Puck

The Walt Disney Company C.E.O. Bob Iger decided to settle the Donald Trump defamation litigation against ABC News for $15 million plus $1 million in legal fees and a statement of “regret.” The question is, why? Puck’s Matthew Belloni and Kim Masters dig in, and assess the implications for ABC and George Stephanopoulos: https://lnkd.in/ekiBNaYD Photo: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images #Media #Legal 

Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman has a candid conversation with Jens Grede, the C.E.O. of SKIMS and member of the husband-wife team that turned Kim’s shapewear avocation into a fully realized category leader, replete with a likely I.P.O. and future liquidity event. Read their full exchange—including why Grede doesn’t like “celebrity brands”—here: https://lnkd.in/eqwYu_iQ Photos: Darian DiCianno/BFA.com; Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post via Getty Images #Fashion #Retail

Matthew Berry, the fantasy football purveyor and former ESPNer, talks candidly about “needle-movers,” the Bristol star system, the changing nature of talent deals, and building Fantasy Life. Read or listen to his full conversation with Puck's John Ourand here: https://lnkd.in/ePwZJpWf Photo: Nick Cammett/Getty Images #Sports #Media 

It’s not just about the gobsmacking $32 million sale of *one* pair of Judy Garland’s ruby slippers at auction. It’s about a 20-year mystery of two capers starting in Grand Rapids, a harking back to the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa, and a meditation on where the memorabilia market can go from here. Allow Puck’s Marion Maneker to the explain: https://lnkd.in/eEES3Fvc Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times/Getty Images #Auctions 

On Monday night, Trump filed a lawsuit in Iowa District Court accusing venerated pollster Ann Selzer and her polling company of “brazen election interference” and consumer fraud over her November 2 poll showing Kamala Harris winning the election by three points in Iowa. “Never before has a candidate sued a pollster for setting off a negative news cycle,” Puck’s Tara Palmeri writes. So what is Trump really after? Tara explores: https://lnkd.in/egF6nyWz Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images #Polling #Legal 

Last week, in yet another step change in cable’s long, inexorable decline, David Zaslav divulged his long-considered plan to split the operation of Warner Bros. Discovery’s growth assets—streaming and studios—from its profitable but declining cable TV networks. This restructuring of WBD has left CNN insiders and executives wondering where the network fits into the mediaco’s future—or if it does at all. Puck’s Dylan Byers digs in: https://lnkd.in/eRFU9N9n Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images #Media

Silicon Valley is on the march in Washington—and nowhere is its arrival more apparent than in Donald Trump’s strikingly tech-friendly circle of advisors and hangers-on, who have gotten themselves appointed to key agency roles, become top surrogates for the incoming administration, or secured “czar” titles that didn’t previously exist. Puck’s Abby Livingston chronicles the mass migration of Trump-friendly tech moguls salting the ground in Washington: https://lnkd.in/eE6WC_kU Photos: Getty Images (Brandon Bell, Jason Henry/Bloomberg, Michael M. Santiago, Justin Sullivan, Kimberly White, Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, Jemal Countess/Getty Images) #Tech #SiliconValley 

Jonathan Anderson illuminates his costume design process for “Queer” starring Daniel Craig. Watch his full interview with Lauren Sherman on stage at Puck’s Stories of the Season event in Hollywood here: https://lnkd.in/engURacZ Stories of the Season is presented by Polestar. #Hollywood #Fashion 

Puck’s John Heilemann had a sprawling conversation with Hon. Hakeem Jeffries, the Pelosi protégé and House Democratic leader, on some of the most pressing issues facing Democrats in the near and long-term: reconstituting the party after November’s crushing defeat, countenancing Trump’s screwball cabinet nominations, and what bipartisanship will actually look like over the next four years. Read their full discussion here: https://lnkd.in/eSsEQJvQ Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

For the past two seasons, Fox executives cashed in by betting on Deion Sanders’ ratings potential. Now ESPN, which has rights to the ACC, will run the same play with Bill Belichick’s Tar Heels… Read the full story from Puck’s John Ourand: https://lnkd.in/efH4zpus Photo: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images #Sports