The 2024 winners and losers revealed: MAUREEN CALLAHAN spares no one in her Wickedly Brat-tastic year wrap (DON'T read this if you're an easily offended A-lister!)
By Maureen Callahan
Daily Mail
Dec 31, 2024
That was all we heard this election cycle, but the threat wasn't Donald Trump - it never was. The true threats to Democracy were the Bidens and the Dems, shamelessly executing the greatest political cover-up in American history.
2024 was the year of Ozempic and the Olympics, Diddy and The Donald, royal courage and calamity, tech bros, yet more Taylor Swift, lawfare and a left-wing establishment humiliated — and that's just for starters!
Biggest losers: Joe, Jill, Barack and the entire Democratic machine
Threat to democracy, threat to democracy, threat to democracy!
That was all we heard this election cycle, but the threat wasn't Donald Trump — it never was.
The true threats were the Bidens and the Dems, shamelessly executing the greatest political cover-up in American history: President Biden, before even taking office, was non compos mentis.
Instead, a nameless, faceless cabal (really led by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and bad 'Dr.' Jill) operated shadow government for the past four years, then shamelessly tried to sell doddering, infirm, confused Joe as our best option for the next four — until that fateful debate.
Sinister doesn't begin to describe it. The only question: Will Americans get a full, muscular, public investigation to rival January 6? Or will the Bidens get to slink away in ignominy in 2025?
F-ups and hiccups: Kamala
In the end, 'word salad' came to define Harris's botched run. Not even Obama's top doctors — with a heavy assist from the left-wing media — could get this patient on message.
Nor did that same media's wholesale blackout of her husband Doug Emhoff's problems with women — allegedly impregnating the nanny during his first marriage and smacking an ex-girlfriend in the face so hard that she spun around — help Harris feel presidential, let alone feminist.
Our would-be commander-in-chief ended the year with a sloppy, hiccupping, homemade video.
'Don't you ever let anybody take your power from you,' she slurred. Sorry, Kamala: The American electorate did just that.
Biggest winner...
He survived lawfare, character assassinations and attempts on his life — but Trump sprung right back up to yell, 'Fight! Fight! Fight!'
Despite polls that showed this year's presidential race neck-and-neck, petty scandal about his closeness to Laura Loomer and Don Jr.'s love life — along with a campaign that felt chaotic in the final stretch – Trump pulled it out bigly, with the genius of campaign co-chair Susie Wiles, who will now serve as the first female chief-of-staff to a president ever.
Year of the podcast
Speaking of powerful women: Megyn Kelly stumped for Trump the night before the election, doubtless moving the needle for on-the-bubble female voters wary of Trump's history with women. Kelly's mega-hit podcast has rivalled superstars such as Joe Rogan in a year that's seen more consumption of news via earbuds than ever.
Terminal prognosis: the liberal media
Indeed, that noise you hear is a well-deserved death rattle.
Post-election, MSNBC has been shedding viewers by the millions. Mascot Rachel Maddow took a $5 million pay cut. ABC's George Stephanopoulos cost his network $16 million after he falsely said Trump had been convicted of rape. And the New York Times is busy trying to cover up their complicity in the big Biden-health lie. Trust, as the old saw goes, takes years to build but seconds to break.
Biggest face-plant: Oprah
TV titan-turned-tyrant, suddenly slim Winfrey began the year with a primetime special flogging Ozempic while blaming America — which turned her into a billionaire — for making her feel bad about her body all these years.
Then she hosted Kamala — or, as Oprah hollered from her belly, KA-MA-LA HARR-IS! — for another special, this one featuring Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez and a cloying Meryl Streep, pretending to screw up by calling our bumbling Veep 'President Harris'. Oops, indeed.
Oprah's waning credibility took yet another hit once we learned her production company earned nearly $2.5 million from the Harris campaign for this worthless boondoggle.
Real Royalty
Her bombshell announcement, in March, that she had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy shocked the world. That the Princess of Wales was seemingly forced into this disclosure, following her months-long disappearance and one unartfully altered family photo, brought shame to the internet ghouls, desperate celebs and late-night comics who had made fun.
Her courage, her calm, and ability to see beyond her own plight — telling fellow sufferers that 'you are not alone' — proved Kate the true jewel in the Crown.
The Princess of Wales's bombshell announcement, in March, that she had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy shocked the world.
Harry and Meghan's year ended on a hard belly flop: Hollywood publicly distancing itself from the Gruesome Twosome before their Netflix docuseries 'Polo' landed with a critical and commercial thud.
Rotten Royals
Impeccable with timing as ever, Meghan Markle dropped the trailer for her new domestic venture, 'American Riviera Orchard', just days before Kate's disclosure.
Jarred jams to Kris Jenner simply couldn't compete. Nor could H&M's 'faux royal' tours to Colombia and Nigeria. Their year ended on a hard belly flop: Hollywood publicly distancing itself from the Gruesome Twosome before their Netflix docuseries 'Polo' landed with a critical and commercial thud.
The big question for 2025: What next for their 'professional separation' as a couple?
Best comeback: Demi Moore
Who isn't rooting for Demi?
After suffering a humiliating divorce from the much-younger Ashton Kutcher, and showing great strength amid ex-husband Bruce Willis's dementia battle, she's just snagged a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for 'The Substance', in which she plays an aging actress desperate for youth.
Surely now guaranteed her first Oscar nod, 62-year-old Demi — unlike some of her contemporaries — has never seemed more comfortable in her own skin.
Falling stars: Nicole Kidman and JLo
Bad wigs, bad Botox and a spate of ridiculous roles culminating in her unwatchable cougar-flick 'Babygirl', 57-year-old Kidman gave us 2024's most unwanted disclosure that while filming she was 'so turned on' that at times she would plead: 'I don't want to orgasm anymore!'
Based on dismal box office returns, no one wants to see this either, Nicole.
Add in those strange fashion-fisticuffs with Salma Hayek at a Balenciaga show, Kidman's snide red carpet dismissal of a correspondent from Pop Crave, and her ultra-narcissistic claim that accompanying husband Keith Urban to oncology wards is hard for her — 'I have to not absorb someone else's emotions… [it's] too much' — well, we all could do with a good, long break from this uncomfortably public midlife crisis.
Speaking of: No amount of staged pap strolls in the Hamptons could distract from J.Lo's annus horribilis. Ben Affleck moving out of their marital home in the metaphorical dead of night — shortly after she released a documentary about their epic, unstoppable love — followed by the cancellation of her tour. Family comes first, she said, though reports had ticket sales in the toilet.
The coming year may be equally grim for this alleged, one-time gun mule for Diddy.
After suffering a humiliating divorce from the much-younger Ashton Kutcher , and showing great strength amid ex-husband Bruce Willis's dementia battle, Demi Moore has just snagged a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for 'The Substance'.
No amount of staged pap strolls in the Hamptons could distract from J.Lo's annus horribilis.
A-list arrest
Freak-offs, baby oil, beatdowns, a car bomb and blackmail: No other celebrity scandal reaches that of Sean 'Diddy' Combs, arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking, kidnapping and bribery, among others.
Combs is being held in a Brooklyn federal detention center along with this year's other great villain, accused assassin Luigi Mangione, while awaiting trial. The only question: Who else — guilty or not — will be dragged into this deepening saga? Rape-accused Jay-Z has already denied wrongdoing.
Girls rock pop
It was a 'Brat' summer courtesy of Charli XCX and a breakout year for Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter.
The mother of them all, of course, remains Taylor Swift, who's finally wrapped her 21-month Eras tour, grossing a record $2 billion.
A triumph to be sure. But now, Taylor, we beg of you: Give us a break and disappear for a while. And take the tacky Kelces with you.
Olympic heroes
Simone Biles had a historic comeback after testifying before the Senate about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, then overcoming the 'twisties' to win four medals in Paris.
Visually impaired gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik whipped off his Clark Kent frames and went viral, winning two medals for Team USA on the pommel horse.
And rapper Snoop Dogg became an unlikely star of the show, earning a reported $500,000 a day as a special correspondent for NBC during the games. But will 2025 be as triumphant for Snoop? His former relationship with Diddy, the man he has called a 'brother', may come to haunt him.
Blake Lively v. Justin Baldoni: The feuding 'It Ends With Us' co-stars have fired off savage accusations, PR wars and, in Lively's case, a civil lawsuit alleging sexual harassment by Baldoni, who also directed the movie.
Simone Biles had a historic comeback after testifying before the Senate about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, then overcoming the 'twisties' to win four medals in Paris.
Quick-fire round
TAYLOR SHERIDAN: The 'Yellowstone' creator clearly thought he'd won his feud with exiting star Kevin Costner, only to sully all five seasons by casting himself as Costner's sexier, tougher replacement. Would have been funny if it wasn't so pitiable.
INDUSTRY: HBO's Succession-sized hole has been filled by this tense, glamorous drama about young strivers and aristos in finance — with Kit Harington a starry third-season addition.
NIKKI GLASER: Breaking through after twenty years as a jobbing comic, Glaser slayed at this year's 'The Roast of Tom Brady' and in her own HBO stand-up special. She's hosting the Golden Globes this weekend.
BLAKE LIVELY v. JUSTIN BALDONI: The feuding 'It Ends With Us' co-stars have fired off savage accusations, PR wars and, in Lively's case, a civil lawsuit alleging sexual harassment by Baldoni, who also directed the movie. Baldoni's camp say he's about to file a countersuit that will 'shock everyone'. Given the year we've all had, that's an incredibly high bar.
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