Blake Lively just turned 27 years old this week. Her birthday is August 25th, just FYI. So how did she celebrate? By getting stung many, many times by bees or wasps while doing some kind of project for Preserve, her website. Have you been on Preserve since it launched? I have not, before today. I read on another site that Blake had been stung all over her body and I was curious, so I checked out Blake’s Preserve blog post about it. Guess what? Blake is EXHAUSTING. Instead of telling a bittersweet story about getting stung in the ass by a swarm of blonde-hating bitch bees on her birthday, Blake twirls and frets and sighs and bakes and eats ice cream and OMG you are not as cute as you think you are. Sorry. You can read the full post here.
I spent the week leading up to my big day shooting content for Preserve’s coming months…Just yesterday, the final day of the shoot, I felt an electric shock of energy– was it excitement that I was about to turn another year older? Was it nerves? Why did it feel like agony? I like getting older… I think.
But this felt terrible. Does your butt quite suddenly (and painfully) deflate when you turn 27? Because mine hurt like hell …then my neck, back, legs and forehead. And oh my hands! They were shriveling. It felt like I was being shot by dozens of tiny invisible darts. I felt like the Wicked Witch, melting, melting, burning, melting.
As it happens, I wasn’t being greeted by the onset of spontaneous aging, but rather a full-fledged bee day. Attacked. All over. Everywhere.
I don’t know enough about insects to say if they were wasps, honeybees or Mother Nature’s miniature flying tasers. What I DO know, is that just moments before we were in the midst of a gorgeous fall fashion shoot. Now, I was a Monty Python sketch; running at top speed in no particular direction, whipping my arms and hands around like I’d just discovered they were growing out of my shoulders without my previous knowledge. There was a terrible sound piercing the air too… I was later informed this sound had emanated from my very own mouth. I’d prefer to never hear it again. Along with everybody else on the East Coast.
I was shaken. I was swollen. I had to stop what I was doing to recuperate and/or shrink.
What better way to recover than throw a fake 27th birthday party for myself? I looked for the nearest vanilla cake and decorated it. Step one of therapy complete. I then found the basin that I use to make giant hot fudge sundaes in, and instead, I made a flower interpretation of a sundae (complete with spoons, two gumdrops squished together to look like a cherry and baby’s breath acting as whipped cream.) I pulled out all my favorite Preserve treats—necklaces, that in my mind, represent candy drops, candles that smell like birthday cake (dear lord it’s the best thing you’ve ever encountered), messy hot fudge, sparkling tassels with complementary lanterns and little votives that remind me of the dolls who marked so many of my earlier years.
It wasn’t until I covered the counters in coordinating candy sprinkles that I stopped to acknowledge: my butt will deflate more and more, my hands will shrivel and permanently prune, but I will never, ever grow up.
It took a swarm of bees to remind me that a b-day is nothing but a number. Each day I choose my age. Today it’s 27, going on 2. How old will you bee today?
Xxo, B
I guess I’m missing the gene that finds this kind of nonsense attractive in women (or men for that matter). This… twee-ness. This twirly, sort-of forced naiveté. I just don’t have the patience for it. You’re 27 and you got attacked by a swarm of bees. It sucks and I feel sorry for you but don’t tell me you recuperated from your ordeal by decorating a cake and making a floral arrangement and wishing upon a star that you were 27-going-on-2.
PS… When I was a kid I was stung over 40 times by a swarm of wasps. I still have nightmares about it! It really does suck. But I didn’t bake a cake about it.
Photos courtesy of Perserve and WENN.
Bee stings always have me craving cake, too.
Cake cake cake cake cake cake cake
I’d pay to see Rihanna bake cake!
Kaiser, I’m sorry to hear about your bee attack. I got one sting once and it hurt like hell so I can’t imagine how multiple stings felt. Anyway, you have the patience of a saint because I couldn’t make it past the 1st paragraph.
Off topic, but… Did she get a new set of boobs? Sometimes they look like terrible, too big bolt-ons, sometimes they look more subtle, like her quality nose job.
It does kind of look like that. I had thought maybe it was the mustard dress at first. But maybe she upgraded her tittie globes.
I was just sitting here thinking her breast area suddenly has a very Malibu Barbie look.
BEES! it is definitely honeybees or Mother Nature’s miniature flying tasers.
I love Blake and her web site. Why does everyone hate on her? Is it because she is beautiful? Successful? (It takes hard work to be known in any career, the fact that we all know who she is speaks for itself) Happily married? Venturing further? As women we should know how much bullshit we cop from other women so we should support not dog….
That’s the laziest form of dismissal: “you’re just jealous.” No. We just don’t like her. Does everyone have to like everyone? Do you? Some people just won’t ever be friends because they have nothing in common. People who don’t like Blake (or Jen Anniston or Angelina Jolie or Gywneth Paltrow or Oprah Winfrey or Sarah Palin or Lindsay Lohan, or anyone else in the world) don’t like her because they don’t find any commonality with her, perhaps even find her character traits incompatible with theirs. It’s not unlike how you can’t possibly marry everyone you’ve ever dated.
So if you like her, great. No one’s trying to stop you.
By the way, it’s not just women that people don’t like and criticise: plenty of people don’t like Sean Penn, Gerard Butler, Justin Timberlake, Chris Brown, Michael Bay, Justin Bieber, and so on. Is it because they’re all jealous of them, too?
Stop trying to frame everything as women jealous of women.
Troll trolling
Vomit.
+1
It’s unbearable how stupid she is.
BARF. And I usually like her.
what a foolish A.S.S.
She previously was not on my radar in any way — I simply did not care about Blake Lively. But since she’s launched this website? Now, I can’t stand her. I hate this twee crap and I will never, ever even look at her website because I don’t want to contribute a single click. Ugh.
Exactly. I loathe preciousness in all forms.
+1
Too precious and boring…
me..
to….
sleep…..
I say it’s cute in the under 5 set but that’s the limit.
I read this yesterday and could not get over it. It’s honestly one of the dumbest, try-hardest things I’ve ever read.
It’s like your first creative essay composition in 6th grade.
Yes, vomit.
What in the actual hell is a flower interpreted sundae?
I can’t even…
Kaiser, maybe that’s the problem? You need to make a flower representation of a hot fudge sundae with Preserve gumdrops and Preserve lanterns and throw yourself a Preserve party and the nightmares of your child hood trauma will never infiltrate your brain again. Or so says Blake Lively, Science Understanderer.
hahaha!
Lol
I don’t mind her post about the bees. It’s her account so I figure she can post what she wants. My husband was swarmed and stung by a huge nest of yellow jackets and I freaked out. I understand where she’s coming from.
Yeah, but waxing poetic over a scary and painful situation doesn’t seem appropriate. Her prose is nauseating.
JH, well that’s your opinion, but I agree with Skipper about her post. I think her account of the bee stings is actually pretty funny, save for the cake part. What if she had over-dramatized this, as you say, “scary and painful situation”? I think everyone would be ragging on her about how inappropriate that was. From the vibe I’m getting from the various posts here, I think people would have found fault with her regardless of what she said or did.
Polydipsia….
Go home, Blake. That nonsense only works on that lunkhead you call husband.
What does excessive thirst have to do with Blake? Oh wait, I see what you did there, good one, hehe.
“Blonde-hating bitch bees” and “I didn’t bake a cake about it”
Those two comments alone are better then anything written on Blake’s Preserve…
27-going-on-2 *flatlines* LMAO
I don’t want to be 2. If I fantasized about being younger I would not go back to 2. What a strange thing to say.
i have a friend like that. i love her, she’s one of my oldest friends, but it’s exhausting and infuriating. anything she talks about somehow turns into “i was sipping hot cocoa by the fireplace, while pampering my soul and gazing deep into my beloved’s soul.” i used to think she was high before i figured out that this is just how she is. i guess we just have very different personalities. 🙂
LOL
your post just made my weekend…
“i used to think she was high..”
love it.
don’t we all know someone who we love in spite of the fact that they sound like they smoke some serious crack?
🙂
High. Bahahahahahahahahahahaha
LMAO!
Pics or it didn’t happen. The Shaw quote at the top of the preserve site is annoying.
Her website is boring, not much information and expensive useless stuff.
Also, all of her photos look like they’ve been put through a free online editing programme. I would expect more from a professional photographer
She should have taken a much more direct and humorous approach to this story. Instead of feeling sorry for her I kind of wish the bees stung her a little more. I do like Blake Lively in general but this kind of writing will make me turn on her. I would have written a story with lots more cursing. Also who the hell cannot tell the difference between a Wasp and a Honey Bee?
Someone needs to explain her the difference in the language of her people – wasp is the skinny blonder one with the resting bitch face and honey bee is the plumpier one with a sweet “tooth”, accessorizing with a fashionable fur coat and a hat. She was probably stung by honey bees – she smells like hot fudge sundaes and they could tell from the distance.
Stop burning cake scented candles they just piss off the stinging insects.
dear lord i am looking for the nearest vanilla cake to decorate and enjoy with a jewelry sundae.
because i always keep vanilla cake at hand along with all this other crap needed to concoct such idiotic nonsense.
lol
I think we all know that this kind of emergency calls for a spoon, a pint and a freezer. No need to get fancy when Ben & Jerry offer so many supportive options.
I thought the first part was pretty funny, the description of getting stung. But the cake/flowers part was BS to me. I don’t believe for a second she didn’t dose herself with Benadryl and take a cold shower and a nap first.
It’s not the best article ever but I’ve seen worse on huffpost and xojane and jezebel
I kind of like it!
I didn’t hate it either. Her account of the bee attack that is. The other stuff about cake baking and sprinkles blah, blah, blah made me roll my eyes.
Has Blake been washing her fruit before eating it? Doing acid? Who mistakes being stung in the ass by bees as a meta-aging birthday experience?
i’ve been stung by plenty of bees in my life (my grandma was a beekeeper). there is no mistaking being stung for something else.
I wish Blake were trolling us but no. She’s all precious and that.
Maybe she’s the kind of person that turns a negative into a positive. Maybe she takes lemons and makes lemonade. I don’t know. She sounds annoyingly perky but kind of harmless.
Her lemonade is too sweet for my taste.
Here’s a thing: She’s no GOOP. And I mean that as an insult.
“Does your butt quite suddenly (and painfully) deflate when you turn 27? ” Oh my gosh,look at her butt.
Ugh, not cute. Exhausting? Yes.
Yawn.
But seriously, let’s STOP blaming BEES! Likely it was wasps or hornets.
Honey bees, unless they highly Africanized, generally DO NOT just attack people unless you irritate them or fool with their hive.
Oh I got it, she irritated them as she irritates me.
I almost posted the same thing! Honeybees are one on a short list of Good Bugs and Blake is contributing to them getting a bad rap.
Bee’s are one of the few ‘bugs’ that don’t freak me out. Because I know it’ll hurt them to sting me. Hornets/Wasps are enemy number 1.
Yay, Bee love! Be careful when you buy flowers to plant in your garden from nurseries. Cut off all the blooms on the plant from the nursery, they are loaded with bee poisoning pesticides! The plants will grow out of the pesticides and future blooms will be okay for bees. Many of these plants are advertised as attractive to bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. We all need to do our little bit and help these creatures who are all so important to our gardens and world, especially the good, hard-working bees!
I will take this rocket scientist/strawberry shortcake doll over Goop allllllll day every day. She’s hilarious.
I don’t care for her writing style, she needs a better editor. But I get it, the experience seems genuine. I got stung on a beach trip with my daughter’s seventh grade class. The kids were hiking and moms were setting up camp on the beach. Like Blake, I was initially clueless. I’d never been stung before , wasn’t expecting bees/wasps on a Windy beach so it was unexpected. My thighs felt pinched then unbearably hot. For a few seconds I sat there confused, before realizing my blanket was near a nest. I got up screaming, several other parents ( some I barely knew because it was the first week of seventh grade ) looked at me with wide eyes, probably wondering if I was a nut job. I yelled that I’d been stung and ran to the water, every mom took off behind me, abandoning our camp to the swarm. In a few minutes we were laughing hysterically and trying to sneakily move our blankets while ducking the flying daggers. All day I sat there with an ice pack on my swollen thighs and babying myself , retelling the sting to anyone who sat near me, while my daughter rolled her eyes every time she looked at me. It’s the moment I can point to when the tide shifted and she started to judge me. Ahh the teenage years. Had I been at home I would have baked a cake and frosted it and celebrated the end of my happy years with my daughter. She’s in high school now, and I’m not out if the doghouse yet.
She’ll come back to you in the end. What a great story, glad you recovered!
I didn’t hate Blake’s version of events (and I can admit to possessing an ounce or two of twee myself *ducks*) but you should write for Preserve. I giggled. And not just because I also happen to possess an ounce or six of the kind of evil that laughs when others get accosted by flying knives 😉 now let’s bake a cake to celebrate your new job!
I think this probably would sound better than how it reads. Something is lost in the reading…..after her Vogue video she’s in got me. I like her.
I got stung by one bee once, a few years ago, after never being stung in my entire life. I ran to the store to get some stuff to clean it and called my aunt the RN to ask her how do I know if I’m allergic. A question to which she replied “Everyone is ‘allergic’ but you’re talking so you aren’t seriously allergic”. Fair enough.
Later that day when I got home, I downed a teaspoon of honey as revenge for the pain and unbearable itching I was experiencing. It was the best honey I’ve ever tasted!
Take that stupid bees!! Lol!
My condolences to anyone stung by those nasty wasp-osaureses! My sister got stung twice by yellow jackets this year; the first time she was stung about 17 times. She had the same thing happen 2 years ago. Apparently mowing the lawn disturbs them, as the vibrating sound annoys them. Also, eating a banana is a big no-no, as they mistake it for the attack hormones from a rival insect and will go after the person eating it.
Another interesting fact is that yellow jackets can take over a bee hive, killing all of its occupants. Bees perform very useful tasks in nature; yellow jackets, not so much so. A beekeeper will come and destroy a yellow jacket’s hive for you, but if it’s a bee hive, he’ll relocate it so the bees can live and still pollinate flowers. I’m guessing Blake tangled with yellow jackets as they get in a nasty swivet in late summer/early fall each year. They’re trying to get the hive/queen ready for winter and their tempers are SHORT.
ah, this explains so much – thank you!
i walked my dog down the front steps last week while guys were mowing my lawn and out of nowhere i felt the most gawd awful pain near my underarm and when i moved my hand to my arm something – not sure if a wasp or bee – flew off.
it was only the 2nd time i’ve ever been stung – IT HURTS LIKE HELL.
like a nail being driven into you.
i had no idea what may have provoked it, but maybe it was the lawn mowing and i walked into the path of a ticked off bee.
good info on the banana, too.
won’t be getting my fruit on outdoors anytime soon.
those stings are awful!
strange though…i didn’t want to rush into my gourmet kitchen to whip up a cake…
all i could manage was benadryl and an ice pack.
I just recently got stung by a wasp… there is a nest around the corner of our house, but we can’t disturb it until the weather cools off. Man, does that hurt… I ran an ice cube over it, and then made a paste of baking soda and a little water… took the pain away immediately…. thank the inter webs for that advice…
I thought aging would be painful, but actually, to my simultaneous relief and horror, I was just stung by bees which meant I had to resort to baking a cake because sugar solves most of life’s problems. Also I must admit it’s delightful that I got stung on my birthday because that got me thinking about the parallels between a wasp attack and getting older which in turn served as fuel for both a delicious Lively baked good as well as my latest life-embracing blog post.
THAT’S ALL YOU NEEDED TO WRITE. Any editor would tell you to remove 50% of your adjectives before publishing.
True, but even then it’s a terrible piece of writing. Far worse than anything of GOOP I’ve read. Maybe Blake thinks she can do it alone, or doesn’t listen to her editor(s) or maybe her editor is starstruck. Anyway, YIKES.
Also, I’d just be swearing like a madwoman if this happened to me. Even in writing. I got 40 mosquito bites on my b’day and I wasn’t a happy camper. Maybe I did ‘it’ wrong, as I baked a cake the before my b’day? The mosquito bites also didn’t make me wax poetically, I just felt miserable and sorry for myself as I’m allergic…All kinds of people I guess. 😉
I don’t hate Blake Lively. I think she’s gorgeous, naturally gorgeous, in a very traditional blonde/skinny/tan way, maybe. But that’s okay. She’s very pretty. And I think she’s sweet, and she seems kind.
However! Every time I read about her, I can’t help but think about Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, the first one, and how we (the audience) were supposed to believe that she was this incredibly talented soccer player – except they made the mistake of actually showing her character jogging on a beach, and suspending disbelief was no longer possible.
I saw this yesterday on my iphone (yes I subscribed in a fit of optimism) and I said “Self~are you really going to pay good money for your cell phone provider to sent this stuff to you??” And I promptly unsubscribed.
(please note this is sarcasm and totally silly I just couldn’t help myself.) American press/blogs is overloading us with labeling. Yes, I realize I do not need to read any of it and am stopping today. I confess I only come to Celebitchy to see women shoes and clothing. I am not fibbing, I love looking at women high end clothing.
Blake please have a baby so we can be in awe of how you are the first woman to do so and market that too. Yes I support the felon (Martha) over the wanna be. Martha could try explain to vapid Blake that there is a lot involved with bees. It does not require only that Blake has an up do. Sadly I do not think Blake would or could learn all Martha knows. I applaud Martha for realizing her time is better spent on something else. Martha is one heck of an organized woman. I can’t wait for Blake’s line of vinyl coated felt outdoor table cloths to come out. Will the be gingham?
I must keep my comments short. I am running out to buy Martha’s latest office/craft/sewing studio line of furniture that she had her name stamped on. It is a must have for my collection of ribbons some are antique others vintage, silk and french!!! After that I am going to purchase Kathy Irelands new mattress and box spring collection.
Than I will buy Jessica Alba’s diaper/baby whatever because its a must have. I tried to buy all of Sofia Vergara’s Kmart clothing line but I arrived at the store at 9 am on the release day and the diehards were there at 6 am so everything was sold out.
Martha’s writings on setting up, running and organizing a home are great and timeless. I especially enjoyed her writing/review on what is a good pillow. I agree with her it needs to be down and over $200. Money well spent and the pillows last for years.
Gone are the days where you actually had to have knowledge, be apprenticed, etc.
Martha is educated on home and garden many others do not hold a candle to her cake decorating, bee keeping, silver polishing, gold leafing ass.
I’ve clearly not been paying enough attention–when did Blake Lively morph into GOOP for Millenials?
And as for her encounter with (probably) yellow jackets, all I could think when reading this was how incredibly lucky she is…3 to 5% of folks likely wouldn’t have survived the experience.
I dislike her more every time she says anything. Twee pwecious grownass woman. Rich white overprivileged person selling the idea that grown women should be cutesie-poo. Nice that you were able to bake a cake to overcome your ordeal, lady; lots of people would have had to go to work after it. If they were lucky enough to have a job.
God, she is a shit writer. Her sentences are so clunky and her attempts to shoe-horn in vocabulary words are laughable. Bless her heart.
I got stung on my tongue when I was 4. I was running around outside and the bee somehow flew into my mouth. Realized something crunchy was in between my teeth and I spit it out. It must have hurt because I started screaming hysterically, which was also probably due to the fact that I was thinking “THERE WAS A BEE IN MY MOUTH AAAAAAH!” Totally did not want to bake a cake or curate some cupcakes (seriously people over use the word curate and use it for everything under the sun) and ever since I have been deathly afraid.
OUCH. Oh my gosh.
I got stung on my butt when I was six or seven. It hurt.
7th grade creative writing.
Bee quiet, Blake.
I can’t recall the last time I was stung (maybe 20+ years ago ?) But now I feel the need for vigilance. Or wait…no, paranoia. That’s the one. F#ck off, bugs.