These cures were originally posted on Glamour’s website and were culled from various online sources. Thank you, unnamed and doubtless unpaid Glamour intern for all your hard work! The filler is the result of my own hard labor.
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Celebrity: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex (for now; his book Spare drops January 10th)
Fun fact: I hope Spare addresses this. When Harry showed up at that fancy dress party dressed as a Nazi (and let’s not forget that his grandfather’s sisters all married into the noble-Nazi elite) William was with him when he picked out the costume and seemed to think it would be hilarious. When Harry was raked over the coals for it he was pissed (angry, not drunk) that he got thrown under the bus and that might have been the first time that the brothers pulled apart from each other.
The cure: Just a rumor, but during his party days it was sort of well-known that he would shake off the previous night’s excesses by drinking a large strawberry milkshake.
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Celebrity: Gwyneth Paltrow
Fun fact: I thought she was really good in The Talented Mr. Ripley.
The cure: Shockingly, this does not involve thousands of dollars worth of treatments available exclusively from the GOOP store. No, all you need is hot and cold running water. Draw a bath as hot as you can stand it, add epsom salts and baking powder, and soak for 20 minutes. Then jump into a freezing shower for 1 minute. Then back in the tub until you warm up, then back in the freezing shower for 1 minute. I believe this is also called, “Act like a Finn.”
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Celebrity: Hugh Grant
Fun fact: More a reminder. In 1995 he was at his swooniest and dating Elizabeth Hurley. Bored with all this, I guess, to spice things up, he paid a prostitute named Divine Brown $50 to give him a blowie in his car and got caught. Hugh has redeemed himself since then, and if you haven’t seen A Very English Scandal I recommend you do so immediately. Amusingly Hugh Grant plays real-life Jeremy Thorpe, who thought he was in a long-term relationship with a male prostitute but the other guy thought it was more than that. I’ll say no more. But whatever happened to Divine Brown? Just last month she made the news again! “Now, 27 years laters, Divine is again in trouble with the law, as she’s been charged with battery, cruelty to children, possession of drugs and smuggling suspected cocaine into a jail.”
The cure: A big plate of morning-after spaghetti bolognese, or as the English say, “spag bol.”
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Celebrity: Renée Zellweger
Fun fact: Renée’s father is a native Swiss and her mother is a native Norwegian, but she grew up in the decidedly more pedestrian precinct of Katy, Texas, and is a graduate of UT/Austin with a degree in English literature. Go Longhorns! I’m making the hand sign with one hand while I type this with the other.
The cure: A full English breakfast or beans on toast. She must have picked up this tip while filming Bridget Jones’s Diary in London with co-star Hugh Grant. Why didn’t she go for the spag bol?
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Celebrity: Cara Delevigne
Fun fact: Cara is descended from minor nobility on both sides who also happen to be very rich. The two do not always go hand-in-hand in Britain. Her maternal grandmother was a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret and her godmother is Joan Collins. If the Delevignes have a family crest, I hope it says “ludibundus” which I believe is Latin for “we’re having fun.”
The cure: What else? Spag bol. I’m discerning a trend among the English.
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Celebrity: Nigella Lawson
Fun fact: Nigella’s dad, Nigel Lawson (official portrait shown here; he bears more than a passing resemblance to the late Queen Mother), was Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer for 6 years. She originally was a journalist for the Spectator where, conveniently enough, her father had been the editor and her brother followed in his footsteps.
The cure: Nigella works her brand 24/7, so: “Try my Eggs in Purgatory recipe.”
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Celebrity: Allison Williams
Fun fact: Newsman/fabulist Brian’s daughter was the first person on TV I ever saw receive a particular sex act, but then imagine my surprise when during the first series of White Lotus I saw it done again (not to her.) What a strange TV plot trend to pioneer.
The cure: Not tossed salad, and in fact not anything edible: The smell of rosemary in her eye cream. Glamour helpfully provides a link.
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Celebrity: Your very own Cousin Mattie
Fun fact: Despite my prodigious intake I only get a hangover maybe once a year, if that. Slow and steady wins the race.
The cure: An enormous amount of carbohydrates in any form, followed by strict instructions that I am not to be disturbed until dinnertime.
I think I’d endorse Jack Nicholson’s approach myself.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s suggestion sounds like a great way to make yourself sicker when you’re already dehydrated.
Also love the assumption that you have separate a separate tub and shower in your bathroom, which is something I’ve never had, LOL.
I think with the sauna cure you sweat out the toxins. I think this is very common in very cold, hard-drinking climes, like Mother Russia. The Finns can really put it away too, trust me on that. If you don’t have a shower stall in your bathroom, that’s easy enough to fix. Spend New Year’s Eve in a hotel suite that does. Mandarin Orientals are good for this.
Also common-ish in cold, snowy, Scandihoovian places like Minnesota!
Although, for the decidedly LESS wealthy, the recipe tends to typically end up being a bit more of;
“Boil yourself in the nearest outdoor Hot Tub, then go jump into the closest Snowbank… repeat until drunk enough!”
I’ve done the Rene Z approach. It just puts me in a food coma till 5pm while I just layabout watching the NFL (which I usually don’t.)
I hated hangovers so much that I quit drinking.