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Jessica Alba Shines On Family-Centric ‘Honest Renovations’ On The Roku Channel


The premise of Honest Renovations, hosted by Jessica Alba and fellow entrepreneur Lizzie Mathis, is more layered than your typical home make over show. Alba’s baby-friendly sensibilities, informed by her ownership of The Honest Company, results in a brand-packed show filled with low-VOC paints, floors that are already off-gassed and enough carefully-curated closet space to accommodate lotions, potions, diapers and that all-important me-time for a parent.
“We can unlock something for [our guests] and for their quality of life,” explained Alba, the founder of the Honest Company. Alba was in conversation with co-host Mathis and YMCA of Chicago CEO Dorri McWhorter at a launch event held in the downtown digs of the Chicago branch of Chief, which is a network for executive women. Mathis is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Cool Mom Co., a company founded during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and intended to support mothers.

Members of Chief Chicago gathered for a special viewing of one episode of the six-part series, airing now on The Roku Channel. It was the sort of event that effortlessly blended that sometimes difficult-to-mix aspect of being a woman in a high performing workplace who also needs her home to be high performing as well.
What Mathis and Alba do well on the show – and also in person – is to welcome and incorporate tough business decisions with tough family decisions. For them, there is no separation. Honest Renovations is not just about moving a wall or adding some razzle dazzle to a space. It’s about making a space truly work for people who might not yet know – as one couple didn’t – that if at all possible, mom’s home office should not be a shared space with the newborn’s room and the guest room.

If mom is a remote worker, how is she to get any work done as the child matures? As many working parents know, toddlers in the room during Zoom meetings just don’t work. And, if the space is available, babies should have a dedicated, peaceful room that isn’t filled with printers, filing cabinets, paperwork and bills. Granted, such a room set up is a privilege, for sure. But what sets Honest Renovations apart is that the hosts actually discuss these issues, and blend in their recommendations for the new spaces with their own experience as moms.
The show also is inviting even more viewers and breaking barriers because Alba and Mathis make a diverse team.

“For Jess to be Latina and for me to be African-American in the renovation space? It’s important to us,” says Mathis, adding that Roku stood behind them on this project.
The diversity in family choice is intentional as well, and refreshing. The Chief audience – which was majority white – viewed an episode that showcased a black family living in Los Angeles. They wanted a reno because they had a newborn, a house with oddly-shaped interiors and a main bathroom only big enough to store their dog’s food. This family walked down the hallway to use another bath with a slightly bigger footprint. And, they had a gargantuan bedroom set that took up most of the bedroom, leaving little room for walking.

Judging from the positive and engaging audience input into the viewing, this particular episode touched on common ground for many homeowners: closet space, weirdly-shaped rooms, inefficient use of space. Plus, Alba saw right through the high end sizing.
“Bigger is not better!” she said, explaining that many people buy the largest furniture they can find but those pieces aren’t always the most flattering furniture for the room. For the show, that giant bedroom furniture was swapped out for something less formidable. The room looked greatly improved with that swap alone, plus a new paint job and of course, a bigger bathroom with a bathtub designed in such a way that there was space for the portable crib or sit-me-up to rest safely on the floor.
The two friends banter in person much how they banter on the show. They don’t claim to be renovation experts in the manner of architectural engineers, but they are renovation-experienced. And, they do have a crew that comes in and builds (or rebuilds), though Mathis does pick up a tile or two and help out on camera.
They met at their children’s school, years ago, and became friends soon after. Now? they are in business together. Separately, Alba has recently welcomed a new CEO, Carla Vernon, a woman she is proud to describe as Afro Latina and the first Afro Latina to become CEO of a publicly-traded U.S. company. And Mathis is soon to welcome a new podcast. They went with the Roku Channel as distributor for their show due to the channel’s reach, and willingness to try a different sort of makeover series.
Honest Renovations airs on The Roku Channel.

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‘I am officially off the market’: When Margot Robbie revealed she made the ‘conscious’ decision of not dating actors


Margot Robbie revealed her decision to not date actors because of the media scrutiny that came with a public relationship of two high-profile actors
Back in 2015, A-lister Margot Robbie made a declaration that she would not be dating any actors. The actress may have alluded to her fiance Tom Ackerley, who she married the following year in 2016. In an exclusive interview with Marie Claire, she revealed that being in a relationship as an actor herself came with its own set of challenges. She believed that dating someone who was popular would add on to the media scrutiny.

Margot Robbie opened up on why she made a conscious decision to not date actorsTalking to Marie Claire, she claimed, “I am officially off the market.” She then shared the reasoning behind her decision and added, “I made a conscious decision not to date actors.” She continued to explain, “But not because I hate actors. That’s a nasty generalization to make, and that’s not the case. People take such an interest in your love life when you have a profile, it puts a lot of stress on a relationship.”
The Barbie actress continued, “So two people with profiles, I figure it’s just double the amount of scrutiny, and I’d like to avoid that at all costs.” This came after reports of her locking lips with Tarzan co-star Alexander Skarsgard started making rounds. It was reported that she was caught kissing the actor during the Sundance Film Festival.

Margot Robbie revealed she opted for a minimal lifestyle even after becoming an actorIn the interview, Robbie also opened up about how she was adapting to fame. She shared, “I have a normal 24-year-old life. If I were a waitress, I’d probably have the exact same lifestyle. I’d go to the same clubs I go to already, live in the same house with the same housemates, hang out with the same people.”
However, Margot Robbie tied the knot with Tom Ackerley who is an English producer and actor. The duo met on the sets of 2013 movie Suite Francaise where Tom was working as an assistant director. Post marriage, both of them launched their production company LuckyChap Entertainment.

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Monica Bellucci and Tin Burton at lunch in the restaurant in Selci Lama


For All Saints’ Day, the Hollywood star from Tiferno returned to his native Umbria to enjoy a moment of relaxation and then visit his parentsOn the occasion of the All Saints’ Day celebrations, the Hollywood star of Tiferno origin, Monica Bellucci, returned to her native Umbria to enjoy a moment of relaxation and to visit her father Pasquale and her mother Brunella.Flanked by her current partner Tim Burton, she went to lunch, together with about twenty old friends, at the Osteria del Musicista, which has always been her favorite restaurant, in Selci Lama.Menu dedicated to typical dishes of the area, which includes an appetizer with breadsticks lined with coppa, duck in porchetta and grilled pork livers, polenta with wild boar sauce accompanied by the very typical cappelletti in broth.To conclude, a dessert based on fried “ciaccia” with Nutella and roasted chestnuts.
Having paid the bill and greeted the restaurant owner and lifelong friend, Roberto Polchi, Monica brought home cappelletti and broth for a family dinner.

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‘Rocky’ Was Quite Different In His Original Screenplay, Sylvester Stallone Claims


Sylvester Stallone took his friend’s advice on a rewrite of the original screenplay to Rocky. A few tweaks later, he was on his way to major success.
In the new Netflix documentary Sly, Stallone discussed how he initially conceived of the project, which had a much harder edge. In the early version, Rocky was depicted as a “thuggish” character, inspired by Martin Scorsese’s crime drama, Mean Streets.

But Stallone’s perspective changed when a friend read the script and thought the boxer was too cruel for audiences to actually care about him.
Stallone recalled her crying.

“She goes, ‘I hate Rocky. I hate him. He’s cruel. He hits people. He beats them up.’”
Stallone took it to heart, and asked what he could do to soften the character.

“I said, ‘what if you stop short of it?’ Like, maybe he almost did. He could have, that’s his job, but he doesn’t?’ ‘That’d be nice,’” he added. “I said, ‘What if he had a girlfriend or something?’ ‘Yeah, that’s nice.’ So I go back, start writing that: ‘Girlfriend. Nice.’”
$117 million in box office later, a franchise was born.

Stallone also revealed that actor Dolph Lundgren sent him to the hospital during one fight scene in Rocky IV.
“Dolph Lundgren… he pulverized me,” Stallone says in the documentary. “Later that night, my heart started to swell—which happens when the heart hits the chest—and then my blood pressure went up to 260, and they thought I was going to be talking to angels. Next thing I know, I’m in intensive care, where I’m surrounded by nuns, and I thought, ‘OK, that’s curtains.’”
Stallone was in the hospital for nine days following the incident, praying for “one more round.”
“For the first minute of the fight, it is going to be a free-for-all,” Stallone told Lundgren. The Swedish actor joked in a separate interview that all he did was “obey orders,” explaining, “[Stallone] was the boss. I did what he told me.”
Doctors allegedly told Stallone that he received a blow to the ribs that made his heart rattle around in his ribcage, a condition typically seen in head-on collisions. “I did hit a bus, of sorts,” Stallone joked.

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