Here's a Few More Details About the Carl Lentz Situation from the Alleged 'Other Woman'
CelebritiesDirt Bag
Just a small update on the Carl Lentz situation, for those interested in this riveting evangelical drama. Lentz was apparently released from his position as a pastor at celebrity church Hillsong because he cheated on his wife. The alleged other woman, a 34-year old fashion designer named Ranin, has come to the New York Post with her full story, and there’s an awful lot in here to unpack.
Per Ranin, she met Lentz at Domino Park in Williamsburg over the summer and Lentz took her number down in his Notes app, which, for Ranin, was a “red flag.” Regardless of this flag, Ranin soldiered on, meeting with Lentz again the next day, where he regaled her with stories about hanging out with celebrities for his job. She didn’t know who he was then, but after she paid for a background check from an “app” using his phone number, she figured it out.
The Post really gets into it, and there are an awful lot of detail that sounds plausible to me? Ranin, who is Muslim but apparently “open to whatever,” recognized Lentz from a church she went to seven years ago with her ex-husband? I’m not entirely sure, but what I can say with authority is that I would read 4,00o words on this situation like, right now. Until that happens, though, here’s what I managed to distill.
- Lentz allegedly said that “the most beautiful women come from the Middle East” and compared Ranin at times to the Kardashians, which made her uncomfortable. He also called her his “Middle Eastern unicorn woman.”
- They used to drink tequila together and talk for hours into the night. Ranin would leave him “on read” because he “pissed her off.”
- Even though they kept breaking up, they kept getting back together because they were “obsessed” with each other. “He was like a drug to me. I was a drug to him,” said Ranin. Man…
- He is a “professional narcissist.”
- He got caught out because all of his messages with Ranin were linked to the cloud, and someone from Hillsong and then also his wife saw them……
Finally, I will leave you with this:
In retrospect, Ranin said their relationship was likely a product of the pandemic — “He hadn’t been doing anything for so many months, he hadn’t been onstage, what else was going on in his life? He needed to do something that would excite him.” She also suggested he might be having a midlife crisis and going on a “self-sabotaging journey” by way of getting into a “fiery relationship” after spending so much of his life in a “stagnant relationship” and a “strict place.”
Knowing very little about midlife crises and even less about the evangelical scene, I’m still inclined to believe about 75 percent of what Ranin has revealed here, especially the bit about the pandemic being the reason for the (cheatin’) season. Anyway, this is getting messy…. and I wish absolutely everyone involved the best of luck. [New York Post]
Something “fun” that the gossip mags do these days is publish constantly-updating slideshows featuring all the famous people that have had coronavirus. These slideshows circulate in the ether regularly, as a grim, clickbait-y reminder that even though we’re all grinning and pretending that life is normal, there is still a pandemic and it sucks. That brings me to Hugh Grant, who revealed that he had coronavirus in February. There’s a second lockdown in Londontown, and Grant is riding it out in a hotel in London. “We’re all supposed to be in our homes, but I’ve never seen the streets so thronged with people,” he says, in his deliciously plummy accent. “Florists are open.” Mmm. Hugh Grant is still very attractive, somehow more so the older he gets? Anyway, back to the matter at hand: coronavirus!
Over the duration of this interview, Grant reveals that he came down with the virus in February and that, notably, aside from the sweating and the general internal panic, his “eyeballs felt about three sizes too big.” That… is an evocative description of a lesser-known side effect? Or it’s just his creative and posh way of describing the general feeling of malaise and low-thrumming panic that must course through one’s body when sick with a virus for which there is not yet a vaccine!! Anyway, Hugh Grant has recovered, so that’s good. Wear a mask! [E! News]