen that photo before.) 

The photos were shown over a voiceover from the King speaking from a previous interview about what motivates him in his quest to protect the environment: “I mind so much about the future, what we’re going to leave to our children and grandchildren,” he said. “That’s what really gets me going.”

Simon Young, the BBC’s head of history, said the documentary offered “fresh insight into [the King’s] remarkable life,” per The Sun. “It’s a real privilege to be trusted with such rare, unseen archive material to create a new and distinctive portrait of someone so famous and photographed.” 

The doc kicked off a big—if not the biggest—week in the King’s 74 years of life: We’re not sure if you’ve heard or not, but his Coronation is on Saturday at Westminster Abbey in London. Both George and Charlotte will be in attendance, with George serving as one of his grandfather’s four Pages of Honor (and making history as the youngest future monarch to actively participate in a Coronation).