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Let's Speculate Irresponsibly About Why Solange Beat Up Jay Z in an Elevator

Today in celebrity gossip: We're still talking about a certain Met Ball elevator brawl, famed radio personality Casey Kasem is missing, and Miley Cyrus talked mad trash about Liam Hemsworth, probably.

By Price Peterson
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Today in celebrity gossip: We're still talking about a certain Met Ball elevator brawl, famed radio personality Casey Kasem is missing, and Miley Cyrus talked mad trash about Liam Hemsworth probably.

So, as you know, yesterday the world was gifted a video of Solange Knowles going WILD on Jay Z in an elevator. At the time, everybody urged caution that we not immediately speculate about just what could have caused such a row, but now, a day later and in the absence of any official acknowledgment by the primary participants, it's definitely time to start talking about what went down and, better yet, why. (But first, a disclaimer: If Solange's solo career isn't significant enough to merit respect in any of these e-rags' writeups, then why did I once spend weeks listening to "Losing You" on repeat? Explain that, blogs.)

The actual attack happened over a week ago (after the celebrity costume rodeo known as the Met Ball), which means that all parties have had about a week to get over it and move on with their lives. For example, according to the timeline, Solange and Beyoncé left for Costa Rica together shortly after the fight, presumably to attend Kelly Rowland's wedding. (Remember that time Kelly Rowland got engaged over Skype?) And today Jay Z and Beyoncé attended a Nets game together like nothing had happened, not an elevator fight and certainly not the release of footage of said fight. Nothing. Meanwhile Solange has been active on Twitter but has discussed only cookies. That being said, we've learned more about the actual circumstances of last weekend's fateful dust-up. Here are a few popular theories behind what went down!

  • Jay Z had cheated on Beyoncé with someone in attendance at the Met Ball and Solange was letting him have it on her sister's behalf. This would explain why Beyoncé seems so passive in the security camera footage, noticeably making no effort to calm Solange down or protect her husband. And — this speculation is especially irresponsible — Us Weekly reports that Solange had "yelled at" designer Rachel Roy just prior to the Jay Z tussle. This is especially interesting in that Solange had attended the Met Ball with Roy as besties only two years earlier. There's also the fact that Roy's ex-husband Damon Dash is a known enemy of Jay Z's, which in telenovela logic could mean that Jay Z had hooked up with Rachel Roy to get revenge on Damon Dash. Salacious, if highly libelous, stuff!
  • Another theory is that Solange simply has mental and/or substance abuse issues, which Beyoncé and Jay Z are pretty used to by now, which would be another reason for their lack of reaction in the elevator. For example, Page Six would like to remind us that last year Solange canceled her European tour dates due to "mental/physical health" reasons, and they go on to cite her frequent "marijuana use" and a "NyQuil overdose" as examples of "drug use taking a toll on her mind." But they do add that "Solange was not seen drinking" that night, so 'Solange being a feisty drunk' may not be as likely as we'd thought.
  • A third theory would be that Solange has the gift of extrasensory perception and recognized that Jay Z had been the victim of a soul-switch during a voodoo ritual gone awry and his body was currently inhabited by the soul of a buzzard, whose body in return was now inhabited by the soul of Jay Z. Upon learning of this disturbing switcheroo, Solange used her best witch-priestess abilities to expunge the buzzard's soul from her brother-in-law's body, which entailed a rhythmic series of windmill punches and kick-slaps. In other words, there is a very good chance that Solange is a misunderstood hero in this scenario and should be commended for her bravery.
  • A fourth theory is that shortly before entering the elevator Jay Z had casually mentioned out loud that he thought Frozen "wasn't very good."

Any of these theories could be valid. Meanwhile, this image 'grammed by Beyoncé in the days following that dust-up has now taken on a much richer meaning in retrospect:

Just WHAT could that prayer have been in reference to? We may never know.

Casey Kasem, famed radio personality and erstwhile Shaggy from Scooby-Doo is legally missing according a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. Kasem's grown children have been enmeshed in a legal battle with their stepmother, Jean Kasem, and claim they've been blocked from knowing where their 82-year-old, Parkinson's-afflicted father is being kept. They allege that Jean Kasem has been shuttling her husband between "various medical facilities" and the children's attorneys believe he may have even been "removed from the country" or "taken to an Indian reservation in Washington state." And the judge seems to agree with the children that there should probably be no mystery as to where Kasem is being looked after, so he's dispatched a court investigator and adult protective services worker to figure it all out. So, uh, yeah. Just another wonderful day in the Los Angeles legal system. [Page Six]

Bradley Cooper just can't catch a break these days. First he was denied an Oscar for American Hustle despite a truly Oscar-worthy perm, then he was locked in a gym for months where he was forced to grow to behemoth-sized proportions, and now his ex-wife, actress Jennifer Esposito, is throwing post-asteroid, extinction-level-event shade at him in her new book! In Jennifer's Way, an ostensible guide on healthy living, Esposito cryptically discusses a toxic relationship she'd once had without naming names. The unnamed heartbreaker who is definitely Bradley Cooper, come on, is described as being "funny, smart, cocky, arrogant, and a master manipulator. . . We had fun, but he also had a mean, cold side." After describing an initial romance that came complete with "entire marching band squad of red flags," Esposito described the relationship's demise as being brought about "abruptly, rudely, and with the exact callousness that I'd come to expect from him." Just FYI, Esposito and Cooper were married a scant four months and divorced in 2007. Do you think they are friends on social media at least? [Us Weekly]

It seems like just yesterday we were lamenting Miley Cyrus' occasional lapses into trying-too-hard-but-really-just-embarrassing-herself stage banter. Specifically, we all cringed when she told the assembled homosexuals at London's G-A-Y nightclub that most people are simply one roofied cocktail away from turning gay. Yikes! But the irresponsible citizen journalists who initially reported this news item NEGLECTED to mention that during the same show Cyrus went on a highly, highly amusing tear about a certain ex-boyfriend before introducing her screamiest ballad "Wrecking Ball." Everyone's speculating she was talking about Liam Hemsworth here, but you be the judge:

... and every time you get in your car, you're going to hear my f--king song on the f--king radio, you piece of s--t. That's right. And then I'm gonna take all my clothes off, I'm gonna sit on a big, giant d--k—sometimes two—I'm gonna swing around, and then I'm gonna hold the record for the most-watched music video on Vevo. So then—you know, you can tell a lot about a person—I think you can tell how big their d--k is by how much confidence they have usually, and if I was a dude I'd probably have a really big d--k, ‘cause I feel really good about myself now. So I'm gonna tell those motherf--kers that broke my heart, particularly one, to suck my fat d--k and to enjoy hearing this song for the rest of your life. This song is called Wrecking Ball.

Now read that speech again, but in the voice of Dr. Maya Angelou. True poetry. In the same sentence she goes from musing about sitting on TWO dicks to bragging about having "the most-watched music video on Vevo". I mean, that is hilarious. I take back anything I said about Miley Cyrus' stage banter skills. This girl truly has a knack! Here's the video if you want to hear it in her own words (her casually drawled "That's right" is my personal favorite part):

[E! Online]

Ladies, I have no idea how makeup works. Is it really like in the cartoons where you take a giant powderpuff and just sort of bat yourself in the face with it until you're lost in a cloud of powder? If so, that seems to be what Angelina Jolie did before the recent premiere of HBO's A Normal Heart. E! Online has the photos and it seriously looks like some last-scene-of-Death Becomes Her type stuff. Or maybe it's just that certain makeup only appears to look like the aftermath of a flour-bomb explosion when exposed to flashbulbs? But, like, in person she looked fine? Or maybe Angelina Jolie and Brad were doing rails upon rails of Colombian nose candy and their limo hit a speed bump just before they stepped onto the red carpet? Either way, Brad was looking good. [E! Online]

Sometimes a news item requires no further elaboration, summary, or comment and its title is perfect as-is. Like, this one for example: Jonah Hill's New Girlfriend Licks His Sunglasses During Hour Long Make Out Session [Us Weekly]

And now, here is an image of Macaulay Culkin wearing a t-shirt of Ryan Gosling wearing a t-shirt of Macaulay Culkin:

The following image that Lindsay Lohan 'grammed yesterday is interesting not so much because it shows that Oprah is still in touch with Lohan, but because of how Lohan entered Oprah's name into her contacts. With an all-caps first name (fair) and then a pair of emoticons that imply Oprah is some kind of mystic soothsayer? (Also fair):

Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy Hollywood's hottest new May-December romance: Chelsea Handler and Austin Mahone!

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.