Lucky No. 5: Larry Ellison’s New Mystery Bride Unveiled

As if his arduous quest to purchase Paramount wasn’t stressful enough, 43-year-old David Ellison now has a new stepmother to contend with — who happens to be 10 years his junior. Not much is known about Jolin Zhu, 33, who appears to have married David’s dad, 80-year-old Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, sometime over the past few years. News of the nuptials — the elder Ellison’s fifth trip to the altar — slipped out in November, when an alumni organization for Zhu’s alma mater, University of Michigan, released a statement thanking Ellison “and his wife Jolin” for their part in securing a $10.5 million deal for star quarterback Bryce Underwood to play for the Wolverines. “We are excited to support our student athletes,” Zhu is quoted in the statement. Beyond that, the putative Mrs. Ellison has remained tight-lipped about her relationship with the world’s second-richest man (worth a reported $219 billion), as has Ellison himself. 

“Nobody has seen her,” notes an Ellison acquaintance in Newport, Rhode Island, where Ellison spends summers sail racing. “He’s very serious about the sport and mixes with the sailing community, so it is odd he has never brought his wife.” A source in Hollywood notes that nobody in town has met Zhu, either, and is equally puzzled by the marriage. Still, despite her elusiveness — and having virtually no social media footprint — THR has been able to dig up some intel. For starters, she was born in China — her birth name is Zhu Keren — although she is now a U.S. citizen. She grew up in a well-to-do family, attending Northeast Yucai Foreign Language School before immigrating to America. Although it is unknown how she met Ellison, their first public sighting together was in 2018. It’s also been reported that she worked for a time in real estate in Redwood Shores, California, where Oracle was based before 2020. Today, her residence is listed as a $110 million estate in Woodside, California, owned by Ellison, but she is registered to vote in Florida, at the same address — a $173 million estate in Palm Beach — where Ellison is registered. A spokesperson for Ellison did not answer Rambling’s request for a comment … and declined to reveal where the happy couple is registered. — Emily Smith

Want to Win an Oscar? Make the Audience Heave

Remember when gross-out movies were lowbrow comedies? With hysterical plotlines involving things like intercourse with baked goods or hair gels made from bodily fluids? Those were the days! But now, in a development that would make John Waters wobbly, it seems the humble gross-out film is being elevated to high art, as prestige directors and actors discover that one way to build awards buzz is to turn the audience’s stomach. The trend started in 2023 with Triangle of Sadness, which featured a 15-minute vomit scene that had Cannes crowds running for the exits. But this year there’s The Substance, Coralie Fargeat’s meditation on aging in Hollywood in which Demi Moore injects herself with an iffy youth serum that transforms her into an oozing, decaying blob of human organs and appendages. The role, hailed by some as “career-defining,” may well land the 62-year-old star her first best actress nomination. 

Meanwhile, neo-gothic director Robert Eggers has filled his best picture contender Nosferatu with so many revolting special effects, it’d give Dracula the dry heaves. Among the most grotesque scenes is the one in which Simon McBurney’s character chomps off the head of a live pigeon. Or at least something that looks like a live bird. “The feathers were made from lace, but the head had to be edible,” the film’s makeup effects artist, David White, tells Rambling Reporter of how the sickening sequence was shot. The pigeon’s head, he goes on, was constructed from “crispy icing sugar” with the consistency of a candied apple that White whipped up from box cake ingredients. “I had to test-chew dozens of them,” he goes on. “It really put me off my lunch.” With any luck, his appetite should return once the nominations are announced. — Jordan Hoffman

Strike Update! (Yep, That’s Sadly Still a Thing)

Notice something off with the latest Call of Duty release? Something that doesn’t sound right? You aren’t hearing things; some of the actors who’ve been voicing the popular game’s most iconic characters — like Julie Nathanson, who has been playing the series’ heroine, Samantha Maxis, for 15 years — have been quietly replaced in the latest entry, Black Ops 6, although by whom (or what) nobody seems to have a clue. Either the new voices are AI-generated creations or else scabs have crossed one of the last SAG picket lines left in Hollywood. 

Easy to forget, but more than a year after the actors strike ended, there’s still one group of scrappy thespians battling their employers: Video game voice performers have yet to come to terms with many of the gaming companies, including Activision, owner of the Call of Duty franchise. “We went on strike July 25,” recalls another actor involved in the series (Nathanson declined to comment). “And I got a text from the casting director July 29 asking if I would come in to record more.” When the actor responded with a request for an interim agreement to safeguard the performance from AI, the offer was apparently retracted. “That was the last I heard until the trailer came out, which had my voice in it,” the actor goes on. “But then the game came out, and it didn’t.” When asked to comment, Activision responded with a statement: “We won’t add new commentary about the ongoing negotiations with SAG-AFTRA. We look forward to a mutually beneficial outcome as soon as possible.”— Julius Miller

This story appeared in the Jan. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.