Why Gayle King Is Having Her Best Summer Ever

This summer, celebrities go to great lengths for causes — for fun, for money or for both.

Hollywood for Grownups

Hollywood reporter Merle Ginsberg has written about celebrities, film, TV, music and fashion for publications including The New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Cosmopolitan and more. Each week she’ll cover celebrity news for AARP’s Hollywood for Grownups column.

Peter Frampton and Sheryl Crow perform onstage at the 38th Annual Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at Barclays Center on November 03, 2023 in New York City.

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Crowing about AI

After her 2023 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Sheryl Crow, 62, has been on a whirlwind world tour for her 11th album, Evolution (her first studio album in five years, which she had said would be her last full-length album). The record was inspired by Crow’s fears over how artificial intelligence might affect the future of music. Crow recently wrote a piece for The Hollywood Reporter warning about AI, and she joined 200 other artists in signing an open letter to tech companies, begging them not to devalue music artists. This summer, Crow, who’s been touring in Europe with sons Wyatt, 17, and Levi, 14, in tow, is doing shows across the U.S. She’s also in two forthcoming documentaries: the CBC’s Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women in Music (2025) and Frampton, filming now, about her pal Peter Frampton, who jammed with her at her Rock Hall induction. 

AARP (Gary Miller/Getty Images; Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)

Mary-Louise Parker, Billy Crudup and Jeffrey Wright Go to Prison

How did contentious ex-couple (1996 to 2003) Billy Crudup, 56, and Mary Louise Parker, 59, both wind up on the jury for October’s San Quentin Film Fest, the first ever in-prison festival to show films by inmates at San Quentin’s rehabilitation center in Northern California? If you recall, 20 years ago, Crudup left Parker, seven months pregnant, for then-costar Claire Danes. But Billy and Mary-Louise chose to coparent young William Atticus Parker, now 20 and an actor and filmmaker himself. Parker and Crudup actually starred together in one of young Parker’s seven-minute student films, Parchment. Precocious William’s got two indies under his belt — Forty Winks (2022) and Atrabilious (2023), which starred Mom’s pal Jeffrey Wright, 58. Wright is also on the San Quentin Film Festival jury. “Our famed Ear Hustle podcast, the first podcast created in prison, did a live tour last winter — sold out everywhere,” film fest cofounder-director Rahsaan Thomas, 50, a former inmate and documentary producer, tells AARP. “Mary Louise Parker’s a fan, she came to the Brooklyn one. I told her our plans for the film fest, and she immediately signed on — and asked Billy and Jeffrey to join. Now we got amazing talent.” Meanwhile, William’s next film, The Auction, stars his mother, while Dad shoots Noah Baumbach’s new Netflix film with George Clooney, 63, Adam Sandler, 57, Laura Dern, 57, and Barbie’s Greta Gerwig, 40, Baumbach’s wife.