Not every great artist is a tortured genius. But when it comes to the most afflicted creators among us, is it ever okay to ignore their personal sins for the sake of the art? It might depend on the artist — and the artwork.
Japanese pop artist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/arts/yayoi-kusama-dead.html">Yayoi Kusama</a> recently died at the age of 97. She was the one who did the polka-dot stuff and caused a ruckus with phallic motifs in the 1960s. But her most enduring controversy was that she was deeply racist at her core — at least, according to a few lines from her 2002 autobiography. 
The worst of it involved her vivid descriptions of her New York City neighborhood. She claimed there were “black people shooting each other out front, and homeless people sleeping there.” <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/yayoi-kusma-racism-sfmoma-2378803">She also</a> “envisioned America as a land full of these strange, barefooted children and virgin primeval forests.” She called the people “exotic.” She apologized.
Kusama suffered from <a href="https://unitlondon.com/2018-05-14/yayoi-kusama-and-psychedelic-schizophrenia/">hallucinations</a>, anxiety, severe depression, and <a href="https://en.studiomercado.com/post/a-life-between-going-crazy-and-healing-yayoi-kusama">OCD</a>. Her Instagrammable infinity spaces and otherworldly sculptures delivered an infinitesimal peek behind the curtain of her heavy bangs. As an interactive element during her exhibit at The Broad in Los Angeles, my friends and I covered ourselves in polka-dot stickers, a sort of camouflage in front of polka-dot walls. Maybe that’s how Kusama saw all of us: as “exotic” creatures, roaming free, unencumbered by the prison of her mind. 
During my four years of art school, I dove headfirst into figure drawing, design, and classical painting techniques. Impressionist, cubist, surrealist, abstract expressionist — the kind of work that can never be reproduced by hungover undergrads or anyone, ever again. Of course, some of those figures of fine art were a little off their rockers. 
Caravaggio painted the masterwork “Narcissus,” but also <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Caravaggio/Continued-successes-and-the-murder-of-Tomassoni">killed</a> a guy in an illegal street duel. Maybe you know Picasso’s “Guernica,” but not how his <a href="https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/masters-and-monsters-7-brilliant-artists-1740559530.html">toxic</a> behavior drove his lady muses to take their own lives. Van Gogh sawed off his own ear during an alleged psychotic episode, but check out those sunflowers and “Starry Night.”
Maybe it would have been cooler if Picasso were boyfriend material, strumming his acoustic at bonfires, painting dumb art that never saw the light of day. But we got this guy. And paintings that sell for <a href="https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5895962">$180 million</a> and make headlines when they’re heisted. 
I think it’s okay to separate the art from the artist, or the product from the truth about the person who made it. I’m reminded of my leftie acquaintances in L.A. reading headlines about Chick-fil-A’s biblical values and going on a rampage swearing never to eat “at the place that contributes to anti-LGBTQ stuff” again. But then still secretly eating Chick-fil-A. Because the chicken was more valuable than the “evil” company mission. Christians, of course, would probably agree that both the Bible and the chicken are divine.
It’s also easy to engage in a little 21st-century snobbery, looking back on “history” — sometimes mere months old — from the highest horse. Pass me my rose-colored morality glasses; I have some judging to do. 
Maybe you’ve seen news of fashion designer <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/press-releases/spring-ci-2027-announcement">John Galliano</a>’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/met-gala-cancels-celebration-of-nazi-loving-designer-following-major-backlash">booting</a> from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After much fanfare surrounding an upcoming honor from Vogue’s Anna Wintour at the 2027 Met Gala, his name and his accompanying exhibit were scratched from the event. It was a prestigious honor, given only to two other designers during their lifetimes. But Galliano also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/notorious-antisemite-to-be-honored-by-met-gala-after-jewish-leaders-sign-off">said some things</a> about Jewish people that typically don’t make the best first impression on strangers. Something about wanting certain people dead via specific measures.
Knowing his history, Wintour still chose him for the honor. An <a href="https://robshuter.substack.com/p/exclusive-real-reason-anna-wintour?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=4354752&amp;post_id=213588584&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=8p7ynn&amp;triedRedirect=true&amp;utm_medium=email">insider</a> reportedly claimed, “Anna knew everything. She believed his genius outweighed his appalling behavior.” Later, she and the Museum committee caved to internet backlash, and Galliano withdrew. 
But I kind of agree with fashion’s apex skeleton on this one. Talking out of his behind, as they say, Galliano messed up. He apologized, claiming he was on drugs at the time of his outburst. You could argue that he wouldn’t have said those things (drugs or not) if he didn’t believe them. That may be true, but as Wintour noted, his clothing designs are still stunning. 
Then, of course, there’s Michael Jackson. We’re supposed to hate him because of his personal life. Only Bubbles, the pet chimpanzee, knows the objective truth. But we got “Billie Jean,” “Thriller,” and “Beat It” from MJ. There’s something about the chorus of “Earth Song” that feels like rock gospel screaming to the heavens. I’m not even thinking about Neverland Ranch; I’m seeing myself. You. Humanity. Art mirroring our souls and reflecting our human experience. The complete picture. Including our darkest pain.
MJ transcended his own trauma to create something bigger than himself. And he leveraged other brilliantly tormented talents such as Quincy Jones, Freddie Mercury, and Paul McCartney to do it. Maybe, from the outside, we can do two things at once: holding MJ accountable while riding the musical wave to a higher plane. In 2026, “Michael” was the first biopic to pass <a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/michael-billion-dollar-box-office-benchmark-biopic-record-1236802496/">$1 billion</a> in global box office sales, proving there were plenty of fans willing to do just that. Hee-Hee Woo!
Here’s the thing. I will defend art for art’s sake until the end of time because I believe that once beautiful art disappears, society may be doomed. But even in the creative world, we need parameters. The art must be unequivocally greater than the transgressions of its creator, otherwise we end up torturing ourselves.
Despite his influence in music as we know it, Kanye “Ye” West seems determined to tip the scales in favor of his personal demons. I’m still holding out hope for his art — I’ll do anything for “Stronger” and “Gold Digger” at the gym — but there comes a point where the fun gets ruined by the story unfolding outside the studio. 
Still, there are always worse examples. A quick refresher about Adolf Hitler’s passion for watercolor painting. He could have made a name for himself using those talents, but he chose a different path. (What’s that poem about how <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken">two roads diverged in a yellow wood</a>?) This is why no one should care that some of Hitler’s paintings are currently sitting in a climate-controlled Army <a href="https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/paintings-by-adolf-hitler/">vault</a> in Virginia, never dispayed. Evil machinations overwhelmed his gift of imagination.
We’re lucky to share this moment with those brave enough to create something, put it out there, and let the rest of us interpret it as we please. Along with classical music and art, please give me a conversation-starting <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-bananas-duct-taped-to-the-wall-are-worth-millions-hungry-museumgoers-keep-eating-them-180987017/">duct-taped banana</a> or a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXKE0nAMmg4">self-shredding Banksy</a> any day of the week. I would also happily live the rest of my days inside a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuGb73dMuVI">James Turrell skyspace</a> installation — the greatest controversial take being an altered perception of time, space, and seeing in the first place. 
But perhaps the proper response isn’t separating the art from the artist at all. Maybe it’s recognizing the humanity it took to create something beautiful.
“I don’t think we can separate the art from the artist, nor should we need to,” Australian songwriter and writer <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/nick-cave-doesnt-think-we-can-separate-the-art-from-the-artist-nor-should-we-need-to-2944075?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Nick Cave</a> once wrote. “I think we can look at a piece of art as the transformed or redeemed aspect of an artist, and marvel at the miraculous journey that the work of art has taken to arrive at the better part of the artist’s nature. Perhaps beauty can be measured by the distance it has travelled to come into being.”
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This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Is It Wrong To Love Great Art Made By Terrible People?

Chick-fil-A

Culture

Met Gala

Michael Jackson

Upstream

Vogue Magazine

I’ll never forget how a small kitchen knife could only slightly nick someone’s heart and still kill them in less than a minute. But the thing that stuck with me most after serving on a murder trial jury was the realization that none of us were ever qualified to determine someone else’s fate.
We were just regular people. We barely had our own lives in order. Let the evidence show we had no business interpreting the facts as they were presented. 
After spending three weeks trekking to the downtown Los Angeles courthouse, and three days in deliberations, we couldn’t agree on what happened at the scene of the crime. I don’t want to blame our hung jury on anyone in particular, but the woman with the curly red hair who announced to the room, “I mean, I could see myself stabbing someone,” was part of the problem. 
With all the buzz around the Lindsay Clancy murder trial — and all the TikTok glommers-on looking for their own 15 minutes of fame — I can’t help but imagine what the scene in jury deliberations must be like. Outside that room, we all have our armchair internet opinions. The experts make their projections. But the only thing we can really count on is that the jury is in no position to have the final say. 
“The jury is the fact finder while the judge determines the law,” The Daily Wire’s legal analyst Heidi Hall says. “Juries resolve questions of fact … what happened, who’s telling the truth, whether the evidence adds up. The point of a jury is to use their common sense and life experience to determine credibility.” This is, of course, assuming jurors possess what’s known as common sense.
Back in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_trial_by_jury_in_England">Medieval times</a>, jurors were chosen because they knew the defendant and could speak to their character, or they had witnessed the crime. We don’t do it like that anymore, opting for the “impartial outsider” strategy. Voir dire — “to speak the truth” in French — eliminates jurors with personal bias toward the facts of the case. But who can really be impartial?
Once the 12 members of my jury were impaneled, someone suggested we break the ice. We introduced ourselves with the bare minimum. “I’m Steve, I work for LA County parking enforcement, and you guys can go to hell,” Juror #2 added, before everyone booed him. Someone else was a delivery driver for a Disney-related laundry service. There was a mom. A painter. A Nordstrom employee. Someone who claimed he had been stabbed on the street. And several people who hate icebreakers. None of us would become friends. If it weren’t for this, we would never associate in real life.
It was only day 1, and everyone already looked exhausted like we had all been sentenced to death row. None of us had a good enough story to be struck from the jury box. I should have said I always believe cops or that I have a sick grandmother at home to care for. “No hablo inglés.” 
I love a true crime series and was fascinated by opening statements. This was it! We were really doing this. Justice with a capital J. Let me be Ancient Rome’s Justitia with her scale, bringing some kind of sanctifying closure to this tragic story. That wouldn’t happen.
Lining up alongside pimps and gangsters in business suits to walk through the metal detectors every day quickly became a slog. The taupe, mid-century marble floors of the never-ending hallways looked like sad oatmeal under piercing fluorescent lights. 
I assumed the courtrooms attracting the biggest crowds were doing cool celebrity murders. Mine was just a guy who got into a fight with his sister’s boyfriend. And pulled out a knife to settle it. 
Then we heard the 9-1-1 call — the movie version where it’s already too late and there’s nothing anyone can do. And all the caller needs is for someone to do something.
“Babe. Oh my God. Breathe! Breathe, babe, oh my God,” we heard the defendant&#8217;s sister’s voice as her boyfriend died in her arms. Uncontrollable tears rolled down my cheeks. After the judge sent us on a short recess, I quickly discovered the excruciating awkwardness of washing my hands in a bathroom sink next to someone I just heard screaming for help that never came.
I wondered why there was no safe place for the family of the victims or the jury. We were all just out there, flapping in the judicial breeze. 
I welcomed any chance at freedom from my assigned chair in the jury box. The wartime-rations concessions room with its fake overpriced vanilla cappuccinos in flimsy cups gave me a reason to live. I glimpsed a sliver of daylight from a tiny window and wondered if I’d be able to readjust to civilian life after this.
Back on the clock, I flipped to a doodle of the murder weapon I sketched in my juror notebook. I retraced the knife again with my pen. As the days wore on, it felt like we were the ones getting punished for someone else’s crime. The defendant got to sit there and let the circus unfold as his own mother — the only eyewitness to the crime that happened in her bedroom — appeared to fall asleep on the stand. 
Eyes closed, and gently chewing on her gums, she put her hand on the judge’s stand. “Judge,” she suddenly blurted out in the middle of questioning. “What are you drinking in there?” She could see he had a glass of something dark perched on his stand. “Let’s get a glass of water for her,” he instructed the bailiff. He was benevolent. After a few more attempts at her testimony, the judge closed proceedings until the following day. 
The Clancy trial jury was never isolated from the outside world. Sequestering is rare in Massachusetts anyway, but according to state <a href="https://www.mass.gov/info-details/learn-about-jury-selection">law</a>, all jury members are instructed to avoid “news in the newspaper, on TV, or on the radio, doing research on the case,” and “sharing information about the case with anyone.” But since they go home to their families, friends, and social media feeds every night, it seems impossible to filter the trial of the summer strictly through evidence introduced in court. 
“If they have a strong opinion either way, you would hope that they’re not easily swayed just because the majority is against them,” Hall advises. Jurors are supposed to stick to the law as it’s given and follow the jury instructions from the judge, “not personal feelings, bias, or something they’ve seen outside of the courtroom.”
“You want them to take the time to make the right decision, not feel rushed to make a choice.”
During deliberation for my jury, there were no votes taken and no lively discussion. Someone brought homemade cookies one day, taking the edge off the thick binder of evidence. Most of us were just doing our time. We asked questions of the prosecution and defense. We really needed the account of a third friend who had been there that night, someone we would find out later was lost in the Los Angeles prison system. 
Then of course, we had our red-haired aspiring murderer. Along with her, another juror — not the one who had been stabbed during a mugging, another guy — claimed he got into a fight one time with a girlfriend who had, in fact, pulled a knife on him and tried to stab him, so he identified with the energy of the defendant. Also known as murdering.
I made a mental note that 75% of Los Angeles thinks it’s okay to use knives to get their point across. Maybe this was exactly what it means to have a “jury of your peers.”
After the judge declared a mistrial, we were released back into the wild of normal life. The defense attorney met with us in the hallway to ask what we thought of our first murder case. Based on the evidence, she said she would have found her client guilty of manslaughter. That’s what most of us had decided, too. Oh well.
I walked out of the courthouse feeling like I wasted my time not doing anyone justice. Worse, we extended the torture for everyone involved in the case. Especially the victim’s family. The defendant went back to prison where he’d await a completely new trial with a re-cast jury. Whatever ragtag group of annoyed civilians they can possibly assemble.
I hoped serving on a murder trial would exempt me from jury duty for life. A year later, I got the postcard: “You are ordered by the Superior Court of Los Angeles to appear for service as a trial juror.” If you’re wondering, “I was on a hung jury” is a great way to get out of doing your civic duty.
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This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

I Served On A Murder Jury. What Happened Behind Closed Doors Terrified Me.

Crime

Lindsey Clancy

You don’t have to worry about a future where AI takes over your job, your privacy, and your independent thought. Because it’s already here. But the good news? AI could be the greatest thing to ever happen to us. 
Artificial intelligence is evolving faster than the speed of light. But with <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx">seven out of 10 Americans</a> in opposition to the construction of AI data centers, morale isn’t exactly through the roof. Neighborhood nuclear power plants currently show more favorability. 
Still, if AI feels like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3dUOmpOPKU">Godzilla</a> steamrolling innocent civilians and sending them running for their lives, a broader perspective lends a little more “<a href="https://youtu.be/hO-QaoMdLlU?t=98">Sandlot</a>” energy to the conversation — at least the part where the kids finally discover that the vicious neighborhood dog is actually friendly.
Luckily, we’ve got a billionaire “tech bro” on our side: entrepreneur and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, who sat down with The Daily Wire to shed some light on the situation.
“It was a very slow news week in the country because I was on the cover of both The Washington Post and The New York Times,” he joked last week. He was, though.
Along with a host of tech companies he launched to advance defense, wealth management, and healthcare — and the Jewish elementary school and University of Austin he built from the ground up — he’s the founder of AI software company Palantir and the investment firm 8VC. He’s worth over <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/joe-lonsdale/">$3 billion</a> … give or take a few hundred mil. He’s talented, principled, and — because he genuinely cares about our country along with his family — he takes some of the wind out of AI doomers’ sails.
While other billionaires might back civil unrest or frankenfoods, Lonsdale champions everyday Americans. “Growing up, we studied the founders of the country,” he says. “We learned to be grateful for those who came before us and who fought and died to give us that inheritance. We have to fight for our family and our friends in our community and for our country. I&#8217;m very lucky to have been born with a lot of talents and been taught to work hard. I&#8217;m able to build and create a lot of things, but I&#8217;m doing it within that framework.”
He understands why we freak out when we think of AI (or, maybe when AI thinks for us). But he pushes back on the narrative that AI is doing more damage than good.
“Our civilization has been through this multiple times before,” he says. “There&#8217;s a lot of stuff that seems very weird about it, because it&#8217;s going to change a fundamental way that our world works.”
“It&#8217;s normal to be anxious. On top of that, you have very visible characters in Silicon Valley who have been tied to things people don&#8217;t trust. If you&#8217;re on the right, I think you very correctly don&#8217;t trust these big tech platforms. They&#8217;ve been censoring everyone. Frankly, I understand the distrust on the left as well. Historically, the left doesn&#8217;t trust big companies that are out for a profit.”
“You also have these very unsympathetic characters in charge of the AI labs, who are excitedly talking about how everything changes.” Lonsdale is Jewish, but he points to the lack of ethical grounding in our country&#8217;s Christian roots. “I have a great respect for Christianity … and these people are not rooted in these traditional systems. They don&#8217;t come from a respect for how our world works. There’s wisdom in conservatism.”
So, is that a red flag? Lonsdale acknowledges there are definitely ways “bad guys can use these things.” He admits, “AI is a potentially authoritarian technology in the wrong hands. I think the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] using AI to watch and track all the data on all its people is terrifying, right? I think checking government power, watching the watchers, putting in systems, then demanding full accountability for how any AI is being used by government is absolutely critical.”
But just because we witness abuse of power in government, that doesn’t mean we should then forfeit the benefits of this type of innovation. It’s checks and balances, not checking out.
“The right answer is not this low IQ, lowbrow rejection of everything,” Lonsdale explains. “What is a way to hold government accountable? What’s the way to make it transparent? What&#8217;s the way to audit it in ways that they cannot get out of? The answer is not to just embrace the room temperature IQ apocalypse — that doesn&#8217;t have any nuance. If you only have low IQ populism, they’re eventually going to use some of these systems and there&#8217;s going to be nothing put in place to protect ourselves. I&#8217;m all for skepticism of government, but it has to be done in a smart way.” 
If AI can be corralled into submitting for the good of the people, the next frontier promises enormous returns for Americans. And you don’t have to bet on the tech to reap the benefits.  
“Until about the last generation, America was way ahead of the world,” Lonsdale notes. “Look at power generation and transmission and industrial output. These things just go up and up and up and up dramatically for generations, and then they stall out over the last 30, 40, 50 years. Thanks to AI and the incentives, it&#8217;s now starting to grow again.”
“This is a very good thing overall, because what this correlates with, is making everything cheaper for everyone. If you have a world where there&#8217;s a lot more power, there&#8217;s a lot more production, and it&#8217;s cheaper to do it, so it brings down the cost of everything … 2030 should be a decade where the price of healthcare goes down. The price of everything goes down a lot.”
“One of the best things you could do for the average person is make everyone richer,” Lonsdale adds. “It&#8217;s going to create a massive amount of wealth.” 
There’s also the global economy to think about. According to Lonsdale, the key to a strong market as well as national security involves outpacing the other guys — especially with AI.
“We don&#8217;t want other people in the world to be way ahead of us on this kind of stuff because that would be very dangerous for America,” he says. “You don&#8217;t want to lose the industrial race. You don&#8217;t want a weak country. America&#8217;s in a great place right now. We are number one in the world with this stuff. We just have to do it in a way that is a little bit less creepy for people and checks government power, but we don&#8217;t want to give up this lead.”
I like the sound of my paycheck going further for much better services. But AI probably knows that already. I recently switched ChatGPT’s voice from an elite-sounding British woman to one that feels more like a friend. I promise myself it’s just a tool, that it’s not doing my thinking for me. The lines are getting blurrier by the minute.
As for the monster-sized appetite AI data centers allegedly have for water and energy (and the legitimate noise and industrial-chic aesthetic), I asked Lonsdale point-blank what we should really be worried about. The energy thing is a concern. The water? Not so much.
“I think Vivek Ramaswamy said it really well — that it has to be done in a way that helps everyone around it,” Lonsdale says. “Of course, they use a lot of energy. If you&#8217;re going to build a data center, you’ve got to bring your own darn energy.”
As for the water consumption, better bring your putter. “The water thing is not real. I think golf courses — by the way, I love golf — probably use a lot more water. No one&#8217;s protesting about all these dang golfers, you know? New data centers recycle their own water for 10 years. I mean, the water thing&#8217;s just a fake issue.”
Data centers are, of course, notorious for sound pollution. But Lonsdale advocates for further protections on top of current zoning regulations; for building in a way that lowers property taxes and power bills, sources community power from data centers themselves, and locates facilities far enough from neighborhoods that noise isn’t a daily concern.
“This whole demonization of it is, obviously, China spending a lot of money on TikTok. And frankly, there&#8217;s the populace who have other reasons not to trust people. But we should deal with those reasons,” Lonsdale advises. “In order to solve problems in our country and do something that&#8217;s useful, you have to go against the grain. It requires courage.” 
These are the growing pains of building out our future, whether we’re totally on board or not. “Let me know if you need anything else,” Sol, my “savvy and relaxed” ChatGPT voice, tells me. “Thanks,” I say, hoping one day we all look back on this as the life-changing innovation we needed it to be.

GettyImages-2290868435

How The Technology Americans Fear Could Make Them Richer

joe lonsdale

Bright Side: This One’s For The Queen Of Country Music

bright side

Dolly Parton

There’s a reason every Dolly Parton song feels like it finds a home in the deepest part of your soul. Writing from her heart, she set out to make a career in music. Instead, she changed the world, and she did it by always being herself.
“I never do anything that I don’t pray about,” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/1296816105625461">Dolly</a> said. “I always ask God to … guide me to do things that would glorify him and to uplift mankind. That’s my mission.” 
Whether she was playing the sassy Doralee Rhodes in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbxUSsFXYo4&amp;list=RDUbxUSsFXYo4&amp;start_radio=1">9 to 5</a>” and threatening to turn a coworker “<a href="https://youtu.be/TxmtoGBeO7c?t=40">from a rooster to a hen with one shot</a>,” dishing the recipe on her cuppa cuppa cake in “<a href="https://youtu.be/2m66fBLU_fk?t=9">Steel Magnolias</a>,” belting out “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKsQR72HY0s">I Will Always Love You</a>,” or crooning over that woman “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixrje2rXLMA">Jolene</a>,” Dolly felt like one of us. Because she was. 
The fact that she could look like she did — and still relate to anyone — is the key to her magic. “My boobs are fake, my hair’s fake but what is real is my voice and my heart,” <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/glastonbury/10937329/Dolly-Parton-my-boobs-are-fake-but-my-voice-is-real-I-did-not-mime-at-Glastonbury.html">she famously said</a>. She was so wholesomely over-the-top, we couldn’t resist falling in love.
Dolly wrote more than 3,000 songs during her lifetime — if anyone was counting. “I started playing guitar when I was seven years old, and I’ve been writing serious songs ever since,” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=451630247761543">she said</a>. “I’ve got songs stuck everywhere. I pull out a drawer to get some panties … I’ll find a song in there.” 
There’s no way to know whether she recorded them all. But from the sound of it, maybe Dolly’s run isn’t entirely over. Even her upcoming Broadway show “<a href="https://www.broadway.com/buzz/207095/dolly-partons-story-comes-to-broadway-in-dolly-a-true-original-musicaltickets-are-now-on-sale/?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=22855272851&amp;gbraid=0AAAAAD-mnJvvCyaC85cYMwQvxFiqDTotT&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjw-rTUBhAiEiwADv8gBOAMeDbME-tns0_UsSpsNTtvDBNBTip_Tgd1kKi3Iu7H5nLI7IwVGBoCE4sQAvD_BwE">DOLLY: A True Original Musical</a>” will feature new songs. Now, it looks like opening night will have to honor what would have been her 81st birthday on January 19, 2027.
You can be sure Dolly fans are gonna get through this; we have Dolly to sing all the sad songs with us. 
Along with the legendary music catalog that earned her 11 Grammys, 10 Country Music Awards, four American Music Awards, and induction into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Songwriters halls of fame, Dolly graced the silver screen in over 12 theatrical releases, starring alongside Sylvester Stallone, Burt Reynolds, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda — in addition to her countless made-for-TV heart-warmers. 
Dolly also left her footprint behind the scenes, elevating scores of other artists’ careers. Whitney Houston leveraged Dolly’s timeless songwriting for her version of “I Will Always Love You” for the film “The Bodyguard.” And as godmother to Miley Cyrus, Dolly championed the up-and-comer by appearing in “Hannah Montana” and supporting her entry into music. 
There will never be another queen of country music. After rising from poverty to stardom living a real-life American dream, Dolly cemented her legacy over her 70-year career by paying it back to everyone she met.
Once Dolly bought <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thetasteofcountry/posts/on-this-day-in-1986-dollywood-opened-its-doors-for-the-very-first-timeparton-bou/953403557451413/">Silver Dollar City</a> in the late 1980s, the grounds were officially reopened as Dollywood. Dotted with Dolly’s signature butterflies — and regularly beating out other parks such as <a href="https://media.mypigeonforge.com/tripadvisor-users-recognize-dollywood-as-top-u-s-theme-park-2/">Disney</a>, Universal, and Legoland as a crowd favorite — the theme park continues to delight families by celebrating the bluegrass and Southern food of the Appalachians.
This was the stuff Dolly knew best. Her earliest years were spent in a one-bedroom rural Tennessee cabin in the 1940s, as the fourth-eldest of 12 children. At age six she was singing in church, and by the time she turned 13, she had co-written her first song and was introduced by Johnny Cash to perform on stage at the Grand Ole Opry. She got three encores.
&#8220;As I heard the band play my introduction, I lifted my head and looked up toward the lights,” <a href="https://dollyparton.com/life-and-career/awards_milestones/grand-ole-opry-performance-1959">Dolly</a> remembered. “I smiled at the people in the balcony and then let ‘er rip.&#8221;
After building an extraordinarily successful career, Dolly funneled a large part of her wealth back into the community, aiming to empower education through her <a href="https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-honors-dolly-parton-friend-education-award">Dollywood Foundation</a>. Her Buddy Program initiative slashed school dropout rates in her hometown of Sevier County, Tennessee, by giving “$500 to every seventh and eighth-grader who finished high school.” The buddy part involved two students pledging to get each other across the line. 
Dolly understood the power of bringing people together, whether they liked it or not. She largely flew above political discourse, preferring to stay out of the fray. All three times she was offered the greatest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom (twice from President Donald Trump, once from President Joe Biden), she declined in case it was perceived as a political choice. 
“I don&#8217;t work for those awards. It&#8217;d be nice, but I&#8217;m not sure that I even deserve it. But that&#8217;s a nice compliment for people to think that I might deserve it,&#8221; <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/dolly-parton-donald-trump-comments-president-praises-her-12366516">she said</a>.
As the nation lowered its flags to <a href="https://x.com/yashar/status/2092320365318230336?s=46">half-staff</a> in honor of the legendary star, loved ones shared Dolly’s <a href="https://youtu.be/9govup-IG3c?t=109">final wish</a> to “rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable.” It was one last playful quip from the woman famous for joking, “It takes a lot of time and money to look this cheap, honey.” 
She was light, she was love, she was country music. We’ll miss you, Dolly. “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nttKdCfEpkk">Always, Always</a>.”
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

How Dolly Parton Conquered America

It seems that modeling a dating app after a beehive wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Instead of feeling empowered to call the shots by making the first move, women really just wanted to be chosen. 
Popular for dating and social networking, the Bumble app dropped its game-changing rule that only the ladies could make the first contact with a potential match. Now, guys can also make the first move — like nature intended. Or, at least the way <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/11/bumble-ditches-its-rule-that-kept-men-from-making-the-first-move/">66% of women</a> surveyed by Bumble said they like it best. 
“Example #2,746,355 of women preferring traditional gender based roles,” someone posted to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Bumble/comments/1vljedo/comment/p32g5vt/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">Reddit</a>.
As former Tinder co-founder and Bumble founder and CEO <a href="https://youtu.be/Y5JdvWmPH3s">Whitney Wolfe Herd</a> said, “You cannot ask people what they want for the next great innovation. You have to see it before they do. You have to feel it before they do.” Bumble&#8217;s unique concept worked well enough to grow the company to <a href="https://femfounded.org/case-studies/bumble/">$13 billion</a> at its peak. But as singles <a href="https://www.npr.org/2026/08/23/nx-s1-5938103/have-dating-apps-lost-their-luster-data-shows-a-decline-in-users">burn out</a> on internet dating as a whole, apps are pivoting to keep users swiping.
Along with lengthening the window for replies from 24 to 72 hours before messages disappear forever, Bumble alerted users that it was shaking up the policy that made it stand out in the first place. Well, that, and all the yellow. It was all intended to help women control their Bumble-sphere and filter out the weirdos. But with over half of users saying they’d rather choose who initiates a convo, the buzzy strategy went bust. 
&#8220;While women making the first move was a radical idea, being women-first was never about prescribing just one way to connect. It was about designing an experience with women&#8217;s needs in mind to create better outcomes for everyone,&#8221; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2026/08/13/bumble-dating-app-drastic-change/91285450007/">Wolfe Herd</a> said in a statement on August 11. &#8220;Today, our community is asking for more flexibility, less pressure, and more opportunities to create real, meaningful connections and that is what this new experience provides.&#8221;
The brand immediately lost that “it” factor now that it’s so similar to every other dating app, and people are calling it “<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Bumble/comments/1vljedo/comment/p31q66s/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">Yellow Tinder</a>.” But it seems like an inevitable sign of the times. Even if they originally wanted to take the wheel in relationships (because of fewer unsolicited eggplant pics), women got tired of doing all the driving. 
“Dating apps demand significant effort from users seeking connections … creating appealing profiles, writing compelling messages, and balancing these tasks with daily responsibilities — all while algorithmic systems capture these interactions for corporate profit,” a study by University of Tacoma associate professor <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211695825000467?via%3Dihub">Dr. Riki Thompson</a> showed. “On Bumble, these challenges intensify for women through time constraints that fundamentally shape modern dating behavior.”
The ladies were no longer feeling it. And neither were the guys who stuck around long enough to be invited to interact.
Things initially started to change a decade after Bumble’s launch when, in 2024, the platform pulled a switcheroo with its <a href="https://fortune.com/2024/05/01/bumble-changes-dating-app-women-make-first-opening-move/">Opening Moves</a> initiative, allowing guys to respond to a prompt on a woman’s profile before she knew he existed. Still, the new policy doesn’t make too much of a difference if you’re familiar with how dating apps work. 
Twenty-eight-year-old <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/bumble-women-first-rule-change/">Emily Spence</a>, who’s been on Bumble for over a decade, says, “The requirement for women to message first didn’t really prevent creeps from messaging you. Just because you say ‘hey’ first doesn’t mean a man isn’t gonna send you something crazy after. It was kind of like a false sense of protection.”
There’s been plenty of backlash toward the app that made its name for “<a href="https://atxwoman.com/2016/04/01/whitney-wolfe/">bringing feminism to your phone</a>.” But even women who felt safer using the ladies-first platform still waited for guys to make a move. 
“I have another friend that claims to have given up on online dating yet also doesn&#8217;t bother to message guys on Bumble. To me that&#8217;s akin to using a pen with the cap on,” a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Bumble/comments/1vljedo/comment/p31vwu1/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">Redditor</a> noted. 
In tandem with the Bumble business model, the relationship brain rot hoisted upon young single women over the last decade was real. “I pity Venus de Milo,” a writer for <a href="https://coveteur.com/women-pursue-love-guide-art-of-chase">Coveteur</a> lamented in 2017. “She’s standing still like a hostage at the Louvre waiting for someone else to decide her fate. Like a woman waiting for a man to save her from a tragic ending.” 
The message was: Get off your booty, Aphrodite, and take the reins, you empowered boss! Manifest your man! The world is your oyster! Except that was also the same world in which the viral <a href="https://www.globalfundforwomen.org/movements/me-too/">#MeToo movement</a> essentially shut down the possibility of random eye contact in public without notarized consent. (And let&#8217;s be real, it also did nothing to stop all that Hollywood junk from continuing on without a hitch.) 
So, who exactly were these women supposed to go out there and get? The decent men being told they were the toxic patriarchy and nobody needed them? Those guys? Weird that it’s been so hard to meet good people. 
“I swear dating is such a Catch-22,” <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Bumble/comments/1vljedo/comment/p3215dt/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">another Redditor</a> posted. “Women say they don’t like being approached, but what they really mean is that they don’t want to be approached by somebody that they don’t find attractive. But for a guy the only way you’ll ever know if she finds you attractive or not is to ACTUALLY approach her. Yet she knows who she finds attractive, but doesn’t approach him and make the first move.”
So are apps like Bumble doomed to fail? Or is it an undeniable primal instinct for most women to want to be chosen — and for men to do the deciding, at least at first? 
We’re at a point where most people are cool with <a href="https://verilymag.com/relationships/what-guys-think-of-girls-making-the-first-move/">anyone making the first move</a>, as long as there’s a glimmer of a green light. But a man who offers to buy a woman a drink, for example, expresses everything with a single gesture: confidence, safety, readiness, initiative, and assertiveness. Done with finesse at the risk of getting denied? Hot. 
“In evolutionary terms and in everyday markets of attention, that matters because people prefer partners who seem able to face life, not just talk about it,” <a href="https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-psychology-behind-why-men-usually-make-the-first-move-when-dating-women/">the Good Men Project</a> notes. “Men initiating can read as competence: ‘I will go get things started,’ the behavior says. That’s attractive to people who value decisiveness and clarity.”
With <a href="https://www.forbes.com/health/dating/dating-statistics/">80 million</a> people navigating online dating, stats show <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/who-asked-whom-does-it-matter-who-makes-the-first-move-in-a-relationship?utm=">men are happier than women</a> in relationships where each respectively asked for the first date. The heart wants what the heart wants. And it wants him to man up and invite her out to dinner. Coffee. Whatever.
Whether it happens online or in real life, we’re meant to be in strong relationships with each other, not swimming around solo in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-most-dangerous-thing-ai-may-replace-isnt-your-job">pool of AI bots</a>. As Bumble partner and happiness professor <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelburchfield/2026/01/29/bumble-announces-research-backed-partnership-to-help-users-fall-and-stay-in-love/">Arthur Brooks</a> explains, “Decades of research show that close, committed relationships are among the strongest predictors of long term happiness and health. Humans are wired for connection, but when modern dating stays confined to the digital realm — when matches don’t translate into meaningful, in person relationships — it can erode emotional well-being over time.”
Maybe we’re all just over the wash, rinse, repeat of hoping for “the one” in a system designed for failure; one more match is two fewer paying subscribers. But for anyone still on Team Bumble, there may be a chance. Of course, it’s best to be realistic about that knight in shining armor — or the objectively hot Forbes 30 Under 30 guy in the quarter-zip. 
Business manager and Bumble user <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/bumble-women-first-rule-change/">Stefanie Feldman</a> says, “I like that it takes off the pressure. Sometimes I just want the men to do the work. I’ve never considered myself a feminist. I want to be pursued. And just because someone reaches out to you doesn’t mean you have to say anything. So that is a feminine power in itself, learning to say no.”
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

This Dating App Just Gave Women What They Really Want

Dating

Internet

Technology

Remember when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle thought they could alight upon California and trick us into treating them like America’s most sympathetic Brit-ish royals? Well, it seems the stateside jig is up as the hucksters move on to plan B. 
After dragging the British monarchy through the mud and fleeing the U.K. for Montecito in 2020, Harry and Meghan plan this fall to schlep it back across the pond. Yep, to the place where Meghan <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/07/world/meghan-markle-suicidal-thoughts.html">once claimed</a> the press treated her with such brutality, she “didn’t want to be alive anymore.” To the father Harry said was cold and distant, and the brother he alleged called Meghan “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64179164">rude</a>” and “abrasive.” Meghan even summoned crocodile tears to tell Oprah the royals were <a href="https://time.com/5944613/meghan-markle-oprah-racism/">racists</a>. 
Why would they voluntarily jump back into all of that? Well, maybe everyone stopped believing their lies.
The couple plan to enroll their children, 7-year-old Archie and 5-year-old Lilibet at a U.K. school this September. Since they already regifted their official Frogmore Cottage back to the late queen, they’ll remain royal-adjacent in an off-campus residence.
We’re supposed to believe this is a moving story of a broken family on the mend, the return of Britain’s <a href="https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/55269-royal-family-favourability-trackers-july-2026">former favorite royal</a> (Harry) into the Commonwealth’s open arms. It’s so epic, it could almost be a movie. What a coincidence that <a href="https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/55269-royal-family-favourability-trackers-july-2026">Netflix</a> cameras may be on hand to capture it.
This all came about after Harry and Meghan popped in to see the king in July for a shockingly headline-free visit. King Charles, who is still receiving<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80n48kg0vjo"> treatment for cancer</a>, seems to have the most empathy toward Harry’s plans to return for good. Somewhere in Windsor Castle, the queen is rolling over in her grave.
So is this the part where Harry and Meghan finally admit that clawing for clout effectively destroyed every close relationship in their lives? Meghan may have been fine going no-contact with her dad, siblings, former castmates, ex-husband, and friends to rise to the top. But Harry — who once lamented “<a href="https://pagesix.com/2022/08/29/prince-harry-lost-dad-prince-charles-meghan-markle-says/">I lost my dad in this process</a>” after leaving the royal family — was never that cold at heart. As his birthright slipped through his fingers, so did his identity.
Meghan and Harry have spent the better part of their decade-long relationship cashing in on their supposed hardships. They’ve complained ad nauseam about the British tabloid press, filing lawsuit upon lawsuit in a litigious quest to protect their eternally encroached-upon space. It was such a blatant ruse “South Park” even dragged the pair’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N8_5LDkZwY">worldwide privacy tour</a>.” While Meghan <a href="https://abcnews.com/GMA/Culture/duchess-meghan-embroiled-tabloid-lawsuit/story?id=72075500">won a copyright claim in 2021</a> against a tabloid that published a private letter to her dad, subsequent courts have been less sympathetic. Harry just lost an “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/prince-harry-lawsuit-daily-mail-elton-81f7450c6419cbbd5a2b573217cf5ab1">invasion of privacy case</a>” against Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper and will be forced, along with other plaintiffs including Elton John, to reimburse legal fees to the tune of $13 million, at least. 
It’s a marker of a changing era. One that’s shifting toward offering obvious grifters a lot less clout. Maybe most of us have exhausted ourselves with our own toxic empathy.
We were just beginning to enter the chaos of 2020 when the Sussexes first launched their American invasion that March. As the pandemic’s chokehold opened the door for the riots of Black Lives Matter, Meghan — a biracial quasi princess — made her move. 
On Oprah’s prime time special, Meghan revealed “concerns and conversations about how dark [Archie’s] skin might be when he was born.” The world gasped at the alleged gall of the perpetrators who, according to Omid Scobie’s book “Endgame,” were rumored to be King Charles and Princess Catherine.  
But by 2026, Oprah would awkwardly <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DbEQGlNqoDL/">distance herself</a> from the marquee exclusive, like it was a random interview with nobody important that she did way back when. Does Oprah not believe Harry and Meghan’s claims anymore? Does anyone? Did we ever? 
After years of virtue signaling, the couple seems to have done the most damage to themselves. Never mind their own children who appear as obscured pint-sized accessories on their parents’ social media.
Archie and Lilibet have reportedly never met their cousins: William and Catherine’s kids George, Charlotte, and Louis. Reports blame the distance between California and Kensington Palace, but the real gap seems to be interpersonal. Harry’s practically estranged from his brother who will one day be the King of England. Since Meghan took a hacksaw to her own immediate family, so to speak, the couple has no one left but themselves. Not even the celebrities they once called friends view them as being essential to elite society.
Where did it really go wrong? Well, Meghan’s name is literally written all over it. From the portmanteau “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megxit">Megxit</a>” that followed the couple as they left the royal family to the colloquialism “<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/SaintMeghanMarkle/comments/1vpp6vx/the_midas_touch_but_for_failure/">Markled</a>” — or “the Midas touch but for failure” — it seems Harry may have been the limp noodle she needed to siphon that royal cash. 
The plan worked until the hose got kinked and the <a href="https://pagesix.com/2026/05/13/royal-family/breadwinner-meghan-markle-may-take-drastic-action-to-pay-her-prince-harrys-huge-bills/">$6 million</a> they needed to fund their lives stopped rushing in. Meghan didn’t transform into the star she always dreamed of, and the couple was seen at events together less often. Royal biographer “Lady C” Colin Campbell even told “<a href="https://youtu.be/PbVQbkvDE3Q?t=3642">The Nerve With Maureen Callahan</a>,” “People with official links at governmental level in the United States contact me to tell me that Harry is in love with another woman (of his age), who is also in love with him.”
Beyond the stress on the marriage, there’s the issue of proximity to the throne. With the possibility of King Charles abdicating to Prince William at any moment, royal commentators speculate that William may strip Harry and Meghan of <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/2240347/prince-william-bombshell-plan-blow-sussexes">their royal titles</a> — and cut them off from the royal family for good.
If they’re no longer duke and duchess, who are they? Harry was born into the monarchy, but Meghan — who went from rags to riches (or “Deal or No Deal” to a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/18/the-royal-wedding-may-cost-43-million-and-94-percent-of-that-is-for-security.html">$43 million</a> royal wedding) — blew her chance to become just as beloved as Kate, or even Diana. She’s clearly “Single White Female”-ing both. 
Even if they’re headed back into the family fold, it’s unclear whether the British public will welcome Harry and Meghan with open arms. One <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000011103379/londoners-react-harry-meghan-uk-return.html">Londoner</a> said, “I’m not especially happy about it because they trashed the whole country numerous times, betrayed their family, betrayed his king, his father.”
Another noted, “If [Harry] wants to try and build his royal side back up again, I think he would be welcome. He would be welcome.”
Someone else wondered if it’ll just be the same routine in a different country, posting to <a href="https://x.com/QLoTII/status/2090265990877557123?s=20">X</a>: “Harry &amp; Meghan spent years branding the royals ‘toxic,’ fled to Hollywood for ‘freedom,’ then cashed in on every sob story imaginable … only to now crawl back like the firm’s the only place left that still answers their calls. Sussex Squad and Black people who bought the whole ‘racist royals’ act just got played harder than a Netflix special. The Sussexes’ independence lasted about as long as their relevance. Welcome home — your ‘victim’ narrative just got a royal reboot.”
Over on this side of the pond, the vibe is a little more rock and roll. As <a href="https://x.com/MeghanMcCain/status/2090191179874767065?s=20">Meghan McCain</a> posted on X: “One thing about Americans is we can see through bullsh*t and we don’t like entitled grifters. They could never hack it here and truly no one gives a sh*t about d-list royals. Good luck to our friends in the UK, they’re your problem now.”
Still others hope they finally find what they’ve been looking for: home. As <a href="https://youtu.be/Rha8OGXZpso?t=67">one Brit</a> shared, “It’s good to welcome people with open arms, no matter where they are and what their journey is like. You don’t know what they had to go through.” 
Yet, we know what we’ve gone through, and when it comes to these two, it’s “no deal.” Bon voyage, Harry and Meghan. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

Prince Harry And Meghan Markle’s Con Was Never Going To Last Forever

Meghan Markle

Prince Harry

Weekend Plans is our exclusive lifestyle feature where we highlight the real off-duty routines of the most exciting people in culture. 
This weekend, Emmy-nominated fitness entrepreneur Jillian Michaels sits down with The Daily Wire to chat about … well, everything. After becoming a household name as a ball-busting trainer on “The Biggest Loser,” she gained a stronghold in the wellness space with hit workout DVDs like “30 Day Shred.” Now, the New York Times-bestselling author and mother of two stirs the pot with her award-winning podcast “<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/keeping-it-real-conversations-with-jillian-michaels/id418368811">Keeping It Real</a>.” Here’s why she’s essential to the conversation around health and how she’s inspiring everyone else to live their best lives, too.
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I’ve always been a little bit scared of Jillian Michaels. Her abs could probably cut diamonds, and, as <a href="https://youtu.be/8fX6lTCIpHo?t=196">she said</a> on her hit TV show, she’s “yelled and screamed bloody murder at every contestant that has walked in these doors.” (Did you see the Netflix doc about it? She didn’t even have to appear in it to be portrayed as the evil villain.) I was mentally prepared to hit the floor and do push-ups during our conversation. 
But this is Jillian 2.0. Slightly less ferocious. Now, she’s busting pseudoscience to reveal the real story on health. How could I not be obsessed with someone so dedicated to perfect strangers’ wellbeing that she risks death threats in order to do it?
An advocate for fitness ever since she turned her own life around as a teen (she weighed <a href="https://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/a25460322/jillian-michaels-weight-loss-success-story/">170 pounds at age 13</a> before martial arts led to a shift in mindset), Jillian has recently entered alternative media as a truth-teller on topics ranging from the hormonal damage of “gender-affirming care” to what MAHA should really be doing for our food. She’s a wildcard in the space. But she’s on a mission.
“There&#8217;s strength in numbers. You can&#8217;t let people die out on the vine alone,” she tells me. “You have to join the fight. It&#8217;s going to take a lot of people to defeat this radical ideology that&#8217;s infiltrated every part of our culture, including health and wellness.” 
This was her gateway. Already the face of transformative fitness, Jillian couldn’t stay silent when junk theory started encroaching on her territory. Earlier this year, she skillfully debated a roomful of body-positive activists on an episode of Jubilee’s “Surrounded.” The construct of the show — that debaters have to race to a single seat like musical chairs in order to have a conversation with the expert guest — created unintentional comedy, considering the crowd. GLP-1s have bumped body positivity out of the headlines, but every minute of that debate was pure entertainment.
“I&#8217;m actually not a debater,” Jillian says. “I&#8217;m a conversationalist. I want to understand. Even when I can&#8217;t convince the person I&#8217;m engaged with to adopt my point of view or some of my differing perspectives, you&#8217;re engaged in that conversation for the viewer whose mind and heart are still up for grabs.” 
I ask if “Biggest Loser” could ever make a comeback. She mentions a “Jillian versus GLP-1” style series that was in the works but never got the green light. “I would put on the tights again to take that on. They paid a hell of a lot of money to hold me for a year to mull it over and mull it over and mull it over … They didn&#8217;t have the guts to do it,” she says. (For the record, I would have watched that.)
“Big Pharma is pushing the fact that everybody needs to be on GLP-1s so that they can benefit from the halo effect of these medications, whether you&#8217;re larger or not,&#8221; she says. &#8220;It&#8217;s actually staggering the way they try to sell this as a panacea for every medical condition under the sun.”
She notes body-positive celebrities who abandoned the life-affirming joy of being overweight “to become anorexically thin.” Maybe you’ve noticed it too. Instead of pushing drugs, Jillian is determined to inspire others to go off-label with hard work, dedication, and never giving up.
New digs in the Cowboy State
Jillian’s a native Southern California gal, but her Western-style denim button-down tells me she’s spending less time in the Golden State. “I actually am a resident of Wyoming right now,” she says. Like other critical thinkers, she was essentially booted out of her native land.
“It is so sad,” she confesses. “You know, this woke ideology infiltrated my area of expertise, but it also ruined my home, and it was that one-two punch that pushed me into this arena … Wyoming is beautiful. People are awesome. The state is red, thank God, and it&#8217;s close enough to LA so that I can get in and out quickly and conveniently.”
One of Jillian’s superpowers appears to be creating a full life for her family, no matter where home may be. But now that her son is getting older, the days are getting sunnier by the minute. 
“I have been liberated. I have a whole new life. Let me just tell you how happy I am,” Jillian laughs. “I have a 16-year-old who has just gotten a car. Oh my God, I’m free as a bird. My life has changed, Lauren. I am a new woman. I was getting up at the crack of dawn to take these little rugrats to soccer and school and baseball and dance and tennis. Now I&#8217;m like, ‘Bye-bye!’ I am happily sleeping until about eight in the morning.”
While she occasionally gets up in the middle of the night with the family’s newly adopted puppy — &#8220;Dude, it&#8217;s like having a newborn,” she says — Jillian usually starts her day the old school way: with coffee. 
“There&#8217;s a caveat,” she warns me. “It&#8217;s organic coffee, and I don&#8217;t care how elitist that may sound. The reason is simply because it&#8217;s one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world, with pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, and when you understand what that stuff is, you&#8217;ll invest in organic coffee. Instead of going to Starbucks, you can buy a bag of organic coffee with some unbleached filters, and you&#8217;ll end up saving a fortune and imbibing organic coffee. A win-win — and no more than 400 milligrams a day, or the equivalent of two strong cups.” 
Cooking up a storm
Jillian’s happy to dish out nutrition advice, but she’s not offering up any cooking tips. When I ask who the chef in the family might be, she says, “It’s not me. I have a little junior chef in the house. My daughter is just like me — she can&#8217;t even make a grilled cheese. But the boy child, he&#8217;s quite culinary. We did get him a smoker recently. He damn near lit the house on fire. It was like Chornobyl. He put the smoker next to the window outside, and the whole house filled up with smoke overnight.”
There can only be one meat worth saturating your material possessions with residual hickory. “Was it brisket?” I ask. “Yes, it was in fact a delicious brisket!” Jillian laughs. “I almost died, but the food was tremendous.”
Jillian says she limits herself to a couple of glasses of wine per week, but not because she’s scared about the latest research. “I don&#8217;t tolerate it as well as I did when I was younger. It&#8217;d be one thing if I could get away with it,” she explains. “If I had two drinks a night, a drink a night, and my body looked the same, my brain functioned the same, I felt the same. I wouldn&#8217;t think much of it.”
“A lot of doctors run around with their fear-mongering about alcohol. And I don&#8217;t think the studies truly reflect that. I&#8217;m of the ilk that if you don&#8217;t out-drink your metabolism, you&#8217;re going to be okay. When you&#8217;re drunk, your body can&#8217;t process it. So if I had a glass of wine every night, I would not be drunk. But I do notice a difference in my athletic performance the next day, in my cognitive function, my memory, my focus, my word recall.”
Anti-workout workout mogul
“I don&#8217;t really like fitness to begin with, and I never really have,” Jillian blurts out. I may have been in shock for the rest of our chat. Jillian hates working out? “It is a means to an end. You want to look good. You want to feel good. You want to do that as long as possible. That&#8217;s why I exercise.”
“I really am not the person who gets the endorphin rush,” she explains. “There&#8217;s never a moment where I&#8217;m going, ‘God, I love this.’ What I do love is, at my age, being able to keep up with my kids, right? Looking forward to picking up not just my grandchildren but my great-grandchildren. Being the kind of adult that makes my kids proud, that they aspire to emulate my healthy habits even though they often don&#8217;t, leading by example in my line of work — all those things mean something to me. I don&#8217;t enjoy the fitness part, so I go for efficiency. I do HIIT training a couple of times a week. I lift weights as often as I can.”  
I wonder if her proximity to the Rockies ever inspires an outdoorsy workout vibe. “My friends are like, ‘Want to go on a hike?’ I&#8217;m like, I&#8217;d rather be dead. I would rather stick needles in my eyes. But I&#8217;ll ride a snowboard. I&#8217;ll ride a mountain bike downhill. I will ride a horse. We have a UTV. I will get on a paddleboard. I love all that, but I don&#8217;t want to work for it. I don&#8217;t have that kind of time to be miserable,” she says.
Family in the balance
Jillian may have once appeared on TV as the world’s most terrifying fitness coach, but in real life, she’s always seeking balance. She’s raising her son Joaquin and daughter Lukensia to be mindful about nutrition — they are, of course, teenagers — and quality family time remains a priority. But Jillian’s line of work creates a dynamic that everyone’s had to accept.
“I can tell a funny story?” Jillian asks. It’s a tale her wife, DeShanna, has flipped into a comedic moment. It all started after Jillian’s contentious appearance on CNN’s “NewsNight with Abby Phillip” in 2025. “I question their narratives that all white people are evil and all of MAGA is racist, and confront them with the fact that you cannot lay all of the evils of humanity at the feet of just one race, and every race has, in fact, worn the chains and held the whip.” 
The following day, DeShanna, unaware of the news hit, was just shopping for groceries when her phone started blowing up. The first social media notification read “die, white b*tch.” DeShanna deleted it. Then the floodgates opened. Jillian cracks up remembering, “I get this call, and she&#8217;s like, ‘Honey, what are you doing in New York right now? Because I&#8217;ve gotten 800 death threats on my Instagram in the last three hours.’”
“The good news is the kids have learned how to be resilient, how to be strong,” she says. “They believe in the things that I&#8217;m fighting for, so they kind of take it on the chin and think of it as their own contribution.”  
The pro move for MAHA
I wonder what someone like Jillian thinks of MAHA since the food pyramid got flipped upside down. So I ask her to dish a little armchair policy.
“There&#8217;s only so much that we can do because the way the system is structured, it&#8217;s captured soup to nuts,” she says. “What these industries do — ag, food, pharma, insurance — is they wait out the administration, and then they change the rules right back. So what you would need is for Congress to get involved and start codifying laws.”
“We need government regulation,” Jillian says. Far from invoking a nanny state, she would love to see the government make lasting moves. “We&#8217;re talking about not allowing Big Ag to put poison all over your food. Poison that is linked to chemical warfare. Poison that is now conclusively causing non-Hodgkin lymphoma. We know this stuff. It&#8217;s not a mystery. Not only do we not prohibit it; we give them blanket immunity to continue doing it.”  
But instead of relying on government initiative, she sees us as a guerrilla army. “A true rebellion has to start with you,” she advises. “It&#8217;s going to require some sacrifice. But is your health worth working for? Are you worth giving up the pizza and the Chick-fil-A in order to spend 10 minutes making something quick and healthy at home? It&#8217;s going to require personal accountability to overcome this because we&#8217;re not getting the regulation that we need from the government.”
How to live forever during your lifetime
I’m not letting Jillian go without tapping into her expertise on longevity. As wellness trends toward sustainable routines, I ask Jillian to offer her best tips for health-maxxing. I’m convinced her insight will be complex, but I’m instantly enlightened.
“It&#8217;s actually the opposite of complicated,” she says. “People engage in all kinds of … biohacking activities. Some are helpful, some are harmless, some are dangerous, and all are secondary to eating a bit less food, using common sense with those food choices, moving your body as often as you can, and getting your sleep. Those are the big rocks. They&#8217;re 90% of the battle.”
“You&#8217;ve got people injecting themselves with peptides that they bought off the gray market with no idea what they&#8217;re doing and no idea what&#8217;s in the bottle, or taking a fitness class where they&#8217;re dehydrating the hell out of themselves, and then creating an electrolyte imbalance. They&#8217;re looking for a hack, and I get it. I do the same thing. But it needs to be the cherry on top of your sundae. The idea is to focus on the common sense, big picture, basic foundation, and you&#8217;re going to be great. Really.”

Upstream_Michaels

Weekend Plans With Fitness Icon Jillian Michaels

Jillian Michaels

weekend plans

Bright Side: Kiss Your Mama

Postpartum depression is getting its 15 minutes of fame. But this complicated disorder demands more than a glance when the stakes are life and death.
Following actor Hayden Panettiere’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/actress-hayden-panetierre-dead-at-36">death</a> on Sunday, reports of a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hayden-panettieres-story-shines-a-light-on-motherhoods-darkest-struggle">broken contract</a> with Neutrogena resurfaced, triggering new calls to boycott the skincare brand. Panettiere had claimed the skincare giant severed ties with her after she went public about her struggle with postpartum depression (PPD).
“There’s a lot of people out there who think that it’s not real, that it’s not true, that it’s something that’s made up in their mind,” Panettiere revealed on “<a href="https://youtu.be/Lpp0Lc1q3mA?t=507">Live With Kelly and Michael</a>” in 2015. She said she identified with her character Juliette Barnes’ postpartum depression storyline that aired on “Nashville” in season 3 the same year. 
“It’s really painful, and it’s really scary, and women need a lot of support. We do something that no man can do on this planet. We grow a human being in our bodies.” 
The live audience erupted in validating applause. Panettiere had just given birth to her daughter, <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-moms/news/inside-hayden-panettieres-relationship-with-daughter-kaya/">Kaya</a>, in December 2014. She would later relinquish custody to her ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko when the couple split in 2018, amid Panettiere’s battle with PPD and substance addiction.
Panettiere had been in a decade-long contract with Neutrogena that began when she was a teen. She recalled in her autobiography “<a href="https://www.aol.com/articles/biggest-bombshells-hayden-panettiere-book-110000000.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jaGF0Z3B0LmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAARj0SFg1y7CT9-kbKuO_O0lpS-t2eh2g1-Nv3WvS3xu-SqJcoIfOuhGPMWW9j6Cv9KOLAEnfsm5Q1-sM13sLMJ8H921orH6z3ZgBCOJteueiAFpwJBpvhX8HFBOcO1xhSNoOePGQoGplOyra7sta8KRRc4T981WZah8VkrL_s3X">This Is Me: A Reckoning</a>,” released in May, “My relationship with Neutrogena helped dictate every outfit I wore, every hair and makeup choice, and how I acted when I was out on the town. I never let the paparazzi see me holding a drink — underage Neutrogena girls didn’t do that — and while I didn’t force myself to dress modestly, I never showed too much skin.”
“They have morals clauses which had a huge impact on my life,” Panettiere told the “<a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/Xm6VxeD-ydU?si=XUBSxl0av-QHHqXc">On Purpose With Jay Shetty</a>” podcast on May 11. “I was a teenager, and I had all the paparazzi around me catching all these gory moments… every cigarette that I smoked or bad outfit… This was the last thing that I thought they would ever fire me over.” 
When the topic of PPD “just came up” on “Live,” Panettiere said she was “just being honest” about her experience and didn’t think twice about possible fallout regarding her brand deal. “I got that call that Neutrogena wanted to fire me over that, and my representative at the time said, ‘That’s illegal. You can’t do that.’” The brand ultimately ended her contract.
Panettiere didn’t show the receipts, but a morals clause is common in agreements between major brands and celebrity spokespeople. “This lets the company terminate the deal immediately if the spokesperson does something to sully their public image,” intellectual property attorney <a href="https://www.wnj.com/updates/morals-clauses-spokespeople-and-social-media/">Brian D. Wassom</a> explains. “[It] can put quite severe restrictions on the spokesperson&#8217;s behavior. But from the company&#8217;s perspective, it&#8217;s simply protecting their investment.”
For the record, Neutrogena seemingly had no trouble sullying its moral reputation when it partnered with trans-identifying influencer <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@neutrogena_us/video/7108023250201906478">Dylan Mulvaney</a> for a social media promo in 2022. Mulvaney declared his pronouns as “she/they” and proceeded to splash himself with water until mascara ran from his eyes, and his white cropped tank top got so wet it was nearly transparent. 
But, according to Panettiere, a candid discussion about the realities of actual women and motherhood was a bridge too far. Neutrogena’s parent company Kenvue did not respond to The Daily Wire&#8217;s request for comment. 
“I knew if I was gonna do this, I wanted to rip the Band-Aid off, and I wanted to be completely, brutally, painfully honest,” Panettiere told <a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/zFCn-I4SFoY?si=SWZWa-4m89M3VTlI">Us Weekly</a> at the time. “When I was honest about [postpartum depression] and came out, the repercussions were shocking and had such a negative impact on my life. But at the same time had such a positive impact on other people’s lives who had been through it. It’s one of those topics that has so much stigma around it.” 
Supporters of the late actor now claim they’re done with the beauty brand. Social posts read: “<a href="https://x.com/OscarJack65/status/2089322895772103088?s=20">I will never buy Neutrogena as long as I live</a>,” “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DcOXCknOZIO/">Every Neutrogena product in my house went in the trash</a>,” and “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DcJdDRNSB6n/">Neutrogena, you will BURN to the ground for what you did to Hayden</a>.”
Just over a decade after Panettiere first spoke out, PPD — a disorder that affects <a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9312-postpartum-depression">one in seven women</a> — remains a stain on the myth of the perfect mother. Caring for a newborn is a full-time job. And we’re over here acting like it’s no big thing to expect mom to fix breakfast, pack scratch-made lunches, bathe and dress a handful of young kids, prep dinner, gas up the car, post a viral #GetReadyWithMe on her socials, and make it to the office for a promotion-worthy presentation by 7 a.m.
Despite increasing cultural awareness of PPD, some still question its validity, preferring to brush it off as falling under the normal stress of a newborn or the reformation of a formerly selfish parent — not an actual clinical diagnosis. 
Accused killer Lindsay Clancy’s trial shed a blinding light on the brutal reality of what her defense claims is the much rarer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-terrible-truth-about-the-lindsay-clancy-case">postpartum psychosis</a>. Had she gotten the treatment and support she needed, perhaps her children could have lived to see their mother recover. 
Reproductive psychobiologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hI28SJIAAAAJ&amp;hl=en">Dr. Jen Hahn-Holbrook</a>, an assistant professor at the University of California, Merced, is one of the world’s leading experts on postpartum depression. And she says Panettiere’s history of trauma pointed to PPD from the jump.
“The postpartum period is a time when women are especially vulnerable to all mental health conditions actually — especially depression, but also anxiety and OCD,” she told The Daily Wire. “Basically, if you have any predispositions towards mental illness, it’s a perfect storm.”
“There are these huge transitions. You&#8217;ve got this giant hormone withdrawal, which does affect a lot of women in terms of their mood. And then on top of that, you have sleep disturbances. You&#8217;re up all night with a crying baby. And then you&#8217;ve got the relationship changes. You&#8217;ve got a brand new baby, someone to care for, and so many more responsibilities. You&#8217;re trying to juggle it all with a marriage … your whole life is just [one] giant upheaval.”
Her research suggests that global statistics lean more toward one in five women experiencing PPD, and that “80% of women report some type of mood disturbance,” or the kind of mild depression people refer to as “baby blues.” It can hit anyone at any income level, anywhere in the world.
She says of cases like Panettiere’s, “It is more common in people who don&#8217;t have a supportive partner. Obviously, if they have any mental health conditions, like drug use, addiction, anxiety, depression, a history of trauma… it just exacerbates any underlying vulnerabilities.” 
Board-certified OB-GYN <a href="https://aaplog.org/speakers-bureau/dr-christina-francis/">Dr. Christina Francis</a>, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), suggests that in order for the stigma around PPD to change, communities are responsible for pitching in to help new moms and taking the conversation on PPD out into the streets.
“One of the best things that we can do is have more of a public conversation about this,” she tells The Daily Wire. “So many women are told, ‘Oh, it&#8217;s just postpartum. It&#8217;s going to go away. It&#8217;s going to get better.’ What we need to be doing is allowing women&#8217;s voices to be heard and really discussing the support that women really need. I think research into women&#8217;s health in general tends to be underfunded, and I think more focus on non-pharmaceutical interventions could be done.”
“We do see that babies’ outcomes are worse if mom has untreated severe postpartum depression. So not only are we improving Mom&#8217;s life and her extended family&#8217;s life if we can get her through this and out of this, but we&#8217;re impacting her baby&#8217;s health as well.”
As for the best chance of postpartum success, the constant refrain is support. A new mother needs the support of people who know her and can recognize the changing signs of depression. Slight shifts could be as subtle as not responding to her baby’s cry. But Dr. Francis assures mothers that even with a solid support system in place, “This is not a failure on your part.”
“This is 100% addressable,&#8221; she says. &#8220;You reaching out and saying that you need help actually shows that you&#8217;re actively advocating for yourself and for your baby.” 
She also notes the relief in looking toward the light at the end of the tunnel. “This is going to be a limited, defined period of time in your life,” she says. “Even though it seems really overwhelming and really hard right now, and it is, know that there&#8217;s going to be an end to this. We are here to walk with you and get you through this until you get to that point where it gets better. Sometimes I think just knowing in our minds that there&#8217;s going to be an end is helpful.” 
Maybe Panettiere reignited a conversation we needed to have. In the pages of <a href="https://ew.com/hayden-panettiere-terrified-new-book-release-exclusive-11972447">her book</a>, she offered a gentle reminder: “All you want to know is that somebody else has gone through and survived what you&#8217;re going through.”
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Hayden Panettiere’s Story Shines A Light On Motherhood’s Darkest Struggle

Hayden Panettiere

neutrogena

postpartum depression

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was just outed for his love of Pop-Tarts. But in the MAHA era, we thought his go-to treat could use a makeover, so we made healthier “Pop-Tarts” in Rubio’s favorite flavors. 
After defending Pop-Tarts as “one of the great American innovations in the history of the world” on “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/24K4ReMN2sA?t=13&amp;feature=share">The Katie Miller Podcast</a>,” Rubio hit up <a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/2087694726619177031?s=46">X</a> to clear up fake news about anything other than his favorite flavor: cherry. 
But while we saw the tweets, we had to reach out for the deets. An admin source close to Rubio’s snack pantry told The Daily Wire: “Secretary Rubio’s favorite Pop-Tarts flavors are Cherry and Strawberry.” 
“I believe we have split the atom of breakfast,” Jerry Seinfeld’s character says about Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts in the movie “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lqRPUhPfho">Unfrosted</a>.” “We’re talking about happy childhoods for millions of American kids.” That’s pretty much what we’re doing over here, but with none of the processed stuff.
Yes, there are healthier toaster pastries on the market. But even if you’re cool with spending $5 per tart, they still often come with those pesky seed oils. Can we really do better than the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1L18vH8v5E">$1 billion breakfast icon</a>”? Don’t threaten us with a good time. Taste-testing homemade Pop-Tarts all day is a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it. So we did all the hard work to bake a pastry that hits these marks:
<ul>
<li>No added sugar</li>
<li>No synthetic dyes</li>
<li>Easy to make</li>
<li>And simply delicious</li>
</ul>
We’ll never be able to replicate the artificial sheen of the frosting and factory pockmarks of mass-produced food, but (humble-brag) I think we nailed a delicious version you can make at home. Promise you won’t miss the sugar rush. And hey, if you make these healthier &#8220;Pop-Tarts,&#8221; y’all better tag us in the photos. 
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1159305" style="width: 432px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1159305" class=" wp-image-1159305" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_closeup-768x576.jpg" alt="" width="422" height="317" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_closeup-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_closeup-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_closeup-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_closeup-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 422px) 100vw, 422px" />The Daily Wire</div>
HEALTHIER STRAWBERRY &amp; CHERRY “POP-TARTS” 
*Adapted from recipes by <a href="https://minimalistbaker.com/vegan-berry-pop-tarts/#wprm-recipe-container-36279">Minimalist Baker</a>, <a href="https://twosugarbugs.com/cherry-pop-tarts/#mv-creation-171-jtr">Two Sugar Bugs</a>, and <a href="https://lowcarbhoser.com/sugar-free-royal-icing/">Low-Carb Hoser</a>
For the filling:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">8 ounces frozen strawberries or cherries</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">4 tablespoons <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ingredients-Allulose-Sweetener-Calorie-Substitute/dp/B08PY5ZJTX/">allulose</a> powdered sweetener</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">1 teaspoon <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Just-Date-Sweetener-Low-Glycemic-Ingredient/dp/B077Y8YYVX/">date syrup</a></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">2 teaspoons water</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">2 teaspoons cornstarch</li>
</ul>
For the pastry:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 cup AP and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour)</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">1 pinch salt</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">⅔ cup (10.5 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cubed</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">5 tablespoons ice water</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">1 egg, whisked</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Optional: melted salted butter for baking</li>
</ul>
For the frosting:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">2 ½ cups allulose powdered sweetener</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">2 large egg whites, room temperature</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">2 teaspoons lemon juice</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Optional: freeze-dried strawberry and cherry crumbles</li>
</ul>
Method:
Prepare the filling. Whisk cornstarch with water in a small bowl and set aside. Add frozen strawberries or cherries, allulose, and date syrup to a small saucepan, and cook over medium heat until berries soften (about 5 minutes). Add cornstarch mixture, boil for 1 minute, then remove from the heat to cool. 
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, and line a baking sheet with parchment. Start the pastry by combining flour and salt in a large bowl. Next, cut butter into the flour mixture using a fork or pastry cutter until well-incorporated. (Work quickly to keep the pastry texture light and fluffy.) Add two tablespoons of ice water, and mix with a wooden spoon. Add up to 5 tablespoons of water — enough to form the dough into a ball that isn’t sticky or crumbly. 
Turn the pastry out onto a floured surface, and shape into a disc. Cover with a sheet of wax paper, and roll into a rectangle, about ¼-inch thick. Using a pizza cutter or knife, slice into 8 rectangles, then carefully place them onto the baking sheet. Whisk the egg, and using a brush or your finger, coat the perimeter of the bottom pastry layer with egg wash. Add 2 tablespoons of the filling to the layer with the egg wash, then place a second pastry layer on top. Gently press a fork along the edges to seal the pastry. Poke a fork or sharp knife into the top layer to allow steam to escape. Brush with an optional light layer of melted salted butter. Bake for about 25 minutes until the pastry is golden brown. 
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1159307" style="width: 444px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1159307" class="wp-image-1159307" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_naked-768x576.jpg" alt="" width="434" height="326" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_naked-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_naked-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_naked-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_naked-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 434px) 100vw, 434px" />The Daily Wire</div>
Remove the pastry from the pan to a rack to cool completely. Then make the frosting. In a completely clean bowl of a stand mixer (can also use an electric hand mixer), whip egg whites until frothy. Add lemon juice. Then, slowly add all of the allulose sweetener for a “royal icing” texture. Color it by adding a few teaspoons of the leftover berry filling (skip the strawberry seeds and cherry skins), and frost the pastries. Sprinkle with crumbled freeze-dried berry “sprinkles.” Serve immediately or allow the frosting to air-dry for up to 8 hours to completely set. 
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1159311" style="width: 464px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1159311" class=" wp-image-1159311" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_row-768x576.jpg" alt="" width="454" height="340" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_row-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_row-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_row-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/PopTarts_row-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 454px) 100vw, 454px" />The Daily Wire</div>
NOTES:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Allulose is naturally found in figs, raisins, and maple syrup, and is roughly 70% as sweet as table sugar. It’s a great substitute for baking because it flavors, browns, and caramelizes like granulated sugar. It has zero calories, but it may cause bloating in large amounts, so it’s best enjoyed in moderation.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">I tried this recipe with all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour. I felt like all-AP lent more of the “Pop-Tarts” vibe, but both options work.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">This recipe makes about four to six tarts, depending on how you roll out the dough. Cheers!</li>
</ul>

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Lauren Bair