Hello Wrecklings! Word on the street (err— Twitter) is that Buzzfeed News is disbanding its investigative reporting team which is a massively sad blow because their exposés are consistently amongst the best. We included one of their swan-song pieces in our Serious Reads section— but be warned, it’s a heavy read.

While Elon was buying Twitter this week and Amber Heard vs. Johnny Depp went toe-to-toe in court, there were lots more shady dealings and salacious scandals afoot.

• “The CIA’s ‘Torture Queen’ Is Now a Life Coach Hawking Beauty Products”- While I wasn’t able to figure out exactly which line of products this woman is hawking, I’m getting some strong MLM vibes.

• “Hillsong's Green Room Problem”- Another week, another piece exposing how the rockstar-like preachers acted more like the former than the latter.

• “‘Cannabis Mermaid’ influencer denies ties to organized crime”- It has to be said… this story is fishy. The whole two-fellow-contestants-being-murdered thing was an undeniably red flag.

• “Coachella Is In Its Flop Era”- I’d argue that being seen at Coachella isn’t a new priority, there are just far more social platforms to share content to, and the fastest way for clicks is to complain about something everyone else is posting about.

• “Influencer Intentionally Crashed His Plane on Camera, FAA Rules”- Speaking of attention-seekers… looks like this influencer has been grounded. 🥁💥

• “This Billboard Was the Work of the ‘Devil’”- Guerrilla marketing is most successful when you cause waves or annoy a whole bunch of people, but ideally not the people you’re directly trying to market to, whoops.

• “Inside the Implosion of CNN+”- After spending ~$300M to come together, CNN+ lasted about a month, which makes for an absolutely tragic ROI.

• “Sheryl Sandberg under fire for trying to kill a story about her ex, the CEO of Activision Blizzard”- Why are we leaning in to helping shady exes? The original piece can be found on WSJ, for those of you with a subscription.

More Serious Stories

We realize some of these can be triggering for some readers, so feel free to skip!

• “The Kardashians’ Deep Ties to Predatory ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Founder Joe Francis”

• “Influential dance company bred culture of sex, silence, dancers say”

• “Seattle CEO Dan Price charged with assault, accused of attempting to forcefully kiss woman”

• “How a Husband-Wife MAGA Murder Saga Descended Into Chaos”

• “Meet the woman behind Libs of TikTok, secretly fueling the right’s outrage machine”

• “Spiritual hustlers are all over social media. Don't let them scam you.”

• “The Private Equity Giant KKR Bought Hundreds Of Homes For People With Disabilities. Some Vulnerable Residents Suffered Abuse And Neglect.”- This is the Buzzfeed News piece we linked and referenced above. It’s a shame this team is being let go.

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P.S. While we’re obsessed with these stories, we don’t endorse any of these insane behaviors. 💋