Will Monday’s Met Ball be its big finale? Or at least in this form? Certainly there’s a chance that this is the end for Vogue editor Anna Wintour, rumored to be leaving Conde Nast this summer when her September issue hits stands in mid August.

Wintour’s Conde Nast exit could be the same for her run as head of the Costume Institute’s annual Met Ball? What started as a glittering, unusual festival for the Museum has devolved into a Halloween ball for reality stars. And, as I’ve reported before, the Met Ball costs a LOT to put on every year.

Now I can tell you that the 2017 event’s gross receipts were just $12.2 million– down from $13.5 million in 2016. The trend is down as receipts fell by $1.3 million. More worrisome: the expenses incurred by the Met. They went UP. In 2016, expenses were $3.556 million. In 2017, they jumped to $3.859 million.

Wintour’s pets this year, as last year, will not include Donald or Melania Trump. A celebrity “get” prior to 2016, the Trumps are now anathema. Monday night there will be the question of Kanye West, who usually accompanies wife Kim Kardashian when he’s not recovering from myriad problems. A few years ago he actually performed at the Met Ball. But now West, firmly ensconced with the Trump camp, is in a PR nightmare thanks to his “Slavery was a choice” declaration.

And then there is the museum itself, still the most shining jewel of all museums in the world. They’re going through massive cost cutting after many in the executive office have left or been dismissed. Salaries keep rising. The museum is now charging admission to non-New Yorkers, who must pay $25. The spectacle of the Ball may not seem as urgent to those people.

Stay tuned…

EXCLUSIVE A lurid lawsuit filed in New York against two Hollywood execs– one of whom is dead– contains a lie that will affect its totality.

A young man who calls himself Rovier Carrington and lives in Los Angeles claimed in a lawsuit that he was raped by the two execs. One of them is former MTV exec Brian Graden. The other is Brad Grey, the former head of Paramount, who died in May 2017 at age 59 from cancer.

Carrington, according to reports in the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, the LA Times, and so on that he’s somehow the great-grandson of late Three Stooges star Moe Howard. No one checked this, they just regurgitated it as a fact (forget the fact that Carrington is African American).

But it turns out Carrington is more likely a relative of the kid in John Guare’s play and movie “Six Degrees of Separation”– the black kid that claims Sidney Poitier is his father.

I emailed Moe Howard’s grandson, screenwriter Jeffrey Scott, who replied thusly:
Hi Roger,
I had never heard the name Rovier Carrington until I received your email.
Here are the facts…
Moe had two children, a son, Paul, and a daughter, my mother, Joan.
Paul has one child, a daughter named Jennifer. She had no children.
My mother had two children: me and by brother, Michael.
My brother has two children, a boy, Keith, and a girl, Tessa. Neither are married or have children.
I have a daughter, Caroline, and a son, Moe. Neither are married or have children.
I hope this helps.
Best wishes,
Jeff

So, Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Rovier Carrington, whoever he is, is not related to Moe Howard of the Three Stooges. Congrats to everyone who bought that story.

It’s extraordinary to me that everyone repeated Carrington’s claims without checking anything– claims against Brad Grey, whom we all knew for two or three decades, for better or worse. He can’t say a word in his own defense, and the whole thing sounds preposterous– not to mention grotesque.

But now we know that Carrington has made up his Three Stooges story– one that must have seemed good to him. But all it took to disprove was a little effort. His claims are disgusting. He offers no proof except his word. Which now looks pretty specious.

I’ve sent emails and/or text messages to Carrington, and his New York attorney Kevin Landau. If they answer, I’ll tell you what they said. (I’d like to know

Last night’s “Roseanne” grabbed 10.3 million viewers. That’s down 3.1 million from two weeks ago, when the last new episode aired. It was beaten soundly by a first run episode of “NCIS.”

The show is slowly losing millions of viewers, draining like a pin pricked helium balloon.

“Roseanne” is not giving viewers what it promised in its first episode– a Trumpathon. There’s been no mention of politics since the that first installment– no pink pussy hats or any other discussion of Trump. Barr was clever– she ginned up the Trump base with this expectation, but even they are beginning to figure out they’ve been had.

EARLIER
Roseanne Barr is on the promo trail for her TV and her live performances.

But down in Maryland, folks are not that keen to her do her stand up.

Most of the seats at Roseanne’s May 17th MGM National Harbor in National Harbor, Maryland are still available. Things are so bad that the cheap seats are now going for just 18 bucks. And there are hundreds of them.

The top price ticket is $71, although if you wait til the last minute that price will come down. MGM National Harbor may have to “paper” the house if they don’t outright cancel the show.

Maybe Roseanne can add Kanye West as an opening act. His “Slavery is a Choice” album is due any minute.