Surf fans relight candles en masse for prophesied Kelly Slater + Gisele Bündchen reunion after Brazilian supermodel publicly vomits on trust fund billionaire Jeffery Soffer!

"OMG he's yucky yucks!"

Days ago, surf fans everywhere snuffed out lit candles and wept bitter tears into lightly cupped hands. The dream was dead and all hope with it. Gisele Bündchen, you see, had been linked with billionaire Jeffrey Soffer and where could Kelly Slater fit in there? Which nook, cranny could he find his way back to glory?

The Brazilian supermodel, as you well know, became divorced from longtime husband, and football great, Tom Brady earlier in the year. Surf fans, while sad on the surface, secretly cheered a potential reunion with the world’s greatest surfer even though he is currently linked to a girlfriend he describes as “Chinese” for many years.

Many twists and turns followed, which you must read here, but all seemed to lead to the grave with the announcement that Bündchen had fallen for a billionaire who boasted daddy’s money plus a string of supermodel exes.

Done-skies.

But then, as if a miracle, the Victoria’s Secret angel denied any coupling and declared even the thought of it gross.

Per People Magazine:

Following reports that the model, 42, is dating billionaire Jeffrey Soffer — who also happens to be friends with Bündchen’s ex-husband Tom Brady — she denied it all in her new cover story with Vanity Fair.

“I have zero relationship with him in any way,” Bündchen told the magazine. “He’s Tom’s friend, not my friend.”

Bündchen called the rumors “absurd” and added that she hasn’t even seen Soffer in months and wouldn’t date someone who was friends with her ex. She further clarified that it was insulting for people to imply she was dating the 55-year-old billionaire for his wealth.

“I wouldn’t be with [Brady’s] friend,” Bündchen said of Soffer. “I wouldn’t be with this guy. I mean, puh-leeze. They were saying I’m with this guy, he’s old, because he’s got money—it’s ridiculous.”

One sentiment.

Gentleman, light your candles.


Sister Tyler Wright informing Owen that Pulitzers spring from sadness.
Sister Tyler Wright informing Owen that Pulitzers spring from sadness.

Australia’s finest surfer Owen Wright set to release memoir detailing “gut-wrenching, heroic” journey from brain injury and despair to Olympic glory!

Kleenex time.

The news just keeps getting better for surf fans. Days after the World Surf League announced that Owen Wright, ruthlessly axed from the Championship Tour just last year, would make a grand and glorious return as a wildcard at Bells Beach in order to announce his retirement.

“After my traumatic brain injury in 2015, my desire to prove to myself and the world that I could still be great and overcome this life-threatening incident inspired my recovery,” the blonde thirty-three-year-old said in a WSL statement. “Given my recent history with head injuries and concussions, competing at some of the heaviest waves on the planet is no longer in the best interest of my long-term health.I excelled in these conditions over my career, but the risks associated with this type of surfing are too significant for someone in my position, given my medical history.”

Not a dry eye in the house and certain to be much weeping and sobbing up and down those iconic Bells’ stairs.

As if not wonderful enough, though, it has just been announced that Wright is set to release a memoir titled Against the Water described as “the gut-wrenching, heroic story of how one of Australia’s finest surfers overcame brain injury and despair to win an Olympic medal.”

Per the press release:

Against the Water carries the reader back to Wright’s boyhood in the tiny New South Wales South Coast town of Culburra, where his father, Rob, determined to raise champions, turned family life into a kind of boot camp. While eccentric, the father’s methods bore fruit: the Wrights of Culburra would become Australian surfing royalty. Wright’s story lays bare the complex relationship with his father – the adoration, the fight for independence, the fallings out, the reconciliations, the poignant denouement. It also captures Wright’s life-altering love for Kita Alexander, the beautiful songstress who abandoned a blooming career to help nurse a broken man she’d known for a few short months back to health.

Told in a spare, intimate style, Against the Water is the moving account of an athlete who refused to accept that his best days were behind him. Owen stopped at nothing not only to rebuild his identity but to construct a better one – he’s now a husband, father, dutiful son and an Olympic medallist in a sport whose spirit courses through his veins. Against the Water also raises fundamental questions around family and competition. What, ultimately, is our duty to our children? At what point does bravery become folly? How much should we sacrifice for the sake of another? Once read, Wright’s story will not be forgotten.

What do you think re. the question about duty to children? Also, the one about bravery and folly?

It does not appear that Wright used a ghostwriter making the spare, intimate style all the more impressive.

Sleepless nights until the drop.

Buy here.


"Well, boys, I gotta go with Daisy."

International sport further isolates surfing’s pro-trans stance following shock decision to ban she-males from all athletic events, “The integrity of the female category in athletics is paramount”

“Fairness before inclusion”

Lovers of she-dick, succulent or fetid, friendliest red or angriest purple, active or no, will have, like most of us, recoiled with shock this morning at news The World Athletics Council had voted to ban transgender women from participating in women’s international track and field competitions citing “fairness before inclusion”.

From March 31, any transgender athlete who’s swung through male puberty won’t be getting a start in any gal’s events.

World Athletics Council President Sebastian Coe said the decision was “guided by the overarching need to protect the female category…we believe the integrity of the female category in athletics is paramount.”

World Swimming did the same thing last year.

The decision has isolated the pro-trans World Surf League who welcomed trannies into the women’s div so long as they’ve been a gal for at least twelve months and their hormone levels are real low, although the WSL said it wouldn’t be doing the testing, each athlete suppling their own supporting documents.

In a surprise twist, the controversy adverse WSL had made the decision despite furious opposition from some of the biggest names in the sport including Bethany Hamilton and Kelly Slater.

Hamilton sparked wild debate, both for and against the rule change, when she recorded a piece to camera damning the decision and agreed with Slater who called for a trans-only div, and said she’d boycott events if it went ahead.

The WSL did have the last laugh, howevs, when surfers were apparently banned from celebrating the inspirational shark attack survivor, recently lauded as the fourth greatest surfer in history, on the back of their contest jerseys at the recent Portugal Pro.

As Chas Smith, who was following the story, wrote one week ago,

Even though WSL Chief of Exective Erik Logan said he “respected her views,” her name was mysteriously missing from the long list on celebrated women even though it had been chosen three times the year before.

And now the pettiness has been confirmed. One of the Championship Tour surfers, on the men’s side, requested to wear “Hamilton” but was told he was not allowed. The reason given?

“She doesn’t support the WSL and she doesn’t support equality.”

Where doth you stand?

Fairness or inclusion?

And a question that is doing the rounds on Twitter right now: whom would you rather put to the sword, a biological woman who rates a one out of ten, Hillary Clinton for argument’s sake, or a she-male that’s an easy ten, Daisy Taylor let’s say. 


Power (insert) corrupting. Photo: Gucci
Power (insert) corrupting. Photo: Gucci

Rumor: Italian stud Leonardo Fioravanti reportedly copped massive $60,000 fine from World Surf League for daring share truth in post-heat interview!

Power corrupts.

The World Surf League, man. What an increasingly silly organization. On the surface, Colgate smiles have never been brighter. Twin chiefs Erik Logan and Jessi Miley-Dyer have gone on an absolute positivity spree, attending any and every business conference, social media-ing like tweens, even giving lengthy interviews to collaborationist surf media.

Viewership numbers through the roof, 51,000 Portuguese surf fans pushing to see contests live on the sand, partnerships stronger than ever.

THE MOMENTUM IS REAL.

Rising tide floating all boats. Surfing finally saved from itself via Dirk Ziff by way of Oklahoma.

Except.

Underneath that shiny facade, rumors are percolating of an absolutely vicious, authoritarian chief structure heavily boozed on power.

Here’s one.

You certainly recall when the dashing Italianate surfer Leonardo Fioravanti barely survived his elimination heat at the Pro Pipeline (or maybe it was the round of 32 heat at the Pro Sunset Beach) and lightly called out the WSL’s much ballyhooed partnership with Apple Watches. The Cupertino-based tech giant provided the devices for surfers to be aware of heat times and priority.

There have been major malfunctions and each stop but this first (or second) one had the aforementioned Fioravanti in his post heat interview saying, “And, I just want to say our fricken watches weren’t working and that’s pretty heavy, like my watch wasn’t working. Nothing to take away from Apple or the WSL, what they’re doing is great, they’re trying to bring in some technology to our world, but if my watch doesn’t work from start to finish and I gotta ask for time. I’ve been used to having the time on me at all times in heats, we’re fighting for our careers. So, I hope they figure it out ‘cause my watch didn’t work from start to finish. And that’s pretty heavy.”

A simple statement of fact with much praise for both Apple and the WSL sandwiched in.

Well, for that bit of candor, the House of Gucci pin-up was allegedly, and from a pristine source, slammed with a whopping $60,000 fine.

$60,000 for talking honest.

But what does that make you think about the “product?” Happy days, and legitimacy, finally here or an utter train wreck of plastic ego?

I’m certain it’s the ladder.

(Get it?)

David Lee Scales did not quite get to the alleged fine, during our weekly chat, but I did call Kelly Slater a “dumbass” multiple times. I stand by it.

Listen here.


Pete Mel on a monster.
Pete Mel on a monster.

Traditionally stoic big wave surfers shriek in horror as new study suggests California’s Mavericks disappearing due climate change!

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

BeachGrit is, as you know, an anti-depressive place where you can come and be amongst friends, learning about the love lives of surf-adjacent celebrities, how they intersect with Kelly Slater and, occasionally, receive hot real-estate advice. The stuff of flowery dreams. Wars and rumors of wars, economic or environmental collapse can momentarily be forgotten except, I suppose, today in the wake of a Washington Post hit piece declaring that iconic Northern California big wave Mavericks is on its way out the door due climate change.

Following the lantern-jawed Grant Washburn, who has been surfing Mavericks since it was “just a rumor,” the report discusses how the cliff ringing the beach is eroding at an alarming rate, crumbling and tumbling into the ocean below.

“You can argue the cause, but you can’t argue the beaches have receded,” Washburn told the outlet. “… People would say, ‘Oh, that’s a 100-year swell; you’re not going to see that again in your lifetime.’ And then like, a month later there would be another one. And it was like, huh? So either guys have the wrong name for this stuff or the scale is broken.”

I completely agree with the overuse of “100-year swell,” and cast an angrily squinted eye Surfline‘s way.

Cheryl Hapke, a coastal geologist who wrote a 2007 survey which declared Mavericks has the fastest eroding cliffs in the state, said, “These atmospheric rivers are problematic because it’s going to cause erosion to increase.”

But what of the wave itself? That cold monster that bubbles from the deep and horrifies?

Well, it breaks on a 5 million-year-old paleo seabed too far out to sea to be affected by cliff erosion though rising sea levels etc. may flatten the wave as it won’t be able to “feel” the reef anymore.

It has been one of the worst winters in memory, according to Washburn, with only a few surf-able days. “It’s kind of a weird setup where you want a storm but not right on you,” he said, adding, “Mavericks has seen some of the biggest waves that I think we ever recorded. But we couldn’t surf them.”

All very sad but silver lining? A grand opportunity for the World Surf League to send Connor O’Leary and Jadson Andre to Half Moon Bay in order to plant some small bushes?

Synergy.